A Note on Dates
England during Isaac Newton's life used the Julian, or Old Style, calendar. At that time, the Gregorian, or New Style, calendar—the one we use today—had already been adopted on the European continent. The calendars differed in two important ways.
When the Gregorian calendar was adopted (the 1580s for most of Catholic Europe), the Julian calendar was ten days out of alignment with what was presumed to be its original starting point, to which the Gregorian returned. By Newton's birthday, December 25, 1642, the error had grown to eleven days, making January 4, 1643, his birth date in the new calendar. The other difference between the English calendar in Newton's time and current practice lay in the start of each year. January 1 did mark the traditional celebration of the New Year festival, but the legal year began on March 25. Dates between those two markers were often written in the form "January 25, 1661/2."
In this book I have used the dates as Newton would have known them—that is, following the Julian calendar as it was used in his time—"with one exception: I turn the year on January 1 and use a single number to mark the passage of time.
PREFACE: "LET NEWTON BE"
PAGE
[>] "such vacan[t] places": "John Whitfield's Lettr to the Isaac Newton Esqr Warden of His Majtys Mint Febry 9th 98/9," Mint 17, document 134.
Chaloner—or any counterfeiter: Only men were supposed to be hanged for currency crimes. Convicted women faced a worse penalty: they were to be burned to death. This punishment was rarely carried out by the late seventeenth century. See V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree, p. 317.
[>] a bust of Newton: Mordechai Feingold drew my attention to this painting in his The Newtonian Moment, p. 180. Feingold's book provides a wealth of detailed insight into the immediate reaction to Newton in both learned and popular culture, and his chapter seven, "Apotheosis," offers a valuable account of the myth-making that followed Newton's death.
[>] four million pounds: Assessing monetary value across three centuries is a difficult and highly inexact process. But estimates of purchasing power, though imperfect, do confirm that Chaloner, if he was telling the truth, had been prodigiously successful. Among the most rigorous estimates comes from a research paper, published in 2002 by the Library of the House of Commons, that provides an index of the value of the pound from 1750 to 2002. In that calculation, one pound at the beginning of that period would be worth just over 140 pounds in 2002 (Library of the House of Commons, "Inflation: The Value of the Pound, 1750–2002," Research Paper 02/82, 11 November 2003). At that conversion rate, Chaloner would have produced about 4.2 million pounds of false currency in his eight years or so of coining. The number is probably a little lower than that, though again, any definite statement has to be hedged with fudge factors, acknowledging the drastic difference in patterns of consumption between the two ages. But E. H. Phelps-Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins laboriously constructed a record of the value of a building craftsman's wages dating back to the thirteenth century, and their analysis shows that prices were higher in the late 1690s than in 1750. ("Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables Compared with Builders' Wage-Rates." Economica 23, no. 92, new series, November 1956, pp. 296–314). If we apply a slight correction, it is fair to say that Chaloner's truly self-made fortune totaled somewhere between 3 and 4 million pounds in today's money. In other words, a lot.
I. "EXCEPT GOD"
[>] carriage ride to the college: Isaac Newton, Trinity Notebook, Cambridge Ms. R. 4. 48c., f. 3. admitted into its company: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 1, 66.
[>] dependence on another human being: This summary of Newton's birth and early raising is based on the account in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 44–53. Westfall's account is largely derived from C. W. Foster's article "Sir Isaac Newton's Family," Reports and Papers of the Architectural Societies of the County of Lincoln, County of York, Archdeaconries of Northampton and Oakham and County of Leicester 39, part 1, 1928.
"outstrip them when he pleas'd": William Stukeley, Stukeley's memoir of Newton in four installments, Keynes Ms. 136.03, sheet 4.
[>] portraits of King Charles I and John Donne: John Conduitt, Keynes Ms. 130.3, 12v and 13r.
"Isaac's dials": William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, Royal Society Ms. 142. Online at http://www.newtonproj'ect.sussex.ac.uk/texts/viewtext.php?id=othe00001&mode=normalized.
to master all the apparent confusion: Isaac Newton, Personal Notebook, Pierpont Morgan Library, sheets 5v, 7v, 13r, 15r, 18r, 20v, 28v, 32–r. Newton copied much of the material in this notebook from a popular work, The Mysteries of Nature and Art by John Bate, published in London in 1654. Newton's use of Bate's book was identified by E. N. da C. Andrade in "Newton's Early Notebook," Nature 135 (1935), p. 360, and the connection between Bate and Newton is described in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 61.
[>] "I know not what to do": Latin Exercise Book of Isaac Newton, private collection, quoted in Frank Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, pp. 57–58. "forget his dinner": John Conduitt, Keynes Ms. 130.3, 21r.
his neighbors' grain: William Stukeley, Stukeley's memoir, Keynes Ms. 136.03, sheet 6. The stories of Newton's livestock escaping come from manor court records showing fines mulcted on Newton for the offenses. The documents were turned up by Richard Westfall and are quoted in Never at Rest, p. 63.
[>] more than a mile from Cambridge: William Stukeley, Stukeley's memoir, Keynes Ms. 136.03, sheet 7.
"ink to fille it": Isaac Newton, Trinity Notebook, Cambridge Ms. R. 4. 48, f. I.
milk and cheese, butter and beer: Trinity Notebook, sheets ii–iv. Newton actually listed beer under "Otiose & frustra expensa"—that is, luxuries for which he felt a measure of guilt for indulging in. But as Richard Westfall has also pointed out, many of his contemporaries would have seen beer as essential, or, in Newton's terminology, one of his "Expensa propria."
a man of no social consequence: The question of how poor Newton really was, how subservient he had to be, and how alienated he became as a result is a matter of dispute among leading Newtonians. Richard Westfall argues that Newton's deprivation was real, and the slight truly felt—and Westfall has been echoed by a number of other writers. Mordechai Feingold, professor of the history of science at Caltech, curator of the New York Public Library exhibit The Newtonian Moment, and the author of its companion book, challenges that view. Feingold notes, correctly, that Newton was not the recluse he is sometimes painted, and further argues that the sizar status was merely nominal: his allowance was sufficient for such luxuries as the cherries mentioned above, and Newton's family connection to one of Trinity's senior members, a relationship that could have cushioned the worst of his servitor status.
My own view is based on the only three existing sources of anecdotes about Newton's undergraduate years, all written decades after the fact. Beyond those, there is one notebook that contains a partial record of Newton's accounts, and another with the astonishing confession of Newton's sins from 1662 and before. Trinity College records provide the institutional setting for the more personal recollections—and that's all there is. That thin documentary foundation offers great latitude for interpretation. In the end, the question turns on one's own judgments—guesses, really—about human nature in general and Newton's character in particular. Ultimately, as the text above states, I fall more toward the Westfall end of the spectrum: I think the record better supports a picture of a largely solitary young man with no strong emotional or social connection to his classmates, and with some real grounds for resentment and/or envy. But Feingold and others in the current generation of Newton scholars are clearly correct to point out that Newton was not totally friendless, not incapable of ordinary human contact, not averse to all pleasures, including such overtly sensual ones as good food and, on occasion, beer.
just one letter to a college contemporary: Isaac Newton to Francis Aston, 18 May 1699, Correspondence 1, document 4, p. 9.
[>] not one of the students from his year: Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 75. The letter was to Francis Aston, a fellow of Trinity College and later a member and then the secretary (with Robert Hooke) of the Royal Society. See Correspondence 1, document 4, pp. 9–11.
"money learning pleasure more than Thee": Fitzwilliam Notebook, sheets 3–r.
[>] "any demonstrations of them": Abraham de Moivre, "Memorandum relating to Sr Isaac Newton given me by Mr Demoivre," Cambridge Add. Ms. 4007, pp. 706–r, cited in D. T. Whiteside, "Sources and Strengths of Newton's Early Mathematic Thought," in Robert Palter, ed., The Annus Mirabilis of Sir Isaac Newton, 1666–1696, p. 72.
the meals he forgot to eat: Nicholas Wickens reported on Newton's indifference to sleep and food in a letter to Robert Smith, 16 January 1728, in which he described his father's memories of his chamber mate. Keynes Ms. 137, sheet 2. John Conduitt told the story of the cat's avoirdupois in his memoirs of Newton, Keynes Ms. 130.6, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 103–4.
[>] "except God": Isaac Newton, Quœstiones quœdam Philosophicœ, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3996, f. 1/88. The quoted material comes from page 338 in the excellent transcript of the Quœstiones in J. E. McGuire and Martin Tamny, Certain Philosophical Questions, pp. 330–489.
[>] the point of his needle: Isaac Newton, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3975, reproduced in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 95.
[>] "Great fears of the Sicknesse": Samuel Pepys, The Shorter Pepys, p. 486.
"which took away the apprehension": Ibid., p. 494.
[>] "such a calamity as this": Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, pp. 62–63.
"on occasion of the Pestilence": Cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 142.
2. "THE PRIME OF MY AGE"
[>] "a perfect cure of the plague": Samuel Pepys, The Shorter Pepys, p. 557.
"Mathematicks & Philosophy": Cambridge Add. Ms. 3968.41, f. 85, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 143.
infinitesimally small forms: D. T. Whiteside, ed., The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, vol. 1, p. 280.
Newton returned to Trinity College: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 142.
[>] "rays of gravity": Isaac Newton, Quœstiones quœdam Philosophicœ, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3996, f. 19.
heavy with fruit: John Conduitt reported a conversation he had with Newton in the last year of his life, 1726. Abraham de Moivre recorded another mention of the apple tree in a memorandum composed in 1727.
[>] "thro' the universe": William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, pp. 19–21.
A sliver of the old tree: D. McKie and G. R. de Beer, "Newton's Apple: An Addendum," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 9, no. 2 (May 1952), pp. 334–35.
Newton's apple itself is no fairy tale: D. McKie and G. R. de Beer, "Newton's Apple," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 9, no. 1 (October 1951), pp. 53–54. Cuttings from Newton's tree have now been propagated in several locations and are for sale by Deacon's Nursery on the Isle of Wight. One cutting, given to my home institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, produced its first fruit in September 2006, in a small garden next to Building 11. At Woolsthorpe, an old Flower of Kent—bearing tree still drops fruit in the garden there. This tree shoots up from a bent-over section of trunk, presumably the blown-down remnants of the Newtonian original.
[>] did not publish his result until 1673: For a more detailed account of Newton's derivation of the formula for centrifugal force, see D. T. Whiteside, "The Prehistory of the Principia," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 45, no. 1 (January 1991), p. 13. Richard Westfall presents a less technical version in Never at Rest, pp. 148–50, which draws on J. W. Herivel's article "Newton's Discovery of the Law of Centrifugal Force," Isis 51 (1960), pp. 546–53, and his book The Background to Newton's Principia.
the centrifugal push: Isaac Newton, Correspondence 3, 46–54. See D. T. Whiteside, "The Prehistory of the Principia, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 45, no. 1 (January 1991), pp. 14–15, for a discussion of Newton's analysis of the motion of a pendulum.
