Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist

by Thomas Levenson

  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. 450 B.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.