Captain James King – the author of this account – accompanied Captain James Cook on his third and final voyage (1776–9), the purpose of which was to discover a Northwest passage from the west coast of the American continent back to Europe.
On 18 January 1778 Cook reached the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands after his patron the 4th Earl of Sandwich, first Lord of the Admiralty. On his return visit to Hawai'i after surveying the north-west Pacific coast of North America, tensions began to rise between Cook and the Hawaiians and following Cook's attempted kidnap of the Hawaiian king, Kalani'opu'u, a skirmish broke out at Kealakekua Bay and Cook was killed.
After Cook’s death, King took command of Discovery and on the expedition's return to Britain completed the account of the voyage.