REVIVAL OF BOTANICAL EXPLORATION 269 



of Mr. Kerr ; and he forthwith made this his obligation. The 

 botanist had good reason to be thankful for this patronage, 

 in his very difficult surroundings. Much of his success was 

 owing to it, and he gratefully acknowledges to Sir Joseph 

 Banks the assistance and encouragement he has had. 



Another young man who made afterwards something of 

 a reputation went out to Canton in 1806, This was 

 Thomas Manning, the friend of Charles Lamb, who had 

 been released from detention in France through the inter- 

 vention of Sir Joseph Banks. Manning's friends thought 

 it a sort of freak ; but he became interested in Chinese 

 matters, and saw that the only way to learn the language 

 and understand the people was to visit the country. 

 With Banks's interests in the East India Company, he 

 was enabled to go under agreeable circumstances, as a 

 doctor to the factory at Canton, with free passage out, 

 and a residence. He was entrusted with a number of 

 European plants for the care of Mr. Kerr. 1 



1 A long and amusing letter from Manning (posted at Cape Town, 

 Aug. 9, 1806) is included in the Banks MSS. at Kew. One extract is 

 worth making : " After a pleasant passage of ten or eleven weeks we are 

 arrived within a few days' sail of the Cape. ... I am exceedingly 

 comfortably situated, and treated with great respect and even distinc- 

 tion. My greatest want is good society. I am among a set of grossly 

 ignorant people. The rogues soon found out my superiority of acquire- 

 ments, and they now will give me credit for knowing what I am really 

 ignorant of. Because they see I take a great interest in the plants, they 

 look up to me as a botanist, and I cannot undeceive them. The plants 

 are most of them thriving, but some are dead, or at least have lost their 

 leaves. ... I have been careful to shelter them from all violence, 

 either of heat, rain, or wind ; and the captain's steward has been par- 

 ticularly careful in tending them. I had a little trouble at first in 

 preventing certain officers from plucking the odoriferous leaves, but a 

 little gentle expostulation and management soon succeeded. The first 

 mate does not approve of having a garden on the poop at all. He says 

 it racks the ship all to pieces. The Captain agrees in the same story, 

 and when the beams creak in the cuddy, they turn to me sometimes and 



d the flower-pots. But 'tis half in joke. At least, they exaggerate 



the matter. ..." Living plants are but sickly passengers at sea. A 

 consignment of boxes from Kew to Canton in March, 1805, contained 

 living plants as follows : 1 5 grapes, 24 plums and cherries, 24 peaches 

 and nectarines, 20 pears and apricots, 19 figs, etc., 12 rhododendrons and 

 azaleas, 34 roses, 1 10 various bulbs, 22 pelargoniums, and 64 miscel- 

 laneous. Few of them reached their destination, on account of accident 

 or neglect. 



