1781 Born proposed that Austria undertake a scientific voyage round the world, emulating those of Cook. The expedition was described in the press in the following terms: Vienna, 20 July 1782. His Majesty the Emperor has ordered Councillor von Born, one of our Monarchy’s most learned savants, to put forward two subjects experienced in Natural History, to send to America in order to make new discoveries there. Mr. Heidinger, Adjunct in the Imperial Natural History Cabinet, and Doctor Maerter, Lecturer in Natural History at the Theresianum, were presented and approved; also, a Gardener and a Painter were included with them. They will go by Cape Horn to Otaheiti, from thence to Sandwich Island, to the American Coast on the North side of California, and finally to China. They both have knowledge of all areas of Natural History; it can therefore be assured that their discoveries will be of much greater ambit and usefulness than all that have been made hitherto, since Banks, Solander, and Forster looked at few other Objects of Natural History than Botany. At the end of August, they will sail on the Ship Comte de Cobenzell. Born himself hoped to lead the expedition, but the poor state of his health meant that he had to relinquish the post of leader in favour of Franz Josef Maerter, who was accompanied by Franz Boos. Subsequently, in July 1789, Born recommended Thaddaeus Haenke to the Spanish Government for appointment as botanist on the Malaspina expedition. In 1790, he catalogued the mineral collection of Éléonore de Raab, and this work formed the basis of William Babington's 1799 work A New System of Mineralogy, in the form of a Catalogue, after the manner of Baron Born’s Systematic Catalogue of the collection of fossils of Mlle Éléonore de Raab. At the time of his death in 1791, he was writing Fasti Leopoldini, probably relating to the prudent conduct of Leopold II, the successor of Joseph, towards the Hungarians. As an active freemason in the "Benevolence" lodge, he introduced and tutored Mozart into the lodge. Born's essay Über die Mysterien der Ägypter (The Mysteries of the Egyptians), published in 1784 in the freemason periodical Journal für Freymaurer, was one of the sources for the libretto for The Magic Flute written for Mozart by Emanuel Schikaneder. Born was also the regional head of the Viennese Illuminati lodge, and was a sympathiser with the enlightenment ideas