Letter 3851

Shaw is working on the geography of the Kingdom of Tunis and a map of the Kingdom of Algiers. He lists several scholarly works he would like to consult. Shaw describes the medical applications of plants found in North Africa. He is in a dispute with the new consul, Mr Black, who refuses to pay his salary. There were no problems with the previous consuls. Shaw asks if there is anything Sloane can do to help him. Thomas Shaw (1694-1751) was a traveller of North Africa and the Near East. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1734. Shaw was Chaplain to the English Factory at Algiers. He later served as Chaplain of St. Edmund Hall and Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. His book ‘Travels, or, Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant’ was published in 1738 (Peta Rée, ‘Shaw, Thomas (1694–1751)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25269, accessed 28 Aug 2014]).