SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 371 



His assiduous cultivation of natural history, and his 

 devotion to agricultural pursuits, did not prevent him 

 from taking the most active part in promoting the dis- 

 covery of unknown regions, the most favourite of all 

 his pursuits. He was the real founder of the African 

 Association ; and it is well known that when Ledyard, 

 the most accomplished of the travellers next to Mungo 

 Park, was in want of support on his celebrated jour- 

 ney, it was on Sir Joseph Banks that he drew a bill, 

 which in the remote region where the traveller then 

 was, found an immediate honour and discount. The 

 captivity of Flinders, whom I have heard him more 

 than once compare to Cook, was greatly mitigated by 

 his exertions and influence with the French Govern- 

 ment ; and he not only promoted discovery with all 

 his means to the end of his life, but applied himself 

 vigorously to improving the discoveries successively 

 made to the real use of mankind. The good treatment 

 of the aborigines was ever a main object of his humane 

 exertions. He it was who may be truly said to have 

 planted and founded the colony of Botany Bay. He 

 it was, too, who suggested the means of transplanting 

 the bread-fruit tree from the South Sea Islands to the 

 West Indies, (the object of Captain Bligh's unfortu- 

 nate voyage,) and of also naturalizing there the mango 

 of Bengal. The fruits of Ceylon and of Persia were 

 successfully, through his exertions and experiments, 

 brought from thence to the West Indies and to Europe. 

 So little did his love of plants end, like that of other 

 botanists, in mere description and classification, in the 

 composition of a catalogue, or the preparation of a 

 Herbal! Horticulture, indeed, was a subject the use- 

 fulness of which was sure strongly to attract his care, 

 and accordingly the Society for its improvement owed 



in one of his papers on Captain Glennie having discovered the quadrature 

 of the circle, the captain having gained his scientific fame, in Cobbett's 

 eyes, by joining in the combination against the Duke of York, a year or 

 two before. 



