Fothergill's letters provide a fascinating perspective of his time--a totally different view from that given by his contemporaries Horace Walpole and Dr. Johnson. The "Quaker internationalist" (as his editors aptly call him) was during the middle decades of the eighteenth century one of the half dozen leading physicians of London, a horticulturist of great distinction, an educational reformer, a patron of many philanthropic causes, and a tireless friend of Americans and the cause of American rights.