Posterity is likely to do scanty justice to the merits of Banks, when
the grateful recollections of his contemporaries shall have passed away.
His name is connected with no great discovery, no striking improvement;
and he has left no literary works from which the extent of his industry,
or the amount of his knowledge can be estimated. Yet he did much for the
cause of science; much by his personal exertions, more by a judicious
and liberal use of the advantages of fortune. For more than half a
century a zealous and successful student of natural history in general,
and particularly of botany, the history of his scientific life is to be
found in the records of science during that long and active period. We
shall not attempt to compress so intricate and extensive a subject
within the brief limits of three or four pages; but confine ourselves to
a short sketch of his character and personal adventures. Some fitting
person will, it is to be hoped, ere too late, undertake to write the
life of our distinguished countryman upon a scale calculated to do
justice to his merits: at present this task is not only unperformed, but
unattempted.
Joseph Banks was born in London, February 13, 1743. Of his childhood we
find few memorials. He passed through the ordinary routine of education;
having been first committed to the care of a private tutor at home, then
placed at Harrow, afterwards at Eton, and finally sent to complete his
studies at Christchurch, Oxford. Born to the inheritance of an ample
fortune, and left an orphan at the age of eighteen, it is no small
praise that he was not allured by the combined temptations of youth,
wealth, and freedom, to seek his happiness in vicious, or even idle
pleasures. Science, in one of its most attractive branches, the study of
animated nature, was his amusement as a schoolboy, and the favourite
pursuit of his mature years: and he was rewarded for his devotion, not
merely in the rank and estimation which he obtained by its means, but
also in his immunity from the dangers which society throws in the way of
those who have the means of gratifying their own passions, and the
vanities and interests of their friends.
He quitted the university in the year 1763. In 1766 he gave a proof of
his zeal for knowledge by engaging in a voyage to Newfoundland. He was
induced to choose that most unattractive region, by having the
opportunity of accompanying a friend, Lieutenant Phipps, afterwards Lord
Mulgrave, well known as a navigator of the Polar Seas, who was sent out
in a ship of war to protect the fisheries. Soon after his return a much
more interesting and important field of inquiry was opened to him by the
progress of discovery in the southern hemisphere. In 1764 Commodore
Byron, in 1766 Captains Wallis and Carteret were sent into the South
Sea, to investigate the geography of that immense and then unfrequented
region. These expeditions were succeeded in 1768 by another under the
command of Captain Cook, who first obtained celebrity as a navigator
upon this occasion. Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty,
possessed an estate in Lincolnshire on the borders of Whittlesea Mere.
Mr. Banks’s chief property lay in the same neighbourhood: and it so
chanced that similarity of tastes, and especially a common predilection
for all aquatic amusements, had produced a great intimacy between the
statesman and his young country neighbour. To this fortunate
circumstance it may probably be ascribed, that on Mr. Banks expressing a
wish to accompany the projected expedition, his desire was immediately
granted. His preparations were made on the most liberal scale. He laid
in an ample store of such articles as would be useful or acceptable to
the savage tribes whom he was about to visit: and besides the usual
philosophical apparatus of a voyage of discovery, he engaged two
draughtsmen to make accurate representations of such objects as could
not be preserved, or conveyed to England; and he secured the services of
Dr. Solander, a Swedish naturalist, a pupil of Linnæus, who had
previously been placed on the establishment of the British Museum. The
history of this voyage belongs to the life of Cook. The expedition bent
its course for the Southern Ocean, through the Straits of Le Maire, at
the southern end of America. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander landed on the
desolate island of Terra del Fuego, where the severity of the cold had
very nearly proved fatal to several of their party. Dr. Solander in
particular was so entirely overcome by the drowsiness consequent on
extreme cold and exhaustion, that it was with great difficulty, and by
the unwearied exertion and resolution of his more robust companion, that
he was prevented from falling into that sleep which is the forerunner of
death. Their farther course lay through the islands of the Pacific Ocean
to Otaheite, which had been selected as a fitting place for the main
object of the voyage, the observing of the passage of Venus over the
sun’s disk. At that island their stay was consequently prolonged for
several months, during which the Europeans and the natives mingled
together, generally on the most friendly terms. In this intercourse Mr.
Banks took a very leading part. His liberality, and the high station
which he evidently held among the strangers, conciliated the attachment
and respect of the unpolished islanders: and the mingled suavity and
firmness of his temper and demeanour rendered him singularly fitted both
to protect the weaker party from the occasional wantonness or
presumption of their visitors, and to check their knavery, and obtain
satisfaction for the thefts which they not unfrequently committed. Once
the astronomical purposes of the navigators were nearly frustrated by
the loss of the large brass quadrant; and the recovery of this important
instrument was chiefly due to the exertions and influence of Mr. Banks.
Both hemispheres owe to him a tribute of gratitude; for while he gave
the savages the improved tools, the esculent vegetables, and the
domesticated animals of Europe, his exertions led to the introduction of
the breadfruit, and of the productive sugar-cane peculiar to Otaheite,
into our West-India colonies.
After the lapse of three years the voyagers returned home, and were
received with lively interest by all classes of society. Part of their
collections were lost through an accident which happened to the vessel:
but the greater portion was preserved, and their novelty and beauty
excited the admiration of naturalists. George III., who delighted in
everything connected with horticulture and farming, manifested a warm
interest in inquiring into the results of the expedition, and conceived
a liking for the young traveller, which continued unimpaired even to the
close of his public life.
