James Cook grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for shop work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sanderson's, John and Henry Walker. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade. Their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English coast. His
James King (Royal Navy officer) midshipman in and , King joined , Captain James Chads, on 15 March 1768 as an able seaman for service on the Newfoundland Station under Hugh Palliser, a commodore and friend and patron of James Cook, but there is no indication that Cook and King met at this time. It has been said that King served aboard in the Mediterranean under Captain John Jervis but there is no evidence of this. Having passed for lieutenant on 7 March 1769, King was promoted to this rank on 10 January 1771, serving in several ships before being placed on half pay in