Sir Joseph Banks is among those who have called for a mission to China.

Banks had been the botanist on board the HMS Endeavour for the first voyage of Captain James Cook, as well as the driving force behind the 1787 expedition of the HMS Bounty to Tahiti.

As president of the Royal Society, Banks, who has been growing tea plants privately since 1780, has ambitions to gather valuable plants from all over the world to be studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the newly established Calcutta Botanical Garden in Bengal.

Above all, he wants to grow tea in Bengal or Assam, and address the "immense debt of silver" caused by the tea trade.

At this time, botanists are not yet aware that a variety of the tea plant (camellia sinensis var. assamica) is already growing natively in Assam, a fact that Robert Bruce will discover in 1823.

Banks advises the embassy to gather as many plants as possible in their travels, especially tea plants.

He had also insisted that gardeners and artists be present on the expedition to make observations and illustrations of local flora.

Accordingly, David Stronach and John Haxton will serve as the embassy's botanical gardeners.