INTRODUCTION 
XVII 
Banks’s intentions. He therefore did the best thing possible in 
the circumstances, and left the Colonial collections, of which he had 
been permitted to retain the charge, the papers relating to them, 
and his library to the safe custody of the British Museum. The 
fortunes of Kew were now at their lowest ebb. During the two 
succeeding reigns it was almost abandoned by the occupants of the 
throne. But for the filial affection of John Smith, the curator, 
the living plants might have perished. At the accession of Queen 
Victoria the establishment seemed a mere encumbrance to the Crown ; 
the bulk of it had degenerated into a game preserve ; it only re • 
mained to distribute the collections to seal its fate. 
But Banks had not laboured wholly in vain. The English scien- 
tific world was outspoken in its protests. These ultimately reached 
the throne, and the memory of the Princess of Saxe-Gotha, Kew’s 
first founder, perhaps turned the scale in its favour. Kew, pheenix- 
like, rose again from its ashes. The Government, of course, appointed 
a committee to give it some constitution. The report was presented 
to Parliament and given to the new director in 1841 for his guidance 
and in some sort as a charter. This was the kernel of its recom- 
mendations : — 
A national garden ought to be the centre round which 
all minor establishments of the same nature should be 
arranged . . . receiving their supplies, and aiding the 
Mother Country in everything that is useful in the vegetable 
kingdom. Medicine, commerce, agriculture, horticulture, 
and many valuable branches of manufacture, would derive 
much benefit from the adoption of such a system. From a 
garden of this kind, Government would be able to obtain 
authentic and official information on points connected with 
the founding of new colonies : it would afford the plants 
these required. 
This scheme contained the germ of every branch of Kew’s ulti- 
mate expansion and development. The vast herbarium came into 
