CHAPTER X 



DR. LETTSOM 



Enthusiasm has its place, not only in action, but in writing ; quite 

 as much as critical analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. 

 Admiral MAHAN. 



At this time there seems to be a spirit pervading Europe, equally 

 novel in its nature and effects : princes begin to view men as beings 

 like unto themselves, and people to feel their own importance, and 

 that freedom and independence are the true springs of industry and 

 happiness. May these sentiments, which have sprung from the 

 American revolution, continue to inspire princes and subjects, until 

 at length that perfection of government be established under which the 

 happiness of the ruler and the ruled are synonymous. Dr. LETTSOM 

 to Franklin, 1785. 



DR. JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM was the biographer of 

 Fothergill, who was his patron and friend. Like Fother- 

 gill, he was a Quaker physician of large practice in the 

 metropolis, distinguished for scientific tastes and for 

 philanthropy. 



Lettsom was born in 1744 in the island of Little 

 Vandyke in the West Indies. His father, Edward 

 Lettsom, a Friend, owned the islet, and raised cotton by 

 the labour of fifty slaves, whose cottages stood upon a 

 hill-side near his house. He had also a sugar plantation 

 on the adjacent island of Tortola. The mother of Lettsom 

 bore, so it is said, seven pairs of twin children, all males ; 

 Lettsom and his brother Edward were the last, and the 

 only survivors. His father's family came from Letsom 1 

 in Cheshire, and his mother was descended from the 

 Coakleys, baronets in Ireland. Being sent to England 



1 Perhaps Ledsham, a village six miles north-west of Chester. Mr. John 

 H. Cooke of Winsford, author of " Bibliotheca Cestriensis," has kindly furnished 

 the author with information. 



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