In the year 1768 Lieutenant James Cook, R.N., at the instance of the Royal Society, was sent out by the Admiralty with an expedition to observe the transit of Venus. This work at Tahiti being finished, Cook sailed to these southern seas.

A second objective was to set at rest the argument that somewhere in the southern seas was a great southern continent, which was thought to act as a counterpoise to the great land masses of the Northern Hemisphere.

Cook was instructed to sail along the latitude of 40 degrees south, and if any continent was discovered to annex it.

Failing this discovery, he was “to fall in with the eastern side of the land discovered by Tasman and now called New Zealand.”