DISCOVERY OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA 455 



for the length of the voyage." Their Lordships replied 

 that they extremely well approved of the whole of Cook's 

 proceedings. Cook had an hour's talk with the King, 

 who was also pleased to express his approbation. The 

 Royal Society also was gratified. Cook had been well 

 worth his five shillings a day, and the grant of four thousand 

 pounds had proved more than was needed. The Society 

 generously voted that the balance which Cook had saved 

 should be expended on a bust ; a bust not, of course, 

 of Cook, but of George. 



" I have made no very great discoveries," Cook repeats Cook's 

 in a letter to his old employer, Mr. Walker of Whitby, aP 010 ^ 68 - 

 " yet I have explored more of the South Sea than all 

 that have gone before me ; in so much that little remains 

 now to be done to have a thorough knowledge of that 

 part of the globe." There is a curiously apologetic tone in 

 all Cook's estimates of the value of his discoveries. He 

 had to meet the accusation of geographers like Dalrymple 

 that he had not discovered their Southern Continent. 

 And he can only modestly suggest in self-defence that 

 one reason of his failure is that that continent does not 

 exist. But Banks, at all events, had no need to apologize. 

 Geographical discoveries might not be satisfactory to 

 geographers. Long fed on boundless hopes of Golden 

 Continents, how angrily they spurned the scanty fare 

 of New Zealand and New Holland ! But botanical dis- Botanists 

 coveries had far surpassed even the great expectations trium P nant - 

 of the botanists. Mr. John Ellis, F.R.S., who had written 

 to Linnaeus the great news that Banks and Solander 

 were setting forth, now wrote to him the still greater news 

 that they had returned; returned "laden with the 

 greatest treasure of natural history that ever was brought 

 into any country at one time by two persons." l Linnaeus 

 implored his correspondent to persuade Solander to send 

 him " some specimens of plants from Banksia in Terra 

 Australis " ; for, he added, " the new-found country ought 

 to be named Banksia from its discoverer, as America from 

 Americus." The great botanist will see these specimens 

 1 Maiden's Banks, p. 81. 



