Joseph Banks. Patrick O’Brian

by a complicated series of successions from that Duke of Buckingham and Normanby who married an illegitimate daughter of James II, estates which had belonged to the Sheffield earls of Mulgrave, the duke’s ancestors, for a great while, so that when Mr Phipps senior was raised to the peerage in 1767 he too chose Mulgrave for his title, a title that his son Constantine inherited some years later.

      In 1766 however Constantine had neither a title nor yet a ship; like so many of his fellows in time of peace he was a half-pay lieutenant, thrown on the beach. But he was a most ardent sailor, and given his zeal, outstanding competence and outstanding connections, it was not surprising to find him entrusted with a naval mission to Newfoundland in that same year. Nor was it surprising that Banks should undertake to go with him, both of them travelling in HMS Niger.

      The Treaty of Paris, ending the war in 1763, had transferred Canada, among many other territories, to Great Britain, but it had left France certain fishing rights on the Banks, and in the season very large numbers of French fishermen mingled with the English, Spanish and Portuguese. There was continual disagreement, and serious trouble was prevented only by the presence of a small naval force, based on St John’s. The Niger, a thirty-two gun frigate commanded by Sir Thomas Adams, was part of this force, and she sailed from Plymouth on 22 April 1766, with the wind at east-north-east.

      The captain of a man-of-war might carry friends if he chose, so long as he fed them himself – Commodore Keppel, for example, took the young Joshua Reynolds to the Mediterranean in 1749; and many captains had young ladies for company – but Banks was not aboard as the captain’s guest and his presence certainly had a great deal to do with his friendship with Lord Sandwich, who had been First Lord of the Admiralty some time before and who was to be First Lord again some time later, just as his equipment owed much to his acquaintance with Solander, that experienced Lapland naturalist.

      The Niger, of course, did not sail as early as might have been wished, but this allowed Banks and Phipps to botanize round Mount Edgcombe, where among other things they found wild madder, Rubia angelica, and stinking gladwin, Iris foetidissima, in peculiar abundance, and deadly nightshade, Atropa belladonna, among the rocks; and they observed swallows for the first time that year. They thought they had found the radical leaves of the field eryngo, Eryngium campestre, but were not quite certain. Yet when at last the delays were over and the wind came fair, the Niger set off at a splendid pace, so that by noon the next day they were well out into the Atlantic, twelve leagues beyond the Scillies.

      The first few days yielded little but seaweed, a young shark that did not stay to be fished up, and some shoals of porpoises; then the freshening breeze made Banks so ill that he could not write. It does not appear that Phipps was seasick, but whether or no, they were both well and active by the end of April: both, for although Phipps was an ardent sailor, he, like his uncle and so many other naval officers, was no mere seaman. Not only was he a capital astronomer and mathematician, but he was as eager as Banks to haul a jellyfish aboard, identify a sea bird or trail a fine-meshed net for plankton: indeed, it is to the somewhat older Phipps that we owe the first scientific description of the polar bear, Thalarctos maritimus (Phipps) and the ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea (Phipps), both of them encountered in a voyage to the far north in which he was accompanied by the fifteen-year-old Nelson, who also attempted to collect a bear.

      Perhaps the best way of dealing with their crossing and with Banks’s journeys in Newfoundland and Labrador is to give large extracts from the journal he kept. A paraphrase might in some ways be clearer and easier to read, but the journal brings one directly into touch with Banks; it also serves as an introduction to his style, which is at first a little disconcerting. Some editors have improved him, making him write more like a Christian, but it seems to me that one should not alter a text and except for the occasional silent correction of an obvious slip of the pen I give Banks unchanged. Yet it must be admitted that printing his manuscript just as he wrote it has disadvantages: cold print differs essentially from a page written by hand, and its inhuman precision makes Banks’s way of writing seem wilder and more outlandish than it really is; for when one reads his papers, particularly his correspondence, one soon grows used to the rather flourishing letters that may or may not be capitals, and one’s eye, helped by vague flecks and dashes of the pen, readily supplies the wanting stops, which is harder to do in the formality of print. The result is that to begin with the printed page gives the impression of someone not very wise nor very highly educated speaking at a breakneck pace, rather like Miss Bates or Flora Finching; but one soon gets accustomed to it; one soon sees the strong good sense beneath the strange exterior; and even if at times one does stumble for a moment, it is at least a genuine Banksian obstacle that interrupts one’s course.

      The journal from which I quote is in Adelaide, in the library of the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geographic Society of Australia, and it was edited with the utmost scholarship and with infinite pains by the late Dr Averil Lysaght. She provided a great deal of background material, valuable notes and identification, and when the scientific names of plants or animals have changed she gave the modern versions. With her publishers’ permission I have made the freest use of her splendidly illustrated book Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766: His Diary, Manuscripts and Collections, and if I have not also transcribed her scientific names or notes it is because I wish to give the pristine Banks; but the zoologist or botanist concerned with North American fauna or flora must certainly turn to Dr Lysaght and her constellation of expert advisers.

      This chapter, then, will be written by Joseph Banks, with short connecting pieces and an occasional footnote on some particular eighteenth-century usage that may not be quite familiar, such as penguin for auk or blubber for jellyfish. It will begin with the first entry for the month of May 1766, and it will be printed as Banks wrote it except that I leave out the numbers referring to the plants and animals collected whenever they do not form a kind of punctuation: some entries will be silently omitted, but even so I hope that what is included will give a balanced picture of the whole, which, in its two manuscript volumes, runs to about 22,000 words.

      May 3 Today a calm fish’d with a landing net out of the Quarter Gallery window. Caught sea weed, Fucus acinarius, with fruit like Currants on slight Footstalks & Common Knotted Fucus, Fucus Nodosus also two species of what the seamen call Blubbers the one roundish and Transparent with his Edges a little Fringed the inside is hollow adornd with 4 little Clusters of Red spots within the Transparent substances Possibly Eggs from the Center Proceeds 4 feelers spotted from their bases with Longish Red Spotts and each Edged on the upper side with 2 thin Membranes the other is Conical and hollow the outer Part Transparent the inner coverd by a thin Coat of Reddish Purple which Runs up beyond the top of the Hollow Part in a line not unlike the footstalk of some Fruit the Bottom Edge seems to be broke by some accident

      4 today being also very fine the business of fishing is Continued we now took what we hope will Prove a compleat Specimen of No (1) it has a large Crenated Fringe round the Lower Edges we also took another Fragment much like that taken yesterday within each of the Broken ones was an appearance which we supposed to be of an Insect devouring it

      one Part of this morn the sea was Coverd with small Transparent Bubbles which we supposed to be the spawn of some insect or fish as they were full of small Black specks

      we also took another insect of a very Peculiar appearance his Case is triangular with a very Sharp Point of a Transparent substance not unlike very thin Glass the insect within is of a Colour not unlike New Copper

      6 Yesterday & today hard Gale of wind with Frequent and some heavy Squalls Carried away Main top Mast Myself far too sick to write

      7 This Morn Weather much more moderate a number of Birds are about the ship which the seamen call Penguins Gulls Shearwaters one species of them with sharp tails Puffins and Sea Pigeons^* we could not get any of them tho we took Pains we Comforted ourselves however being told that we should meet with them all upon the Coast at Present they are a sign that we are upon the Banks

8 Birds Continue today in great abundance especially Puffins and Sea Pigeons at twelve Sound¹ & find 75 fathoms Birds Continue at 6 sound again 50 fathoms Let down our fishing Lines but Caught