Although she is at a great distance, yet I can make her out not to be a merchantman; and, besides, what does she mean by steering direct for us?
"Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XX"
Alexander Leighton
Let us assume that everyone knows how James Cook, son of a superior farm labourer in Yorkshire, at thirteen years of age apprenticed to a fishing village shopkeeper, ran away to sea in a Whitby collier, and presently got himself properly apprenticed to her owners, two Quaker brothers named Walker, and how at twenty-seven years of age, when he had become mate of a small merchantman, he determined to anticipate the hot press of May, 1755, and so at Wapping volunteered as A.B. on board His Majesty's ship Eagle.
"The Naval Pioneers of Australia"
Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
The Viceroy pretended to believe that the ship was a merchantman, and not a king's ship, and therefore wanted her to comply with certain port regulations which Cook was of opinion did not become the dignity of his commission.
"The Naval Pioneers of Australia"
Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery