Letter 1017

Blair forwards the papers Sloane requested related to ‘Mr Gilbert Constable Master of the Elephant of Dundee’. He sends a small treatise on Tournefort, which Sloane may wish to publish. Blair thanks Sloane for his many favours. 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]).