My principal motive for editing the Journal kept by Sir Joseph Banks during Lieutenant Cook's first voyage round the world is to give prominence to his indefatigable labours as an accomplished observer and ardent collector during the whole period occupied by that expedition, and thus to present him as the pioneer of those naturalist voyagers of later years, of whom Darwin is the great example.

This appears to me to be the more desirable, because in no biographical notice of Banks are his labours and studies as a working naturalist adequately set forth. Indeed, the only allusion I can find to their literally enormous extent and value is in the interesting letter from Linnæus to Ellis, which will be found on p. xl. In respect of Cook's first voyage this is in a measure due to the course pursued by Dr. Hawkesworth in publishing the account of the expedition, when Banks, with singular disinterestedness, placed his Journal in that editor's hands, with permission to make what use of it he thought proper. The result was that Hawkesworth selected only such portions as would interest the general public, incorporating them with Cook's Journal, often without allusion to their author, and not unfrequently introducing into them reflections of his own as being those of Cook or of Banks. Fortunately the recent publication by Admiral Wharton of Cook's own Journal has helped to rectify this, for any one comparing the two narratives can have no difficulty in recognising the source whence Hawkesworth derived his information.