Letter 1406

Blair thanks Sloane for his civility towards Mr Dundass and for his help with the botanical text. Blair criticizes Dale’s work on the same subject because his descriptions are too general. He would like his own work to be published and outlines his preferred conditions for the printing of it. He leaves it at Sloane’s discretion to publish his work in the Philosophical Transactions and asks for some botanical books. 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]).