[>] would come to be called gravity: This is not quite accurate. Objects under the influence of gravity travel around the center of mass of the total system, not just of the more massive body, as Newton in fact understood. At this time Newton did not have a clear understanding of the concept of inertia, nor yet his first law of motion, which holds that objects at rest or in linear motion tend to stay in motion or at rest unless acted upon by an exterior force. Without this fundamental idea, first suggested to Newton by Robert Hooke in a letter in 1679, his conception of gravity remained imprecise. See Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 382–88, for a discussion of both the insight and the conflict between Hooke and Newton that followed. See also S. Chandrasekhar's summary of the sequence of development of Newton's thinking in the first chapter of his Newton's Principia for the Common Reader, pp. 1–14. (Note, however, that I. Bernard Cohen, one of the great Newton scholars of the twentieth century and the translator of the best available English version of the Principia, does not think highly of Chandrasekhar's historical skills, and it is true, as Cohen says, that the "common reader" of Chandrasekhar's title had better know a lot of mathematics to make it through most of the argument. Nonetheless, Chandrasekhar, a Nobel laureate in physics, does offer a good introductory summary of the basic concepts in the first section of his book, and it is worth a look.) Another good account of the development of Newton's thoughts on gravity during this period comes in A. Rupert Hall's highly readable biography Isaac Newton: Adventurer in Thought, pp. 58–63.
"sixty measured Miles only": William Whiston, Memoirs of the Life of Mr. William Whiston by himself, cited in J. W. Herivel, The Background to Newton's Principia, p. 65. Whiston was a Newton protégé and his successor to the Lucasian professorship at Cambridge. The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,902 miles, or 40,076 kilometers. One degree, or 1/360, of that total is 69.172 miles, or 111.322 kilometers. D. T. Whiteside points out that Whiston may not be a reliable source—even though he was Newton's successor as Lucasian Professor, his notes on Newton's life were composed after his predecessor had died. The earliest surviving calculation in Newton's hand that analyzes the motion of the moon subject to an attractive force decreasing with the square of the distance from the earth comes no earlier than 1669, three years after the plague season. Still, it is clear that Newton's work on the problem began while he was sheltering from the epidemic. See D. T. Whiteside, "The Prehistory of the Principia," pp. 18–20. My thanks to Simon Schaffer for advice on picking through the minefield of memory and determined fact that stretches across the history of the miracle years. All errors that remain are, of course, mine, not his.
[>] "subjecting motion to number": The phrase "subjecting motion to number" is borrowed from Alexander Koyré's marvelous essay "The Significance of the Newtonian Synthesis," which has been published a number of times but is most accessible in I. Bernard Cohen and Richard Westfall, eds., Newton, p. 62. I appropriate the line with an apology: Koyré applied it to Galileo, but it is just as true of Newton.
"mutation in its state": J. W. Herivel, The Background to Newton's Principia, pp. 157–58.
[>] "a Chair to sit down in": Humphrey Newton, Keynes Ms. 135, quoted in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 406. I have corrected a misspelling in the original document of the name Alchimedes and have rendered the "eureka" in English instead of the original's Greek.
the landlocked Newton sought out data: Simon Schaffer has pointed out Newton's use of a global knowledge network in several papers. See Schaffer's "Golden Means: Assay Instruments and the Geography of Precision in the Guinea Trade" and his as yet unpublished "Newton on the Beach," a lecture delivered at Harvard University on April 4, 2006.
3. "I HAVE CALCULATED IT"
[>] "read to ye Walls": Humphrey Newton to John Conduitt (Newton's nephew-in-law and successor as Master of the Mint), 17 January 1727/8, Keynes Ms. 135, f. 2, available at the Newton online archive, http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk. Newton did not in fact fully satisfy even the minimum requirements of the post. He did lecture regularly on algebra but failed to place any manuscripts in the university library until 1684, when he handed over a text covering eleven years' worth of lectures. The work was later published as Arithmetica universalis.
[>] "not enduring to see a weed in it": Humphrey Newton to John Conduitt, 17 January 1727/8, Keynes Ms. 135, ff. 1–3.
"failure to reach fulfillment": Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 407.
[>] "heavenly motions upon philosophical principles": Isaac Newton to Edmond Halley, 27 May 1686, Correspondence 2, p. 433.
a book worth forty shillings: In fact, this was a substantial offer, roughly a week's stipend for someone holding an endowed chair at Cambridge. Books were still scarce and valuable enough that the Royal Society would ultimately try to pay Halley for the trouble and expense of his seeing the Principia through publication with fifty copies of another Royal Society title, The History of Fishes. (The society also tried to do the same to cover Robert Hooke's back wages, but Hooke refused, preferring to wait for the cash he eventually received.)
"as good as his word": Edmond Halley to Isaac Newton, 29 June 1686, Correspondence 2, pp. 441–43.
"renew it & send it to him": Newton's account as reported by Abraham de Moivre, a mathematician and Huguenot refugee to London who knew both Halley and Newton. The original is in the Joseph Halle Schaffner Collection of the University of Chicago Library, Ms. 1075–77. The passage is quoted in Alan Cook, Edmond Halley, p. 149. There is a slightly fishy smell to Newton's claim to have lost the earlier demonstration, since historians have identified in his papers a document that is either the "lost" original or a version with corrections, which implies that Newton still possessed his earlier calculation when he spoke with Halley. It may be that Newton recognized a flaw in the earlier work, one that he had to correct before showing it to Halley—and certainly before he allowed the dangerous Hooke to see it. Hooke had previously caught a mistake in another demonstration, and Newton had no desire to endure that kind of humiliation again. See Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 403.
[>] an inverse square attraction: For a marvelous and highly readable account of Newton's proof that inverse square attraction generates Keplerian orbits, see David L. Goodstein and Judith R. Goodstein, Feynman's Lost Lecture. In that book, the Goodsteins provide a history of the problem of the shapes of orbits, and then describe how Richard Feynman reconstructed Newton's proof (in its final form, as published in the Principia). only closed path: Formally, a truly circular orbit is possible, as a circle is simply the limit of an ellipse when its eccentricity goes to zero. In physically realistic situations, though, this solution is vanishingly unlikely. Thanks to Caltech's Sean Carroll for pointing out this subtlety.
[>] he did not choose to share: See Correspondence 2, documents 272, 274, 276, 278, 280, 281, 284.
"all my results together": Isaac Newton, Principia, p. 383.
"any motions whatever": Ibid., p. 382.
"to change its state by forces impressed": Ibid., p. 416.
"A change in motion is proportional": Ibid.
[>] "always equal and always opposite": Ibid., p. 417.
seemingly simple point of origin: The first edition of the Principia contained 510 pages; 210 in Book One, 165 in Book Two, and 110 in Book Three, with the rest given over to introductory remarks and other apparatus.
[>] "the Hour of Prayer": Humphrey Newton to John Conduitt, 17 January 1727/8, Keynes Ms. 135, ff. 2–3.
"less to clarify the celestial motions": Isaac Newton, Principia, p. 790.
"to demonstrate the other phenomena": Ibid., p. 382.
"from these same principles": Ibid., p. 793.
[>] properties of bodies anywhere: In Newton's words, this "rule for the study of natural philosophy" reads: "Those qualities of bodies that cannot be intended and remitted [i.e., qualities that cannot be increased and diminished] and that belong to all bodies on which experiment can be made should be taken as qualities of all bodies universally." Ibid., p. 795 (interpolation by the translators).
[>] good data from bad: Simon Schaffer, "Newton on the Beach," pp. 14–17. This unpublished lecture, delivered at Harvard University on April 4, 2006, presents a valuable analysis of Newton's approach to measurement and the significance of the worldwide system of observation and knowledge to Newton's science.
the farthest extremes of the heavens: Isaac Newton, Principia, pp. 901–16.
"The theory that corresponds exactly": Ibid., p. 916.
4. "THE INCOMPARABLE MR. NEWTON"
[>] a man whom Newton admired: John Locke, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 24, no. 298, pp. 1917–20. I am grateful to Jan Golinski for leading me to Locke's weather diary.
confinement to ye London air: Newton to Locke (draft), Correspondence 3, p. 184.
[>] "No closer to the gods": Isaac Newton, Principia, p. 380.
"those that shall succeed him": Edmond Halley, "Accounts of Books," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 16, pp. 283–397.
[>] "demonstrations more precise": Allen Gabbey, "The Principia, a Treatise on 'Mechanics'?" in P. M. Harman and Alan E. Shapiro, eds., The Investigation of Difficult Things, p. 306.
"few will understand it": David Gregory to Isaac Newton, 2 September 1687, Correspondence 2, p. 484.
[>] and so Locke read on: This account almost certainly comes from conversations between Locke and Newton. It has been reported in a number of places, including in the notes John Conduitt took for his memoirs of Newton. See, for example, Keynes Ms. 130.5, sheet iv, available at http://www.newtonproj'ect.imperial.ac.uk/texts/viewtext.php?id=THEMoo168&mode=normalized. For other sources, see Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 470–71 and footnotes.
"this stupendous Machine": John Locke, "On Education," Works of John Locke, vol. 3, p. 89.
he was a political exile: A warrant for Locke's arrest had been issued in 1685, which prompted the English government to seek his extradition from Holland. The threat prompted Locke to go at least partly underground in Amsterdam. See Maurice Cranston, John Locke, pp. 252–54.
[>] "mixture of Papist & Protestants": The phrase appears in a draft paragraph for a document to be submitted to the Ecclesiastical Commission hearing the university's claim that it need not obey James's command. The paragraph is quoted in full in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 478–79.
"Go your way, and sin no more": Ibid., p. 479; the entire incident is covered on pp. 473–79.
[>] his only documented statement: See Ibid., p. 483, and A. Rupert Hall, Isaac Newton, p. 231.
[>] a lewd joke about a nun: John Conduitt, Keynes Ms. 130.6, Book 2, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 192.
In contrast, Locke played politics: Maurice Cranston, John Locke, p. 219.
[>] effervescent burst of creation: I was first directed to Hooke's and Locke's interest in weather measurement by Jan Golinski, and Professor Golinski's new British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment offers the best account of that pursuit in the context of broader currents in the enlightenment. For a very brief summary of Hooke's weather work, see "A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 16: Robert Hooke and the Royal Society of London," Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, April 2005, p. 97. But for the bitter conflicts with Newton, Hooke would be remembered unequivocally as what he was: one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of science. The breadth of his interests and accomplishments earned him the nickname "London's Leonardo," and there is a good measure of truth in the epithet.
[>] "as welcome as I can make you": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 28 October 1690, Correspondence 3, p. 79, and 3 May 1692, Correspondence 3, p. 214.
a simplified version of the proof: Isaac Newton to John Locke, March 1689/90, Correspondence 3, pp. 71–77.
"his never enough to be admired book": John Locke, Essay on Human Understanding, Book 4, chapter 7, paragraph 11 (3).
[>] "beyond the Reach of humane Art & Industry": Humphrey Newton to John Conduitt, 17 January 1727/8 and 14 February 1727/8, Keynes Ms. 135, sheets 3, 5.
"neither he nor any body else understands": John Conduitt reported this story, which is cited in Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 486.
[>] "thanks to my Lord and Lady Monmoth": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 14 November 1690, Correspondence 3, p. 82. Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Monmouth, was one of William's most powerful English supporters.
"my most humble service": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 13 December 1691, Correspondence 3, pp. 185–86.
5. "THE GREATEST STOCK OF IMPUDENCE"
[>] a family coining business: The underlying source for almost all of Chaloner's biography before his conflict with Newton is the pamphlet by an anonymous author titled Guzman Redivivus: A Short View of the Life of Will. Chaloner, 1699. Additional details come from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry "Chaloner, William," by Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley.
"some unlucky Rogues Trick or other": Guzman Redivivus, p. 1.
an agreed number of nails: See H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry from c. 450B.C. to A.D. 1775, pp. 304–12. There is a diagram of a water-powered slitting mill on p. 309.
[>] "St. Francis's Mule": Guzman Redivivus, p. 1. The phrase "St. Francis's Mule" is a play on the story in the saint's life in which, on seeing their master becoming increasingly infirm, Francis's followers "borrow" (read, "steal") a mule. The animal's owner, on seeing Francis astride his mule, rebukes the saint, telling him to try to be as virtuous as others believe him to be. Francis dismounts from the mule and kneels before its owner, thanking him for the advice before, presumably, continuing on foot.
"with a purpose to visit London": Guzman Redivivus, p. 1.
[>] Its death rate exceeded the birth rate: See, for example, the bill of mortality for London for the year 1700, reproduced in facsimile on page 97 of Maureen Waller, 1700: Scenes from London Life. In that year, the company of parish clerks for London reported 14,639 christenings and 19,443 deaths. For data on London's population history in the seventeenth century, see R. A. Houston, "The Population History of Britain and Ireland, 1500–1750," in Michael Anderson, ed., British Population History, pp. 118–24, and David Coleman and John Salt, The British Population, pp. 27–32. For more details on the social structure of the migration to London and comparisons to other cities, see Roy Porter, London: A Social History, pp. 131–33, and Stephen Inwood, A History of London, pp. 269–75.
"region of dirt, stink and noise": Arthur Young, cited in Roy Porter, London: A Social History, p. 133.
heaps of human and animal waste: London had some open sewers, but not closed ones at this time. Houses of the middle class and above had vaults for their waste, which would be cleaned out by nightsoil men, though the system was far from foolproof. Serious attempts at sanitation did not come to London until after 1750. Probably not coincidentally, birth rates began to exceed death rates in the metropolis after that date. See Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 2.
"come tumbling down Flood": Jonathan Swift, "A Description of a City Shower," The Tatler, October 1710, quoted in Stephen Inwood, A History of London, p. 282.
[>] "impure and thick mist": Jonathan Evelyn in Fumifugium, published in 1661, cited in Roy Porter, London: A Social History, p. 97. See also Maureen Waller's 1700: Scenes from London Life, pp. 95–96.
wages in the capital: Roy Porter, London: A Social History, p. 132.
[>] exhilarating, terrifying, incomprehensible: Ibid., p. 134.
the proper coffeehouse: Jan Golinksi, personal communication.
most sophisticated houses of prostitution: Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 99.
"at a loss of Acquaintance": Guzman Redivivus, p. 1.
London hatters beat to death a man: Stephen Inwood, A History of London, p. 334. Inwood drew this anecdote from J. Rule, The Experience of Labor, p. 111.
[>] whatever price the cartel set: Stephen Inwood, A History of London, p. 325.
broke, bored, or both: For an account of the dashing career of Thomas Butler, wealthy spendthrift, Jacobite spy, and eminently respectable highwayman, along with an account of the social and mythic status of highwaymen, see Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 55–60.
[>] Others preyed on coaches: Ibid., pp. 5–6.
"yet being so warily watchful": Robert Greene, "A Disputation Between a He Cony Catcher and a She Cony Catcher," pp. 211–12, cited in John L. McMullan, The Canting Crew, p. 101.
Fences, at the hub of criminal gangs: Ibid., pp. 105–7.
[>] "looser associates": Guzman Redivivus, p. 1.
"a little of your plain fucking": Arbuthnot's quip was recorded in Horace Walpole's correspondence, vol. 18, p. 70, of the edition edited by W. S. Lewis, cited in Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 99.
[>] a kind of affordable fashion accessory: My thanks to the horological expert Will Andrewes (formerly curator of Harvard University's Museum of Historical Scientific Instruments), the British Museum's David Thompson, and the Museum of London's Hazel Forsyth for their help in narrowing down Chaloner's likely invention.
[>] jail fever: Maureen Waller, 1700: Scenes from London Life, pp. 101–2.
lost about two-thirds of their children: For the figures on Quaker mortality, see J. Landers, "Mortality and Metropolis: The Case of London, 1675–1875," Population Studies 41, no. i (March 1987), p. 74. A good summary of the general background of disease and mortality in the city can be found in Stephen Inwood, A History of London. See also J. Landers, "Burial Seasonality and Causes of Death in London, 1670–1819," Population Studies 42, no. 1 (March 1988), pp. 59–83.
"the Character of his Servant": Guzman Redivivus, p. 2.
[>] "discovering Stol'n Goods &c": Ibid.
Wild managed this balancing act: For a good summary of Wild's career, see Frank McLynn, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 22–30. For a marvelous fictional imagining of Wild's world, see David Liss's well-researched novel A Conspiracy of Paper.
"some Old Garret to repose his Carcase": Guzman Redivivus, p. 2.
6. "EVERY THING SEEM'D TO FAVOUR HIS UNDERTAKINGS"
[>] "daubed with colours": Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19, I, f. 501.
[>] "As o'er-dy'd blacks": Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act 1, scene 2.
[>] a mere 103: Lord Macaulay, The History of England, vol. 5, p. 2566.
"the spectacle of his death": Ibid., p. 2564. Macaulay commends the extraordinary diary of Narcissus Luttrell as a source to give a sense of the ubiquity of clipping and of crime in general—and so do I.
[>] "88.8 grains of silver": This number comes from Newton's report to the Treasury, 25 September 1717, on the metal content of English money. He states: "I humbly represent that a pound weight Troy of Gold, eleven ounces fine & one ounce allay, is cut into 44½ Guineas, & a pound weight of silver, 11 ounces, 2 pennyweight fine, & eighteen pennyweight allay is cut into 62 shillings, & according to this rate, a pound weight of fine gold is worth fifteen pounds weight six ounces seventeen pennyweight & five grains of fine silver, recconing a Guinea at i£, is. 6d. in silver money."
[>] "freer from clipping or counterfeiting": Samuel Pepys, Diary, vol. 10, online at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4127. Further details in this description come from Sir John Craig, Newton at the Mint, pp. 5–8, and from C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, pp. 339–48.
The 1662 transition to a milled coinage using Blondeau's milling machinery was not the first time the Mint produced milled coins. Milled coins were made under Queen Elizabeth I for ten years, using horse-driven mills in a process supervised by another Frenchman, Eloye Mestrell. The coins, both gold and silver, were of far higher quality than the hammered coinage, but the procedure was slow, and after ten years Mestrell was dismissed and the use of machinery to produce counterfeit-resistant coins was dropped. (Mestrell was later hanged for counterfeiting.) Next, beginning in 1631, Nicholas Briot, yet one more French currency engineer, and then his son-in-law John Falconner, supervised the making of several runs of milled coins in gold and silver for the English and the Scottish mints. These coinages also failed to supersede the traditional hammered currency, a state of affairs that would continue until Blondeau managed to prove the effectiveness of his machinery, beginning with his demonstration to Cromwell in 1656. See Challis, pp. 250–51 for Mestrell's story, and pp. 300–302 and 339 for the Briot-Falconner details.
[>] "Coining any manner of Money": "Inhabitant, offences against the king: coining," 1 September 1686, Proceedings of the Old Bailey,http://www.oldbaileyonline.org.
a better choice in her confederates: "Mary Corbet, offences against the king: coining," 9 April 1684, Proceedings of the Old Bailey,http://www.oldbaileyonline.org.
[>] A jury of women was impaneled: Summary of sessions on 9 April 1684, Proceedings of the Old Bailey,http://www.oldbaileyonline.org. "Pleading the belly" was a traditional and much-used tactic to delay execution. The standard for pregnancy was whether a jury of women ("matrons") could detect a "quickened" child—i.e., a fetus with detectable movements; if so, the execution would be delayed until delivery. (This is how Moll Flanders describes her beginnings in Daniel Defoe's eponymous novel.) In many cases, the reprieve led to a pardon or commutation of sentence. Some obvious consequences resulted from this provision of the common law: John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, first produced in 1765, includes a character who worked as a "child-getter," who kindly offered his services to ladies in prison in fear of their lives. The right to plead a pregnancy was formally abolished in Great Britain only in 1931.
[>] "as guineas go now": "Samuel Quested, Mary Quested, J—C—, offences against the king: coining," Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 14 October 1695, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org. At trial, Samuel Quested took all the responsibility on himself, and Mary won an acquittal on his testimony despite claims of witnesses that she was involved in the coining and clipping side of the family business. Samuel had no chance to survive his arrest. His long record as a coiner and the dangerous excellence of his work doomed him. The trial jury convicted him of high treason, and he was hanged.
[>] Chaloner found his die maker: Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1. See also "The Information of Katherine Carter the wife of Thomas Carter now prisoner in Newgate 21th. February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 120—one of the sources on which Newton based his account. solar eclipse: The eclipse broadside is extremely rare. The British Museum has one copy in its collection. Taylor's collections of maps are more common, with individual sheets appearing for sale from time to time by antiquarian dealers.
[>] a thin skim of gold: "The Information of Math[ew] Peck of Pump Court in Black Fryars Turner 25 day of January 1698/9," Mint 17, document 117. See also "The Deposition of Humphrey Hanwell of Lambeth p[ar]ish in Southwark 22d. Feb[ruar]y 1698/9," Mint 17, document 123.
"boast his workmanship": Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, f. 501.
"daily falling into his lap": Guzman Redivivus, p. 2.
[>] "she went to bed with her Spark": Ibid., p. 3.
"Guinea's and Pistoles": Ibid., p. 3.
he stashed his precious dies: Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, f. 501.
[>] Butler and Newbold: The quotes are from Guzman Redivivus, p. 4, except for the claim that Chaloner used threats and money to sway the printers, which comes from Isaac Newton's account of the same incident in "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, f. 501. It is not clear whether Chaloner's dupes were ever executed. The author of Guzman reported that the two convicted traitors remained in prison at the time of Chaloner's own execution in 1699. This seems unlikely, implying as it does a six-year stint in one of the most harsh and disease-ridden environments in London—but it is possible. Newton did not report on the fate of the printers.
"He had fun'd": Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, f. 501.
his cash flow ebbed: Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, "Chaloner, William," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[>] He was pronounced guilty: "Matthew Coppinger, theft : specified place, theft with violence : robbery, miscellaneous : perverting justice," 20 February 1695, Proceedings of the Old Bailey,http://www.oldbaileyonline.org.
"Relations, nay": Guzman Redivivus, p. 5.
7. "ALL SPECIES OF METALS ... FROM THIS SINGLE ROOT"
[>] sickly as a child: Robert Boyle was born on 25 January 1626/7.
