Note 71 — Chapter VI

The really scientific results of his expedition, largely the work of Solander, consisted of "five folio books of neat manuscript" (wrote the late Sir Joseph D. Hooker, the greatest botanist of the nineteenth century, who died at the end of 1911), and seven hundred engraved copperplates which are said still to repose in the hands of the trustees of the British Museum never published to the world up to the present day. The cause of this inexcusable negligence is not given, but the matter is one which calls for urgent enquiry. In 1772, when Cook's Second Expedition was in course of preparation, Banks proposed once more to accompany the great navigator, and made such elaborate preparations for this purpose that he was obliged to embarrass his estate for the purpose of raising the necessary money. But the Board of Admiralty, which in those days regarded natural science with contempt, put so many vexatious obstacles in his way, amongst others, that Banks's principal assistant was not a member of the Church of England!—that Banks at the last moment withdrew and went off instead with Solander on a scientific expedition to Iceland. Once again he handed over his journal and observations to other people, who made free use of it in their works on Iceland. In 1778 he was chosen President of the Royal Society, and until the day of his death in 1820 he was a true friend to science and discovery. He practically founded Kew Gardens as the great botanical gardens of the metropolis, he threw himself enthusiastically into what may be called economic botany, and was the first person who advocated the use of indiarubber in various industries, and the cultivation of rubber-bearing trees and plants. He proposed the cultivation of tea in India, and established botanical gardens in Jamaica, St. Vincent, Ceylon, and Calcutta, besides taking an immense and practical interest in British horticulture. He had much to do with the dispatch of Mungo Park, Clapperton, and other travellers to explore Africa; in fact, the full indebtedness of the world of science, and of the British Empire in particular, to Sir Joseph Banks is not yet fully known, and certainly not yet sufficiently appreciated. All young students should make a point of reading the biographical preface to the Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks by an equally great man, Sir Joseph Hooker, born just about the time that Banks died, and a son of one of Banks's friends.

To a great extent Banks was admired and appreciated by the political world of his day, but probably more because he was a wealthy landed proprietor who was enthusiastic for science than because of his own scientific achievements and deeds of great daring on behalf of science. He was made a baronet in 1781 and a Knight of the Bath in 1795, and finally a member of the Privy Council in 1797.