# Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks

Journal of the primary naturalist on the first voyage of James Cook. Abridged first publication of the journal, 125 years after it was written.
JOURNAL
OF THE
RIGHT HON. SIR JOSEPH BANKS
Swan Electric Engraving Company.
The Right Hon$^{ble}$ Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. K.B. P.R.S. From a Portrait by Thomas Phillips r.a. in the possession of the Royal Society of London.
JOURNAL of THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOSEPH BANKS BART., K.B., P.R.S.
DURING CAPTAIN COOK'S FIRST VOYAGE IN H.M.S. ENDEAVOUR IN 1768-71 TO TERRA DEL FUEGO, OTAHITE, NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, THE DUTCH EAST INDIES, ETC.
Edited by
SIR JOSEPH D. HOOKER
With Portraits and Charts
London MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. 1896
All rights reserved
To
Rear-Admiral J. W. L. Wharton, C.B., F.R.S., &c. &c.
Hydrographer of the Admiralty
My dear Admiral—Allow me to dedicate to you, as the able Editor of Captain Cook's Journal of his first voyage round the world, that of his fellow-voyager Sir Joseph Banks, in token of the great assistance afforded me through your labour on the aforesaid work, and as the efficient and accomplished tenant of an office for which I have ever entertained a profound respect, that of Hydrographer of the Admiralty.
Let me at the same time take the opportunity of coupling with your name my tribute to the memory of three of your predecessors, who honoured me with their friendship, and encouraged me in my scientific career as an officer in the service to which you belong—Admiral Sir F. Beaufort, Admiral Washington, and Captain Sir F. Evans.
Believe me, Very sincerely yours,
J. D. HOOKER.
    The Camp, Sunningdale, May 1896.
PREFACE
My principal motive for editing the Journal kept by Sir Joseph Banks during Lieutenant Cook's first voyage round the world is to give prominence to his indefatigable labours as an accomplished observer and ardent collector during the whole period occupied by that expedition, and thus to present him as the pioneer of those naturalist voyagers of later years, of whom Darwin is the great example.
This appears to me to be the more desirable, because in no biographical notice of Banks are his labours and studies as a working naturalist adequately set forth. Indeed, the only allusion I can find to their literally enormous extent and value is in the interesting letter from Linnæus to Ellis, which will be found on p. xl. In respect of Cook's first voyage this is in a measure due to the course pursued by Dr. Hawkesworth in publishing the account of the expedition, when Banks, with singular disinterestedness, placed his Journal in that editor's hands, with permission to make what use of it he thought proper. The result was that Hawkesworth selected only such portions as would interest ​the general public, incorporating them with Cook's Journal, often without allusion to their author, and not unfrequently introducing into them reﬂections of his own as being those of Cook or of Banks. Fortunately the recent publication by Admiral Wharton of Cook's own Journal has helped to rectify this, for any one comparing the two narratives can have no difﬁculty in recognising the source whence Hawkesworth derived his information.
Another motive for editing Banks's Journal is to emphasise the important services which its author rendered to the expedition. It needs no reading between the lines of the great navigator's Journal, to discover his estimation of the ability of his companion, of the value of his researches, and of the importance of his active co-operation on many occasions. It was Banks who rapidly mastered the language of the Otahitans and became the interpreter of the party, and who was the investigator of the customs, habits, etc., of these and of the natives of New Zealand. It was often through his activity that the commissariat was supplied with food. He was on various occasions the thief-taker, especially in the case of his hazardous expedition for the recovery of the stolen quadrant, upon the use of which, in observing the transit of Venus across the sun's disc, the success of the expedition so greatly depended. And, above all, it is to Banks's forethought and at his own risk that an Otahitan man and boy were taken on board, through whom Banks directed, when in New Zealand, those inquiries into the customs of its inhabitants, which are the ​foundation of our knowledge of that interesting people. And when it is considered that the information obtained was at comparatively few points, and those on the coast only, the fulness and accuracy of the description of the New Zealanders, even as viewed in the light of modern knowledge, are very remarkable. Nor should it be forgotten that it was to the drawings made by the artists whom Banks took in his suite that the public is indebted for the magnificent series of plates that adorn Hawkesworth's account of the voyage. Still another motive is, that Banks's Journal gives a life-like portrait of a naturalist's daily occupation at sea and ashore nearly one hundred and thirty years ago; and thus supplements the history of a voyage which, for extent and importance of geographic and hydrographic results, was unique and "to the English nation the most momentous voyage of discovery that has ever taken place" (Wharton's Cook, Preface), and which has, moreover, directly led to the prosperity of the Empire; for it was owing to the reports of Cook and Banks, and, it is believed, to the representations of the latter on the advantages of Botany Bay as a site for a settlement, that Australia was first colonised.
