WILLT.VM WIJICIIT, A .IA:MATCAX IJOTAXIST 331 



to all tliose wlio were interested in botanical studies. Jonathan 

 Stokes dedicates his Botanical Materia Mcdica (1812) to Wright, 

 and s])eaks of his Herbarium, wliieh lie liad seen at Edinburgh, as 

 one of the most comjdete collections which had ever fallen under his 

 observation (see Memoirs of Dr. Wri(/Jit (1828), p. 31, footnote) ; 

 he cites specimens received from Wright, and refers to specimens 

 in Banks's Herbarium. In September 177-1< Wright received the 

 lionorarj api)ointment of Surgeon-General of Jamaica from the 

 Governor, Sir 13asil Keith. In 1777 he left Jamaica, landed at 

 Liver[)0()l, and proceeded to London. He read a paper on Cinchomt 

 jamaicensis in April, and another on GeoJPrcea jamaicensis inermis^ 

 the Cabl)age-bark tree of Jamaica, in May before the Kojal Society, 

 at that time under the presidency of Sir John Pringle ; these were 

 pul)lished with plates in the Philosoj^hical Transactions for 1778. 

 Shortly after this, Wright was admitted a Fellow of the lioyal 

 Societ3^ 



In 1779, in consequence of the British West Indies being menaced 

 by a powerful armament under the French Admi]-al H'Estaign, a 

 corps of infantry was raised in England, under the name of the 

 Jamaica llegiment, for the protection of that island. Banks, now 

 President of the Royal Society, induced Wright to accept the appoint- 

 ment of regimental surgeon. The transports with a fleet of merchant- 

 men, convoyed b}^ three frigates, were all captured by a combined 

 Spanish and French fleet. Wright's Herbarium was taken from him, 

 and he set to work in his captivit}^ in Andalusia to form another. 

 He arrived in England in 1781, and in the following year went out 

 to Jamaica with the transports carrying the reconstituted Jamaica 

 Begiment, now the 99th Foot, just after Bodney's victory over 

 I)e Grasse. Peace released him from his military duties, and in 

 178-1 he started again to collect plants, and \vas soon able not only to 

 restore completely his former unique herbarium of Jamaica plants, 

 but to add sev^eral new and undescribed species. He appears to have 

 met and worked with Swartz, who was collecting in Jamaica and 

 other West Indian islands at this time, and who refers to Wright's 

 publications in the Prodromus and Flora Indiw Occidcntalis. 

 Robert Brown dedicated a genus to him {Wrightia^ in Mem. Wern. 

 Soc. i. 73 (1809), where he says " I have dedicated to my much 

 respected friend William Wright, M.I)., F.B.S.L. &E., whose ardour 

 in the pursuit of botanical knowledge, even while engaged in exten- 

 sive medical practice in the island of Jamaica, has long entitled him 

 to this mark of distinction." 



The Governor of Jamaica, General Cam|)bell, had made Wright 

 Physician-General of Jamaica, but his health had suffered so much 

 from living on the transports with his regiment at Port Boyal, tliat 

 he was obliged to return again to England in 1785. He settled in 

 Edinburgh, and in 1788 he was elected a Fellow of the Boyal Society, 

 a Fellow of the Boyal Society of Edinburgh, and admitted as a 

 member of the Society of Natural History and of the Boj^al Physical 

 Society of Edinburgh. 



In May, 1787, Wright sent to Banks a paper containing "an 

 account of the medicinal plants growing in Jamaica," fur trans- 



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