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 100l. 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.