Inspite of the title above, used mainly for archival purposes, I am going to say very little about the nutmeg or Grenada but more on Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) and his predecessors, because much of what Banks was credited with was more due to his predecessors and contemporaries efforts than his own, but his own was also substantial. We should point out that Banks was the son of a Lincolnshire Doctor and a Member of Parliament. Banks was brought up as the son of a rich man and went to Oxford in 1760 where he showed considerable talent for the natural sciences. He inherited his father's fortune in 1764 and put it to good use philanthropically helping others to do research and to help him to collect plant and insect specimens, and even supported anthropological research around the world. Nor was he himself untravelled. In 1766 he made his first trip to Newfoundland and Labrador bringing back a fine collection of plants and insects. He was also on Captain Cook's First Voyage (25th Aug.1768 - 12th June, 1770) to observe the Transit of Venus, on which much was observed and collected for Botanical and Horticultural purposes. In 1772 Banks went to Iceland with some of the same assistants he took on Cook's voyage, and returned by the Hebrides and Staffa. This was another scientific expedition. In 1781 he was ma! de a Baronet, in 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, in 1797 he was admitted to the Privy Council But in regard to Banks and the West Indies we have to locate his efforts and the efforts of others within the context of the History of Science and Agriculture, Botany and Horticulture in the Age of Enlightenment. No less a person than Sir Francis Bacon credited as the founder of the modern scientific method had proposed that nature should be tortured to reveal its secrets. Quite sadistic language to be sure, but scientific ends were preferable to the torture of people who revolted from economic and political hardship. To what ends should such a torturing of nature be put? Nothing less than the improvement and betterment of the needs of mankind. This was the union of science and practice in a fundamental sense long before Marx and the Marxists and socialist utopias, or Communist Utopias. The efforts of Sir Joseph Banks and others before him, contemporaneous with him, and others after him, can be situated in the the Age of Enlightenment, generally taken to be from 1715-1799. In typical British pragmatic fashion however, this Age of Enlightenment was expressed as the "Age of Improvement." Here again, I use the term British deliberately, because it was our unsung heroes the Scots who took the lead in such Improvement Ideology and Practice. Nor is that surprising seeing the limitations on the Scots in terms of land quantity and land quality, and property ownership. Whereas the English had lots of land to play around with, the Scots had far less arable land, and the little that they had, had to be improved to yield more and more and better and better crops. Meanwhile the English ever since the Norman invasion had to concentrate on Military and Naval defence, and to be able to project power across the channel to France. This is why Britain, mainly England, developed their Army and Navy whether it was in Naval Architecture or consantly changing its milirary technology to outpace changes in Military and Naval technology on the Continent. Self-defence and the projection of power determined English economic and political development, while attention to economics in its widest sense determined Scottish development. Hence it is no surprise that it was a Scotsman who wrote the foundation work of modern economics, namely Adam Smith and his "Wealth of Nations"; or that it was a Scotsman who set up the Bank of England; or that we find Scotsmen floating companies for colonisation and trade in the West Indies with the Scotland company and the Darien Company. The Scots also set the Improvement practical philosophy in train and this caught on! in England with a gusto by means not of the State, but through Clubs or Societies based on the Landed and Commercial (mercantilist) Interests. The Society that did the most in England, before and in co-operation with Sir Joseph Banks, was the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, founded in 1754. Its predecessor was the short-lived the Anti-Gallican Society, founded in 1745, so named for being expressly anti-French, to France, its products and it culture. This was formed in 1745 "to promote British Manufactures, to extend the commerce of England, to discourage the introduction of French modes and oppose the importation of French comoditiies". Simialr mercantilist sentiments were sounded by the Society of Arts (the shortened title of the one above) in its first Volume of its Transactions in 1783, proposing to develop commodities within Britain and the Empire wherever they could to benefit Britain and the Empire, in terms of manufactures and agricultural commodities. These commodities had to be imported at great expense from foreign nations, so substitutoion with Colonial Products would be! nefit British commerce and "Navigation" (meaning shipping). It was a programme of import substitution expected to benefit both Britain and the Colonies. Banks had joined the Society of Arts in 1761. but as early as 1757, Banks was being praised for his researches on vegetables. By 1778, Sir Joseph Banks was President of the Royal Society and connected to Kew Gardens and with connections to the British Board of Agriculture. It is these two agencies that obscure the role of the Society of Arts which frequently made recommendations to Banks and the latter to the Board. In the case of the the Board and the promotion of the cultivation of new species, Scotsmen were not found lacking, in the persons of Sinclair a President of the Board before Lord Sommerville, and Lord Bute the King's First Minister.. But to get back to the Society of Arts, it was the first to offer premiums or prizes for the cultivation of desired species any-where in the empire. In 1758 the Society offered premiums/prizes for the cultivation of useful plants that can be grown in the then British Colonies of Georgia and the Carolinas. This set the precedent for a whole series of Imperial Prizes. It was the Society that encouraged the establishment of a Botanical Gardens in the Carolinas between 1758 and 1761, which in turn set the precedent for the establishment of other Botanical Gardens in the Empire. It was the Society of Arts which offered a premium/prize for the transplantation of bread-fruit from Tahiti to the West Indies; of cochineal insects to Jamaica from Spanish dominions; for