The following brief history of the Journal itself is interesting. On Sir J. Banks's death without issue in 1820, his property and effects passed to the Hugessen (his wife's) family, with the exception of the library, herbarium, and the lease of the house in Soho Square. These were left to his librarian, the late eminent botanist, Robert Brown, F.R.S., with the proviso that after that gentleman's death, the library and herbarium were to go to the British Museum. Banks's papers and correspondence, including the Journal of the voyage of the Endeavour, were then placed by the trustees in Mr. Brown’s hands, with the object of his writing a Life of Banks, which he had agreed to do. Age and infirmities, however, interfered with his prosecution of this ​work, and at his suggestion the materials were transferred with the same object to my maternal grandfather, Dawson Turner, F.R.S., an eminent botanist and antiquarian, who had been a friend of Banks. Mr. Turner at once had the whole faithfully transcribed, but for which precaution the Journal would as a whole have been irretrievably lost, as the sequel will show. Beyond having copies of the manuscript made, Mr. Turner seems to have done nothing towards the Life, and after a lapse of some years the originals were returned, together with the copies, to Mr. Knatchbull Hugessen, who placed them in the hands of the late Mr. Bell, Secretary of the Royal Society, in the hopes that he would undertake to write the Life. For their subsequent wanderings and the ultimate fate of many portions, I am indebted to Mr. Carruthers, F.R.S., late Keeper of the Botanical Collections at the British Museum, who has favoured me with the following interesting letter concerning them:—
British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, South Kensington, S.W., 14th July 1893.
Dear Sir Joseph—Since I saw you about the Journal of Sir Joseph Banks in Captain Cook's Voyage, I have been making further inquiries regarding the original document.
The Banksian Journal and correspondence were sent to the Botanical Department, after correspondence with Mr. Knatchbull Hugessen, to remain in my keeping till the death of Lady Knatchbull, when it would become the property of the trustees. I was instructed to deposit it in the Manuscript Department. This was in October 1873. Some time thereafter I persuaded Mr. Daydon Jackson to look at the correspondence with the view of preparing a biography of Banks. This he agreed to do. I wrote to Mr. Bell, who informed me in a letter written 14th February 1876, that he had tried to get Lord ​Stanhope to undertake the biography, when he found that he could not himself face it, and thereafter Mr. Colquhoun and then Mr. John Ball, F.R.S. I obtained from the box, by leave from Mr. Bond, then Keeper of MSS., in the beginning of 1876, the transcripts made for Mr. Dawson Turner by his two daughters, which have remained under my care in the Botanical Department.
