It was immediately after receiving my melancholy sentence, that, thinking of my remaining duties, I remembered I had carried abroad with me an order from the king to procure seeds for his garden. Before I had lost the power of direction, I ordered Michael, my Greek servant, to take the half of all the different parcels and packages that were lying by me, made up for separate uses, and pack them so as they might be sent to Sir William Duncan the king’s physician, then in Italy, to be conveyed by him to Lord Rochfort, secretary of state. I by the same conveyance accompanied these with a short letter, wrote with great difficulty,--that it appearing, beyond leaving room for hope, that my return was to be prevented by an unexpected disease, I begged his Majesty to receive these as the last tender of my duty to him.
Michael, who never cared much for botany, at no period was less disposed to give himself trouble about it than now; his master, friend, and patron was gone, as he thought; he was left in a strange country; he knew not at word of the language, nor was he acquainted with one person in Marseilles, for we had not yet stirred out of the lazaretto. What became of the seeds for a time I believe neither he nor I knew; but, when he saw my recovery advancing, fear of reproof led him to conceal his former negligence. He could neither read nor write, so that the only thing he could do was to put the first seed that came to hand in the first envelope, either in parchment or paper, that had writing upon the back of it, and, thus selected, the seeds came into the hands of M. de Jussieu at Paris. By this operation of Michael, the verbascum became an aromatic herb growing on the highest mountains, and the bauhinia acuminata became an acacia vera.
The present of the drawings of the Abyssinian plants was really, as it was first designed, a compliment but it turned out just the contrary, for, in place of expecting the publication that I was to make, in which they would naturally be a part, the gates of the garden were thrown open, and every dabbler in botany that could afford pen, ink, and paper, was put in possession of those plants and flowers, at a time when I had not said one word upon the subject of my travels.