SIR JOSEPH BANKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20208, 19 March 1929, Page 11

SIR JOSEPH BANKS.

EARLY DAYS IN SYDNEY.

ILLUMINATING LETTERS

[from our own correspondent.] LONDON, Feb. 5. A salo of the dossier known as the Sir Joseph Banks Papers, is to be held in May next at Sotheby's. It was Banks who fitted out Endeavour for Captain Cook's first voyage in 1768-71, and Cook paid tribute to him when ho named Banks Peninsula. Sydney took good heed that its National Library should acquire, some years ago, Banks' manuscript account of this nieniorablo voyage, and further, in 1923, tho library bought also, at £SOOO, one of the manuscript journals of this first voyage by Cook himself, an indication of tho privilege possessed by the Royal Library at Windsor and by tho Public Record Office, in which copies are proudly harbouicd.

Thcro are nevertheless many letters and documents in th cpapers to be offered which arc of great interest. Banks was frequently consulted by the Government as to the appointments of governors, and, as these were his friends and his nominees, they frequently wrote to him oa scientific and other subjects of interest. Thus, on Juno 1, 1799, John Hunter, Governor of New South Wales, writes to Banks describing a drought lasting 10 months being followed by severe Hoods, and proceeds to announce the discovery of Bass Strait, which had not been seen by Cook. The explorer's own letter detailing the finding of the "strait which divides Van Deimcn's Land from New South Wales," is also included. Great interest attaches to the correspondence of that celebrated Governor, Admiral William Bligh, memorable iu naval annals for having been cast adrift by the mutinous crew of the Bounty. Bligh's spelling is occasionally amusing and in an early letter, after succeeding Governor King, he states: "After my commission was read, I took the reigns (sic) into my own hands."