[>] the leader of the nation's intellectual life: The record of Newton's movements and the quote from Samuel Pepys's letter to John Evelyn on 9 January 1692 both come from Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 498.
"Mr. Boyles red earth": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 16 February 1691/2, Correspondence 3, p. 195.
[>] the red earth was ultrasensitive: Isaac Newton to John Locke, 7 July 1692, Correspondence 3, p. 215.
"may lie concealed": John Locke to Isaac Newton, 26 July 1692, Correspondence 3, p. 216.
[>] "as good Dutch dollars": Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, act 3, scene 2, http://www.gutenberg.org, 10th ed., May 2003.
[>] "except God": Isaac Newton, Quœstiones quœdam Philosophicœ, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3996, f. 1/88. The quoted material comes from page 338 in the transcription of the Quœstiones in J. E. McGuire and Martin Tamny, Certain Philosophical Questions, pp. 330–489.
[>] "the serpent that hides": Martin Schoock, Admironda Methodus Novae Philosophiae Renati Descartes (1643), p. 13, quoted in Desmond Clarke, Descartes, p. 235. See also Michael Heyd, "Be Sober and Reasonable," pp. 123–24. "I secretly teach atheism": René Descartes to M. de la Thuillerie, 22 January 1644, quoted in Desmond Clarke, Descartes, p. 240.
"may the Sun imbibe this Spirit": Isaac Newton to Henry Oldenburg, 7 December 1675, Correspondence 1, document 146, p. 366.
[>] "the life of all things": Isaac Newton, Principia, translated by I. B. Cohen and Anne Whitman, p. 926. I am grateful to Professor Schaffer for pointing out to me this and the previous reference.
"useful for that purpose": Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley, 10 December 1692, Correspondence 2, document 398, p. 233.
"all ear, all brain, all arm": Isaac Newton, Principia, p. 942.
"Parts of the Universe": Isaac Newton, Opticks, p. 403.
[>] "her fire, her soule, her life": "The Vegetation of Metals," Burney Ms. 16, f. 5v. I am indebted to Richard Westfall's description of Newton's early alchemical phase for much of my account here. See his Never at Rest, pp. 304–9.
changes of the living world: I draw this interpretation of Newton's alchemy primarily from the writing of Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs. See especially The Janus Faces of Genius, and in that work, chapter 4, "Modes of Divine Activity in the World: Before the Principia," pp. 89–121.
[>] "the illumination of matter": Isaac Newton quoted in Jan Golinski, "The Secret Life of an Alchemist," in the invaluable collection Let Newton Be!, edited by John Fauvel et al., p. 160.
8. "THUS YOU MAY MULTIPLY TO INFINITY"
[>] his alchemical laboratory: The image is one of those made by David Loggan and published in his Cantabridgia illustrata in 1690. It can be seen at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Trinity_College_Cambridge_1690.jpg/800px-Trinity_College_Cambridge_1690.jpg.
breach of security: "Of the Incanlescense of Quicksilver with Gold, generously imparted by B. R. [Robert Boyle], Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 10 (1676), 515–33.
Act Against Multipliers: The law was enacted in 1404, during the reign of King Henry IV, and it stated "that none from henceforth should use to multiply gold or silver, or use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, they incur the pain of felony." Newton refers to Boyle's role in the repeal of the act in a letter to John Locke, 2 August 1691, Correspondence 2, p. 217
[>] "will sway him to high silence": Isaac Newton to Henry Oldenburg, 26 April 1676, Correspondence 2, p. 2.
alchemical reactions: For an example of his involvement in the making of his apparatus, see the drawing in Newton's hand of several furnaces, reproduced in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 283; the catalogue of his books and its implications are discussed in John Harrison's The Library of Isaac Newton; Newton's alchemical notes total a formidable record. Most of the major texts are housed in the Keynes Collection at King's College, Cambridge, but the traditional starting place to gain an acquaintance with Newton's alchemical procedure is the Cambridge University Library's Add. Ms. 3975, which has been transcribed with reproductions of Newton's diagrams and is available at http://webappi.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/norm/ALCH00110. The site contains, among much else, both the records of experiments and examples of his reading notes from other alchemical authorities. Add. Ms. 3973 also records a long series of alchemical experiments. Humphrey Newton reported on Newton's involvement in experimental practice, and Newton's notes in Add. Ms. 3975 and elsewhere copiously document that commitment.
to the limit of his instruments: Here again, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3975 provides the easiest route to an appreciation for Newton's astonishing capacity for pure, hard labor and his commitment to rigor in his alchemical research as in all his other investigations.
"not able to penetrate": Humphrey Newton to John Conduitt, 17 January 1727/8, Keynes Ms. 135, pp. 2–3.
the true course of his work: Richard Westfall points out this basic fact in Never at Rest, pp. 359–61. As Westfall documents, if you look at the time spent on alchemy versus time spent on physics during the early and middle eighties, alchemy wins. Results were a different matter, and Newton was certainly aware that the Principia represented a different order of outcomes than anything he had achieved in the laboratory to date.
[>] experimental notes: Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, p. 171.
Index Chemicus: Index Chemicus, Keynes Ms. 30a, can be found at http:// webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/mss/dipl/ALCH00200/. The document is discussed briefly in Richard Westfall's Never at Rest, pp. 525–26, and is analyzed in much greater depth in Westfall's "Isaac Newton's Index Chemicus," Ambix 22 (1975), pp. 174–85. The reference to Boyle comes on f. 16r of the document and concerns the specific interaction of gold and "living water" (aqua animam).
[>] "it amagalms very easily": Isaac Newton, "Experiments and Observations Dec. 1692–Jan. 1692/3," Portsmouth Collection, Cambridge Add. Ms. 3973.8, transcribed in Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, pp. 290–91.
"infernal secret fire": Isaac Newton, Praxis, Babson Ms. 420, Sir Isaac Newton Collection, Babson College Archives, transcribed and translated by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, pp. 293–305. The passages quoted occur on pp. 299–300.
wingless dragons: The history of Newton's papers is summarized neatly at the Newton Project website, http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk. As discussed there, the rehabilitation of Newton's alchemy began when the economist John Maynard Keynes bought most of the available alchemical papers in the famous (in Newton circles) Sotheby's sale of 1936. Keynes wrote the first important essay on Newton's alchemy, thus breaking the taboo that guarded the image of the foundational scientific genius for two centuries. Keynes did not get the Praxis manuscript, however. Charles Babson, an American Wall Street magnate with a Newton fascination, outbid him—which is why the manuscript is in the library of Babson College in Massachusetts.
[>] "Thus you may multiply to infinity": Isaac Newton, Praxis, transcribed and translated by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, pp. 301–2, 304. The earlier draft cited is quoted in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 530. In the final version, as Dobbs translates it, Newton backs away from his claim of infinite multiplication, writing only that "you may increase it much more" (p. 304).
"quintessential matter": Isaac Newton, Praxis, transcribed and translated by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, p. 305.
9. "SLEEPING TOO OFTEN BY MY FIRE"
[>] and then simply stopped: Isaac Newton, Praxis, transcribed and translated by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, pp. 304–5.
The draft ends in midsentence: Isaac Newton to Otto Mencke (draft), 30 May 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 270–71. Newton did complete and send a letter to Mencke on 22 November 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 291–93.
"distemper": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 15 October 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 284, quoted in greater detail below.
[>] "my former consistency of mind": Isaac Newton to Samuel Pepys, 13 September 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 279.
"better if you were dead": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 16 September 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 280.
[>] "I remember not": Isaac Newton to John Locke, 15 October 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 284. Newton says that he does not remember what he said of Locke's book in the previous letter; he had written that he begged Locke's pardon "for representing that you struck at ye root of morality in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas ... and that I took you for a Hobbist." It is a pleasing detail that Newton, and presumably Locke, saw the charge of Hobbism as at least as serious as that of pandering.
Huygens told Leibniz: See Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 535. Westfall draws his account of this gossip-mongering from a letter Huygens wrote to his brother and from an entry in his journal.
"very ill circumstances": John Wallis to Richard Waller, 31 May 1695, Correspondence 4, p. 131.
[>] "no mortal may approach": Edmond Halley, "Ode to Newton," published as a dedicatory preface to the first edition of the Principia. The Latin original of the line reads, "Nec fas est propius mortali attingere divos."
"I was frozen stiff": The error Fatio caught—a mistake in Book Two of the Principia on the behavior of water flowing out of a hole in the bottom of a tank—is discussed in the notes to a letter from Fatio to Huygens, Correspondence 3, pp. 168–69. Fatio wrote of his plans for a second edition of the Principia in a letter to Huygens dated 18 December 1691; the letter and the quote from Fatio's confession of Newton's mathematical superiority are both cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 495.
[>] "with all my heart" : Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 24 February 1689/90, Correspondence 3, pp. 390–91.
Newton's secretary: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 496.
Fatio had remained silent: Isaac Newton to John Locke, 28 October 1690, Correspondence 3, p. 79.
[>] "a heap of trees": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 10 April 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 265–66.
"the Roman Empire": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 30 January 1692/3, Correspondence 3, pp. 242–43.
[>] "what may befall me": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 17 September 1692, Correspondence 3, pp. 229–30.
"with my prayers for your recovery": Isaac Newton to Nicholas Fatio de Duillier, 21 September 1692, Correspondence 3, p. 231.
"most humble, most obedient": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 30 January 1692/3, Correspondence 3, pp. 231–33.
[>] "you should return hither": Isaac Newton to Nicholas Fatio de Duillier, 24 January 1692/3, Correspondence 3, p. 241.
"I am ready to do so": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 30 January 1692/3, Correspondence 3, pp. 242–43.
"wth all fidelity": Isaac Newton to Nicholas Fatio de Duillier, 14 February 1692/3, Correspondence 3, p. 244.
"to be free of an excrescence": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 9 March 1692/3, Correspondence 3, pp. 262–63.
"I have not now any need": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 4 May 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 266–67.
[>] "all manner of respect": Nicholas Fatio de Duillier to Isaac Newton, 18 May 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 267–70.
"to bring us out of distresses": Isaac Newton, Fitzwilliam Notebook, pp. 3–r, the Newton Project, http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk.
[>] thirty pounds in 1710: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 539.
"I know not what to doe": Latin Exercise Book of Isaac Newton, private collection, quoted in Frank Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, pp. 57–58.
[>] Pepys did not respond: Pepys did write to John Millington, to ask if he knew what was wrong with Newton, as he feared "a discomposure in head, or mind, or both." (Pepys to Millington, 26 September 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 281.) Millington wrote back that he had visited Newton, who told him that he had written the letter during "a distemper that much seized his head and that kept him awake for five nights together." Millington added that Newton wanted to beg Pepys's pardon for the rudeness—a reply that satisfied Pepys. (Millington to Pepys, 30 September 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 281–82.)
"the same good will": John Locke to Isaac Newton, 5 October 1693, Correspondence 3, p. 283.
how Pepys should place his bets: Pepys posed the question in one letter, Samuel Pepys to Isaac Newton, 22 November 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 293–94. Newton replied almost immediately, Isaac Newton to Samuel Pepys, 26 November 1693, Correspondence 3, pp. 294–96.
