Letter 3255

Blair’s friend was unable to present the manuscript to Sloane, but the publisher wants to proceed regardless. Blair has to go to London to move the matter forward, but the season is not right for him to travel. He requests that Sloane contact other booksellers on his behalf to make alternative arrangements. He asks that ‘Dr Blairs discourses on Natural History be forthwith printed and published’ as it stands. He wants Sloane to contact John Martyn to gather his opinion of the manuscript. 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]).