394 LETTER TO 



therefore, a licentiate applies for an examina- 

 tion, a contest in reality arises between the 



and several other bodies of literary men. In short, if private 

 worth, patient industry, diversified knowledge, great general 

 skill in medicine, and long experience of those diseases in 

 particular, which attack Europeans in the West Indies, were 

 qualities to be desired in a physician to his Majesty's forces 

 there, the fitness of Dr. Wright to be one was most eminent. 

 To return to my narrative ; in September Dr. Wright 

 came to London, expecting to receive the promised appoint- 

 ment immediately upon his arrival ; but he was told at the 

 Army Medical Board, that, by a rule of Sir Lucas Pepys, it 

 could not be given to him, unless he hud a licence to practise 

 medicine from the college of Physicians of London. He declared 

 his readiness to submit to the forms necessary for obtaining 

 one ; but these could not be completed before the end of 

 /December ; and the armament it was intended he should 

 accompany was almost upon the point of sailing. Sir Lucas 

 Pepys was therefore strongly urged by several persons to 

 suspend his rule j among others, by two of his own friends, 

 who told him, that Dr. Wright would certainly be appointed, 

 whether he recommended him or not. His answer was, he 

 would never recommend Dr. Wright, and was sure the King 

 would not sign his commission. But it was quickly seen, that 

 he had grossly overrated his consequence. It was indeed 

 not to be supposed, that a rule of a court physician, whose 

 connexion with the army had commenced only a year or 

 two before, by his being placed at once at the head of its 

 medical department, would long prevent the execution of u 

 measure, deemed by the ablest judges highly beneficial to 

 the military service of our country. In October, by the in- 

 fluence chiefly of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, Dr. Wright was 

 appointed a physician to the armament, and shortly after 

 went with it to the West Indies. 



