_No Mark of National Gratitude conferred upon Newton—Friendship
between him and Charles Montague, afterward Earl of Halifax—Mr.
Montague appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1694—He resolves
upon a Recoinage—Nominates Mr. Newton Warden of the Mint in 1695—
Mr. Newton appointed Master of the Mint in 1699—Notice of the Earl
of Halifax—Mr. Newton elected Associate of the Academy of Sciences
in 1699—Member for Cambridge in 1701—and President of the Royal
Society in 1703—Queen Anne confers upon him the Honour of Knighthood
in 1705—Second Edition of the Principia, edited by Cotes—His
Conduct respecting Mr. Ditton’s Method of finding the Longitude._
Hitherto we have viewed Newton chiefly as a philosopher leading a life
of seclusion within the walls of a college, and either engaged in the
duties of his professorship, or ardently occupied in mathematical
and scientific inquiries. He had now reached the fifty-third year of
his age, and while those of his own standing at the university had
been receiving high appointments in the church, or lucrative offices
in the state, he still remained without any mark of the respect or
gratitude of his country. All Europe indeed had been offering incense
to his name, and Englishmen themselves boasted of him as the pride
of their country and the ornament of their species, but he was left
in comparative poverty,[87] with no other income than the salary of
his professorship, eked out with the small rental of his paternal
inheritance. Such disregard of the highest genius, dignified by the
highest virtue, could have taken place only in England, and we should
have ascribed it to the turbulence of the age in which he lived, had
we not seen, in the history of another century, that the successive
governments which preside over the destinies of our country have never
been able either to feel or to recognise the true nobility of genius.
Among his friends at Cambridge Newton had the honour of numbering
Charles Montague, grandson of Henry Earl of Manchester, a young man of
high promise, and every way worthy of his friendship. Though devoted to
literary pursuits, and twenty years younger than Newton, he cherished
for the philosopher all the veneration of a disciple, and his affection
for him gathered new strength as he rose to the highest honours and
offices of the state. In the year 1684 we find him co-operating with
Newton in the establishment of a philosophical society at Cambridge;
but though both of them had made personal application to different
individuals to become members, yet the plan failed, from the want, as
Newton expresses it, of persons willing to try experiments.
Mr. Montague sat along with Newton in the convention parliament, and
such were the powers which he displayed in that assembly as a public
speaker, that he was appointed a commissioner of the treasury, and
soon afterward a privy counsellor. In these situations his talents
and knowledge of business were highly conspicuous, and in 1694 he was
appointed chancellor of the exchequer. The current coin of the nation
having been adulterated and debased, one of his earliest designs was to
recoin it and restore it to its intrinsic value. This scheme, however,
met with great opposition. It was characterized as a wild project,
unsuitable to a period of war, as highly injurious to the interests
of commerce, and as likely to sap the foundation of the government.
But he had weighed the subject too deeply, and had intrenched himself
behind opinions too impartial and too well-founded, to be driven from a
measure which the best interests of his country seemed to require.
The persons whom Mr. Montague had consulted about the recoinage were
Newton, Locke, and Halley, and in consequence of Mr. Overton, the
warden of the mint, having been appointed a commissioner of customs, he
embraced the opportunity which was thus offered of serving his friend
and his country by recommending Newton to that important office. The
notice of this appointment was conveyed in the following letter to
Newton.
_London, 19th March, 1695._
“SIR,
“I am very glad that, at last, I can give you a good proof of
my friendship, and the esteem the king has of your merits. Mr.
Overton, the warden of the mint, is made one of the commissioners
of the customs, and the king has promised me to make Mr. Newton
warden of the mint. The office is the most proper for you. ’Tis the
chief office in the mint, ’tis worth five or six hundred pounds per
annum, and has not too much business to require more attendance
than you can spare. I desire that you will come up as soon as you
can, and I will take care of your warrant in the mean time. Let me
see you as soon as you come to town, that I may carry you to kiss
the king’s hand. I believe you may have a lodging near me.—I am, &c.
