66 ME.MQIR or DB WRIGHT. 



head-quarters of his regiment on a few hours' notice. 

 Part of his time was spent very agreeahly in the 

 neighbourhood of Odiham, in Hampshire, at the resi- 

 dence of Mr Baxter *, a friend of his from Scotland, 

 who had been for some time settled in that delightful 

 county, and through whom he became favourably 

 known to a circle of friends, whom, in after years, he 

 often revisited with new and increasing satisfaction. 



At length, about the middle of September, a cartel 

 was finally adjusted with Spain ; but it was not until 

 after Christmas that the first detachment of the troops 

 arrived at Portsmouth. Dr Wright immediately 

 hastened from London to meet them at Alresford, 

 where he arrived on the 1st of January 1782. By 

 this time, a second detachment had arrived ; but of the 

 body of 500 men who had sailed with him from Ports- 

 mouth, in the summer of 1779, a miserable remnant, 

 not amounting altogether to 200 in number, and in the 

 most deplorable state of nakedness and destitution, was 

 all that remained. A considerable proportion of them, 

 including all those of the Catholic persuasion, had been 

 induced, while in confinement at Cordova, to join the 

 standard of the enemy; thus preferring the claims of cle- 

 rical authority to the duty of civil allegiance, when the 

 enjoyment of freedom was thrown into the scale. The 

 number of deserters amounted to 200 ; the remainder 

 had died of starvation, warm water, and loss of blood ; 



* This gentleman was a native of Berwickshire ; and, about this pe- 

 riod, is described by Dr Wright as the son of Mr Andrew Bax- 

 ter, a learned and worthy man of the last age, the author of Matho, 

 or the Immortality of the Soul, and other pieces, and some time En- 

 voy to the States of Holland, in the reign of Queen Anne. 



