i88 
SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 
Evidence of the desire of Banks to obtain information from as many 
reliable sources as possible is given in the following extract from his 
letter to Caley, of 30th August, 1804* * * § : — 
I am obliged to you for your opinions relative to the state of the colony. It 
is very convenient to me to learn these of other persons beside the Governor and 
those in authority. 
1. Captain John Hunter, R.N.i He was born at Leith, near Edinburgh, 
in 1737. He was the second Governor of New South Wales. From 
a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, July 31st, 1781, thanking him for thinking 
of the ram for his brother-in-law, Mr. Lambert, of Woodmanston, 
Surrey, the ram of the Spanish breed to be the father of Lord Derby’s 
flock, &c., it would appear that he knew Sir Joseph long before he came 
out to Port Jackson with Phillip in the First Fleet. 
Although few letters between Banks and Hunter appear to be extant, 
we know that Banks respected Hunter, and the latter posted Banks 
in regard to his troubles with the intriguing New South AVales officers, 
who were interested in hindering the moral welfare of the young colony. 
Banks to Hunter, 30th March, 1797, J gives an interesting account 
of himself : — 
I am a bird of peace. My business as an encourager of the transport of plants 
from one country to another is suspended during war, and then, as I am no 
politician, I am least employed when all other people are in hurry and bustle. 
Speaking of New South Wales, he adds, (and here we have a good 
instance of the way in which he used to put in a good word for the 
infant colony). 
The climate and soil are, in my opinion, superior to most which have yet been 
settled by Europeans. I have always maintained that assertion, grounded on 
my own experience, but have been uniformly contradicted except by Governor 
Phillip till your last favours have taken away all doubts from the minds of those 
who have been permitted to peruse them. 
And again, see the extract from the letter to the same, 1st February, 
1799,§ “Your colony .... deserves at their hands,” already 
quoted at p. 181. 
Banks does not figure much in the correspondence of Phillip and 
Hunter. Some of Phillip’s letters are in the collection of Mr. Alfred 
Lee (now in the Mitchell Library, Sydney). Banks to Hunter, in the 
letter of 1st February, 1799, || already quoted, says: — 
You have been very friendly in writing to me the very particular account I 
have received from you of the state of things in your colony. 
• Hist. Rec., V, 461. 
+ For a sketch ol his life see Bladen, Proc. Aust. Hist Soc., Pari 3. 
X Hist. Rec., iii, 202. 
§ lb., 532. 
II Ib., 532. 
