PREFACE xi 
Stanhope to undertake the biography, when he found that he could 
not himself face it, and thereafter Mr. Colquhoun and then Mr. John 
Ball, F.R.S. I obtained from the box, by leave from Mr. Bond, then 
Keeper of MSS., in the beginning of 1876, the transcripts made for 
Mr. Dawson Turner by his two daughters, which have remained under 
my care in the Botanical Department. 
The story of the originals after I parted with them is a distressing 
one, Some seven or eight years ago Lord Brabourne claimed the 
letters as his property. Mr. Maunde Thompson remonstrated, and 
told him that they were to remain in the museum till the death of 
Lady Knatchbull, and then they were to become the property of the 
trustees. Lord Brabourne would not accept this view, but claimed 
them as his own, and carried off the box and its contents. They were 
afterwards offered to the museum for sale, but the price offered by 
the Keeper of the MSS. was not satisfactory, and the whole collec- 
tion was broken up into lots, 207, and sold by auction at Sotheby’s 
on 14th April 1886, The Journal of Cook’s voyage was lot 176, 
and was described in the catalogue as “ Banks’s (Sir Joseph) Journal 
of a Voyage to the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand, from March 
17691 to July 1771, in the autograph of Banks.” It was purchased 
by an autograph dealer, John Waller, for £7:2:6. Mr. Britten has 
gone to Waller’s to inquire after the Journal. Waller did not 
specially remember that purchase, and he does not believe he has 
got the manuscript. So where it is now no one knows? As you 
will see, the earlier portion of the Journal was missing in the lot sold. 
Waller bought in all 57 lots. The letters were broken up and sold 
as autographs; those that he purchased and did not know, like 
those of Brass, Nelson, Alex. Anderson, etc, and were of no money 
value, he would probably at once destroy, so he told Mr. Britten. So 
now all is gone—for whether the letters are preserved by autograph 
collectors, or were at once thrown into the wastepaper basket, they 
are equally lost to science. The 207 lots realised in all £182 : 19s. ! 
The result is that the Journal and letters transcribed for Dawson 
Turner, and now here, are the only ones available. I am thankful 
they have been saved out of the catastrophe. 
Your transcriber is diligently at work.—I am, faithfully yours, 
Wm. CaRRUTHERS, 
1 That is some time after leaving Rio, and before arriving at Otahite. 
2 T have since ascertained that the Journal came into the possession of 
J. Henniker Heaton, Esq., M.P., who informs me that he disposed of it to 
a gentleman in Sydney, N.S. W. 
