Tuesday, but he was writing this part of his journal from memory, whereas Cook’s log, a daily record of events, gives the later date, which is surely more probable) and although there is no evidence of their having met, naval etiquette required Cook to call upon Commodore Palliser and Sir Thomas Adams, and once he was aboard the Niger it is scarcely possible that he and Banks should not at least have exchanged a how do you do. Banks, however, though a zealous botanist, was no seer; his journal makes no mention of the encounter but goes on
It is very difficult to Compare one town with another tho that Probably is the Best way of Conveying the Idea St Johns however Cannot be Compard to any I have seen it is Built upon the side of a hill facing the Harbour Containing two or three hundred houses & near as many fish Flakes interspersed which in summer time must Cause a stench scarce to be supported thank heaven we were only there spring & fall before the fish were come to the Ground & after they were gone off
For dirt & filth of all Kinds St Johns may in my opinion Reign unrivald as it Far Exceeds any Fishing town I Ever saw in England here is no regular Street the houses being built in rows immediately adjoining to the Flakes Consequently no Pavement offals of Fish of all Kinds are strewd about The remains of The Irish mens chowder who you see making it skinning and gutting fish in Every Corner.
As Every thing here smells of fish so You cannot get any thing that does not Taste of it hogs Can scarce be Kept from it by any Care and When they have got it are by Far the Filthyest meat I ever Met with Poultry of all Kinds Ducks geese Fowls & Turkies infinitely more Fishy than the Worst tame Duck That Ever was sold For a wild one in Lincolnshire The Very Cows Eat the Fish offal & thus milk is Fishy This Last Particular indeed I have not met with myself but have been assured it is often the Case
While we remaind here I Employd some of my Time in searching for Plants but the Season was so far advanced that I could find none in Blossom by the Leaves & remains indeed I discovered that there were several here different from any I had seen to the northward the Leaves of Some I Collected but many were so far destroyd by the Cold that Even that was Impossible so that there remains a feild for any body who will Examine this And the more southern Part of the Island but I have Vanity enough to beleive that to the northward not many will be found to have Escapt my observation
12On the 28th of Octr we Left St Johns in our Passage to Lisbon where we arrived on the 17th on the fifth of Novr we had a very hard Gale of Wind of the Western Islands* which has almost ruind me in the Course of it we shipp’d a Sea which Stove in our Quarter & almost Filld the Cabbin with water in an instant where it washd backward & forward with such rapidity that it Broke in Peices Every chair & table in the Place among other things that Suffered my Poor Box of Seeds was one which was intirely demolish’d as was my Box of Earth with Plants in it which Stood upon deck
This disaster may to some degree account for Banks’s rather cross and censorious remarks about Portugal, where the Niger stayed for some weeks before going home, and about the Portuguese, who had no notion of gardening or of planting trees. “… their Taste in Gardening is more trifling than Can be Conceivd a Pond Scarce Large Enough for a frog to swim in the Sides of Which are lind with Glaz’d tiles and which has two or three fountains in it about as thick as a quill is their Greatest Ornament this with a few Close Walks of Myrtle and Vines & a Statue or two Placed on awkward Pedestals at the Entrance of the Walks make a Place that People are Carried to See.” But these few pages were written as a set piece, not in the true, day-by-day diary form that shows Banks at his best; and in any case they give a somewhat false impression, because in fact when he was not disapproving of Portuguese gardens and Popish magnificence he had quite a good time, becoming a member of the local natural history society and meeting English and Portuguese botanists, some of whom remained his friends for life.
Yet even if the loss of his seeds and some of his plants did combine with Portuguese cooking to depress his spirits for a while they certainly revived quite soon, for in spite of the storm, in spite of his long illness, and in spite of the shortness of his time in Newfoundland and Labrador, he reached home in January 1767 bearing specimens or exact records of at least 340 plants, 91 birds, many fishes and invertebrates, and a few mammals, including the porcupine, that at least began the voyage alive. He possessed the beginnings of a herbarium that was soon to become famous, together with a nascent reputation that was soon to enable him to take part in one of the most interesting voyages ever made by a natural philosopher; and in his absence he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a body of men who could appreciate his energy and his disinterested love of science at their true value.
* Black guillemots.
* Englée.
* A snow was a vessel very like a brig but with a third mast (or sometimes a horse) just abaft the mainmast for the trysail.
* The Azores.
1[Marginalia] Sounding upon the Banks
2[Marginalia] Island of Ice
3[Marginalia] Neighbourhood of St Johns
4[Marginalia] Petty Harbour
5[Marginalia] Croque
6[Marginalia] Inglie
7[Marginalia] Curlews came here August 9
8[Marginalia] Charadrias Pluvialis
9[Marginalia] Nfland Indians
10[Marginalia] Sam frye
11[Marginalia] Octr 10th
12[Marginalia] Octr 28
Chapter 3 THE ROYAL SOCIETY: SOLANDER: THE ENDEAVOUR VOYAGE
THE ROYAL SOCIETY of which Banks became a fellow in 1766 was a body of some 360 ordinary and 160 foreign members. It had increased greatly in size since the days when Wren, Boyle and a few of their friends discussed “the founding of a Colledge for the promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimentall Learning”, and if it had not increased proportionately in reputation this may be put down to the fact that men like Newton, Hooke and Halley are not to be found in every generation and to the ease with which candidates were elected: a wealthy Englishman was almost sure of success, particularly if he was also a peer, and so was a reasonably well recommended foreigner. Banks himself, though full of zeal for botany, had published nothing; and Lord Sandwich’s scientific zeal was confined to fishing, though indeed he was well disposed towards men of science and he was in a position to support their projects.
Yet with all its faults the Society was still a most respectable institution – the list of 1768, the first in which Banks’s
