Cook, Vancouver, and Krusenstern

"She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cook or Cancouver had ever sailed.... They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nanucket, that were as great, and greater than your Cooke, and your Krusenstern." (Chapter 24)

Captain James Cook (1728 - 1779) was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Captain George Vancouver (1757 – 1798) was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for his exploration of North America, including the Pacific coast along the modern day Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Alaska, Washington and Oregon. He also explored the southwest coast of Australia. He was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, in England.

Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern (1770 – 1846) was a Baltic German admiral and explorer in Russian service, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth. In Russia, Krusenstern is known as Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern.

Wikipedia. Also: Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead.