The Age of Wonder

by Richard Holmes

  The Tahitians’ simplicity and innocence (the question of theft aside) came out in innumerable ways, as for example in their attitude to alcohol: ‘Drink they have none but water and cocoa nut Juice, nor do they seem to have any method of Intoxication among them. Some there were who drank pretty freely of our liquors and in a few instances became very drunk but seemd far from pleasd with their intoxication, the individuals afterwards shunning a repitition of it instead of greedily desiring it as most Indians are said to do.’59

  The idea of sexual innocence proved more complicated for a European to accept: ‘All privacy is banishd even from those actions which the decency of Europaeans keep most secret: this no doubt is the reason why both sexes express the most indecent ideas in conversation without the least emotion; in this their language is very copious and they delight in such conversation beyond any other. Chastity indeed is but little valued especialy among the midling people; if a wife is found guilty of a breach of it her only punishment is a beating from her husband. Notwithstanding this some of the Eares or cheifs are I beleive perfectly virtuous.’

  What later came to be regarded as the most scandalous of all Tahitian customs, the young women’s seductive courtship dance, or ‘timorodee’, Banks describes with calm detachment and a certain amused appreciation: ‘Besides this they dance, especially the young girls whenever they can collect 8 or 10 together, singing most indecent words using most indecent actions and setting their mouths askew in a most extrordinary manner, in the practise of which they are brought up from their earlyest childhood. In doing this they keep time to a surprizing nicety, I might almost say as true as any dancers I have seen in Europe, tho their time is certainly much more simple. This excercise is however left off as soon as they arrive at Years of maturity. For as soon as ever they have formd a connection with a man they are expected to leave of Dancing Timorodee – as it is called.’60

  The only Tahitian practice that Banks found totally alien and repulsive was that of infanticide, which was used with regularity and without compunction as a form of birth control by couples who were not yet ready to support children. Banks could scarcely believe this, until he questioned several couples who freely admitted to destroying two or three children, showing not the slightest apparent guilt or regret. This was a different kind of innocence, one far harder to accept. Banks pursued the question, and found that the custom originated in the formation of communal groups in which sexual favours were freely exchanged between different partners: ‘They are calld Arreoy and have meetings among themselves where the men amuse themselves with wrestling &c. and the women with dancing the indecent dances before mentiond, in the course of which they give full liberty to their desires.’

  He also found that the Arreoy, and the custom of infanticide, owed their existence ‘chiefly to the men’. ‘A Woman howsoever fond she may be of the name of Arreoy, and the liberty attending it before she conceives, generaly desires much to forfeit that title for the preservation of her child.’ But in this decision he thought that the women had not the smallest influence. ‘If she cannot find a man who will own it, she must of course destroy it; and if she can, with him alone it lies whether or not it shall be preserv’d.’ In that case both the man and the woman forfeited their place in the Arreoy, and the sexual freedoms associated with it. Moreover, the woman became known by the term ‘Whannownow’, or bearer of children. This was, as Banks indignantly exclaimed, ‘a title as disgracefull among these people, as it ought to be honourable in every good and well governd society’.61

  8

  The epic voyage continued for another two years. They circumnavigated the two islands of New Zealand, mapped the eastern coastline of Australia (including Botany Bay), and narrowly survived a disastrous shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef.♣

  Twelve months after they left Tahiti, as they headed northwards for the Torres Strait and Indonesia, Banks looked back on all the indigenous people he had seen, in one of his rare philosophical passages. In it he comes as close to the idea of ‘noble savages’ as he ever would: ‘Thus live these — I had almost said happy — people, content with little nay almost nothing. Far enough removd from the anxieties attending upon riches, or even the possession of what we Europeans call common necessaries: anxieties intended maybe by Providence to counterbalance the pleasure arising from the Posession of wishd for attainments, consequently increasing with increasing wealth, and in some measure keeping up the balance of happiness between the rich and the poor.’

  He must have talked at length with both Cook and Solander on this subject, and Cook makes his own long entry reflecting on the artificiality of European ‘civilisation’. But while Cook clung to the necessity of European forms and discipline, Banks was rather inclined to dwell on the superfluity of European needs. These were perhaps the reflections of a man who had always been used to wealth and comforts. ‘From them appear how small are the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have increasd to an excess which would certainly appear incredible to these people could they be told it. Nor shall we cease to increase them as long as Luxuries can be invented and riches found for the purchase of them; and how soon these Luxuries degenerate into necessaries may be sufficiently evincd by the universal use of strong liquors, Tobacco, spices, Tea &c. &c.’62

