(J4 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



pected cartel with Spain, than hastily to throw up a 

 commission which had been procured for him by his 

 friend Mr Banks, at so providential a crisis. In the 

 mean time, he resumed his favourite pursuits, and 

 sought for solace from the cares of the world in a closer 

 application to those studies which are perhaps best 

 fitted to sustain the " mens sana in corpore sano" 



About this period, Dr Wright had to lament the 

 loss of his friend Dr Fothergill, the celebrated 

 Quaker physician ; but the kindness of Mr Banks, 

 and his friendship for Dr Garths h ore, had suffered 

 no intermission or abatement. 



In the midst of the anxiety which the embarrass- 

 ments of Dr Wright's situation were calculated to 

 excite, he was never unmindful of the interest he had 

 taken in the son of his brother, nor of the task with 

 which he appears to have tacitly charged himself, of 

 superintending his young friend's education. " When 

 I formerly advised you," he says in a letter to his bro- 

 ther, dated the 12th of October 1781, " to have your 

 son James taught some mechanical employment, I 

 was induced to say so, from the innumerable difficul- 

 ties I had met with in working my own way through 

 life. Destined to be myself a wanderer over the face 

 of the earth, could I recommend that James should 

 follow a profession which has subjected me to so much 

 hardship, distress, and danger ? It is very right to 

 send him to the Perth Academy. He is now old 

 enough to be sensible of the importance of a good edu- 

 cation ; and he must double his diligence to make up 

 for past defects. Let him begin the rudiments of 



