xx Sir William Jackson Hooker . 
artists in the Botanical Gardens of Calcutta under Dr. Rox- 
burgh’s directions. 
To his bitter disappointment this opportunity had to be 
put aside, for disturbances followed by a rebellion had broken 
out in Ceylon that would have rendered travelling in the 
island impossible. One more chance presented itself in 1813. 
Through his intercourse with Dr. Horsfield 1 , the Keeper of 
the India House Museum, his attention was turned to Java, 
where that officer had resided under Sir Stamford Raffles’s 
rule, and had made magnificent collections. Sir Joseph 
Banks encouraged the idea of his going there, and prevailed 
on Lord Bathurst, the President of the Board of Trade, to 
remunerate him if he would send living plants to Kew, and 
procure information regarding the cultivation of spice-bearing 
trees in the Dutch East Indies. But disappointment still 
pursued him. The climate of Java was reported to be 
notoriously malarious, and Banks’s own experience of it, as 
narrated in Cook’s ‘ First Voyage 2 ,’ was cited in evidence. For 
there, not only had Banks been extremely ill, but Dr. Solander 
had been at death’s door ; and Mr. Parkinson his artist, the 
two Otaheitans in his suite, Mr. Green the astronomer, 
Mr. Monkhouse the surgeon, and Mr. Spring had all died 
from the effect of the climate at or shortly after leaving 
Batavia. No wonder that the entreaties of his parents and 
friends prevailed, notwithstanding Banks’s well-founded as- 
surance that the climate of Java itself was as exceptionally 
good as that of Batavia was bad. My father was hence com- 
pelled to confine his wanderings to nearer home, adding 
gardening to his pursuits, and this with some success, for he was 
the first to flower Cattleya labiata in his little stove in 1818, 
and he also flowered Musa coccinea and other tropical plants. 
duplicates (exact copies) of the originals in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta. 
The reductions by my father occupy ten duodecimo volumes, also in the Kew Library. 
1 Thomas Horsfield, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., Keeper of the India House Museum, 
1820-59. For a sketch of his travels see Brown and Bennett, Plantae Javanicae 
Rariores, postscript, pp. i-xvi. 
2 The Endeavour lost, from malarial fever or its effects, seven persons in 
Batavia, and twenty-five after leaving that port. 