[>] problems in calculus: Isaac Newton to Nathaniel Hawes, 25 May 1694, and Newton to Hawes, 26 May 1694, Correspondence 3, pp. 357–68; Isaac Newton to E. Buswell, June 1694, Correspondence 3, p. 374; and a manuscript from July 1694, Correspondence 3, pp. 375–80.
"as the lion is recognized by his print": Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 582–83. Newton's niece, Catherine Barton, reported that it took him just twelve hours to solve the two problems.
10. "THE UNDOING OF THE WHOLE NATION"
[>] 55,000 pounds sterling: The goldsmiths' figures are reported in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 53, and the Mint coinage statistic comes from the same source, p. 48. Li draws the latter from Hopton Haynes's records of the annual figures for Mint production in Haynes, Brief Memoires Relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England. The conversion of weight to number is based on the statutory requirement that the Mint coin three pounds two shillings out of each pound of silver alloy that was about seventy-two-percent-pure silver. The goldsmiths' petition does not specify the fineness or purity of the bullion being exported. It is thus conceivable that the bullion leaving the country contained a higher proportion of silver than minted money did, increasing the loss to England's money supply.
[>] "who do any thing for their profit": Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 55.
[>] "Great masses were melted down": Lord Macaulay, The History of England, vol. 5, p. 2564.
A laborer's daily wage: The price and wage numbers come from the data series collected by Gregory Clark as part of the research underpinning several publications. See especially "The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population and Economic Growth, England, 1209–1869," Economic History Review, February 2007, pp. 97–135; Gregory Clark, "The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209–2004," Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 6 (December 2005), pp. 1307–1340. Clark's database, updated most recently on April 10, 2006, can be found at the International Institute of Social History's website, http://iisg.nl/hpw/data.php#united.
The Mint had produced: Hopton Haynes, Brief Memoires Relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England, quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 48.
[>] "Inconveniences to the Kingdom": Journal of the House of Commons, May 7, 1690, quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, pp. 55–56.
"the coins went on dwindling": Lord Macaulay, The History of England, vol. 5, p. 2570.
William faced the prospect of being defeated: The conflict has sometimes been called the second Hundred Years' War, and it included campaigns on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. It began in 1688, with what has been called the Nine Years' War, or the War of the Grand Alliance, and continued, with interruptions, through what Europeans call the Seven Years' War and North Americans call the French and Indian War (more properly the fourth French and Indian War, waged from 1749–1756). It went on from there to the American Revolution, in which French intervention was crucial to the defeat of the British, and then the Napoleonic Wars, ending in the British and allied victory at Waterloo in 1815, and which finally settled the question of French territorial ambitions on the European continent.
[>] about 100,000 by the mid-1690s: John Childs, The Nine Years' War and the British Army, 1688–1697, p. 1.
a professional civil service: For discussions of the politics and implications of the decisions of the Convention Parliament, see as starting points Tony Claydon, William III, pp. 60–82, and J. R. Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England, pp. 311–51. For a good account of the artful confusion at the heart of Parliament's grant of the throne to William as well as to his wife, see Howard Nenner's essay "Pretense and Pragmatism: The Response to Uncertainty in the Succession Crisis of 1689," in Lois G. Schwoerer, ed., The Revolution of 1688–1689.
appointed tax commissioners: "An Act for Granting an Aid to Their Majesties of the Sum[m]e of Sixteene hundred fiftyone thousand seven-hundred and two pounds eighteen shillings towards the Carrying on a Vigorous Warre against France," Statutes of the Realm, vol. 6, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=46359. Curiously, there is a William Chaloner listed as a commissioner, but as he was supposed to serve "For the North Rideing of the County of Yorke," it seems unlikely that even so ingenious a scammer of the government as the coining William Chaloner could have wangled an appointment that far from his home haunts in London.
1.2 million pounds: Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 34.
[>] exceeded government tax income: D. W. Jones, War and Economy, p. 11. In fact, the cost of the Nine Years' War (also known as the War of the Grand Alliance) demonstrated that the military mobilizations both William and Louis had attempted exceeded the capacity of their states to sustain. For France and Great Britain (as the state was called after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland in 1706 and 1707) the armies of the Nine Years' War were the largest either nation fielded until the Napoleonic Wars. It was just too damn expensive.
English silver currency in Amsterdam: Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 58.
English government finances: Richard Hill to Trumbull, 21 August 1695, quoted in John Childs, The Nine Years' War and the British Army, 1688–1697, p. 297.
[>] "a matter of so general concern": King William to the House of Commons, 26 November 1695, in the Journal for the House of Commons vol. 11, p. 339.
11. "OUR BELOVED ISAAC NEWTON"
[>] "to prevent the Melting or Exporting": Isaac Newton, Goldsmiths' Library Ms. 62, quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of1696 to 1699, p. 217.
[>] "the Party offending": Ibid.
"Change of Denomination": John Locke's response to Lowndes, Goldsmiths' Library Ms. 62, quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 227.
[>] "the measure of the bargain": John Locke quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 102.
"to defraud the King": Ibid., p. 104.
Newton simply stayed put: In all those years at Cambridge—in all his life, in fact—Newton, the man who solved the motion of the tides (and lived on an island) never once saw the sea. This was pointed out to me by Simon Schaffer, who also included it in the text of a lecture titled "Newton on the Beach," delivered at Harvard University on April 4, 2006.
[>] March 21: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 556.
"more attendance than you may spare": Correspondence 4, document 545, p. 195.
"the office of Warden of the Mint": Correspondence 4, document 547, p. 200. Not a single letter: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 550.
12. "STIFLING THE EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM"
[>] "Double Deception": Guzman Redivivus, p. 7.
failing money supply: John Locke's public writings on the currency (as distinct from the argument produced in response to Lowndes's request of 1695) include Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money (1691), Short Observations on a Printed Paper entitled 'For Encouraging the Coining Silver Money in England and after keeping it here' (1695), and Further Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money (1695). Charles Davenant produced An Essay on the Ways and Means of supplying the War (1694).
[>] set their thoughts in type: Sir Robert Cotton, Touching the Alteration of Coin (London: Thomas Horne, 1690); John Briscoe, Proposals for Supplying the government with Money on easie Terms ... (London, 1694); and J. C. Merchant, Proposals for regulating the silver coyne, bearing the charge of it, producing a circulation, and securing it to the Kingdom (1695) can be found in the Goldsmiths' Library, London, now housed at the Senate House Library and reproduced in an online resource: The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, 1450–1850. Joyce Oldham Appleby, in her essay "Locke, Liberalism and the Natural Law of Money," Past and Present, no. 71 (May 1976), p. 46, gives another brief survey of tracts on money, including The Groans of the Poor and A letter from an English Merchant at Amsterdam to his Friend at London.
paper as a tool of thought: I am indebted to James Gleick's observation on the scarcity of paper in Newton's childhood for leading me to this line of thought. See Gleick's Isaac Newton, p. 14.
coarse brown paper: D. C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, pp. 41–43.
eighty thousand reams: See the table compiled by D. C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, p. 13. The figures there are incomplete for the early years of the series, sometimes showing the amount imported by English merchants (e.g., 1621 and 1626) and sometimes the total by foreign traders (e.g., 1622 and 1624). I have combined the separate totals in those years to arrive at my estimate of about eighty thousand reams.
the cost of the printing: Ibid., pp. 11–12.
[>] a hundred English mills: Ibid., pp. 49, 56.
deficiencies in the coinage: Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, "Chaloner, William," in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[>] almost certainly no coincidence: Proposals for a Fund of A Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds per Annum, pp. 6–7; The True Way of Taxing shewing What is the Legal Rack-Rent for Taxing first of Laymen, secondly of Churchmens Real Estates Equally, p. 1. In Proposals for a Fund... the author also suggests increasing government revenue by a new system of fines for criminals—which would surely have offended Chaloner's sense of self-interest, had he known of the tract and/or the idea.
[>] four in Birmingham and Sheffield: William Chaloner, Proposals Humbly Offered, for Passing, an Act to Prevent Clipping and Counterfeiting of Money, pp. 4–5.
[>] "spight of the Law": Guzman Redivivus, p. 3.
13. "HIS OLD TRICK"
[>] William Paterson: Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England, vol. i, p. 13, and Reginald Saw, The Bank of England, 1694–1944, p. 14.
under half the total needed: Reginald Saw, The Bank of England, 1694–1944 p. 14.
[>] only forty-two members: For a good capsule account of the founding of the Bank, see Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England, vol. I, pp. 13–20.
Though his is something of an official history, Clapham's summary of the state of banking and credit in England immediately before the Bank's founding is also a useful overview. See also John Giuseppi's The Bank of England. As a long-standing Bank archivist, Giuseppi is very close to the surviving documents.
[>] "marbled paper Indented": Bank of England directors' meeting minutes for August II, 1694.
Bank of England notes: There was one earlier attempt to create bank notes, in 1661, when the Bank of Sweden issued printed notes. The Swedish experiment with paper was an immediate success, with notes trading at a premium to metal money. The Swedes—or at least their spines—had good reason to welcome the invention. Their coinage was based on copper, with the result that material wealth was truly a burden. The ten-dollar coin was the heaviest piece of currency ever struck, weighing in at 19.7 kilos, or more than 43 pounds. As A. D. Mackenzie put it, "the payment of anything greater than the smallest of sums necessitated the use of heavy transport" (The Bank of England Note, p. 2). For all the ease that paper money brought the average Swede, though, the premium earned by paper over copper made it profitable to export Swedish coins to other markets, so that by 1664, the Bank of Sweden could not make good on its promise to exchange metal for paper on demand. With that, the notes were withdrawn, and Sweden returned to its traditional coinage as the basis for its monetary system.
August 14, 1695: Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, "Chaloner, William," in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[>] brush with the turnkeys: Ibid.
14. "A THING IMPOSSIBLE"
[>] Neale was thoroughly overmatched: C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, pp. 392–93.
[>] Neale was suddenly in charge: For Neale's background, see C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, pp. 392–93. For the total mint production of silver from 1660 to 1695, see Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 48; figures are drawn from Hopton Haynes's records. Newton's accounting for the total amount of money struck in the Great Recoinage comes from his reckoning in Mint 19.2, f. 264. The total came to £6,859,144 8s. 4d.—remarkable exactitude, but completely in keeping with Newton's passion for calculation to the limit of precision.
Official revenues disappeared: Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, pp. 135–36.
[>] "The people are discontented": Edmund Bohun to Hohn Cary, 31 July 1696, quoted in C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 387. Bohun lost his lucrative post as licensor (censor) of books when he approved the publication of a tract claiming that William and Mary held their thrones by right of their conquest of James II's forces. Fearful of even the faintest of challenges to the legitimacy of a monarchy that had in fact been seized by force of arms, Parliament ordered Bohun's arrest, questioned him at the bar of the House of Commons, burned the offending pamphlet, and stripped him of his job. There is no reason to doubt this part of his letter to Cary, but Bohun was a former supporter of James's who submitted to William's conquest a little too swiftly for both his former allies and his new masters, and it may be wise to take the extreme of his rage at the recoinage expressed elsewhere in the letter with some caution. Bohun's fate as licensor is discussed, in the larger context of the debate over the legitimacy of William and Mary's claim to the monarchy, in Mark Goldie's "Edmund Bohun and Ius Gentium in the Revolution Debate, 1689–1693," Historical Journal 20, no. 3 (1977), pp. 569, 586.
the treasure of the nation was exhausted: Malcolm Gaskill, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England, p. 195.
