THE PLANT WORLD 229 



accounts of these three trips met with great popular demand, and princi- 

 pally through his glowing accounts, together with the praises of the 

 other Pacific navigators, a desire for the introduction of the fruit into the 

 West Indies was built up, a demand which it was attempted to gratify in 

 1787, when Captain Wm. Bligh was dispatched to bring plants from 

 Tahiti to the British West Indies. 



In 1769, however, the French authorities had sent out from the Isle 

 de France, the modern Mauritius, an expedition for the purpose of 

 obtaining valuable foods and fruits for the French insular colonies. 

 This expedition, which carried Sonnerat as naturalist, visited New 

 Guinea and the Philippines, and from the island of Luzon he shipped 

 breadfruits which were taken back to the " Isle de France." That these 

 plants were of the seeded variety would seem to be well indicated by the 

 description which he gives of them in his book as well as by the figure 

 engraved in the same work.* 



The presence of the seeded breadfruit in Mauritius might be questioned, 

 however, owing to the fact that Baker and other modern botanical writers 

 do not mention it. That it was carried there by this expedition is hardly 

 to be doubted, and its presence in 1789 at least is assured by an entry in 

 a manuscript catalogue of the Royal Gardens at Port Louis, referred to 

 in Larmarck's ' ' Encyclopedic Methodique " (3 : 208) . Moreover, in the 

 Transactions of the Society of Arts (20 : 313. 1802), there is a record of 

 an introduction of the seeded fruit from Martinique into Tobago, and the 

 statement is further made that the seeded fruits in the possession of the 

 French were the result of an importation from the Isle of France in 1792. 



Beginning with the year of Captain Cook's death (1779) the "Society 

 instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and 

 Commerce," offered a yearly prize for the successful introduction of the 

 breadfruit " into the islands of the West Indies, subject to the Crown of 

 Great Britain." This premium repeated year after year sustained the 

 popular interest first aroused by the writings of the Pacific navigators, 

 and this, together with the demand for the fruit among the West Indian 

 planters themselves, caused the English Crown in 1787 to dispatch 

 Captain Wm. Bligh in the Bounty to attempt the introduction of the 

 fruit into the Western world. The interesting history of this voyage is 

 known to most every one ; the delightful sta)' at Tahiti in the land of 

 summer and plenty proved to be too tempting for Bligh's crew, a mutiny 

 resulting shortly after their departure from the romantic island. Bligh 

 with eighteen companions was cast adrift in an open boat, poorly provis- 

 ioned and equipped, near the island of Tofoa in the Tonga group. Meeting 

 with a hostile reception from the natives of that island, they were obliged 

 to steer for the distant East Indies, fearing to land on the Oceanic islands 



* Sonnerat, " Voyage a la Nouvelle Guiaee," p. loo. Paris, 1776. 



