Aust. pays $45,000 for Cook’s letter

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 6

Aust. pays $45,000 for Cook’s letter

NZPA-AAP London A significant piece of Australiana passed under the auctioneer's hammer yesterday when Captain Cook’s last letter home from the Cape of Good Hope before the start of his third and final voyage sold for £16,500 (about 545,700). The two-page letter, dated November 26, 1776, was sold by Sotheby's in a collection of English literature and history to the London book dealers, Maggs. Later it was revealed that the National Library of Australia was the buyer. The letter, which the auctioneers had expected to fetch £20,000 (555,400). is considered the single most

emotive item in the collection of papers of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich and Cook's patron. The collection is regarded as the second most important relating to Australia’s discovery, the most significant being Captain Cook’s own journals which were soid at Sotheby’s in 1983. The whole collection of Lord Sandwich’s papers dealing with Captain Cook sold yesterday in 17 separate lots for £129,470 ($357,330). In the letter, which : the last to the Earl before news of Cook’s death two years later. Cook expresses his intentions for the voyage. Other letters were written by Cook in the two years he 5

was travelling out couia only he delivered after his death ' Nothing is wanting but a few females of our own species to make the Resolution a compleate arke (sic).” he told his patron of his ship. Cook also tells of his satisfaction with conditions on board his ship, saying he was “compleatly happy (sic)” after taking' on board sotn- "orses and “he consented with raptures to give up his cabbin to make room for them (sic)”. A collection of letter. between Lord Sandwich and his friend Joseph Banks, later known as an eminent botanist, sold for £38.500 (595.500) to the same buyer