View of Mr Freebairns House at Freeport on the Island of Ila

In his journal, Banks noted that Mr Freebairn’s house on Islay had a “very good air furnace” used to smelt “the lead produced by his mines”. Miller’s view was worked up later from a sketch made on the spot, annotated with notes on the make-up of the landscape. Ahead of the voyage, Banks’ friend Thomas Falconer had recommended that he “take a designer” who by “staining” his drawings, “would point out the colour of the Soil & verdure, with the nature of the Rocks, & would enable us here to have a full idea of ye Country, which no description possibly can”.