MEMOIR OF Di; wricmt. 51 



of Jamaica, which, with our other West India posses- 

 sions, had long been menaced by a powerful arma- 

 ment under the French admiral D'ESTAIGN. About 

 the end of the year 1779, a corps of infantry was raised 

 under the name of the Jamaica Regiment, a condition 

 of whose sen ices it was that the corps should not be 

 called on to do military duty beyond the limits of the 

 single island for the protection of which it was origi- 

 nally organized. This regiment was given to General 

 Rainsford, a near relation of Mr Banks, through 

 whom Dr Wright received the appointment of re- 

 gimental surgeon, an office which he accepted the 

 more readily, as it afforded him the prospect of a fa- 

 vourable opportunity for placing his pecuniary con- 

 cerns in a more satisfactory position. 



Before leaving Edinburgh on this occasion to as- 

 sume the medical charge of the troops, Dr Wright 

 was induced to become a licentiate of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Physicians, with a view probably to his be- 

 coming a fellow of that respectable body on his return. 



The first detachment, consisting of five hundred 

 men, was placed under the command of Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Balfour, with whom Dr Wright pro- 

 ceeded from London to Warwick on the 1st of April 

 1780. In external appearance and physical force, 

 the detachment is described as a fine body of men, 

 but ranking, in point of morals, on the very low- 

 est level, having chiefly been drafted from the over- 

 flowings of the London prisons, and several of them 

 having been recognized by Dr Wright as the lead- 

 ers of the mutiny in one of the regiments of Scottish 



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