‘Wouldn’t never have thought of it if I hadn’t of see’d it in China.’
These stories amazed Paulette. Fitcher was so unlike the plant collectors of her imagination, so peculiar in his appearance and mannerisms, that it was hard to imagine him as an intrepid traveller. But Paulette knew, from her father’s accounts, that even Humboldt, the greatest collector of all, was utterly unlike his legend – stout, dapper, and so much the boulevardier that people who sought him out often thought they had encountered an impostor. Not that Fitcher was an explorer of the same ilk – but the Redruth’s assemblage of plants and equipment was ample proof of his seriousness, his competence, and indeed, his passion.
‘Pray sir,’ she said one day, ‘may I ask what it was that first took you to China?’
‘That ee may,’ said Fitcher, with a twitch of his eyebrows. ‘And I’ll answer as best I can. It came about while I was sailing for a living, on a Cornish fruit-schooner…’
One summer, when the schooner was in London for a few days, it came to Fitcher’s ears that a certain Gent had made it known that he was looking for sailors who had some experience of dealing with plants. On making further inquiries, he was astonished to learn that the man in question was none other than Sir Joseph Banks, the Curator of the King’s Garden at Kew.
‘Sir Joseph Banks?’ cried Paulette. ‘Why sir, do you mean he who first described the flora of Australia?’
‘Exactly.’
Fitcher had not neglected his scientific interests during his years at sea: the leisure hours that other sailors spent in smoking, gossiping and catchum-killala, he had devoted to reading and self-instruction. He did not need to be told that Sir Joseph had served as the naturalist for Captain Cook’s first voyage, or that he was the President of the Royal Society, from which post he reigned unchallenged over a veritable empire of scientific institutions.
Such indeed was Fitcher’s awe of the Curator that his first encounter with him got off to an unfortunate start. Sir Joseph was as grand a gent as ever he had set eyes on, dressed to death, from the powdered curls of his wig to the polished heel of his shoe. On being shown into his presence, Fitcher became acutely aware of the shortcomings of his own appearance: the patches on his jacket seemed suddenly to become more visible, as did the attack of acne that had caused his shipmates to compare his face to a pot of bubbling skillygale. He was at the best of times a shy man, and in moments of awkwardness his tongue grew so heavy that even his siblings had been known to joke that he could say neither bee nor baw without sounding awful broad.
But Fitcher need not have worried. Sir Joseph guessed immediately that he was from Cornwall and proceeded to ask a couple of questions about Cornish flora – the first was about the ‘bladder-seed’ plant, and the second about the flower called the ‘coral necklace’ – and Fitcher was able to describe and identify both of them correctly.
This was enough to satisfy the Curator, who rose from his seat and began to pace the floor. Then suddenly he came to a stop and said he was looking for someone to go to China – a sailor with some horticultural experience. ‘Do you think you might be the man?’
Fitcher, ever stolid, scratched his head and mumbled: ‘It hangs on the pay and the purpose, sir. Can’t say nothing till I know a little more.’
‘All right then: listen…’
It was well known, said Sir Joseph, that the gardens at Kew possessed sizeable collections of plants from some of the remotest corners of the earth. But there was one region which was but poorly represented there, and this was China – a country singularly blessed in its botanical riches, being endowed not only with some of the most beautiful and medicinally useful plants in existence, but also with many that were of immense commercial value. Just one such, Camellia sinensis – the species of camellia from which tea was plucked – accounted for an enormous proportion of the world’s trade and one-tenth of England’s revenues.
The value of China’s plants had not been lost on Britain’s rivals and enemies across the Channeclass="underline" the major physick gardens and herbariums of both Holland and France had also been endeavouring to assemble collections of Chinese flora – and for considerably longer than Britain – but they too had not had much success. The reasons for the lack of progress were not hard to fathom and the most important of them, without a doubt, was the peculiar obduracy of the Chinese people. Unlike the inhabitants of other botanically blessed countries, the Celestials seemed to have a keen appreciation of the value of their natural endowments. Their gardeners and horticulturists were among the most knowledgeable and skilful in the world, and they guarded their treasures with extraordinary vigilance: the toys and trinkets that satisfied natives elsewhere had no effect on them; even lavish bribes could not persuade them to yield their riches. Europeans had been trying for years to obtain viable specimens of the tea plant, offering rewards that would have sufficed to buy all the camels in Araby – but the quest remained still unrewarded.
A further difficulty was the fact that Europeans were not permitted into the country’s interior and were thus unable to wander about, helping themselves to whatever they chose, as they were accustomed to doing elsewhere: in China they were confined to two cities, Canton and Macau, where they were closely watched by the authorities.
Despite these obstacles, the major powers had not slackened in their efforts to obtain China’s most valuable trees and plants. Britain was not without advantages in this race even though some of her rivals had the benefit of an earlier start: the Hon’ble East India Company’s establishment in Canton was larger than any other, and in order to profit from the British presence, he, Joseph Banks, had persuaded some of the Company’s more scientifically-minded agents to assemble collections as best they could. This they had proceeded to do, and not without some modest success – but only to have their efforts confounded by yet another problem: it had proved damnably difficult to transport the plants from China to England. The vagaries of the weather, the seepage of salt water, and the many changes of climate were not the only dangers they had to contend with – a yet greater threat was the attitude of the seamen who looked after them – for as men go, mariners were probably the worst gardeners in existence. They seemed to regard the plants as threats to themselves, and would deny them water at the least sign of any scarcity; when their vessels were menaced by storms or shoals, the pots were treated no better than the most dispensable kinds of ballast.
All other expedients having proved unsatisfactory, Sir Joseph had decided, a couple of years ago, to send a properly trained gardener to Canton. The man chosen for the job was a foreman at Kew, a young Scotsman by the name of William Kerr. The fellow had done his job well enough for a while, but he seemed of late to have become somewhat restless: he had written to say that he was planning to go off to the Philippines next summer and he had requested Sir Joseph to send out a man who could be trusted to safely take home the collection that he had already put together, in Canton.
‘So what do you say, my good fellow?’ said Sir Joseph. ‘Are you of a mind to travel on such a mission? If so I will undertake to secure a place for you on a Company ship that is to depart for Canton next week.’
Fitcher had accepted the assignment, and even though his departure and arrival in Canton were much delayed, the ultimate results of the voyage were good enough to earn him the patronage of the powerful Curator: a few years later he was sent out to China again, not just as a custodian this time, but as a replacement for William Kerr. It was this second voyage that was to establish Fitcher’s reputation amongst botanists and horticulturists – for after spending two years in Macau and Canton, he had succeeded in bringing back many new plants. He had been careful to select varieties that were likely to prove hardy in Britain, and several of his introductions had quickly become established in English gardens: two varieties of wisteria, a seductive new lily, a fine azalea bush, an unusual primrose, a lustrous camellia and much else.