CHARLES MONTAGUE.”
In this new situation the mathematical and chymical knowledge of our
author was of great service to the nation, and he became eminently
useful in carrying on the recoinage, which was completed in the short
space of two years. In the year 1699, he was promoted to the mastership
of the mint,—an office which was worth twelve or fifteen hundred pounds
per annum, and which he held during the remainder of his life. In this
situation he wrote an official report on the Coinage, which has been
published; and he drew up a table of Assays of Foreign Coins, which is
printed at the end of Dr. Arbuthnot’s Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights,
and Measures, which appeared in 1727.
While our author filled the inferior office of warden of the mint,
he retained his professorship at Cambridge; but upon his promotion
in 1699, he appointed Mr. Whiston to be his deputy, with all the
emoluments of the office; and when he resigned the chair in 1703, he
succeeded in getting him nominated his successor.
The appointment of Newton to the mastership of the mint must have been
peculiarly gratifying to the Royal Society, and it was probably from
a feeling of gratitude to Mr. Montague, as much as from a regard for
his talents, that this able statesman was elected president of that
learned body on the 30th November, 1695. This office he held for three
years, and on the 30th January, 1697, Newton had the satisfaction of
addressing to him his solution of the celebrated problems proposed by
John Bernouilli.
This accomplished nobleman was created Earl of Halifax in 1700, and
after the death of his first wife he conceived a strong attachment for
Mrs. Catharine Barton, the widow of Colonel Barton, and the niece of
Newton. This lady was young, gay, and beautiful, and though she did
not escape the censures of her contemporaries, she was regarded by
those who knew her as a woman of strict honour and virtue. We are not
acquainted with the causes which prevented her union with the Earl of
Halifax, but so great was the esteem and affection which he bore her,
that in the will in which he left 100_l._ to Mr. Newton, he bequeathed
to his niece a very large portion of his fortune. This distinguished
statesman died in 1715, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Himself a
poet and an elegant writer, he was the liberal patron of genius, and he
numbered among his intimate friends Congreve, Halley, Prior, Tickell,
Steele, and Pope. His conduct to Newton will be for ever remembered
in the annals of science. The sages of every nation and of every age
will pronounce with affection the name of Charles Montague, and the
persecuted science of England will continue to deplore that he was
the first and the last English minister who honoured genius by his
friendship and rewarded it by his patronage.
The elevation of Mr. Newton to the highest offices in the mint was
followed by other marks of honour. The Royal Academy of Sciences at
Paris having been empowered by a new charter granted in 1699, to admit
a very small number of foreign associates, Newton was elected a member
of that distinguished body. In the year 1701, on the assembling of a
new parliament, he was re-elected one of the members for the University
of Cambridge.[88] In 1703 he was chosen President of the Royal Society
of London, and he was annually re-elected to this office during the
remaining twenty-five years of his life. On the 16th of April, 1705,
when Queen Anne was living at the royal residence of Newmarket, she
went with Prince George of Denmark and the rest of the court to visit
the University of Cambridge. After the meeting of the Regia Consilia,
her majesty held a court at Trinity Lodge, the residence of Dr.
Bentley, then master of Trinity; where the honour of knighthood was
conferred upon Mr. Newton, Mr. John Ellis, the vice-chancellor, and Mr.
James Montague, the university counsel.[89]
On the dissolution of the parliament, which took place in 1705, Sir
Isaac was again a candidate for the representation of the University,
but notwithstanding the recent expression of the royal favour, he
lost his election by a very great majority.[90] This singular result
was perhaps owing to the loss of that personal influence which his
residence in the university could not fail to command, though it is
more probable that the ministry preferred the candidates of a more
obsequious character, and that the electors looked for advantages which
Sir Isaac Newton was not able to obtain for them.