It was Mr. Banks’s intention to accompany Captain Cook in his second
voyage, in 1772: but the Navy Board showed no willingness to provide
that accommodation which the extent of his preparations and the number
of his scientific followers required, and he gave up the project, which
indeed he could not satisfactorily execute. In the summer of that year
he went to Iceland. Passing along the western coast of Scotland, he was
led to visit Staffa, in consequence of local information; and to his
description that singular island was first indebted for its general
celebrity. He spent a month in Iceland. An account of this visit has
been published by M. Von Troil, a Swedish clergyman, who formed one of
the party. On this, as on other occasions, Mr. Banks, unwearied in quest
of knowledge, seemed careless of the fame to which most would have
aspired as the reward of their labours. Of none of his travels has he
himself given any account in a separate publication; indeed, a few
papers in the Horticultural Transactions, and a very curious account of
the causes of mildew in corn, not printed for sale, constitute the mass
of his published works. But his visit was productive of much good to the
Icelanders, though it remained uncommemorated in expensive quartos. He
watched over their welfare, when their communication with Denmark was
interrupted by war between that country and England; and twice sent
cargoes of corn, at his own expense, to relieve their sufferings in
seasons of scarcity. His benevolence was warmly acknowledged by the
Danish Court.
Returning to England, Mr. Banks, at the early age of thirty, entered on
that tranquil and useful course of life, from which during a long series
of years he never deviated. His thirst for travel was checked or
satiated; he undertook no more distant expeditions, but he ceased not to
cultivate the sciences, for which he had undergone so many hardships. It
was long hoped that he would publish some account of the rich harvest of
vegetable productions which he had collected in the unknown regions of
the Pacific; and for this purpose it was known that he had caused a very
large number of plates to be engraved at a great expense: but, most
probably owing to the death of Solander, these have never been given to
the world. But if he hesitated to communicate himself to the public the
results of his labours, in amends his museum and his library were placed
most freely at the command of those who sought, and were able to profit
by his assistance; and to these sources many splendid works, especially
on botany, have mainly owed their merits, and perhaps their existence.
From the period of his return from Iceland Mr. Banks took an active part
in the affairs of the Royal Society. His house was constantly open to
men of science, whether British or foreign, and by the urbanity of his
manners, and his liberal use of the advantages of fortune, he acquired
that popularity which six years afterwards led to his election as
President of that distinguished body. Two or three years afterwards a
dangerous schism had nearly arisen in the Society, chiefly in
consequence of the unreasonable anger of a party of mathematicians,
headed by Dr. Horsley, afterwards Bishop of St. David’s, who looked with
contempt on sciences unsusceptible of mathematical proof, and loudly
exclaimed against the chair of Newton being filled, as they phrased it,
by an amateur. It would be little profitable to rake up the embers of an
ancient and unworthy feud. We shall only state therefore that Banks was
elected in November, 1778; that for some time a violent opposition was
raised against him; and that in January, 1784, the Society, by a formal
resolution, declared itself satisfied with the choice which it had made.
Horsley and a few others seceded, and for the rest of his life Banks
continued the undisputed and popular president; a period of forty-one
years from the epoch of his election.
We have said that at an early age Mr. Banks was fortunate in gaining the
royal favour; marks of which were not wanting. In 1781 he was created a
baronet; in 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, then very rarely
bestowed upon civilians and commoners; and in 1797 he was made a Privy
Councillor. The friendship between the King and the subject was cemented
by similarity of pursuits; for the latter was a practical farmer as well
as a philosopher, and under his care the value of his estates in
Lincolnshire was considerably increased by improvements in the drainage
of that singular country, in the direction of which Sir Joseph took an
active part. He is said to have possessed such influence over the King’s
mind, that ministers sometimes availed themselves of it to recommend a
measure unpalatable to their honest but somewhat obstinate master. We
know not whether this be better founded than most other stories of
back-stairs influence, easily thrown out and difficult to be refuted: it
is at least certain that if Banks possessed such power, he deserves
great credit for the singular moderation with which he used it. For
himself he asked and received nothing: fortunately his station in
society was one which renders disinterestedness an easy, if not a common
virtue. His influence was directed to facilitate scientific
undertakings, to soften to men of science the inconveniences of the long
war of the Revolution, to procure the restoration of their papers and
collections when taken by an enemy, or the alleviation of their
sufferings in captivity. The French were especially indebted to him for
such services. It is said by an eminent member of the Institute, in his
Eloge upon Banks, that no less than ten times, collections addressed to
the Jardin du Roi at Paris, and captured by the English, were restored
by his intercession to their original destination. He thought that
national hostility should find no entrance among followers of science;
and the delicacy of his views on this subject is well displayed in a
letter written on one of these occasions to Jussieu, where he says that
he would on no account rob of a single botanical idea a man who had gone
to seek them at the peril of his life. In 1802 the National Institute of
France, being then re-modelled, elected him at the head of their Foreign
Associates, whose number was limited to eight. Cavendish, Maskelyne, and
Herschel were also members of this distinguished list. In replying to
the letter which announced this honour, Sir Joseph Banks expressed his
gratitude in terms which gave offence to some members of that
distinguished Society over which he himself presided. This exposed him
to a virulent attack from an anonymous enemy, who published the letter
in question in the English papers, accompanied by a most acrimonious
address to the author of it; prompted, it is evident, not so much by a
reasonable and patriotic jealousy, as by ancient pique, and a bitter
detestation even of the science of revolutionary France.
Towards the close of life Sir Joseph Banks, who in youth had possessed a
robust constitution, and a dignified and prepossessing figure, was
grievously afflicted by gout. He endured the sufferings of disease with
patience and cheerfulness, and died May 19, 1820, leaving no children.
Lady Banks, whom he had married in 1779, survived him several years. His
magnificent library he devised to the British Museum; and among other
bequests for scientific purposes, he left an annuity to Mr. Frederic
Bauer, an artist whom he had long employed in making botanical drawings
from the garden at Kew, upon condition that he should continue the
series.
[Illustration: Banksia ericifolia.]