The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. Richard Holmes
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Her sudden outburst of piety suggests how vividly she realised the dangers that her beloved brother had consistently played down, but barely survived. On his behalf she fondly (and unavailingly) promised that he would mend his ways and his Christian faith. She could pledge that he was well-intentioned, and was one of those who ‘according to their Faith, use their best Endeavours, far as in their power they can, to do the Will of the Supreme Being’.66 Sophia may well have had reason to worry about Banks’s state of mind. He spent a fortnight recovering on the family estate in Lincolnshire, but spoke little about his experiences, even to Sophia. He walked, ate, shot and slept; then ate and slept again.
On his return to London he made no attempt to get in touch with Harriet Blosset, though James Lee and Harriet’s mother clearly assumed that an engagement would be announced. It was obvious now that, whatever else, his experiences had left Banks utterly unfit for a quiet, regular, married life. Some evidence for this comes indirectly from a gossiping friend of Thomas Pennant’s. Even if not entirely accurate, it seems to reflect something of Banks’s disturbed state of mind. ‘Upon his arrival in England [Banks] took no sort of notice of Miss Blosset for the first week or nearly so…On this Miss Blosset set out for London and wrote him a letter desiring an interview of explanation. To this Mr Banks answered by a letter of 2 or 3 sheets, professing love etc but that he found he was of too volatile a temper to marry.’ They did have at least one painful meeting, when Harriet is reported to have wept and ‘swooned’.67
Further gossip was being reported by the novelist Fanny Burney and Lady Mary Coke in August. The story of the waistcoats provided much amusement. ‘Mr Morris was excessively drole according to custom; and said he hoped Mr Banks, who since his return has desired Miss Blosset will excuse his marrying her, will pay her for the materials of all the worked waistcoats she made for him during the time he was sailing round the world.’68
There was some talk of broken promises and scandal. One wit suggested that Banks should be ‘immediately placed in the Stocks…for this injury’.69 A friend of James Lee’s, Dr Robert Thornton, later claimed that Banks had given Harriet an engagement ring before he set out, and had made ‘many solemn vows’ which he now callously reneged on. In Thornton’s view it was the alluring women of Tahiti, with their free sexual practices, who had corrupted Banks’s feelings and destroyed his morals. ‘Some people are ill-natured enough to say that, vitiated in his taste by seeing the elegant women of Otaheite, who must indeed have something very peculiar in their natures to captivate such a man, upon his return, Mr Banks came indeed to see the young lady and the plants; but she found her lover now preferred a flower, or even a butterfly, to her superior charms.’ For Harriet the three-year wait ended in ‘a most mortifying disappointment’.70
But perhaps it was more a relief. The kindly Solander, who knew and liked Harriet and her mother, and had of course witnessed Banks’s anthropological behaviour in Tahiti, gently intervened and advised both parties not to proceed.71 Banks privately offered Harriet’s guardian James Lee a ‘substantial’ sum of money, which was accepted as a form of dowry for her future. The amount was rumoured to be £5,000 (half the sum he had previously laid out on the expedition), which suggests that Banks was not in the least callous, but felt more than ordinary guilt; though he could well afford to be generous. Harriet Blosset soon after made a happy marriage with a virtuous and botanical clergyman, Dr Dessalis, and was ‘blessed by a numerous and lovely family’.72
Rumours about Banks’s behaviour with Tahitian girls continued to spread in London for a number of months. Whether it was really this that determined him to break off with Miss Blosset (or she with him) is not clear. Satirical poems, fictional ‘letters’ and amusing cartoons certainly began to circulate, in which Banks’s subtropical butterfly net and microscope were put to suggestive use. In one cartoon he was shown chasing a beautiful butterfly labelled ‘Miss Bl…’.
Whatever the truth of these stories, it is clear that Banks was a changed man on his return to England, and it took him several years to settle back into conventional modes of behaviour. But sudden fame may have been even more unsettling than his unresolved affair with Harriet Blosset. On his return to London, Banks found to his immense surprise that the expedition was being greeted as a national triumph. Alongside Captain Cook, he and Solander were being treated as celebrities.
On 10 August they were summoned to meet the King at Windsor. For Banks the formal interview turned into a long ramble round Windsor Great Park, the first of many. Royal interest in the botanical possibilities of Kew Gardens promised great things. Moreover a real friendship quickly formed between George III, aged thirty-three, and Banks, aged twenty-eight. Both men owned large landed estates, were fascinated by agriculture and science, and were embarked on public careers, young and full of hope.
Banks and Solander next spent a debriefing weekend with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, at his country retreat. Then they were formally congratulated and repeatedly dined by the Royal Society. In November they were awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Oxford. Linnaeus wrote in Banks’s praise: ‘I cannot sufficiently admire Mr Banks who has exposed himself to so many dangers and has bestowed more money in the services of Natural History than any other man. Surely none but an Englishman would have the spirit to do what he has done.’73
The newspapers and monthlies-the Westminster Journal, the Gentleman’s Magazine, Bingley’s Journal-printed articles on their adventures, and dinner invitations started to pour in. Though Captain Cook was praised, Banks and Solander had rapidly become the scientific lions. They had brought back over a thousand new plant specimens, over five hundred animal skins and skeletons, and innumerable native artefacts. They had brought back new worlds: Australia, New Zealand, but above all the South Pacific.
London society was agog. Lady Mary Coke wrote in her diary: ‘The most talked of at present are Messers Banks and Solander. I saw them at Court, and afterwards at Lady Hertford’s but did not hear them give any account of their voyage round the world which I am told is very amusing.’74 Dr Johnson gravely discussed ‘culling simples’ with Banks, and offered to write a Latin motto for the ship’s goat. He thought a ‘happier pen’ than his might even write an epic poem on the expedition. Shortly afterwards Banks was elected to Johnson’s exclusive Club.75 Boswell, biographer’s pen in hand, had a ‘great curiosity’ to see the ‘famous Mr Banks’. He described him as ‘a genteel young man, very black, and of an agreeable countenance, easy and communicative, without any affectation or appearance of assuming’.76
Sir Joshua Reynolds painted a dashing portrait of Banks in his study, his dark hair suitably wild and unpowdered, his fur-lined jacket flung open, his waistcoat unbuttoned, a loose pile of papers from his journal under one hand, and a large globe at his elbow. The rousing inscription was from Horace: Cras Ingens Iterabimus Aequor-Tomorrow We’ll Sail the Vasty Deep Once More.
Everyone was awaiting an official written account of the great voyage. From the time of Hakluyt such travelogues had been immensely popular, and this one was impatiently anticipated. But one of the terms of the Endeavour expedition was that all journals and diaries would be surrendered at the end of the voyage, and submitted to an official historian. The journals of Cook and Banks, the papers and botanical notes of Solander, the precious drawings of Buchan and Parkinson, were accordingly all handed over to a professional author, who was to prepare a three-volume account for the sum of £600.
The man chosen was fifty-six-year-old Dr John Hawkesworth, a literary scholar and professional journalist. He was evidently considered a safe pair of hands, having