Notice of the late Mr, George Caley, 231 



your age ; all of whom, at that period, gained their liveHhood 

 in the gardens without complaining. 



" No person has been appointed to go to Botany Bay in 

 your stead. The man who is going, by my recommendation, 

 is the son of a market-gardener, and knows nothing of botany : 

 he has no appointment or salary ; and means to settle there, 

 with a wife, as a farmer and market-gardener. 



" How you can be useful to your employers as a botanical 

 traveller, to send home seeds and plants from thence, till you 

 have made yourself acquainted with those already in England, 

 I do not know. We have now several hundreds of such : and 

 to send them asjain would be idle and useless. You might 

 discover some drug valuable in dyeing or medicine, for your 

 own advantage ; but, unless you are able to benefit your em- 

 ployers as well as yourself, how can you expect employment ? 



" You are certainly, however, eminently capable of search- 

 ing the woods with diligence and advantage for dyeing drugs,, 

 and other matters likely to be advantageous to manufacturers 

 and trade : and that many such things remain unknown in 

 the unexplored wilds of a country larger than all Europe, is 

 a matter of infinite probability. If the gentlemen of Man- 

 chester will make a subscription to maintain you in that em- 

 ployment, on such terms as shall be agreed upon between you 

 and them, I will readily become a subscriber, and use my 

 best influence with Government to send you out at the public 

 expense, in which I have no doubt of being successful. I, 

 am. Sir, your very humble servant, — Jos. Banks." 



The humble individual on whom the Right Hon. Baronet 

 had thus bestowed the best advice soon found his situation, 

 even among his quondam associates, little less mortifying than 

 when the fancied prisoner of a royal garden. The plan of 

 sending him out by subscription met with no success : and even 

 the indomitable spirit of Caley was compelled, in a degree, to 

 succumb to the more ordinary course of events. 



Not less dark and drear than the season in which the good 

 tidings arrived was the state of Caley's mind, when, in the 

 midst of doubts and perplexities, towards the end of Novem- 

 ber, 1798, his true friend. Sir Joseph, hastily summoned him 

 to London, in expectation of immediately despatching him to 

 the terra incognita he had so ardently longed to explore. 

 During this expedition, it was agreed that he should have a 

 sufficient maintenance ; that his primary duties were to be the 

 collecting of specimens of plants for his worthy patron, and 

 seeds for the garden at Kew, with the use of duplicates for his 

 own advantage. 



Caley was quickly on his passage over the trackless ocean : 



