FRANCIS HAMILTON (ONCE BUCHANAN). vii 
Ist November, 1828, which is given further on, show that Buchanan thus early in 
his aes already possessed all the faculty for careful observation that was to be 
80 distinguishing а feature of his later life. It is not therefore surprising to find 
that, just before һе started оп another voyage, Buchanan joined, as one of its 
original associates, on March 18, 1788, the Linnean Society founded in London by 
his friend, Dr. (afterwards Sir) J. E, Smith. 
During Buchanan's second voyage his vessel, evidently outward bound, was, on 
May 24th, 1788, somewhere in the latitude of Walfisch Bay. Тао 8th of January 
1789, found him in the Sea of Celebes about midway between tho Philippines ind 
the Moluccas and on the 12th of April 1789, his vessel, obviously homeward 
bound, was somewhere in the Southern Atlantic There is an indication, in two 
contemporary records, that Buchanan may have made a third Kastern voyage, for 
he is spoken of, іп works published in 1791, as being then in the East Indies. 
Nothing definite has been traced with regard to Buchanan's life between 1791, 
assuming that he was again on a voyage in that year, and 1794 when he accepted 
a commission from the Honourable East India Company. 
Most previous. notices of  Buchanan's career state that after graduating in 
medicine in 1783 he entered the Royal Navy as an Assistant Surgeon, but that he 
soon had to resign this service owing to the delicato state of his health, and оп 
this account spent a considerable number of years at home before proceeding to 
India in 1794. This belief has almost crystallized into a family tradition and in a 
letter from his son, written in 1894, that gentleman, who was a small boy at the 
time of his father’s death, refers to his dim recollection of a wound, which 
Buchanan was believed to have received in a naval engagement in the West Indies, 
that gave trouble to the end of Buchanan's life, 
It has to be remarked, however, in the first place, that the grade of Assistant 
Surgeon did not exist in the Navy between 1783 and 1794, and further, that a 
thorough search of our naval records for the period 1783—1794, kindly undertaken 
on behalf of this memoir by Lord Walter Kerr, fails to show that Buchanan ever 
did serve in the Navy. That Buchanan’s health was, during some part of the 
1783—1794 period, in an indifferent state may, the writer believes, be accepted, fcr 
it is extremely unlikely that a family tradition of this kind should be without 
foundation. But it is clear that the period of ill-health was at any rate shorter 
than has been supposed, and that there was certainly no enforced residence at home 
at Leny between 1783 and 1789, possibly none till after 1791. The prolonged ill- 
health recorded hy previous biographers is thus reduced at most to the four years 
1790—1794, and is quite likely to have lasted only for two years from 1792—1794. 
1 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. v.; 1821. 
Statistical Account of Scotland ; Callander: also Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vol. і.; 1791. 
The Rev. Dr. Robertson, author of this account of Callander, mentions Dr. Francis Buchanan as “the most 
learned person who is known to have belonged to this parish" and speaks of him as “at present in the East 
Indies.” The manuscript of this account of Callander was plazed in the hands of the Editor of the Statistical 
Account in 1791, but it is of course not impossible that it was written, at least in part, two or three years 
before 1791, and the passage quoted may therefore very well refer to the voyage of 1788-89. This, however, ean 
hardly bo the case with the list of members given in the first volume of the Linnean Society's Transactions, where 
Buchanan’s address, for the year 1791, is given as the “ East Indies.” re 
There is no reference, so far as the wiiter can ascertain, іп any of Buchanan’s own papers, toa third Eastern 
voyage ог to his movements at all between 1789 and 1794 when he first took servicein India. 
