Milner invalided, waiting hopefully for the
fulfilment of a promise by his old master to procure him a medical
appointment on a foreign station. It is probably that, with a view to
provide the needful funds for this expatriation, he now began to sketch
the little volume afterwards published under the title of 'An Enquiry
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe', for towards the
middle of the year we find him addressing long letters to his relatives
in Ireland to enlist their aid in soliciting subscriptions for this
book. At length the desired advancement was obtained,--a nomination as a
physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of
Coromandel. But banishment to the East Indies was not to be his destiny.
For some unexplained reason the project came to nothing; and then--like
Roderick Random--he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall for the more
modest office of a hospital mate. This was on the 21st of December,
1758. The curt official record states that he was 'found not qualified.
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