"nobody paying or receiving": John Evelyn, diary entry for II June 1696, quoted in Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 135, and D. W. Jones, War and Economy, p. 137.
twenty people were arrested: Malcolm Gaskill, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England, p. 195.
"Our Coine alas it Will not Pass": The broadside most likely dates from 1697 and is quoted in full in ibid., p. 193.
[>] "the new Invention of Rounding": Oath taken by Newton, 2 May 1696, Correspondence 4, document 548, p. 201.
No Warden had done much real work: Sir John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," Nature 182 (1958), pp. 136, 149. For Newton's account of the organization of the Mint and the problems its antique arrangements created, see his memorandum of June 1696, Correspondence 4, document 552, pp. 207–9.
the post would not be too demanding: Correspondence 4, document 545, p. 195.
"of a prodigal temper": Mint records, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 564.
a raise in his basic pay: Isaac Newton to the Treasury, June 1696, Correspondence 4, document 551, pp. 205–6.
the quality of the work of carpenters: Isaac Newton, Thomas Neale, and Thomas Hall to "the Right Honble the Lords Commissrs of his Majties Treasury," 6 May 1696, Correspondence 4, document 549, p. 202. (Hall was Neale's assistant.) It is reassuring to recognize that some human experiences are truly universal. Doubting one's contractor has to be one of them.
[>] several needed employees: Isaac Newton and Thomas Hall to "the Right Honble the Lords Commrs. Of his Majties Treasury," 8 June 1696, Correspondence 4, document 550, pp. 204–5.
the grand sum of two pence: Isaac Newton to the Treasury, 1696, Correspondence 4, document 559, p. 218. While two pennies counted for a lot more then than now, it still amounts to more or less the cost of a large cappuccino on the streets of London today. Not much, in other words. mastering the details of every operation: Richard Westfall describes Newton's campaign to master all the available material about the Mint in Never at Rest, pp. 564–66, from which this account is drawn.
"nor any other eyes than your own": Isaac Newton to All Country Mints, 16 April 1698, Correspondence 4, document 586, p. 271.
His holograph Mint papers: Newton's Mint papers fill Mint 19/1–5 and are held at the U.K.'s Public Record Office (Mint 19.6 is a calendar of the other five volumes). Most of his papers as Warden are in Mint 19/1, which has multiple drafts of a variety of documents associated with the recoinage, the organization of the Mint, and William Chaloner. See, for example, the nearly identical summaries of Chaloner's crimes in 19/1, f. 496, and 19/1, ff. 497–98 (the latter reproduced in Correspondence 4, document 581, pp. 261–62). Richard Westfall lists several other examples of Newton's need to rewrite in Never at Rest, p. 566, n. 47.
[>] "a thing impossible": Hopton Haynes quoted in C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 394.
fee of twelve and three-eighths pence: Isaac Newton and Thomas Hall to the Treasury, on or after 22 February 1696/7, Correspondence 4, p. 236.
ten thousand pounds of refined liquid silver: C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 394.
[>] "will hold but 700 or 650 lb wt": Isaac Newton, "Observations concerning the Mint," 1697, Correspondence4, document 579, p. 256.
five hundred men and fifty horses: C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 394. The figure of five hundred men working at the Mint comes from Sir John Craig, Newton at the Mint, p. 14.
the striking chamber: Isaac Newton, "Observations concerning the Mint," 1697, Correspondence 4, document 579, p. 258.
"judge of the workmen's diligence": Hopton Haynes, Brief Memoires Relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 561.
fifty to fifty-five times a minute: C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 394. He cites Haynes for Newton's calculations. The figure of fourteen men working each press comes from Isaac Newton, "Observations concerning the Mint," 1697, Correspondence 4, document 579, p. 258.
[>] Only one man died: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 561.
a record output: C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, p. 394.
about 2,700,000 pounds: Mint 9/60, cited in C. E. Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, pp. 394, 397. See also, Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, pp. 138–40. Richard Westfall dates the achievement of the 100,000-pounds-per-week output to the summer of 1696 in his Never at Rest, p. 561.
a peace with Louis XIV: In response to the King's complaint about a lack of cash for war and trade, in October 1696, the directors of the Bank of England were asked what could be done. Among their suggestions: "increase the species of money and expedite ye coyning thereof." See Ming-hsun Li, The Great Recoinage of 1696 to 1699, p. 138.
[>] the enterprise would have failed: John Conduitt, notes for his biography of Newton, Keynes Ms. 130.7, 3r.
15. "THE WARDEN OF THE MINT IS A ROGUE"
[>] forty pounds for each conviction: John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), p. 136.
"prosecuting and swearing for money": Isaac Newton to the Treasury, July/ August 1696, Correspondence 4, document 553, pp. 209–10.
"Office of the Warden of his Majts. Mint": Ibid. The sentence in which Newton asked to be relieved of the duty was crossed out and rewritten in slightly different form beneath his signature: "And therefore I humbly pray that it may not be imposed upon me any longer."
[>] the coining pseudonym: Paul Hopkins and Stuart Handley, "Chaloner, William," in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
[>] beyond the reach of English writs: Cooke also implicated Chaloner, without mentioning Hunter. See John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," Nature 182, no. 4629 ( July 19, 1958), p. 150.
[>] Christopher Wren: As Peter Whitfield notes in his London: A Life in Maps, both Newgate and Bethlehem Hospital—better known as Bedlam—were rebuilt to new standards of external elegance after the Great Fire. Neither building remains; Newgate was rebuilt twice more at the same location before being demolished to provide a site for the Old Bailey law courts. Bedlam's site, in an almost too obvious irony, now boasts the Imperial War Museum.
"a kind of entrance to it": Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, p. 215.
"this abode of misery and despair": Giacomo Casanova, The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, chapter 13, http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/chapterIII.html (unabridged London edition of 1894).
[>] Typhus was so widespread: The description of Newgate is drawn from Stephen Halliday's marvelous history Newgate: London's Prototype of Hell, pp. 30–35. I can't recommend this book too highly; it offers delightfully gruesome anecdotes in the framework of a significant case study in the evolution of prisons.
[>] the Fever Islands: John Craig told the story of Newton's involvement with White and Cooke in "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), pp. 137—(8. After his release from Newgate: Guzman Redivivus, p. 8.
[>] Chaloner's old coining partner: Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, sheet 501.
16. "BOXEFULLS OF INFORMATIONS IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING"
[>] the case of the missing dies: According to John Craig's calculations, Newton appeared before the Lords Justices ten times in August and September 1696, and during that period interviewed at least six suspects, either at Newgate or at the Mint. That works out to about two days a week he devoted to the investigation, and it probably underestimates both the number of suspects questioned and the number of times each suspect was interrogated. See John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), p. 137.
[>] "paid Humphrey Hall to buy him a suit": Mint 19/1, sheet 467, cited in John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," Nature 182, no. 4629 (July 19, 1958), p. 150.
[>] Both men benefited: The Cambridgeshire undercover operation and George Macy's work are described in Malcolm Gaskill, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England, p. 170. The adventures of the brothers Maris and Rewse are documented in John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), pp. 138–39. J. M. Beattie's Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750, pp. 228–47, details the experience of hired thief-takers in the 1690s and discusses Rewse's career in some detail.
total of £626 5s. 9d.: "An Acoumpt of monies expended by Isaac Newton of his Majts Mint in the apprehension and prosecuting of Clippers and coyners between the third day of August 1696 and the...," Mint 19/1, leaf 477.
"scandalously mercenary": Hopton Haynes, Brief Memoires, f. 36v, quoted in Malcolm Gaskill, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England, p. 171.
[>] He used the warrant to blackmail victims: Mint 17, deposition 193, of John Holloway and Elizabeth Holloway, 14 and 17 April 1699.
hint of sexual extortion: "a certain pension," Mint 17, document 198, deposition of Mary Townsend, no date; "in company with one Mr. John Gibbons," Mint 17, document 240, deposition of Mary Townsend, 31 August 1698; "Gibbons corresponds," Mint 17, document 31, deposition of Edward Ivie, 22 August 1698. The eighty-pound price, Mint 17, document 38, deposition of Mary Hobbs, 2 July 1698; "a little adjouning room," Mint 17, document 44, deposition of Elizabeth Bond, 15 July 1698. Hints that Gibbons regularly demanded sexual payment from women—coiners in their own right and those women who came to beg or buy his intercession for relatives or lovers—come in a number of the depositions Newton took in the summer of 1698. Besides Bond's testimony about Mrs. Jackson, there are several other, similarly indirect descriptions. But explicitly, witness after witness made the point that Gibbons had his victims absolutely in his power: they could hand over whatever he sought, or they could go to Newgate and the gallows. It seems clear from reading the numerous depositions that Gibbon lusted after more than money. See also J. M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in England, 1660–1750, pp. 241–42. Beattie documents the authorities' knowledge of Gibbons's untrustworthiness.
[>] "sought after for coyning of Gineas and pistols": "The Examination of Elizabeth Ivie of Liccabone street in Holbourn Widdow 13 October 1698," Mint 17, document 104.
"Taverns & Prisons & other places": Isaac Newton to the Treasury, i October 1699, Correspondence 4, document 617, p. 317.
[>] "boxefulls of informations" John Conduitt, Character, Keynes Ms. 130.7, p. 3r, online at the Newton Project, http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk. England's most prolific torturing monarch: John H. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, p. 82.
Little Ease: Ibid., p. 85. The rats did not have the desired effect on Sherwood, so his interrogation intensified with a session on the rack, ordered two weeks later.
"marching to the beat of drum": British History Online, Lambeth—Lambeth Palace, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45290.
[>] "to cause him to be racked": David Jardine, A reading on the use of torture in the criminal law of England before the Commonwealth, pp. 57–58.
Archer did not speak: L. A. Parry, The History of Torture in England. The description of the rack comes on pages 76–77; his account of John Archer's case is on page 60. Torture continued to be used legally in Scotland long after the practice ceased in England. Most notably, in 1693 King William took advantage of the fact that he ruled two separate kingdoms to transport Henry Neville Payne from London to Edinburgh to torture him there. evidence gained under torture: See Langbein's analysis in Torture and the Law of Proof, pp. 134–39.
[>] "I shall have Irons put on me tomorrow": "Thomas Carter's Letter to the Warden of the Mint Sunday Afternoon," Mint 17, document 130.
"The blood of coiners and clippers": Frank Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, p. 244.
17. "I HAD BEEN OUT BEFORE NOW BUT FOR HIM"
[>] arrested Ball and Miller: Mint 17, document 6, deposition of Mary Miller, 19 July 1698. Miller made this statement before Isaac Newton about two weeks after the events described.