growing hemp within the empire to meet the needs for ropes etc. in the British Navy. The very establishment of the Botanical Gardens in St. Vincent was owed to a premium/prize offered by the Society of Arts in 1762. The Society of Arts offered rewards to "any one who would cultivate a spot in the WEST INIDIES, in which plants, useful in medicine and profitable as articles of commerce might be propagated." The St. Vincent Botanical Gardens later became the center of Sir Joseph Banks' world-wide net-work for the transplantation. In 1763, the Society suggested that tea from China which was paid for with good money, might be grown in West Florida. The Society also advocated the growing of Sago in Georgia using techniques brought back from China. The Society also advocated the production of Silk in the colonies.. Sir Joseph Banks joined the Society of Arts in 1761, and was instrumental to the effort to transplant bread-fruit to the West Indies. After receiving a letter from the Governor of St. Vincent on the subject of Bread-fruit, Banks persuaded the Society of Arts to offer a prize for the transplantation of Bread-fruit to the West Indies in 1777. The prize was won by Capt. Bligh in 1793 after a voyage that was prompted and organised by Sir Joseph Banks. Banks became the President of the Royal Society, 1778, and had been around the world with Captain Cook on the first Voyage. While he was prepared to go on the second, and all was packed and arranged, Banks could not go. But it should be noted that on one of these trips, it may have been the first, (See Diaries of Capt. Cook) groves of a species of Nutmeg, (not Myristica), grown by natives in the New Hebrides, was examined. We can assume that specimens were also taken, as this was the purpose of the trip. Banks had even personally paid for his entourage of Botanists, and illustrators, to draw the species which they felt would perish on the journey. Even as President of the Royal Society Banks continued to prompt the Society of Arts, for by this time the Royal Society was concerned with the promotion of Science and "useful knowledge" and the Society with the "applied arts or what would later be called "technology." Banks prompted the Society of Arts to offer a prize for the introduction of Senna to Antigua in 1783. Banks also served as a liason between the Society of Arts and the outposts of Empire. The Society of Arts of Barbados was instituted with the help of Banks. The Society of Arts of Barbados wrote to Banks in 1781 asking for assistance to promote the aims of their Society which had been founded for the purpose of "discerning the usefull Qualities of the native Productions, Animal, vegetable & Fossil of Barnados. The Society of Arts of Barbados was given a gift of the volumes of the "Transactions" of the Society of Arts. Banks also conveyed to the Society of Arts the thanks of Dr. Thomas Dancer, Superintendant ! of the Jamaica Botanical Gardens, for an award in 1791. Banks stated that the award would encourage Dancer's exertions in regard to the cultivation of valuable spices and drugs committed to Dancer's care. In connection with the Board of Agriculture Sir Joseph Banks was advising the British East India Company about their station on St. Helena, outlining a programme of improvement that included new crops, gardens and enclosores. In 1787, to George Yonge, British Minister of War 1782-1794, who was responsible for St. Vincent, a military garrison at the time, Banks wrote advocating the transplantation of crops from the Botanical Gardens of Calcutta to the Botanical Gardens of St. Vincent. In the same year, in relation to Australia, Banks wrote to Governor Phillip, who was at the time in Rio de Janeiro Brazil collecting plants that Banks specified would be useful for the growth of the Colony of Australia. In 1799, Banks was asking the Board of Agriculture to help in the sending of seeds from Sumatra to the West Indies. It seems that the relationship was reciprocal between the Presidents of the Board and Banks. In 1799 Banks offered his opinons to the Lord Sommerville Pres. of the! Board on the dry mountain rice from Serinagur, received from the East India Company, as well as his opinons on the benefits of the introduction of succulent vegetables to the agricultural interest of Britain. Another President of the Board Lord Carrington in 1801, referred seeds to Banks, that had been presented by the East India Company. After examination Banks responded with suggestions as to which colonies in the empire would benefit most from the transplantation of the seeds. In 1803, Carrington again was seeking Banks' advice on which Botanical specimens recently received from Sumatra, would prove Desiderata in the West Indies. In 1807, Banks was pondering whah crops should be introduced to New Foundland. Banks was also instrumental to improvements in Britain but those we can leave alone. However we should say that Banks himself did practical work in regards to improving his own estates in Lincolnshire and Derbyshire. And what about Nutmegs? In 1794, Banks was offering to pay for the translation of a manuscript written by a Dutchman on Nutmeg cultivation. I must thank Neil and John Weiss for keeping the Nutmeg thread going until I could get back to it. In the meanwhile I was hoping to hear from Kew, (but have not), or David Watson on whether the crediting of Sir Joseph Banks with the introduction of the Nutmeg to Grenada in 1784 was in Dr. Groome's book. The words on the websites are identical and indicates some written source. I was also hoping that Edward Crawford might have been able to penetrate the Banks correspondence, or at least the index, to find any reference to Nutmegs and Grenada in 1784. Meanwhile Neil has brought forward some more information on the journey of the real Nutmeg Myrstica Officinalis from Cayenne via Trinidad to St. Vincent 1801 -1809, and mentioned the Society of Arts. John Weiss recently cautioned us on the fallibility of memoirs. However we have already established a time-line for the cultivation of Nutmeg in Grenada and thoroughly disproved any claim that Louis de La Grenade was the first successful cultivator of Nutmeg on Grenada. It is even stated on the La Grenade Foods website that he planted Nutmegs in 1773, but failed. So until we hear from either Kew, David Watson and Edward Crawford, I will give the last words to Joseph Banks. " .. it is by a Long Series of Experiments alone that the adoption of a new custom in agriculture can be established." Source for much of the above: "Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: useful knowledge and polite culture" pp.196-207. By Dr. John Gascoigne, Cambridge University Press. 1994