  On 3 September 1770 Banks was making another reflective entry, this time on the state of the ship’s company after more than two years away from England. General health was outstandingly good, discipline remained effective, and the terrors of the Great Barrier Reef had shown how magnificently the crew could still pull together in a crisis. Yet there was a growing sense of exhaustion and sickness for hearth and home. ‘The greatest part of them were now pretty far gone with the longing for home which the Physicians have gone so far as to esteem a disease under the name of Nostalgia; indeed I can find hardly any body in the ship clear of its effects but the Captn Dr Solander and myself, indeed we three have pretty constant employment for our minds which I beleive to be the best if not the only remedy for it.’63

  It was now, when three-quarters of their journey was safely done, and they had reached their first semi-Europeanised port, that real catastrophe struck. They put into Batavia on the Malay peninsula (now Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia), where the whole crew were progressively overcome by a lethal combination of malarial fever and dysentery. Between November 1770 and March 1771, when they reached the Cape of Good Hope, the Endeavour lost thirty-seven of its men, nearly half the original crew. At one point Cook was only able to muster fourteen seamen on deck. Banks’s personal team was reduced from eight to four. The expedition’s astronomer Green died; the scientific secretary Spöring died; Tupia and his little son Tayeto died; Monkhouse the surgeon died; Thompson the ship’s cook died; Satterley the ship’s carpenter died; Molineux the ship’s master died; Hicks the first lieutenant died; and Banks’s faithful artist, young Sydney Parkinson, died. Solander would have died too, but for Banks’s unstinting nursing care.64

  Banks himself suffered for weeks from amoebic dysentery, sometimes ‘so weak as scarcely to be able to crawl downstairs’, and experienced ‘the pains of the Damned almost’. These deaths had a devastating effect on his memories of the expedition. Finally, within sight of England, his surviving greyhound bitch, Lady, universally loved among the crew, was heard to howl out in the night. The next morning she was found flung across a chair in the cabin, still guarding Banks’s writing table, but dead.

  By the time they reached London on 13 July 1771, Banks felt little exuberance. He was shattered and disorientated. The bucolic memories of Tahiti were more than two years old, and instead he was haunted by the recent horrible deaths of so many friends and shipmates. Solander was still very weak, and not out of danger. Banks’s family were not in town to greet and congratulate him, but ‘dispersed almost to the extremities of the Kingdom’ for the summer. He wrote to his friend Thomas Pennant FRS immediately on arrival: ‘A few short lines must suffice … Mr Buchan, Mr Parkinson and Mr Sporing a
re all dead, as is our Astronomer, seven officers, and about a third part of the ship’s crew of diseases contracted in the East Indies — not in the South Seas, where health seems to have her chief residence. Our Collections will I hope satisfy you … I must see [my family] before I begin to arrange or meddle with anything … Grass I must have in the mean time. Salt provisions and Sea air have been to me like too much hardmeat to a horse. In a few days shall be able to write more understandably. Now I am Mad, Mad, Mad. My poor brain whirls round with innumerable sensations.’65

  His safe return was greeted tenderly by his sister Sophia at Revesby in Lincolnshire. From the bottom of her heart she thanked the ‘Merciful god who has daily preserved my Dear Brother from the perils, and very great ones, of the Sea!’ 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 subm
itted 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 written a number of short biographies and successfully collaborated with Dr Johnson on two periodicals, the Rambler and the Adventurer. The misleading title of the latter, which had nothing to do with exploration, may have reinforced his apparent credentials. The subject was a gift, and the material was magnificent, if sometimes a little risqué. All that was required were accuracy, objectivity and the ability to assemble a vivid narrative. After nearly two years’ labour, Hawkesworth achieved none of these.

  Hawkesworth’s Account of Voyages Undertaken … for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and Performed by … Captain Cook … was published in three volumes in 1773. It was prolix, abstract, and much given to philosophical digression. Its author was easily shocked, and quick to moralise. He had no scientific or naval experience to draw on, and his views on foreign customs and native morality were prejudiced and illiberal. While digressing on the ‘Noble Savage’, Hawkesworth easily struck a lurid and provocative note. He wrote with delicious outrage of Tahitian dances and sexual practices. The girls danced the timorodee with ‘motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton … a scale of dissolute sensuality wholly unknown to every other nation … and which no imagination could possibly conceive’.77

  A second account of the expedition, Journal of a Voyage on His Majesty’s Ship, the Endeavour …, also published in 1773, was based on Sydney Parkinson’s journal as edited by his brother Stanfield. There had been a quarrel with Hawkesworth over the copyright of these papers, and Banks had also struggled to retrieve Parkinson’s botanical illustrations from Stanfield Parkinson. Banks felt, not unreasonably, that he had paid for them as Parkinson’s employer on the Endeavour (he had also discreetly sent £500 to Parkinson’s bereaved parents). Parkinson’s death in Batavia embittered and prolonged all these negotiations.