possible permanent advantages to science from the opportunity which was thus given him. Captain Cook was the commander of this justly celebrated expedition, which sailed in the ship Endeavour, from Plymouth, on the 26th of August, 1768. Nearly three years passed before they returned to England,three years of successful research and observation in many lands, and in many branches of science. Many perils were encountered, and many providential escapes from destruction experienced. I I refer to Lord Brougham's delightful memoir of Banks, for a graphic narrative of the adventures of the explorers, and for a lucid account of the great scientific objects of the expedition, and how those objects were accomplished. I will only quote his account of one adventure, on Banks's own authority. It has been mentioned that the ship left England in August, 1768. "The jealousy of the Brazil government preventing them from landing at Rio de Janeiro, the first land at which they touched (except a few days at Madeira) was the Terra del Fuego, the southernmost point of the great American continent. Here Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander made extensive botanical collections; but, though it was the height of summer in that severe climate, their attempts to ascend the mountains were attended with extreme danger, from the severity of the snow-storms and the excessive cold. Three of their attendants perished; and Dr. Solander could only be saved from that deep sleep which proves the forerunner of death, by the greater activity and more powerful constitution of his younger companion, who succeeded himself in casting off the drowsiness by a strong and painful effort, and was enabled also to rescue his friend. I have more than once heard him discourse on the subject; he described the desire of sleep which then stole over his senses as altogether irresistible, and ascribed its force to the effect of the cold in making all other desires, with all the faculties, torpid. Motion seemed to produce little effect; for the irresistible tendency was at every step to sink down, as if the greatest suffering was to continue alive and awake, the most delightful state to fall asleep and expire; nor, so far as I recollect his account, did any of them, while yielding to this propensity, doubt that it was indulged at the cost of life itself. Dr. Solander's case was peculiarly remarkable. Accustomed to excessive cold in travelling among the Norwegian and Swedish Alps, he had warned his com panions of the fate that awaited them, should they yield to drowsiness. Whoever,' said he, 'sits down will sleep; whoever sleeps will wake no more.' Yet was he soonest overpowered. H insisted on being suffered to lie down. One of the men said, all he desired was to lay down and die. say so, but he acted on this feeling. could reach the fire which Mr. Banks had kindled. When the latter roused him, his feet were found to be so shrunk that his shoes fell off."" The Doctor did not quite Notwithstanding the hardships and dangers which he had gone through in this voyage, Banks soon offered to sail again on a similar expedition. This purpose was thwarted by some differences which arose between him and the Comptroller of the Navy; but Banks, having collected a staff of scientific men, made a voyage with them to Iceland. They carefully surveyed all the natural phenomena of that country and also of the Hebrides, which lay in the tract of their voyage. Banks also, while in Iceland, purchased a large collection of Icelandic books and manuscripts, which he presented to the British Museum. In 1777 Banks was made President of the Royal Society. He entered zealously upon the duties of his situation, but became involved in a long series of "Plus quam civilia bella " with Dr. Hutton, Bishop Horsley, and other members. In 1795 he was invested with the Order of the Bath, and in 1797 he was made a Privy Councillor. In 1802 he was chosen a member of the National Institute of France. He was a liberal and generous friend to science and scientific men of every station and of every country. Lord Brougham "His house, his library, his whole valuable collections, were at all times open to men of science; while his credit, both with our own and foreign governments, and, if need were, the resource of his purse was ever ready to help the prosecution of their inquiries. I know of many persons, since eminent, who when only tyros in science, and wholly unknown to fame, have been patronised by him; and one of these tells me, with grateful recollection, of the kindness he experienced in his younger days from that useful and liberal patron, 'who would,' says my friend, 'send all over Europe, and further, to get either the information or the thing that I wished to have.' Where private aid failed of the desired effects, he had access to the government; he could obtain countenance and assistance from the public departments, beside removing those many and so often insurmountable obstacles which the forms of office, and the prejudices of official men, plant in the way of literary research." George the Third was much attached to Sir Joseph; and Lord Brougham remarks on this, that "a common story is to be found in the slight attempts that have been made to write his life, as if the minister were occasionally to employ his personal influence with the King, to obtain his consent to measures which he disliked. I will venture to give this statement very peremptory contradiction. I am pretty confident that he never would have undertaken any such mission; but I am perfectly certain that the King never would have suffered Sir Joseph to approach him on any subject of the kind. This opinion I can state the more emphatically, since my worthy friend Sir E. Knatchbull, who did me the favour of examining this life, gives me the most positive assurance of his uncle never having at all interfered, as the story asserts he did. An interference of a very different