24 THE LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS 



tions for his new voyage. The same profuse expenditure 

 as before was devoted to fresh stores of books, instruments, 

 etc. A Royal Academician (Zoffany) was engaged as 

 principal artist, together with three draughtsmen, two 

 secretaries, and nine servants. Everything was done 

 in a princely manner. 



After all this preparation Banks was obliged to retire 

 from personal share in the Expedition. There was so 

 much difficulty about the accommodation to be afforded 

 for his party, and the Navy Board being unable to meet 

 Banks 's views in several points, that he withdrew. 

 Brougham and other writers who have alluded to this 

 occurrence are rather warmly disposed to implicate 

 individuals in the disagreements which occurred. It is 

 not unnatural, under the circumstances ; for the official 

 mind seems to have been a little jealous of Banks's 

 influence in the business. 1 Yet the difficulties would, 

 perhaps, have been safely weathered but for an unforeseen 

 circumstance, which precipitated matters. 



Lieutenant Clerke, on board the Resolution, lying in the 

 river, wrote to Mr. Banks (May 13, 1772) to the following 

 effect : " We weigh'd anchor at Gravesend this morning 

 about 10 o'clock, with a fine breeze from the eastward. 

 The wind from that quarter laid us under the necessity 

 of working down the reaches : which work, I am sorry to 

 tell you, we found the Resolution very unequal to. ... 

 She is so very bad that the pilot declares he will not run 

 the risk of his character so far as to take charge of her 



1 It is likely enough that more than one person already discerned 

 in Banks a possible " despot." One matter in which he was thwarted 

 was his nomination of Dr. Priestley. Banks invited him to join this 

 second Expedition as astronomer. In his view an astronomer was an 

 astronomer, and a great master in physics was a philosopher. But some 

 clergyman on this Board of Longitude objected to Priestley's appoint- 

 ment on account of his religious principles ; and so strong became the 

 opposition that Banks pressed the point in vain. (v. details of this 

 incident in Kitson's Captain James Cook the Circumnavigator, London 

 1907.) 



