194 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. vent some motive for his bounty, and hence afford to the receiver the pretensions of a claim, while the liberal donor appeared to be only discharging a debt. Rarely was any subscription commenced on whose list the name of Fothergill did not stand foremost. When the success of our arms had filled our prisons with foreign captives, he was appointed member of a committee which super- intended the sums raised for their relief ; and it should be stated, to the honour of his community, that above one-fourth of the whole subscription was contributed by the Quakers, who then scarcely formed the two-hundredth part of the nation. To Dr. Knight, a literary man, whose character was deservedly esteemed, but who, by some specula- tions in mining, had become embarrassed in cir- cumstances, he is supposed to have afforded aid to the amount of a thousand pounds. We shall not pause to calculate the total amount of his bounties, which have been estimated at so high a sum as two hundred thousand pounds ; but it is evident, that his generosity knew no other limit than his means. In 1763 he was elected a fellow of the Eoyal Society. His reputation soon extended to other countries ; he was one of the earliest members of the American Philosophical Society, instituted at Philadelphia. Linnaeus distinguished by his name a species of Polyandria Digynia. The Royal Society of Medicine, at Paris, chose him as an associate in 1776 ; and his letters of admission were the more honourable, because they included a request, that Fothergill would nominate any per- sons of his acquaintance whom he might deem
