John Hawkesworth, from An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere (1773)

John Hawkesworth (?1715–73) made his living from writing: he was a contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine, editor and contributor to The Adventurer, and published various works, including an adaptation of Thomas Southerne’s play Oroonoko in 1759 (itself a version of Behn’s nouvelle), and Almoran and Hamet, an Oriental Tale (1761). In 1771 James Cook had returned from his first expedition to the South Seas (primarily to observe the transit of Venus from the vantage point of Tahiti, but he also had secret instructions to forge alliances with natives and annexe new lands on behalf of Britain). Hawkesworth was appointed by the Admiralty to revise and publish an account of the voyages to the South Seas (including earlier ones by Byron, Wallis and Carteret).