Although the first edition of the Principia had been for some time
sold off, and copies of it had become extremely rare, yet Sir Isaac’s
attention was so much occupied with his professional avocations that
he could not find leisure for preparing a new edition. Dr. Bentley,
who had repeatedly urged him to this task, at last succeeded, by
engaging Roger Cotes, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge, to
superintend its publication at the university press. In June, 1709,
Sir Isaac committed this important trust to his young friend; and
about the middle of July he promised to send him in the course of a
fortnight his own revised copy of the work. Business, however, seems to
have intervened, and Mr. Cotes was obliged to remind Sir Isaac of his
promise, which he did in the following letter:—
_Cambridge, Aug. 18th, 1709._
“SIR,
“The earnest desire I have to see a new edition of your _Principia_
makes me somewhat impatient till we receive your copy of it, which
you were pleased to promise me about the middle of last month
you would send down in about a fortnight’s time. I hope you will
pardon me for this uneasiness, from which I cannot free myself,
and for giving you this trouble to let you know it. I have been so
much obliged by yourself and by your book, that (I desire you to
believe me) I think myself bound in gratitude to take all the care
I possibly can that it shall be correct.—Your obliged servant,
“ROGER COTES.
“_For Sir Isaac Newton, at his house in
Jermyn-street, near St. James’s
Church, Westminster._”
This was the first letter of that celebrated correspondence, consisting
of nearly three hundred letters, in which Sir Isaac and Mr. Cotes
discussed the various improvements which were thought necessary in a
new edition of the Principia. This valuable collection of letters is
preserved in the library of Trinity College; and we cannot refrain
from repeating the wish expressed by Dr. Monk, “that one of the many
accomplished Newtonians who are resident in that society would favour
the world by publishing the whole collection.”
When the work was at last printed, Mr. Cotes expressed a wish that Dr.
Bentley should write the preface to it, but it was the opinion both of
Sir Isaac and Dr. Bentley that the preface should come from the pen of
Mr. Cotes himself. This he accordingly undertook; but previous to its
execution he addressed the following letter to Dr. Bentley, in order
to learn from Sir Isaac the particular view with which it should be
written.
_March 10th, 1712–13._
“SIR,
“I received what you wrote to me in Sir Isaac’s letter. I will set
about the index in a day or two. As for the preface, I should be
glad to know from Sir Isaac with what view he thinks proper to have
it written. You know the book has been received abroad with some
disadvantage, and the cause of it may be easily guessed at. The
_Commercium Epistolicum_, lately published by order of the Royal
Society, gives such indubitable proofs of Mr. Leibnitz’s want of
candour, that I shall not scruple in the least to speak out the
full truth of the matter, if it be thought convenient. There are
some pieces of his looking this way which deserve a censure, as
his _Tentamen de motuum cælestium causis_. If Sir Isaac is willing
that something of this nature may be done, I should be glad if,
while I am making the index, he would consider of it, and put down
a few notes of what he thinks most material to be insisted on.
This I say upon supposition that I write the preface myself. But I
think it will be much more advisable that you, or he, or both of
you should write it while you are in town. You may depend upon it I
will own it, and defend it as well as I can, if hereafter there be
occasion.—I am sir, &c.”
We are not acquainted with the instructions which were given to Mr.
Cotes in consequence of this application; but it appears from the
preface itself, which contains a long and able summary of the Newtonian
philosophy, that Sir Isaac had prohibited any personal reference to the
conduct of Leibnitz.
The general preface is dated 12th May, 1713, and in a subsidiary
preface of only a few lines, dated March 28th, 1713, Sir Isaac mentions
the leading alterations which had been made in this edition. The
determination of the forces by which bodies may revolve in given orbits
was simplified and enlarged. The theory of the resistance of fluids
was more accurately investigated, and confirmed by new experiments.
The theory of the moon and the precession of the equinoxes were more
fully deduced from their principles; and the theory of comets was
confirmed by several examples of their orbits more accurately computed.
