10 . MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



Captain Pratten, an officer of some standing in the 

 service, who, with the temporary rank of Commodore, 

 was frequently entrusted, by the Admiral of the Chan- 

 nel Fleet, with the command of a cruizing squadron of 

 five or six ships of the line, and one or two frigates. 

 The surgeon of the Intrepid was Pierce Butler, 

 an Irishman, who is described as " the best of his coun- 

 try, good-natured, and well-bred in the extreme." His 

 first-mate, George Eason, a native of Dysart, in 

 Fifeshire, had been Mr Wright's fellow student in 

 Edinburgh. 



While engaged in the Channel Service, Mr Wright 

 conducted a regular and very interesting correspon- 

 dence with his friends in Scotland, and particularly 

 with his brother James ; on whom, and afterwards on 

 his family, he appears, through life, to have concen- 

 trated the best feelings of a kind and affectionate dis- 

 position. The detail which he gives of the mode of 

 living on ship-board, from the cock-pit to the table of 

 the Admiral, is of the most graphic description ; and 

 it was no doubt at this period that he began to accu- 

 mulate that store of professional information to which 

 he was prompted by habits of method and persever- 

 ance, and which afterwards enabled him to contribute 

 so largely to the removal from the British Fleet of its 

 greatest scourge, the scurvy. 



From the commencement of his career, Dr Wright 

 appears to have kept a regular journal of his practice ; 

 and even at this early period, his natural shrewdness 

 and sagacity are strikingly displayed in the reproba- 

 tion he applies to the prevailing practice in this dis- 



