MEMOIR OP SIR HANS SLOANE, BART. 5 



sident, Sir Thomas Witherley, one of the king's physicians, having 

 acquainted them that a writ of quo warranto was to issue against 

 their charter in the next term, it was put to the vote and carried 

 nem. con., that the College should themselves deliver up their char- 

 ter into his Majesty's hands ; which surrender was subscribed by 

 all the Fellows. On the 29th of March, 1686, the president ac- 

 quainted the College it was his Majesty's pleasure that the 

 number of Fellows should be increased from forty to sixty or 

 eighty; and on the J 2th of April, 1687, the Diploma of King 

 James II. was brought to the College, and solemnly accepted by the 

 Society, and thirty new Fellows were that day admitted, among 

 whom were Dr. Hans Sloane, afterwards the founder of the British 

 Museum, and Dr. John RadclifFe, the founder of the celebrated 

 library at Oxford. Dr. Sloane, some time afterwards, took an 

 opportunity of bearing witness to Dr. Radcliffe's great merit as a 

 physician. In order to express his utter contempt of those who 

 seek to depreciate the talents of their contemporaries, he observes, 

 in the Introduction to the second volume of The Natural History 

 of Jamaica, that such shallow persons would " needs persuade him 

 that Dr. RadclifFe could not cure a disease, because he had seen a 

 recipe of his where the word pilula was spelled with two Is." 



When only in his twenty-eighth year, Sir Hans Sloane accom- 

 panied the Duke of Albemarle on his appointment to the govern- 

 ment of the island of Jamaica, in the quality of physician, being 

 chiefly induced by his attachment to natural history to under- 

 take a voyage which was not thought, at that time, to be alto- 

 gether free from danger. As he was the first man of learning 

 whom the love of science alone had led from England to that part 

 of the globe, and was, besides, of an age when both activity of body 

 and ardour of mind concur to vanquish difficulties, his travels were 

 eminently successful. To say nothing of the other curiosities with 

 which he enriched his native country, he brought home from Ja- 

 maica and the adjacent islands at which he touched, no fewer 

 than 800 different species of plants; a number much greater 

 than had ever been previously imported into England by any indi- 

 vidual. His stay in Jamaica did not exceed fifteen months, when 

 the governor and the doctor returned home, and settled in London. 

 His friend Mr. Ray was astonished at the results of his science and 

 industry. " When I first saw," says Mr. Ray, " the author's stock 

 of dried plants collected in Jamaica and some of the Caribbee 

 Islands, 1 was surprised at the great variety of capillary plants, not 

 thinking there had been so many to be found in both the Indies." 



