WI: James Cook Survives His Third Expedition

Hey folks, long time lurker and first time poster on these boards. My question is simple: what if James Cook, famed explorer of the Pacific for the British Empire, survives his third voyage which took place from 1776-1779?

After discovering the Hawaiian Islands and establishing somewhat cordial relations with the natives Cook proceeded north to explore the Pacific Northwest. However, the foremost of his ship Resolution broke off shortly after leaving Hawaii necessitating a return to the islands for repairs. Relations with the native Hawaiians rapidly deteriorated and this culminated in a violent altercation that left Cook and several Royal Marines dead.

The POD is simply that this accident does not occur and Cook thus avoids being killed.

How does Cook's naval career unfold if he returns home to England from a successful third voyage? Will he continue to explore the Antarctic regions he had charted or does he take up a more administrative position within the Admiralty and possibly influence British voyages of discovery for the rest of the 18th century?
 
I would have to say not knowing much about the legacy of our beloved Captain Cook and knowing only the bare minimum that a normal person knows, but one thing I will add is how the Native Hawaiians have did to him afterwards. The morals of them having prepared the Captain so delicately just fascinates me, as if they were guilty of killing him.

If I was asked the question, however, I would speculate that Captain Cook would continue his voyage, though since he is getting much older (He was 50 when he died), and he could've very well died by hypothermia or other cold-inducing diseases is he does live on to navigate the extreme place.
 
Probably not much. In the pacific there are not that many interesting places left to explore, just to colonize or settle and catalogue in-depth- Stuff you don't really need a sea expedition for. He might try another arctic or Antarctic expedition. But with the shipbuilding science of that time, he was already on the limits of what could be reached. My guess is that Cook would have another two, may be three pretty routine expeditions before taking a desk job with the admiralty and organizing expeditions for the next generation of explorers. In the end his most lasting legacy would be if he got a food named after him like the Duke of Sandwich who got the desk job OTL.
 
Cook was already a decently old man at the time of his death, so I don't see him commanding another expedition after his return to England circa 1780. His experience in the North Atlantic might actually get him assigned to some brief command against the American rebels, until the war ends.

Looking at the list of exploratory voyages by European powers in the eighteenth century, there is a chance he'd get an analog to the Vancouver Expedition--with a secondary objective of finding the Northwest Passage.

Back home, he was already a fellow of the Royal Society, so presumably he'd enjoy a very brief retirement commenting on the findings of other natural scientists.
 
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