Miller was a known quantity: Mint 17, document 12, deposition of Mary Miller, 5 August 1698.
[>] six or seven pence per coin: Mint 17, document 27, deposition of Samuel Bond, 16 September 1698.
"imposing up on a whole Kingdom": Guzman Redivivus, p. 3.
[>] "Debased, Diminished and Counterfeited": William Chaloner, "The Defects in the present Constitution of the Mint," p. 1.
The rot started at the top: "Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire Into the Miscarriages of the Officers of the Mint," reprinted inRogers Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Britain and its Dependencies, vol. 2, p. 468.
"hath got a great estate": Ibid., p. 467.
[>] why not add "an Officer": William Chaloner, "The Defects in the present Constitution of the Mint," p. 1.
"Morally impossible to Counterfeit": Ibid.
[>] "such bad Workmanship": Ibid.
"to perform some of his Proposals": Ibid., p. 2.
Newton's responses: Isaac Newton, untitled and undated memo, Mint 19/1, f. 496.
[>] "undeniable demonstrations": "Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire Into the Miscarriages of the Officers of the Mint," reprinted in Rogers Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Britain and its Dependencies, vol. 2, p. 467.
"Mr Chaloner may make an Experiment": Mint 19/1, f. 516. Reprinted in Correspondence 4, pp. 231–32.
And there the matter rested: Isaac Newton, "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition" (draft), Mint 19/1, f. 499. See also John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 198, no. 2 (December 1963), p. 141.
Newton's testimony: "Report of the Committee Appointed to Inquire Into the Miscarriages of the Officers of the Mint," reprinted in Rogers Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Britain and its Dependencies, vol. 3, pp. 533–42.
[>] "libeling ... in print": Isaac Newton, "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition" (draft), Mint 19/1, f. 499, and an untitled memo, Mint 19/1, f. 496.
18. "A NEW AND DANGEROUS WAY OF COINING"
[>] "fun[ne]d the Lords of the Treasury": "The Information of John Peers taken upon Oath ye 18th day of May 1697," Mint 17, document 86. This deposition was taken by a judge, Francis Negus, and not Newton himself. Newton heard much the same thing, possibly from Chaloner's close associate Thomas Holloway. In "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition" (draft), Mint 19/1, f. 499, Newton writes that Chaloner said he was on the verge of "funning the Parliament as he had done the King and the Bank before." "the Character he deserv'd": Guzman Redivivus, p. 6.
[>] "a new and dangerous way of coining": Isaac Newton, untitled memo, Mint 19/1, f. 496, and "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition" (draft), Mint 19/1, f. 499.
[>] "a house in the Country": Isaac Newton, "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition" (draft), Mint 19/1, f. 499, and untitled memo, Mint 19/1, f. 496. See also "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, f. 503.
[>] practically indistinguishable: Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," (undated, probably late 1697), Mint 19/1, f. 503. See also parts of this account repeated in various drafts, especially in Mint 19/1, f. 496.
"might be hidden anywhere" : Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case," (undated, probably late 1697), Mint 19/1, f. 503.
"new way quick and profitable": Ibid.
[>] Chaloner make his famous boast: "The Information of John Peers taken upon Oath ye 18th day of May 1697," Mint 17, document 86.
[>] He bailed his man out: He was reimbursed. See John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator,"Nature 182 (1958), pp. 150–51. Newton's accounts show two sums paid out of his own funds for "frustrating the designs of Chaloner + his associates in their conspiring to set on foot a new way of coyning in summer 1697 and of apprehending some of them." The two entries total twenty-three pounds eighteen shillings, and while Newton did not itemize his expenses, the cost of funding Peers and hauling him out of jail both fit the general category here. The charges are recorded in Mint 19/1, f. 577.
Newton again arrested Holloway: Isaac Newton, "Chaloner's Case" (undated, probably late 1697), Mint 19/1, f. 503.
[>] he was to arrest William Chaloner: John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," Nature 182, no. 4629 ( July 19, 1958), pp. 150–51.
Chaloner readied his counterattack: Ibid.
[>] "asked him if Holloway was gone away": "The Information of Henry Saunders of Cross Lane in ye parish of St. Gyles in the Fields in the County of Middx, Tallow Chandler 25 augt. 1698," Mint 17, document 98. The details of Holloway's escape to Scotland come from this deposition and from Mint 17, documents 80, 81, and 107. Document 80 contains "The Information of rob Brown Joyner at the Turk's head near the Hermitage Bridge in Wapping 13 December 98." Documents 81 and 107 are depositions by Elizabeth Holloway.
19. "TO ACCUSE AND VILIFY THE MINT"
[>] "such redress as shall seem best": William Chaloner, "Petition by Chaloner," late 1697, copied out by Isaac Newton, Mint 19/1, f. 497. Also Correspondence 4, document 580, pp. 259–60.
"raised himself by coyning": Isaac Newton, "An Answer to Mr. Chaloner's Petition," early 1698, Mint 19/1, ff. 497–98, reprinted in Correspondence 4, document 581, pp. 261–62.
[>] "any privilege or direction was given": Ibid.
Newton was standing in the dock: John Craig, "Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), p. 141.
gaps turned up in the plaintiff's story: Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1697, p. 339.
a bald rejection: Isaac Newton, untitled and undated, Mint 19/1, f. 503.
20. "AT THIS RATE THE NATION MAY BE IMPOSED UPON"
[>] "being afraid to have them": "The Examination of Thomas Carter Prisoner in Newgate 31 January 1698/9," Mint 17, deposition 118.
"they were so light": "The Deposition of John Abbot of Water Lane in Fleet street Refiner 15th day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, deposition H9. "he would do some better": "The Examination of Thomas Carter Prisoner in Newgate 31 January 1698/9," Mint 17, deposition 118.
[>] "to engage themselves in this Fund": Thomas Neale, A Profitable Adventure to the Fortunate, p. 2.
[>] to secure the best possible return: See Anne L. Murphy's analysis in her article "Lotteries in the 1690s: Investment or Gamble?," Financial History Review 12, no. 2 (2006), pp. 231–32.
a quarter of a million pounds behind: Ibid.
"Credit and Honour of the Nation": Anonymous petitioner quoted in ibid., p. 231.
[>] actual bills of exchange: Thomas Neale, "Fourteen Hundred Thousand Pound, made into One Hundred and Forty Thousand Bills of Ten Pounds apiece, to be given out for so much as Occasion requires, and to be paid as Chance shall Determine in course, out of 1515000 l. being left to be only made use of to pay Interest, Premium and Charge," 1697.
"nobody does or will understand": Anne L. Murphy, "Lotteries in the 1690s: Investment or Gamble?," Financial History Review 12, no. 2 (2006), p. 233.
forty-five thousand pounds' worth: "The fourth parliament of King William: First Session," History and Proceedings of the House of Commons, vol. 3, pp. 91–106, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=37657.
[>] the smaller and less valuable fish: All the quotes and the narrative of Davis's pursuit of Chaloner come from the deposition in which Davis described the information he provided Secretary Vernon, Mint 17, document 85.
Robert Morris: John Craig, "Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18, no. 2 (December 1963), p. 142.
21. "HE HAD GOT HIS BUSINESS DONE"
[>] "why am I so strictly confined": William Chaloner, "Letter to the Warden of the Mint," undated, Mint 17, document 133.
"he had a Trick left yet": Guzman Redivivus, p. 7.
[>] Brady had received some of his supply: "The Examination of Edward Ivy als Jonas late of [ sic] in London Gentl[eman] taken before me the 17th day of May 1698," Mint 17, document 31.
Newgate or some other jail: See, for example, Mint 17, document 99, "The Information of Mary Townsend of the p[ar]ish of St. Andrews Holborn in the County of Midd[lese]x Widdow taken this 31 day of Augt. 1698," a deposition in which Townsend implicates John Gibbons and Edward Ivy. Two months later, Elizabeth Ivy complains of Gibbons and John Jennings in document 104, along with Brady—all of whom were named later by her husband—and someone Townsend omitted, a Valentine Cogswell. Newton already knew about Cogswell, though, because in May, an informant whose name is missing from the surviving portion of his or her deposition mentioned "Cogswell a Gent[leman]," whom Brady initiated into the coiners' society. That witness was clearly well placed, listing eighteen men and women involved in clipping, coining, and other crimes in document 91—a tally that included the horrifying charge "that one Capt. Tuthill" kept "a Rape Mill." This informant did mention Chaloner under his pseudonym Chandler, reporting that his coining operation ran under the protection of John Gibbons—but here again, his was just one name in a list. The point of the testimony as recorded by Newton's clerk was to paint a synoptic picture of a capital overrun with counterfeiters from every class.
[>] more than 140: The Mint 17 file contains obvious omissions—at one point there are some one hundred numbers missing in the document sequence. I share the conclusion of John Craig ("Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," p. 151), that up to half of the relevant documents are missing.
Newton and his witness signed the document: This procedure is pretty clear from the depositions themselves, but I was pointed to this view of Newton's handling of the witnesses by John Craig in "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," p.151.
"abot. 7 or 8 years ago she hath seen": "The Information of Katherine Coffee wife of Patrick Coffee Goldsmith late of Aldermanbury by Woodstr[eet] 18 day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 124.
[>] "abot 10 of thes counterfeit Gineas": "The Information of Katherine Matthews [aka Carter] of Earles Cour in Cranborn ally in the p[ar]ish of St. Anns Westm[inste]r," Mint 17, document 116.
"either Ginea Dyes or half Crown Dyes": "The Depostion of Humphrey Hanwell of Lambeth p[a]rish in Southwark 22d Feb 1698/9," Mint 17, document 123.
a document he titled "Chaloner Case": "Chaloner's Case," Mint 19/1, ff. 501–4.
[>] six hundred pounds of false half-crowns: "The Deposition of John Abbot of Water Lane in Fleet street Refiner 15th. day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 119.
"a Coyning Press at Chiswick": "The Information of Cecilia Labree 6th Feby 1698/9," Mint 17, document 143.
22. "IF SR BE PLEASED..."
[>] "joined they should save themselves": "The Examination of Thomas Carter Prisoner in Newgate 31 January 1698/9," Mint 17, document 118.
seven times in the pillory: "Chaloner's letter to Mr. Secretary Vernon," Mint 17, document 126.
[>] "an evidence agt. him": "Carter's Letter to Mr Secretary Vernon," undated, Mint 17, document 130. Carter's visits to the pillory included one for forging a Bank of England note in 1696, lending a powerful tinge of authority to Chaloner's hope of discrediting Carter before a jury. See The Proceedings of the Old Bailey for trials completed on 9 December 1696, http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/oldbailey/html_units/1690s/t16961209-59.html.
Newton's good graces: Thomas Carter in Mint 17, documents 83, 84, 118, 123, and 130.
"if ever King James came again": "The Deposition of Samuel Bond of Ashbourn in the parke in the Count of Derby Chyrugeon 16 October, 1698," Mint 17, document 27s.
"to come to the Dogg": "John Whitfield's Lettr to the Isaac Newton Esqr Warden of His Majtys Mint Febry 9th 98/9," Mint 17, document 134.
