Chasing legacies: William Dampier and Joseph Banks in comparative perspective

Much of the historiography of European encounters in the Pacific focuses on the period from 1768 onward, when the emerging British scientific community and the growing British Empire consolidated their relationship. In this arena, Joseph Banks remains the example par excellence, thanks to his participation in the Endeavour voyage and his central place in a wide-reaching network of botanists, artists, politicians, and patricians. Banks’ career and life after the Endeavour’s return until his death in 1820 is long and nuanced, deserving the growing body of scholarship dedicated to the intricate and expansive networks he grew. Such has been the focus on the period after 1770, however, that it is not merely pedantic to reinforce that the South Seas were a salient, if not quotidian, topic within British culture prior to 1768, when the Endeavour set sail for Tahiti. This article, therefore, is concerned less with the legacies of Banks and the Endeavour and more with the legacies he chased and the discourses he entered into when he joined the Transit expedition. It will compare Banks’ experiences with shipboard botany and publication with those of William Dampier, who sailed at the turn of the eighteenth century.