86 THE LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS 



taries, and to my other friends in the Society, I consider 

 the proceeding as including in it an intended affront to 

 myself. Mr. Cooper, who was introduced to yourself, 

 and whose merit, independent of his certificate, was 

 attested by persons who have long known him, is a man 

 equally distinguished for his knowledge, ability, and 

 activity ; and of all the persons that I know, I think him 

 the most likely to do honour to any Society of which he 

 shall become a member. 



" I consider the business as the effect of party-spirit, 

 political or religious, as highly unworthy of the Society, 

 injurious to the interests of philosophy, and arising 

 from principles which would equally lead to my own 

 exclusion from the Society. But, as I conceive it to be 

 a matter in which you, Sir, had no concern, it does not, 

 I assure you, diminish my respect for yourself, thinking, as 

 I have always professed to do, that the Society is honoured 

 by your being its President. 



" I am," etc. 



There may have been justice in the suspicion that 

 political partisanship had weighed some of the members 

 of the Royal Society on this occasion. Mr. Thomas 

 Cooper, of Manchester, was a man of learning and talent, 

 and love for natural science. But he had made himself 

 unduly ostentatious in sympathy with the French revolu- 

 tionists. Indeed, he was on the famous deputation of 

 English republicans who were honoured by a reception 

 from the national assembly. 1 



In those unpleasant times, a man of this stamp, how- 

 ever high his personal character, was simply an object of 

 fear. Whether rightly or wrongly, association with Mr. 



1 In 1793 he went to America, to see if it were " a place fit to live in." 

 Even in America, he suffered imprisonment on account of his advanced 

 opinions. Leaving politics alone, he presently became a judge, and 

 afterward a professor of chemistry. 