[>] "such vacan[t] places": Ibid.
"Chaloner was a little suspicious": "Thomas Carter's Letter to the Warden of the Mint Sunday afternoon," undated, Mint 17, document 130.
"All his discourse to him": Ibid.
"I will get out of him": Ibid.
[>] "20 such as the Warden": "The Information of William Johnson Farrier at the Barbers Pole near the Watchhouse in Radcliff highway taken this 8th day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 145. See also document 146, "The Information of Ann Duncomb of Black cheek ally in East Smithfield Spinst[er] 8 Feb: 1698/9," and document 148, "The Examination of the Josiah Cook of Eagle Str[eet] of St Gyles in the fields in the County of Midd[lese]x Chyrurgeon 14 February 1698/9," for more of what Newton could hold over Lawson's head.
"I hope Charity will moe": "Letter sent to Is[aac] Newton Esqr. From John Ignatius Lawson Sunday night and Munday morning," undated, Mint 17, document 132, and "The Information of John Ignatius Lawson Vizt," 3 April 1699, Mint 17, document 199.
Lawson kept such tales coming: Each of the separate incidents in this paragraph are contained in "The Information of John Ignatius Lawson Vizt," 3 April 1699, Mint 17, document 199. (This document number contains a series of reports Lawson sent to Newton between January and April 1699.)
[>] "the case of a small Bible": Ibid.
so he slipped through: "The Information of Jno Ignatius Lawson now Prisoner in Newgate 3d. Aprill 1699," Mint 17, document 165.
[>] "before she confess any thing": "John Ignatius Lawson's Letter to Is: Newton Esqr," undated, Mint 17, document 131.
Elizabeth Holloway: "Letter sent to Is[aac] Newton Esqr. From John Ignatius Lawson Sunday night and Munday morning," undated, Mint 17, document 132.
"hath seen him coyn": Ibid.
"no man in England could grave": "The Information of Jno Ignatius Law-son now Prisoner in Newgate 3d. Aprill 1699," Mint 17, document 165. The date is almost certainly a reference to the day when Newton collated the information Lawson provided him (see the following note), as this testimony appears in sequence with depositions taken in February, and the information it contains implies a date before the March 1 start of the Old Bailey sessions for which Newton was preparing his case.
[>] "Tin plated over with Silver": John Ignatius Lawson, untitled report, 25 February 1698, countersigned by Newton on 3 April 1699, Mint 17, document 184.
deceit that had enraged Elizabeth Holloway: John Ignatius Lawson, un-titled and undated report, Mint 17, document 192.
"6 of one Jury and 8 of another": "Letter sent to Is[aac] Newton Esqr. From John Ignatius Lawson Sunday night and Munday morning," undated, Mint 17, document 132.
[>] "the best acct I cann remember": "William Chaloner Letter to the Warden of the Mint," Mint 17, document 133.
23. "IF I DIE I AM MURTHERED"
[>] "Some p[e]rsons agt my desire": "William Chaloner Letter to the Warden of the Mint," Mint 17, document 133, first letter.
[>] "I am murthered": "William Chaloner Letter to the Warden of the Mint," Mint 17, document 133, second letter.
"suggestions of such evill persons": "A Copy of a Letter directed from Will Chaloner to Justice Railton," Mint 17, document 133, fourth letter.
[>] "in flatt stitch": "William Chaloner Letter to the Warden of the Mint," Mint 17, document 133, third letter.
"Coyn or paper": John Ignatius Lawson, untitled and undated report, Mint 17, document 192.
[>] "wasted and spoiled": "William Chaloner's Letter to Isaac Newton Esq," Mint 17, document 174.
[>] "5 times before": "John Ignatius Lawson's Letter to Is: Newton Esqr," undated, Mint 17, document 131.
"such frightful Whimseys": Guzman Redivivus, p. 7.
"pretend himself sick": John Ignatius Lawson, untitled report, 25 February 1698, countersigned by Newton on 3 April 1699, Mint 17, document 184.
"counterfeiting the Madman": Guzman Redivivus, p. 7.
24. "A PLAIN AND HONEST DEFENCE"
[>] indiscriminately silver and gold: I take this point from, and first found the details of the indictment in, John Craig, "Isaac Newton—Crime Investigator," Nature 182 (1958), p. 151. Craig led me to the Middlesex Sessions Roll for 1699, now in the London Metropolitan Archive, from which he drew the account I repeat here.
[>] an admission of guilt: J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800, p. 337.
"a plain and honest Defence": William Hawkins, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, vol. 2, quoted in J. M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750, p. 264.
[>] criminals yet uncaught: See "History of the Old Bailey Courthouse," The Proceedings of the Old Bailey,http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/the-old-bailey/.
judges "should be the advocat": newspaper commentary from 1783, quoted in J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800, p. 345.
[>] worse judge: This account of Lovell's career and character has been drawn from Tim Wales's entry "Lovell, Sir Salathiel" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The history of Lovell's role in recommending pardons is slightly more complicated than the gloss above. As Wales writes, Lovell's arbitrary (and under suspicion of corruption) use of power to tip the balance toward or away from clemency embroiled him in disputes with London's aldermen at least twice, and he did not maintain a completely free hand. In 1699, however, he was between battles and retained significant power in this area.
calling the defendant notorious: See John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 18 (1963), p. 142. Unfortunately, no more vivid account of Lovell's invective exists; the surviving documents detail only the indictments, the witness list, and some of the evidence presented at trial. The records for the March 1699 quarter sessions of the witnesses' statements and other direct records of what was said at trials have been lost.
[>] "Gineas which were reputed Chaloners": "The Information of Katherine Coffee wife of Patrick Coffee Goldsmith late of Aldermanbury by Woodstr[eet] 18 day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 124.
the prisoner's hammer: Taylor's role in producing both pistole and guinea dies survives in several hearsay depositions; see, for example, Katherine Carter's testimony before Isaac Newton on 21 February 1698/9, Mint 17, document 122. Newton amassed enough testimony to state with apparent certainty in his summary document "Chaloner's Case" that Taylor had produced two sets of French dies in 1690 and 1691, and one for guineas in 1692. See Mint 19/1.
Both were almost certainly lying: John Craig, "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters," p. 143.
[>] "a Treat at the 3 Tuns": "The Deposition of John Abbot of Water Lane in Fleet street Refiner 15th. day of February 1698/9," Mint 17, document 119.
[>] "affronting Mr. Recorder": Guzman Redivivus, p. 10.
by the midday meal break: This data comes from the December 1678 session of the Old Bailey, reported in J. M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750, p. 262.
[>] Lawson walked out of court: Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 11 October 1699, p. 3. Online at http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/images.jsp?doc16991011003.
"The Evidence was plain": Ibid.
"Guilty of High-Treason": Guzman Redivivus, p. 11.
25. "O I HOPE GOD WILL MOVE YOR HEART"
[>] "a Harping Ruin": Guzman Redivivus, p. 12.
"in[no]sent he was": "Carter's Letter to Is: Newton Esq," Mint 17, document 130.
[>] "Yo[u]r near murdered humble Servt": "William Chaloner's Letter to Isaac Newton Esq.," Mint 17, document 205.
[>] a list of complaints: Guzman Redivivus, p. 12.
the condemned men's pew: David Kerr Cameron, London's Pleasures, p. 144.
"Charity and Forgiveness": Guzman Redivivus, p. 12.
[>] "hanged by the neck": See V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree, pp. 315–16.
[>] "a rotten Member": Guzman Redivivus, p. 13.
EPILOGUE
[>] under "this gentleman's care": Hopton Haynes, Brief Memoirs, quoted in G. Findlay Shirras and J. H. Craig, "Sir Isaac Newton and the Currency," Economic Journal 55, no. 218/219, p. 229.
[>] £1,650 a year: Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 606–7. Westfall notes that early in Newton's mastership, the resumption of war with France bit into the supply of gold and silver to the Mint, and hence Newton's profit on coining operations. It was a feast-or-famine job, but Newton was able to hold on to it long enough to grow legitimately wealthy and to live precisely as he pleased.
"To explain all nature": Cambridge Add. Ms. 3790.3, f. 479, quoted in Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 643.
[>] "Nature is very constant": Opticks, from query 31, added in the Latin edition and republished in every subsequent version. Quoted in Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 644.
"Is not infinite Space": From the Latin Optice and the second edition Opticks, query 28, with edits to the original translation from the Latin by Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 647.
[>] true nature of Christ's body: For a discussion of Newton's speculation about the body of Christ, see Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius, pp. 214–15. The question of angelic prospects after the Apocalypse is discussed on p. 32 of "Newtonian Angels," a draft chapter of an upcoming book by Simon Schaffer. Newton worked on prophetic chronology for the better part of two decades, coming up with several different possible dates for the second coming. See Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 815–17.
"strong meats for men": The phrase occurs in Newton's draft of a massive project on the history of the church from its origins in the early centuries of the Christian era, cited by Simon Schaffer on p. 33 of "Newtonian Angels."
most of the new silver: G. Findlay Shirras and J. H. Craig, "Sir Isaac Newton and the Currency," Economic Journal 55, no. 218/219, p. 229.
That imbalance sucked silver: G. Findlay Shirras and J. H. Craig, "Sir Isaac Newton and the Currency," Economic Journal 55, no. 218/219, pp. 228–36.
[>] even his old currency ally: For Newton's argument and Lowndes's reply, see ibid., pp. 230–31.
[>] some historians have credited: See, for example, Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce, pp. 525–28.
[>] He bought more: The sequence of Newton's involvement in the South Sea Company is detailed in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 861–62.
[>] the value of his estate: Ibid., pp. 862, 870.
"that he could not calculate": Reported in Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men, p. 368, cited in Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 862. The classic account of the South Sea Bubble remains Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, pp. 55–104. Harvard Business School houses a major collection of material on the bubble, and its website offers a good brief introduction to that remarkable year: http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/ssb/index.html. he lived moderately: Robert Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 850.
"He generally made a present": William Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, pp. 68–69, cited in Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 856. The original recollection comes in a letter Stukeley wrote to Richard Mead shortly after Newton's death, on 15 July 1727, in Keynes Ms. 136, part 3, p. 11, and online at the Newton Project, http://www.newtonproject .sussex.ac.uk/texts/viewtext.php?id=THEM00158&mode=normalized.
active interest in the Royal Society: See Richard Westfall, Never at Rest, pp. 863–64.
[>] "a little way of in the country": The recollection of James Stirling, cited in ibid., p. 866.
a visitor came to call: See Zachary Pearce's recollection of his visit with Newton in ibid., p. 869.
The illness persisted: For a fuller account of Newton's last days, see ibid., pp. 863–70.
"only like a boy playing": Reported in Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of books and Men, p. 54. It has been repeated throughout the Newton literature and is, inter alia, reprinted in Never at Rest, p. 863.
[>] "If you doubt there was such a man": The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century view of Newton as an angelic figure, an intermediary between God and the created universe, is beautifully analyzed in Simon Schaffer's draft chapter "Newtonian Angels"—in its entirety for the larger question, pp. 8–9 for the Fatio-Conduitt communication.