In the year 1714, several captains and owners of merchant vessels
petitioned the House of Commons to consider the propriety of bringing
in a bill to reward inventions for promoting the discovery of the
longitude at sea. A committee was appointed to investigate the subject,
and Mr. Ditton and Mr. Whiston, having thought of a new method of
finding the longitude, submitted it to the committee. Four members of
the Royal Society, viz. Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Halley, Mr. Cotes, and
Dr. Clarke, were examined on the subject, along with Mr. Ditton and Mr.
Whiston. The last three of these philosophers stated their opinions
verbally. Mr. Cotes considered the proposed scheme as correct in theory
and on shore, and both he and Dr. Halley were of opinion that expensive
experiments would be requisite. Newton, when called upon for his
opinion, read the following memorandum, which deserves to be recorded.
“For determining the longitude at sea there have been several projects,
true in theory, but difficult to execute.
“1. One is by a watch to keep time exactly; but by reason of the motion
of the ship, the variation of heat and cold, wet or dry, and the
difference of gravity in different latitudes, such a watch hath not yet
been made.
“2. Another is by the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites; but by reason
of the length of telescopes requisite to observe them, and the motion
of a ship at sea, those eclipses cannot yet be there observed.
“3. A third is by the place of the moon; but her theory is not yet
exact enough for that purpose; it is exact enough to determine the
longitude within two or three degrees, but not within a degree.
“4. A fourth is Mr. Ditton’s project, and this is rather for keeping an
account of the longitude at sea than for finding it, if at any time it
should be lost, as it may easily be in cloudy weather. How far this is
practicable, and with what charge, they that are skilled in sea affairs
are best able to judge. In sailing by this method, whenever they are to
pass over very deep seas, they must sail due east or west; they must
first sail into the latitude of the next place to which they are going
beyond it, and then keep due east or west till they come at that place.
In the first three ways there must be a watch regulated by a spring,
and rectified every visible sunrise and sunset, to tell the hour of
the day or night. In the fourth way such a watch is not necessary.
In the first way there must be two watches, this and the other above
mentioned. In any of the first three ways, it may be of some service to
find the longitude within a degree, and of much more service to find it
within forty minutes, or half a degree if it may, and the success may
deserve rewards accordingly. In the fourth way, it is easier to enable
seamen to know their distance and bearing from the shore 40, 60, or 80
miles off, than to cross the seas; and some part of the reward may be
given when the first is performed on the coast of Great Britain for the
safety of ships coming home; and the rest when seamen shall be enabled
to sail to an assigned remote harbour without losing their longitude if
it may be.”
The committee brought up their report on the 11th June, and recommended
that a bill should be introduced into parliament for the purpose of
rewarding inventions or discoveries connected with the determination of
the longitude. The bill passed the House of Commons on the 3d July, and
was agreed to by the Lords on the 8th of the same month.[91]
In giving an account of this transaction,[92] Mr. Whiston states,
that nobody understood Sir Isaac’s paper, and that after sitting down
he obstinately kept silence, though he was much pressed to explain
himself more distinctly. At last, seeing that the scheme was likely to
be rejected, Whiston ventured to say that Sir Isaac did not wish to
explain more through fear of compromising himself, but that he really
approved of the plan. Sir Isaac, he goes on to say, repeated word for
word what Whiston had said. This is the part of Mr. Newton’s conduct
which M. Biot has described as puerile, and “tending to confirm the
fact of the aberration of his intellect in 1693.” Before we can admit
such a censure we must be satisfied with the correctness of Whiston’s
statement. Newton’s paper is perfectly intelligible, and we may easily
understand how he might have approved of Mr. Ditton’s plan as ingenious
and practicable under particular circumstances, though he did not think
it of that paramount importance which would have authorized the House
of Commons to distinguish it by a parliamentary reward. The conflict
between public duty and a disposition to promote the interests of Mr.
Whiston and Mr. Ditton was no doubt the cause of that embarrassment of
manner which the former of these mathematicians has so unkindly brought
before the public.