Letter 1759

Blair thanks Sloane for publishing his ‘treatise of the Elephant’. He asks how many copies Sloane wants to print, for the letters Blair possesses contain conflicting requests. He would like Sloane to return the papers from Holland so they might be published. Patrick Blair was a botanist and surgeon whose papers were published in the Transactions. In 1715 Blair joined the Jacobite rebellion as a battle surgeon but was captured and condemned to death. He was visited by Sloane in prison in the hopes the latter might secure a pardon. Sloane was successful and the pardon arrived shortly before Blair’s scheduled execution (Anita Guerrini, Blair, Patrick (c.16801728), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2568, accessed 31 May 2011]).