Autograph Letter signed ('Jos: Banks').
To "My Dear Sir", from Soho Square, March 17 (1812), regretting that he cannot accept an invitation for dinner since his wife has already accepted one. One page, 11.5 x 19 cm. With small engraved portrait of Banks. Banks was an English botanist, naturalist and traveler with James Cook. The botanical specimens collected on Cook's first voyage by Banks, Daniel Solander, Sydney Parkinson & the crew of 90 aboard the Endeavour were the largest and most stunning collection of hitherto unknown specimens of fauna and flora collected on a single voyage of discovery. On their return to England, Joseph Banks funded the production of at least 743 magnificent copperplates of the specimens, which besides a few contemporary proofs, remained unpublished for over two hundred years. The specimens now reside in the British Museum [Natural History]. Banks eventually parlayed his participation in the voyage into the Presidency of the Royal Society, and his prominence was satirized by Gillray as the "South Sea Caterpillar", crawling out of the mud and transforming into a "Bath Butterfly", as he was awarded the Order of Bath. Item #14317
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