| Description | ("No. 2.")
Paris, the 23d February 1791.
Dear Sir!
I received last night yours of the 17th current, with the inclosure; there is not the least difficulty of being introduced to the Monnerons by one of their acquaintances of the National Assembly, but this I think not pressing. I have been with Duprée and found him a sensible man and great artist. On turning the subject of conversation about Droz, he caracterised him so well, that I had nothing to say but that what he seemed to know of him only theoretically we were, halas! convinced of by experience. He could not undertake to do any thing for you at present, being engaged to make a coin for North-America and several other things, but says that working very vast as he does, he will in a short time have those things which he has in hand now, done, and then he will do with pleasure any thing you might wish. He promised to write me down the different places where I most likely might pick up a number of things he had done formerly; he worked several medals for America of which he has no copy, and believes there is none of them in France. He has been repeatedly consulted, with other engravers, these last eight months by the Committee of the Monnoye, and has published a little pamphlet where he treats on coining, but only relative to his art of engraver, without meddling with any other branch, which he says is not in his province, and I believe him in this respect, as well as in every other, a different man from Droz: laborious, active, and unassuming.
A friend of mine of the National Assembly asked me whether I could procure him an estimate for a fire-engine, which he would advise his constituents to erect in a town of about ten thousand inhabitants for supplying them with water. The part of the town which is highest is now supplied with water from a cistern about 100 feet under ground, from which they are obliged to draw out the water at present. They find in this cistern constantly water of about 20 feet deep; the height from the top of the cistern down to the surface of the water is about 60 or 70 feet, so that the water would be obliged to be raised, as he thinks, about 100 feet high, and from thence to be lead to the market place, where it should constantly flow through four or six pipes, or, at least, whenever required. It is principally the higher part of the town where this supply of the water is wanted, and which contains about 3,000 inhabitants, who would then water their gardens, which they can not do at present. Write me in a few lines about this point, because he is a man whom I have obligations to. A small engine might probably do for this purpose.
If your man has done with my drawing of the melting furnace I left with you, if he should not be able to make it out, the best way will be to send it me and I will write out legibly the explication and send it you back; besides, I must observe that all the measures are French and not English.
You can have your maps easily compleated, but none of those which you have can be exchanged.
Voila l'article qui etoit inseré par M. van der Liender dans le supplement du Moniteur du 27th Janvier 1791:
"En l'année 1785, M. Boulton de Birmingham inventa un moulin à monnaie, and en fait un modele. Dans le cours de l'année 1788, il le construisit en grand, et s'en sert aujourd'hui au moyen d'une machine à vapeur perfectionée. Ce moulin l'emporte sur l'ancienne maniere de monnayer, en ce que l'on peut adapter des presses de toutes façons et de toutes grandeurs, et y travailler avec plus de precison et de vitesse que l'on ne peut à force de bras, et qu'on les assiste aisément dans l'espace d'une minute pour frapper des ecus des six francs, ou des pièces de deus sous; et comme chaque coup proportionée en force à la pièce à frapper est precisement uniforme, les coin souffrent beaucoup moins, et un garçon de douze ans peut, sans le fatiguer, frapper cent pièces de petite monnaie par minute à une seule presse."
Yours sincerely,
F. Swediaur
PS. Please to tell our friend Mr. Boulton that a certain degree of heat is always required in the physical as well as in the moral world to see things in their proper light, as without it we often see nothing where other people see plainly.
[The following words were written with sympathetic ink. ]
I have been with van der Linder this morning and delivered him your letter, but have scratched out that line which you have inserted after you wrote it, viz. the query whether he would enter into our plan. I have given you my reasons against such an offer at present in my last; if circumstances are favourable, you can make him the same in an other letter, but at present I think it would [be] imprudent. He desires that any thing can be done on account of your affairs, because the Bishop never answered a letter he wrote him on the same subject, about three weeks ago, which he read to me and which I think very sensible. But this kind of men are now so overloaded with letters and business, that you can not expect an answer, except you press them for it. I proposed to van der Linder to write to him again and mention that a friend of yours and his is arrived from England who is ready to give him any information he could desire. But you must not hurry a Dutchman, and therefore I shall see whether he wrote him in a couple of days. It is not on account of pushing the affair with the Bishop, but to counteract the impressions the Bishop has received from Droz's friends. For Mirabeau is the man to make our affair succeed and no body else; the Bishop we may use afterwards as the ostensible man. Pradeaux and his friends here are the people who support Droz here, and who have p. . . every thing they could do in his favour at the Committee and the Bishop's being a weak man it was not very difficult to succeed. This is a matter of fact of which I am certain, because I have it from a man who knows nothing further of them and had no idea that this knowledge was a matter of importance to me; I am therefore confirmed not to see Pradeaux, except affairs take a different turn. Mirabeau is returned from the country only yesterday, and sent me word that I can see him to-morrow.
I hear just [now] that Pradeaux' friends offered to the Bishop to erect a coining mill in a year's time; perhaps they have done this since Pradeaux received your letter, and expects in consequence to see me and enter into a treaty on the subject. At any rate I shall not see him, before I have not had a conversation with the Bishop, to whom I can be introduced whenever I please by means of my friends, members of the National Assembly. Do not trust on any account to Droz; he is a rascal and will in every respect, whatever he may promise, impose and cheat you. |