KEW UNDER GEORGE III 
19 
Plant 
Collectors. 
of them as made me instantly resolve to work in these gardens. The 
next morning [Cobbett was then in his native town of Farnham] 
I set off with no clothes except those above my back, and with thirteen 
half-pence in my pocket. . . . The singularity of my dress, the 
simplicity of my manner, my confidence and lively air, and doubt- 
less his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was 
a Scotsman [Aiton], to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set 
me to work. And it was during this period that I was at Kew 
that the present King [William IV.] laughed at the oddness of 
my dress while I was sweeping the grass-plot round the foot of the 
Pagoda.” 
From 1772 to the end of the century, the history of the Royal 
Gardens at Kew is concerned mainly with the sending out of plant 
collectors. Masson was sent to the Cape of Good Hope 
in 1772. Nelson was assistant botanist on Captain 
Cook’s third voyage (1776-1779), and he was afterwards 
attached to the expedition to the South Seas under Captain Bligh. 
The object of this expedition was to introduce the bread-fruit to 
the West Indies, but, owing to a mutiny on board the Bounty, this 
object was not then accomplished. Nelson, remaining loyal to the 
captain, was cast adrift by the mutineers and eventually died through 
his hardships. Christopher Smith went with Bligh on a second 
voyage in 1791 ; this expedition was successful, and three hundred 
bread-fruit trees were introduced to Jamaica, where they were taken 
charge of by James Wiles, another gardener at Kew, who had accom- 
panied Smith as assistant botanist. 
The publication of the Hortus Kewensis by William Aiton marks 
the year 1789 as an important one in the annals of Kew. This work 
consisted of three octavo volumes, ornamented with 
thirteen coloured plates, and enumerated about 5,500 
species. Of each species there is a brief description, 
and the date of its introduction is given. Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis 
is the most important and most valuable work of reference in all 
that pertains to the introduction of exotic plants to Great Britain 
before 1789. 
Four years later, on February 2nd, 1793, Aiton died. Although 
his life was not a very long or eventful one (he was only sixty-two 
years of age), his memory will always be kept green as the first 
botanical director of Kew, and as the author of the work just 
“ Hortus 
Kewensis.” 
