98 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



tion was anxiously drawn between the rights of the 

 body, and the individual feelings of its members, from 

 many of whom he received the most flattering marks 

 of attention, and such recommendatory letters to Sir 



portant discoveries of plants, some of which bad been published in 

 the Philosophical Transactions of London and Edinburgh, and vari- 

 ous other works. By these means he had become well known to 

 many of the learned in different parts of the world, and had been 

 admitted a member of the Royal Societies of London and Edin- 

 burgh, and several other bodies of literary men. In short, if pri- 

 vate worth, patient industry, diversified knowledge, great general 

 skill in medicine, and long experience of those diseases in particu- 

 lar which attack Europeans in the West Indies, were qualities to be 

 desired in a physician to his Majesty's forces there, the fitness of Dr 

 Wright to be one was most eminent. 



" To return to my narrative : in September, Dr Wright came 

 to London, expecting to receive the promised appointment imme- 

 diately upon his arrival ; but he was told at the Army Medical 

 Board, that, by a rule of Sir Lucas Pepys, it could not be given to 

 him unless he had a license to practise medicine from the Col- 

 lege of Physicians qf London. He declared his readiness to sub- 

 mit to the forms necessary for obtaining one, but these could not be 

 completed before the end of December, and the armament it was 

 intended he should accompany was almost on the point of sailing. 

 Sir Lucas Pepys was therefore strongly urged by several persons 

 to suspend his rule ; among others, by two of his own friends, who 

 told him that Dr Wright would certainly be appointed whether 

 he recommended him or not. His answer was, He would never 

 recommend Dr Wright, and he noas sure the King "would not 

 sign his commission. But it was quickly seen that he had grossly 

 overrated his consequence. It was indeed not to be supposed that a 

 rule of a court physician, whose connexion with the army had com- 

 menced only a year or two before, by his being placed at once at the 

 head of its medical department, would long prevent the execution 



