The youngster was then little more than beginning his career at Oxford, whither he had recently come from Eton, though his schooling had been begun at Harrow. |Early years of Sir Joseph Banks.| He was ‘lord of himself,’ and of a fine fortune, at the critical age of eighteen. To many, such an inheritance, under like circumstances, has brought misery. To Joseph Banks, it brought noble means for the prosecution of a noble aim. It was the ambition of this young Etonian—not to eclipse jockies, or to dazzle the eyes of fools, but—to tread in the footsteps of Linnæus. Rich, hardy, and handsome in person, sanguine in temperament, and full of talent, he resolved that, for some years to come, after leaving the University, the life that might so easily be brimmed with enjoyments should incur many privations and face many hardships, in order to win both knowledge and the power of benefiting the Public by its communication. That object of early ambition, it will be seen, was abundantly realised in the after-years.
There is no reason to think that a resolution, not often formed at such an age as eighteen, was come to in the absence of temptation to a different course. Banks was no ascetic. Nor was it his fortune, at any time, to live much with ascetics. One of his earliest friends was that Lord Sandwich[[19]] whose memory now chiefly connects itself with the unsavoury traditions of Medmenham Abbey, and with the peculiar pursuits in literature of John Wilkes. With Sandwich he spent many of the bright days of youth in fishing on Whittlesea Mere. Banks had the good fortune—and the skill—to make his early acquaintanceship with the future First Lord of the Admiralty conducive to the interests of science. The connexion with the Navy of another friend of his youth, Henry Phipps, afterwards Earl of Mulgrave, was also turned, eventually, to good account in the same way.
Part of young Banks’ vacations were passed at Reresby and in frequent companionship with Lord Sandwich; part at his mother’s jointure-house at Chelsea, very near to the fine botanic garden which, a few years before, had been so much enriched by the liberality of Sir Hans Sloane. In that Chelsea garden, and in other gardens at Hammersmith, Banks studied botany with youthful ardour. And he made frequent botanic excursions in the then secluded neighbourhood. In the course of one of these rambles he fell under suspicion of felony.
Banks’ youthful adventure near Hammersmith.
He was botanizing in a ditch, and his person happened to be partially concealed by a thick growth of briars and nettles, at a moment when two or three constables, who were in chase of a burglar, chanced to approach the spot. The botanist’s clothes were in a miry condition, and his suspicious posture excited in the minds of the local Dogberries the idea that here they had their man. They were deaf to all expostulations. The future President of the Royal Society was dragged, by ignominious hands, before the nearest justice. The magistrate agreed with the constables that the case looked black, but, before committing either the prisoner or himself, he directed that the culprit’s pockets should be searched. They contained little money, and no watches; but an extraordinary abundance of plants and wild flowers. The explanations which before had been refused were now accepted, and very courteous apologies were tendered to the victim of an excess of official zeal. But the awkwardness of the adventure failed to deter the sufferer from his eager pursuit, in season and out of it, of his darling science. A botanist he was to be.
He left Oxford in 1763, and almost instantly set out on a scientific voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador. |The first Voyage of Exploration to Newfoundland and Labrador.| Here he laid the first substantial groundwork of his future collections in natural history. He sailed with Phipps, who was already a captain in the Navy, and had been charged with the duty of protecting the Newfoundland fisheries. |1763.| The voyage proved to be one of some hardship, but its privations rather sharpened than dulled the youthful naturalist’s appetite for scientific explorations. He had learned thus early to endure hardness, for a worthy object.
The second Voyage;—to the South Seas.
His second voyage was to the South Seas, and it was made in company with the most famous of the large band of eighteenth century maritime discoverers—James Cook, |1768.| and also with a favourite pupil of Linnæus (the idol of Banks’ youthful fancy), Daniel Charles Solander, who, though he was little above thirty years of age, had already won some distinction in England, and had been made an Assistant-Librarian in the British Museum.[[20]]
To make the voyage of The Endeavour as largely conducive as was possible to the interests of the natural sciences, Mr. Banks incurred considerable personal expense, and he induced the Admiralty to make large efforts, on its part, to promote and secure the various objects of the new expedition. One of those objects was the observation at Otaheite of a coming transit of Venus over the Sun; another was the further progress of geographical discovery in a quarter of the world to which public interest was at that time specially and strongly turned. Banks, individually, was also bent on collecting specimens in all departments of natural history, and on promoting geographical knowledge by the completest possible collection of drawings, maps, and charts of all that was met with. He engaged Dr. Solander as his companion, and gave him a salary of four hundred pounds a year. With them sailed two draughtsmen and a secretary, besides four servants.
The Botanical Explorations at Terra-del-Fuego.