Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/36

xxxii as a result, two were sent, the one under Captain John Ross in search of the North-West Passage; the other, which included Franklin, to sail northwards by the east coast of Greenland.

He was on several occasions invited to stand for Parliament, but always declined, preferring to devote his entire time to his duties as President of the Royal Society, and to the innumerable functions it entailed.

It is sometimes said that Banks viewed with strong disapproval the formation of other societies for the pursuit of natural science. This was certainly so in the case of the Astronomical Society, which he considered would seriously decrease the importance of that over which he himself presided. But this was only because he conceived the objects of the former association to be so intimately connected with those of the Royal Society that there would not be sufficient scope for both. On the other hand, he was one of the founders of the Linnean Society in 1788, and took an even more prominent part in the formation of the Royal Institution in 1799.

In March 1779 he married Dorothea, daughter of William Western Hugessen, Esq., of Provender, Kent. In 1782 Solander died, and from that time onward Banks became more and more absorbed in the duties of the Royal Society, and acted as chief counsellor in all scientific matters to the king. In this capacity he had virtual control of the Royal Gardens at Kew, then under the cultural care of the elder Aiton, where were raised the plants produced by seeds brought home by himself, and so many of the novelties described in l'Héritier's Sertum Anglicum, Aiton's Hortus Kewensis, and other botanical works. It was due to his indefatigable exertions and representations that the Royal Gardens at Kew were raised to the position of the first in the world, and that collectors were sent to the West Indies, the Cape Colonies, and Australia, to send home living plants and seeds, and herbaria, for the Royal Gardens. He kept Francis Bauer (who, and his brother Ferdinand, were the most accomplished botanical artists of the century) at Kew con-