description he did exert, and with the happiest results. During the long war, which desolated the world by land and by sea, after the year 1792, he constantly exerted himself to mitigate its evils, and alleviate its pressure upon men of science and upon the interests of philosophy. It was owing to him that our government issued orders in favour of La Pérouse, wheresoever our fleets should come in contact with that unfortunate navigator. When D'Entrecasteaux was sent in search of him, and Billardière's collections were captured and brought to England, Sir Joseph Banks had them restored to him, and without even opening to examine them, as if he feared that any one should profit by any discoveries save their rightful owner, the author. On ten several occasions did he procure the restoration to the Jardin des Plantes of collections addressed to that noble establishment, and which had fallen a prey to our naval superiority. He sent to the Cape of Good Hope to recover some charts belonging to Humboldt, which our cruisers had seized, and in no instance would he suffer the expenses he had undergone to be repaid. He even interfered to remedy injuries which foreign nations had inflicted on scientific men. Broussonet had fled from France to save his life from the anarchists of Paris. Sir Joseph Banks directed his correspondents in Spain and in Portugal to supply his wants; and he found a friendly purse open to him both at Madrid and at Lisbon. Dolo-. mieu, cast into a dungeon in Sicily by the tyranny of the profligate and cruel Queen, experienced the humanity of Sir Joseph during a long captivity, although his unwearied efforts to obtain his liberation failed of success. His own countrymen, when detained by the arbitrary and perfidious policy of Napoleon, were in repeated instances indebted to Sir Joseph Banks for their permission to return home; and a learned friend of mine, one of the first oriental scholars of the age, the late Professor Hamilton, must have perished at Verdun but for his generous interference. By his interposition the Institute exerted itself in various other cases; and whenever it could be made to appear that a man of science or of letters was among the detained, no very strict scrutiny being exercised either by Sir Joseph Banks or his Paris colleagues, the order for his liberation was applied for and obtained.” Sir Joseph was a man of tall and powerful figure, of remarkable physical courage, and of athletic habits. He retained his bodily activity until the latter years of his long life, during which he suffered grievously with gout. He bore the pains and the confinement occasioned by this malady with remarkable fortitude and cheerfulness. He died at his house in Spring Grove, on the 19th of June, 1820. His eloge was pronounced before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris by the great Cuvier. (Lord Brougham, ut supra.-Biographie Universelle, &c. &c.) MARQUIS CORNWALLIS. CHARLES, the sixth baron, second earl, and first Marquis Cornwallis, was born December 31, 1738. After receiving the necessary degree of instruction to enable him to be sent to a public school, he went to Eton, and, after passing some years there, to the university of Cambridge, and was entered of St. John's College, by the name and title of Lord Brome. He obtained a stand of colours when seventeen or eighteen years of age, and was soon after raised to the rank of Lieutenant, and became a Captain in Craufurd's light infantry by the time he had attained his twentieth year. D D He served abroad during the last part of the seven years' war, as aid-de-camp to the Marquis of Granby. In consequence of his good conduct, he was soon after promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the 12th regiment of foot, and on his return was appointed aid-de-camp to the King, which gave him the rank of Colonel in the line. Before this he had obtained a seat in the House of Commons for his patrimonial borough of Eye. On the death of his father, in 1762, he became an Earl of Great Britain. Three years after, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Bedchamber. In 1766 he received a regiment, the 33rd foot; on the 14th of July, 1768, he married Jemima, daughter of James Jones, Esq., by whom he had two children. It is recorded to his honour, that though a general supporter of the administration, he exercised an independent judgment, and voted against ministers on several important questions. More especially, he was opposed to the steps which led to the American war; but when his regiment was ordered abroad, in 1776, he declined to profit by the special leave of absence obtained from the King, and sailed with it, leaving a devotedly attached wife, who is said to have lost her life in consequence of her grief and anxiety at the separation. He served actively and with distinction, with the rank of majorgeneral, under Generals Howe and Clinton, in the campaigns of 1776-77-78-79 in New York and the southern states, and in 1780 was left in the command of South Carolina, with one thousand men. The American General Gates, who had just compelled a large British force under Burgoyne to surrender at Saratoga, marched against Cornwallis, in the hope of surprising him, and obtaining a second triumph. But Lord Cornwallis, instead of waiting for Gates, advanced against him at Camden with an inferior force: after a sharp but ineffectual discharge of musketry, the English advanced with fixed bayonets, and broke and routed the enemy. The capture of seven pieces of cannon, a multitude of baggage-waggons, and a thousand prisoners, served in some degree to compensate for the convention of Saratoga. The enemy having been thus driven out of the province, the victorious General was occupied during a considerable period in arranging its administration, and regulating the different departments, so as to render South Carolina once more a British colony. It was upon this occasion that he first developed |