96 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



rent ; and as you and my excellent friend have inte- 

 rested yourselves to procure for me so respectable an 

 appointment, I shall accept it cheerfully. I trust, 

 however, that I shall not be called on for examina- 

 tion before the London College of Physicians, in order 

 to be licensed. If my military services, my fellowships 

 in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and 

 of the Royal Society, and my character as an author, 

 be not sufficient, I must be excused if I decline the 

 tender now made me. 



" In the mean time, I shall be making the neces- 

 sary preparations, that I may be ready at the shortest 

 notice." 



Soon after this period, Dr Wright was induced 

 to proceed to London ; but on his arrival there, he 

 found that his appointment was to be strenuously op- 

 posed by the London College of Physicians, as an en- 

 croachment on the exclusive privileges which were 

 claimed for the licentiates of that corporation. Dr 

 Wright was intimately acquainted with many of the 

 leading members of the College ; but such is the in- 

 fluence of that esprit de corps by which such bodies 

 are governed, that his ultimate success in resisting 

 the right of exclusion, is not to be ascribed in any 

 measure to the intimacy which he enjoyed with Sir 

 George Baker, and several other individuals of the 

 highest influence in the body ; but solely to the force 

 of his own high character, to the firmness and intelli- 

 gence of the distinguished Commander of the arma- 

 ment, and to the liberal and enlightened views of the 



