On ten several occasions, BANKS was the means of inducing our Government to restore scientific collections, which had been captured by British cruisers, to that magnificent Botanic Garden (the _Jardin des Plantes_, at Paris) for which they had been originally destined. [Sidenote: Cuvier, _Éloge de M. Banks_, passim.] Such conduct could not but win for him the affectionate reverence of Frenchmen. On one eminent occasion his good services went much further. [Sidenote: BANKS’ INTERVENTION WITH RESPECT TO SOME OF THE FRUITS OF THE EXPEDITION OF LA PÉROUSE.] Men yet remember the European interest excited by the adventurous expedition and the sad fate of the gallant seaman, John Francis DE LA PÉROUSE. When the long search for LA PÉROUSE, which had been headed by the French Admiral BRUNI D’EUTRECASTEAUX, came by discords to an untimely end, the collection of specimens of natural history which had been made, in the course of it, by DE LA BILLARDIÈRE, was brought into an English port. The commander, it seems, felt much as SLOANE’S captain[21] had felt at the time of our own Revolution of 1688. From LEWIS THE SIXTEENTH he had received his commission. He was unprepared to yield an account of its performance to anybody else. He brought his cargo to England, and placed it at the absolute disposal of the French emigrant Princes. By the eldest Prince, afterwards LEWIS THE EIGHTEENTH, directions were given that an offer should be made to Queen CHARLOTTE to place at Her Majesty’s disposal whatever she might be pleased to select from the Collections of LA BILLARDIÈRE, and that all the remainder of them should be given to the British Museum. To the interests of that Museum no man of sense will think that Sir Joseph BANKS was, at any time, indifferent. At this particular time, he had been, repeatedly, an eminent benefactor to it. By the French Prince the Collections were put at his orders for the advantage of the Museum, of which he was now a Trustee, as well as a benefactor. But his first thought was for the national honour of Britain, not for the mere aggrandizement of its Museum. ‘I have never heard,’ said BANKS, ‘of any declaration of war between the philosophers of England and the philosophers of France. These French Collections must go to the French Museum, not to the British.’ And to France he sent them, without a moment’s hesitation. Such an act, I take it, is worthy of the name of ‘cosmopolitanism.’ The bastard imitation, sometimes current under that much abused term—that which knows of no love of country, except upon a clear balance of mercantile profit—might be more fitly called by a plainer word. [Sidenote: INSTANCES OF BANKS’ LIBERALITY TO HUMBOLDT.]