The story of the originals after I parted with them is a distressing one. Some seven or eight years ago Lord Brabourne claimed the letters as his property. Mr. Maunde Thompson remonstrated, and told him that they were to remain in the museum till the death of Lady Knatchbull, and then they were to become the property of the trustees. Lord Brabourne would not accept this view, but claimed them as his own, and carried off the box and its contents. They were afterwards offered to the museum for sale, but the price offered by the Keeper of the MSS. was not satisfactory, and the whole collection was broken up into lots, 207, and sold by auction at Sotheby's on 14th April 1886. The Journal of Cook's voyage was lot 176, and was described in the catalogue as "Banks's (Sir Joseph) Journal of a Voyage to the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand, from March 1769 to July 1771, in the autograph of Banks." It was purchased by an autograph dealer, John Waller, for £7:2:6. Mr. Britten has gone to Waller's to inquire after the Journal. Waller did not specially remember that purchase, and he does not believe he has got the manuscript. So where it is now no one knows. As you will see, the earlier portion of the Journal was missing in the lot sold. Waller bought in all 57 lots. The letters were broken up and sold as autographs; those that he purchased and did not know, like those of Brass, Nelson, Alex. Anderson, etc., and were of no money value, he would probably at once destroy, so he told Mr. Britten. So now all is gone—for whether the letters are preserved by autograph collectors, or were at once thrown into the wastepaper basket, they are equally lost to science. The 207 lots realised in all £182:19s.!
The result is that the Journal and letters transcribed for Dawson Turner, and now here, are the only ones available. I am thankful they have been saved out of the catastrophe.
Your transcriber is diligently at work.—I am, faithfully yours,
Wm. Carruthers.
* ↑ Dr. Hawkesworth devotes his "Introduction to the First Voyage" almost exclusively to the services which Banks rendered, and gratefully acknowledges that all such details as are not directly connected with navigation are extracted from the diary of that naturalist. But for the purpose of identifying the work of each observer this is insufficient, and barely does justice to the second of the two authors, who is in reality responsible for the greater portion of the book. In reference to Hawkesworth being employed as editor of Cook's Journal, the following passage is extracted from Prior's Life of Malone:—"Hawkesworth, the writer, was introduced by Garrick to Lord Sandwich, who, thinking to put a few hundred pounds into his pocket, appointed him to revise and publish Cook's Voyages. He scarcely did anything to the MSS., yet sold it to Cadell and Strahan, the printer and bookseller, for £6000. . . ."
* ↑ Captain Cook's Journal during his First Voyage round the World in H. M. Bark "Endeavour," 1768-71, with Notes and Introduction by Captain W. J. L. Wharton, R.N., F.R.S., Hydrographer of the Admiralty.
* ↑ It was when on a visit to my grandfather in 1833 that I first saw the original Journal in Banks's handwriting. It was then being copied, and I was employed to verify the copies of the earlier part by comparison with the original. I well remember being as a boy fascinated with the Journal, and I never ceased to hope that it might one day be published.
* ↑ That is some time after leaving Rio, and before arriving at Otahite.
* ↑ I have since ascertained that the Journal came into the possession of J. Henniker Heaton, Esq., M.P., who informs me that he disposed of it to a gentleman in Sydney, N.S.W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
England to Rio de Janeiro
CHAPTER II
Rio de Janeiro
CHAPTER III
Rio to Terra del Fuego
CHAPTER IV
Terra del Fuego to Otahite
CHAPTER V
Otahite
CHAPTER VI
Otahite to Oheteroa
CHAPTER VII
General Account of the South Sea Islands
CHAPTER VIII
South Sea Islands to New Zealand (Thames River)
CHAPTER IX
Circumnavigation of New Zealand
CHAPTER X
General Account of New Zealand
CHAPTER XI
New Zealand to Australia (Endeavour River)
CHAPTER XII
Australia (Endeavour River) to Torres Straits
CHAPTER XIII
Some Account of that Part of New Holland Now Called New South Wales
CHAPTER XIV
Australia to Savu Island
CHAPTER XV
Description of Savu
CHAPTER XVI
Savu Island to Batavia
CHAPTER XVII
Description of Batavia
CHAPTER XVIII
Batavia to Cape of Good Hope
CHAPTER XIX
Cape of Good Hope to England
PORTRAITS
CHARTS