WILLIAM BALDWIN I05 



the best friend he ever had, Dr. Moses Marshall, 

 son of Humphry Marshall, the botanist, and Dr. 

 Benjamin Smith Barton; and these two, in pleas- 

 ant companionship of excursion, correspondence 

 and study, made an enthusiastic botanist of Bald- 

 win. 



Perhaps because not very strong, or from a de- 

 sire to travel, Baldwin engaged himself as ship's 

 surgeon on a vessel leaving Philadelphia for 

 Canton. Our enterprising young botanist set out 

 lacking a medical degree, and, as a fellow-pas- 

 senger laughingly told Darlington, with only 

 three shirts for the long voyage. But he won 

 golden opinions on board as a doctor, and, when 

 he returned in 1806, had money enough to study 

 for his M. D. at the University, taking his 

 diploma in 1807 with a thesis: A Short Practi- 

 cal Narrative of the Diseases which prevailed 

 among the American Seamen at Wampoa, in 

 China, in the year iSo^, etc. His grandson tells 

 me that he bought a second-hand copy of this 

 Thesis for five cents, in which Baldwin had writ- 

 ten, " To Richard Brown, M. D., with the best 

 wishes of his friend, the author." 



He settled down to practise in Wilmington, 

 Delaware, employing his leisure in studying the 

 local flora and in courting and wedding one 

 Hannah Webster, the daughter of a Wilmington 

 druggist, apparently a discreet maid, for Dar- 



