In 1768 Spöring was enlisted as a clerk, assistant naturalist and personal secretary in the entourage of Joseph Banks, a wealthy young botanist who was preparing for an expedition sponsored by the Royal Society to the Pacific Ocean. This expedition had as one of its principal goals the observation of the transit of Venus; however it was also intended to make scientific studies of the flora and fauna of any new lands encountered. Indeed, the confidential purpose of the voyage (in particular, from the point of view of the British Admiralty) was to seek out the hypothetical "unknown southern continent", or"Terra Australis (Incognita)".