340 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 



before it was to have been executed : their hope was 

 to have thrown much light on the state and habits of 

 the fish. 



In May, 1766, he was elected a member of the 

 Royal Society, and the same year he accompanied his 

 friend Sir Thomas Adams in the Niger, entrusted with 

 a voyage to Newfoundland. Mr. Banks's object was 

 the collection of plants : what the object of the parti- 

 cular voyage might be I am not informed. On his 

 return to England by way of Lisbon, early in 1767, 

 he resumed, or rather continued, his studies in botany 

 and natural history; and the intimacy which he formed 

 with Dr. Solan der, a favourite pupil of Linnaeus, now 

 settled at the British Museum as Assistant-Librarian, 

 greatly facilitated his application to these pursuits. 



The commencement of George the Third's reign was 

 distinguished most honourably, both for the Sovereign 

 and for his favourite minister, Lord Bute, by an extra- 

 ordinary regard for the interests of science. That dis- 

 tinguished person, the victim of much popular prejudice 

 and misrepresentation, formed a rare exception to most 

 statesmen who have governed this country, for he was 

 fond of philosophical studies, and was a successful as 

 well as a diligent cultivator of some of the sciences. 

 Accordingly, the patronage of the Crown was extended 

 to others who had like tastes, and it was most judici- 

 ously employed in promoting the discovery of distant 

 regions not before explored by the adventurous spirit 

 of navigators. Captain Wallis had recently brought us 

 acquainted with some of the more remarkable groups 

 of islands which stud one portion of the Pacific Ocean ; 

 and it was resolved to promote these discoveries, for 

 the advancement of natural science, without any views 

 of conquest. In 1676 Halley, while residing at the 

 Island of St. Helena, had made an important observa- 

 tion on the transit of Mercury over the sun's disc. But 

 he had bequeathed to astronomers a far more important 

 recommendation, to mark the transit of Venus, an event 



