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[From the Royal Gazette, 25 July 1791]
Extract of a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.
President of the Royal Society, &c. to an Hon. Member of the Assembly of this Island. [Jamaica]
" By the generous vote of the House of Assembly in favour of Capt. Bligh you have made a good man happy, and a poor man comparatively rich. He is highly grateful for, and sensible of the honour which has been done him by so truly respectable a body as the Assembly of Jamaica. No news has yet come to his hands from the Agent, or he would have expressed his gratitude by this opportunity.
" I take some credit to myself for having successfully urged Government to forward the equipment of another Bread-fruit Ship, during the present turbulent times. Good fortune was my friend, as the application which settled the vote, was made not many days before the Cabinet resolved to fit out a squadron of ships; and had it come later, the business of Bread fruit would inevitably have been postponed, and perhaps have been totally neglected.
" Capt. Bligh is to have the command. His principal Ship is 400 tons, and we hope they will give him a tender besides. I do not therefore entertain a doubt, that Jamaica will possess some hundreds of Bread-fruit trees within a year and a half of the present time.
" It is my intention to request permission of Government that he may take the Isle de France in his return, where the French have now got all the spices, and try both interest and money to procure them, and he will have orders to procure all the fruits and useful plants of the East, wherever he may touch; so that the cargo will be far more valuable than a cargo of Bread-fruit trees alone.
" It is difficult, in my opinion, to point out an undertaking really replete with more benevolence, more likely to add comforts to existing people, and even to augment the number of those for whom the bounties of creation were intended, than that of transporting useful vegetables from one part of the earth to another where they do not exist. Sugar and coffee went from the East to the West; and that all the remaining valuables of the East may follow them is my ardent wish, as they will all equally succeed under a tropical climate. The Pine apple went from the West to the East, and a finer present, in point of flavour, the East will not be able to return. The Custard-apple, the Papaw, the Cashew, and various others, are proofs of the certainty of success, if the plants once arrive. I am, &c."
Extract of a letter from a Gentleman just arrived from England at the North-side, to the Publisher of the Royal Gazette.
" For the information and satisfaction of every well-wisher to this island, you may with certainty announce to the Public, that Capt. Bligh was with Sir Joseph Banks the 24th of last March, concerting his voyage to the South Seas for the Bread-fruit, &c. &c. that Capt. Bligh was positively to sail the 1st of June; and, for fear of any future accidents, that he had a tender appointed him, with the choosing of his own officers, and every kind of equipment he thought necessary for the voyage; that part of his instructions from the President was, to call at the Isle of France, and if he could not procure the nutmeg plant on any other terms, to purchase it even at the rate of 500 guineas each, for a few plants. - Captain Bligh said, that he might be expected in Jamaica in February 1793."
[note added]
Diary July 25. 1791