392 LETTER TO 



the college he is proposed for admission. A 

 ballot is then taken, and if a majority of the 

 votes be in support of the proposal, he becomes 

 a member of the corporation, with the title of 

 candidate. The whole of these proceedings, in- 

 cluding the original application, are sometimes 

 finished in a week or two, and always in less 

 than three months. After he has been a can- 

 didate for twelve months, without further ex- 

 amination, and almost without further cere- 

 mony, he is received into the order of fellows. 

 If he has come to London shortly after obtain- 

 ing a doctor's degree, his admission into the 

 fellowship almost always takes place, either be- 

 fore or about the thirtieth year of his age. 



I turn now, my Lord, to the licentiate who is 

 engaged in a similar attempt. Though the col- 

 lege, from deference to the authority of Lord 

 Mansfield, have apparently ceased to view an 

 English degree, as an indispensable part of the 

 title of a physician to be examined for a fel- 

 lowship, the prejudices* and interests, which 



* Some notion may be formed of the extent of these pre- 

 judices, from the undermentioned circumstances in the con- 

 duct of Sir Lucas Pepys, as physician general to the army. 

 I possess indeed a still more flagrant example of their in- 

 fluence ; but I prefer the present, as being of a public nature. 



Suspicions having arisen in the beginning of the present 

 war, that the dreadful mortality of our troops in the West 



