Sir Hans Sloane was the seventh and youngest son of Alexander Sloane, a Scotchman who had married one of the daughters of Dr. George Hickes, Prebendary of Winchester, and who had settled in Ireland on receiving the appointment of receiver-general of the estates of the Lord Claneboy, afterwards Earl of Clanricarde. |Life of Sir Hans Sloane.| He was born at Killileagh, in the county Down, on the 16th of April, 1660.
We learn that almost from earliest youth, Hans Sloane evinced his possession of quick parts and of keen powers of observation. And he gave early indications of that happy constitution of mind and will which now and then permits the union of intellectual ambition and aspiration, with not a little of prudential shrewdness. A special bias towards the study of the natural sciences was—as it has often been in like cases—one of the things that were soonest taken note of by those about him. Faculties such as these naturally pointed to medicine as a fitting profession for their early possessor. His home studies, however, were checked by a severe illness which threatened his life, and from some of the effects of which he never quite recovered. But that illness helped to qualify him for his future profession. If it took away, for life, the likelihood that the bright promises of the dawn would be altogether realized in his maturity, it seems to have strengthened, in an unusual degree, both the prudential element which already marked his character, and his predisposition to rely mainly, for the success of his plans, upon plodding industry. From youth to old age an unweariable power of taking pains was his leading characteristic.
In his eighteenth year he came to London with the immediate object of studying chemistry and botany, before he entered on other studies more distinctively medical. |Early Studies in London;| |1677–1682.| He learned chemistry under Staphorst,[[47]] and of botany he acquired a good deal of knowledge by frequenting, with much assiduity, the recently founded Botanical Garden at Chelsea. In the latter pursuit he met with assistance from the intelligent keeper of the garden, Mr. Watts. |MS. Corresp.| And ere long he acquired the friendship of John Ray, and of Robert Boyle.
After six years of steady educational labours, both scientific and medical, he went to Paris, which possessed in 1683—and long afterwards—facilities for medical education far superior to any that could then be found in London. |And in France.| |1683–4.| His companions in the journey were Dr. Tancred Robinson and Dr. Wakeley.
Sloane had scarcely got farther into France than the town of Dieppe, before it was his good fortune to make the acquaintance of Nicholas Lemery, and to find himself able to communicate to that eminent chemist the results of some novel experiments. |Eloge, in Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences (1753); and MS. Correspondence. (B. M.)| They journeyed together from Dieppe to Paris, and the acquaintance thus casually formed was productive of good to both of them. The studies begun in Ireland, and assiduously continued in London, were now matured in Paris under men of European fame. And the young botanist who heretofore could profit only by the infant garden established by the London apothecaries at Chelsea, and by an occasional botanizing ramble into the country, could now expatiate at will in the magnificent Jardin des Plantes of the King of France. In that botanical university Sloane, too, had Tournefort—four years his senior—for his frequent companion and fellow-student.
In July, 1683, he took his degree as Doctor of Medicine in the University of Orange. Thence he went to Montpelier, where he resided until nearly the end of May, 1684. After visiting Bordeaux, and some other parts of France, he returned to Paris. There were few towns, in which he made any stay, that had not given him some friend or other, in addition to a valuable accession of knowledge. And the friendships he had once formed were but rarely lost.
Towards the close of 1684 Dr. Sloane returned to England, whither the reputation of his increased acquirements had preceded him. In January, 1685, he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society, and exactly one year afterwards he was proposed for election as Assistant-Secretary. Among the other candidates were Denis Papin and Edmund Halley. On the first scrutiny, Sloane had ten votes; Halley sixteen. The majority was not enough, but on a second ballot Halley was chosen. Early in 1687 he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. He had thus early laid some foundation for a London practice that would lead him to social eminence, as well as to fortune. And for the good gifts of fortune he had a very keen relish.
Loving wealth well, he loved science still better. But he had already good reason to hope that both might be won, in company. He had become known to Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, and when that nobleman received, in 1687, the office of Governor-General of the West India Colonies, Sloane received an invitation to sail with him, as the Duke’s physician and as Chief Physician to the fleet; and he was desired to name his own conditions, if disposed to accept the appointment.
He did not take any long time to think over the offer. If it presented no very brilliant prospect of monetary profit, it opened a large field for scientific research. |The Voyage to Jamaica.| And, in the main, the field was new. |1687.| No Englishman had ever yet been tempted to take so long a journey in the interests of science. He knew that he had excellent personal qualifications for turning to good account the large opportunities of discovery that such a voyage was sure to bring. Nor was it less certain that it would bring innumerable occasions for enlarging his strictly professional knowledge. And he had on his side the vigour of youth, as well as its curiosity and its enthusiasm.
In annexing to his reply the conditions of his acceptance he wrote thus: ‘If it be thought fit that Dr. Sloane go physician to the West Indian Fleet, the surgeons of all the ships must be ordered to observe his directions.... He proposes that six hundred pounds, per annum, shall be paid to him quarterly, with a previous payment of three hundred pounds, in order to his preparation for this service; and also that if the Fleet shall be called home he shall have leave to stay in the West Indies if he pleases.’ The proposed terms were approved. |Corresp. in MS. Sloane, 4069, ff. 86, 87.| The Doctor embarked at Portsmouth, in the Duke’s frigate Assistance, on the 12th of September.