About sixteen days after we left the schooner, we got into soundings; and, in a few more days, beat into the Chops of the Channel; and the wind, which had been before at N. E. coming about to the S.W. we proceeded directly to the Downs, where we arrived on the 12th of July, 1771, after having been absent from England within a few days of three years. We immediately sent our sick on shore; and, after staying three days, received orders to proceed round to Woolwich, where we anchored on the 20th of the same month.
It may not be amiss to inform the curious in natural subjects, that Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander have discovered, in the course of this adventure, many thousand species of plants heretofore unknown: among the rest, one that produceth a kind of white silk flax, which, as it grows under the same parallel of latitude with England, it is presumed, will also thrive here, if properly cultivated. They have also brought over with them a quantity of seed, which, if it succeeds on this island, may, in all probability, be of much national advantage to Great-Britain.