222 
SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 
When Lord Amherst’s Embassy were on their return from China, Dr. Abel 
and Dr. Macloud had an interview with the fallen and once great and terrible 
Napoleon ; he enquired if the doctors hail been recommended to their appoint- 
ments by Sir Joseph Banks. Dr. Abel said he had not; Napoleon expressed 
surprise, and said he had always thought that the British Government consulted 
Sir Joseph Banks in all appointments regarding natural history, and that Sir 
Joseph Banks was so popular in France that his name would have been a passport 
of welcome throughout the French nation. 
The above is recorded in Dr. Macloud’s history of the voyage and loss of the 
^‘Alceste” frigate.* 
Following is a letter to the author from Captain J. H. Watson, a 
Vice-President of the Australian Historical Society : — 
Whilst listening to your most interesting paper on “ Sir Joseph Banks,” I was 
reminded of my boyhood’s days. At Plymout''., where I was born and spent 
my early life, the boys at school had a favourite way of expressing themselves 
when one of their number eclipsed his fellows. The one who climbed the highest 
tree, or who took the best back at leap-frog, or “ Hy-the-garter,” or in any other 
way distinguished himself, was a “ Jolly Joe Banks.” This would he in the late 
’40’s or early ’50’s. Banks would then have been dead 25 to 30 years, but 
whether there is any connection between that expression and him I cannot say 
I think it is very probable that here we have testimony to the high 
opinion in which the name of Banks was held. 
An unstinted eulogy was pronounced by Cuviert before the Academie Royale 
des Sciences in the April following the death of Banks. In this he testifies to 
the generous intervention of Banks on behalf of foreign naturalists. When the 
collections made by Labillardiere dining D’Entrecasteaux’s expedition, fell by 
fortune of war into British hands, and were brought to England, Banks hastened 
to send them back to France without having even glanced at them, writing to 
M. de Jussieu that he would not steal a single botanic idea from those who had 
gone in peril of their lives to get them. Ten times were parcels addressed to the 
Royal Gardens in Paris, wliich had been captured by English cruisers. J 
We will let him rest with this beautiful tribute, the force of which 
is understood by every scientific man. 
• Suttor’s “ Life of Banks. ” 
t Eloge historique de sir Joiepli Banks, lu le 2 Avril, 1821, by Cuvier before the Natioua 1 
Institute of France ; is recopied in Suttor’s work, pp. 53-80. See also an earlier eulogy by M. Biot, 
quoted by Weld, ii, 271. 
t “ Diet. Nat. Biogr.” See also Weld, ii, 117. 
