Nor were Frenchmen the only persons to benefit by the largeness of view which belonged to the new President of the Royal Society. At a later period, he heard that Collections which had been made by William VON HUMBOLDT, and subsequently seized by pirates, had been carried to the Cape, and there detained. BANKS sent to the Cape a commission for their release, and restoration to the Collector. He defrayed the expenses, and refused to accept of any reimbursement. Such actions might well reflect honour on the Royal Society, as well as on the man whom the wisest among its fellows had placed at their head. The Royal Society had but a share of its President’s attention, though the share was naturally a Benjamin’s portion. He worked assiduously on the Board of Agriculture. He helped to found the Horticultural Society and the Royal Institution of London. He became, also, in 1788, a co-founder of that ‘African Institution’ which contributed so largely, in the earlier years of this century, to promote geographical discovery in Africa, and to spread—of dire necessity, at but a snail’s pace—some of the blessings of Christian civilization to those dark places of the earth which are full of cruelty. BANKS’ close intercourse with the Continent enabled him to do yeoman’s service to the African Institution. Many ardent and aspiring young men in all parts of Europe were fired, from time to time, with an ambition to do some stroke or other of good work in an enterprise which was, at once, scientific and, in its ultimate issues, evangelical. Some of the aspirants were, of course, but very partially fitted or equipped for such labours. But among those who entered on it with fairest promise the protégés of BANKS were conspicuous. Some brief notice of the services he was enabled to render in this direction belongs, however, more fitly, to a somewhat later date than that at which we have, as yet, arrived. [Sidenote: BANKS’ FAVOURABLE RECEPTION AT THE COURT OF GEORGE III.] Among the Fellows of the Royal Society there had been much division of opinion as to the eligibility of Joseph BANKS for their Presidency. At Court, there was none. GEORGE THE THIRD, with all his genuine good nature, had been unable to restrain a lurking dislike of Sir John PRINGLE’S friendly intercourse with Benjamin FRANKLIN. He was pleased to see PRINGLE retire to his native Scotland, and to receive BANKS at Court, in Sir John’s place. He did not then anticipate that the new President would, one day, offend (for a moment) his irrepressible prejudices in a somewhat like manner.