370 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 



profligate and cruel Queen, experienced the humanity 

 of Sir Joseph during a long captivity, although his 

 unwearied efforts to obtain his liberation failed of 

 success. His own countrymen, when detained by the 

 arbitrary and perfidious policy of Napoleon, were in 

 repeated instances indebted to Sir Joseph Banks for 

 their permission to return home ; and a learned friend 

 of mine, one of the first Oriental scholars of the age, 

 the late Professor Hamilton, must have perished at 

 Verdun but for his generous interference. By his in- 

 terposition the Institute exerted itself in various other 

 cases ; and whenever it could be made to appear that 

 a man of science or of letters was among the detained, 

 no very strict scrutiny being exercised either by Sir 

 Joseph or his Paris colleagues, the order for his libera- 

 tion was applied for and obtained. 



In 1802 he was chosen one of the Foreign Members 

 of that illustrious body, and in acknowledging this 

 high honour he expressed his gratitude in warm terms. 

 Much offence was given to the zealots of the Anti- 

 Gallican party in this country ; the remains of Bishop 

 Horsley's party were roused to censure him ; an anony- 

 mous attack upon him was published in the daily 

 papers, and afterwards acknowledged to have pro- 

 ceeded from the Bishop ; Mr. Cobbett, then as bitter 

 an enemy of France and of peace as he soon after- 

 wards became a zealous friend, addressed a letter to 

 the Members of the Royal Society, calling upon them 

 to depose the President from the chair, because he had 

 called the Institute the first literary body in Europe ; 

 but the silly faction and the paltry storm it had raised, 

 soon sank into their natural insignificance, and all men 

 of sense saw plainly that nothing in the complimentary 

 language of his letter exceeded the ordinary limits of 

 such compositions, or betokened the least want of re- 

 spect for his own Society.* 



* If Mr. Cobbett was ever less happy on one occasion than another, it 

 was when he meddled with such subjects. He congratulated his country 



