Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. 19 



the evils of war toward those who were engaged in scientific 

 researches. 



The virtuous Louis XVI., at the opening of the American 

 war, had, of his own accord, caused orders to be given to his 

 vessels everywhere to respect Captain Cook and his companions. 

 To the honour of our so much calumniated age, this beautiful 

 example has become an article of the law of nations ; but it was 

 chiefly the unremitting zeal of Sir Joseph Banks that procured 

 its being inscribed as such. Not only did he never neglect an 

 opportunity of engaging the English government to conform to 

 it, but also more than once preferred solicitations to foreign go- 

 vernments. At the commencement of the war, he had obtained 

 similar orders to be given in favour of La Peyrouse, if he still 

 existed, and had inquiries made for him in every sea. When 

 discords had put an end to Entrecasteaux"'s expedition, and M. 

 de la Billardiere's collections were transported to England, he suc- 

 ceeded in getting them restored to him ; and he also added the 

 delicacy of sending them without even having looked at them. 

 He v/ould have dreaded, he wrote to M. de Jussieu, to carry 

 off* a single botanical idea, from a man who had gone to obtain 

 them at the peril of his life. Ten different times, collections 

 addressed to the Jardin du Roi, and taken by English vessels, 

 were recovered by him, and delivered up in the same manner. 

 He even sent to the Cape of Good Hope, to release the cases 

 belonging to M. de Humboldt, that had been taken by pirates, 

 and would never receive any reimbursement. He considered 

 himself, as it were, accountable for all the injuries that his 

 countrymen might do to science and its cultivators ; and still 

 more, he thought himself obliged to repair the evil that other 

 nations might cause them. Having learned by the public prints 

 that our colleague Broussonet was obliged to flee from the exe- 

 cutioners of his country, he immediately gave his correspondents 

 in Spain an order to let him want nothing. His assistance 

 reached him at Madrid and Lisbon, and followed him to Mo- 

 rocco. When the celebrated mineralogist Dolomieu, by the 

 greatest violation of the right of nations, and to satisfy the ven- 

 geance of an enraged woman, was cast into the dungeons of 

 Messina, it was the ingenious humanity of Sir Joseph Banks 

 that first penetrated the subterranean abode where he groaned 



