Gerard Moll to Faraday   13 November 1831

Utrecht 13 November 1831

My dear Sir!

Many avocations and frequent absences have prevented me thus long, to give you most sincere thanks for your trouble in causing my pamphlet to be forwarded to the press. Alas! you have been but poorly rewarded for your pains, and someone, perhaps Dr Brewster himself, whilst he gave me, or endeavoured to give me a good thrashing, has levelled some smart hits at yourself¹. If you take this matter in the same light as I do, it must not have caused you much anxiety; for my part, I cannot help laughing when I see people becoming restive because they are told that they are not so bad, as they wish to be considered. When people are in the wrong they generally become angry, and nothing of what the writer of the article in the Edinburgh Journal has said, brings me to alter my first opinion. I still maintain that no proof is adduced of the decline of Science in England, and that many may be adduced to the very contrary. In my opinion, the writer of this article has perverted my arguments and very often my own words; of this however others, not I, must be the best judges.

As for your negotiating a loan of foreign talent, and of subsidizing foreigners ², you know best how this matter stands, but I unhesitatingly declare those expressions scurrilous and ungentlemanlike, nor do I have the least apprehension that anyone who knows me, either in this country, or in England, will think them well applied either to you or me. I am accused of flattering the English, but the accuser may be firmly persuaded, that on this side of the water, there is very little disposition, or cause to flatter the English. Any Englishman travelling here, at present, must be conscious of that fact. Indeed recent political events scratched the scars from old wounds, and I am sorry to say that national antipathy, is as strong as ever³. I am really in a ludicrous predicament in this respect, both at home and in England, I am blamed for defending English character. However I will assert my right to my own opinion, and speak it out, reckless of the consequences.

The Scotch Journalist represents me to have asserted, that Sir Humphry Davy, Sir James South, Mr Babbage and others, were not actuated by noble and patriotic motives. This I utterly deny; no one except a knave or a fool, would have dared to question the honour & the integrity of the highly distinguished individuals just mentioned, though one might happen to differ in sentiment with them on some particular topics.

I cannot follow my scotch foe, through all his arguments. I will not now attempt to show, that when he contrives to bring my arguments in the form of a syllogism, he makes use of the most egregious sophistry.

But of one thing, of which he accuses me, I want to clear myself, it is the attack, which he contends I made on the Duke of Wellington⁴. With the noble Duke’s politics I have nothing to do. I merely stated the fact of his Grace’s being at present unpopular. Now, Sir! when a Minister, from prudential motives, declines attending on his Sovereign on a public procession, (I mean the intended dinner at Guild[hall),] when his windows are smashed by the mob, when the firmness of a brave soldier only prevented the rabble to attack his official mansion in Downing street⁵, when verses, like the following are applauded at public dinners,

His* name shall descend on the bright page of Story *The King’s

While the laurels of Waterloo fade on the brows

Of him who has fought for his country with glory,

But to sink in the ranks of her worst civil foes.

If the Duke had remained Commander in chief, none of this would have happened; and I said no more. My words could never be construed into the sense that none but Earl’s sons could be officers in England, but I said that if the Duke had been a common soldier, & like Murat⁶, Soult⁷ &tc he could never have risen in the English Army. Dupin, long before me, in a work much admired in England⁸, said pretty much the same of Lord Nelson⁹. If he had entered the army as a Soldier, he certainly would have been made a Sergeant, but it is highly improbable that he would have been an officer. But if both M Dupin and myself are mistaken in this respect, if in England private soldiers, by force of merit are promoted to the rank of officers, let Dr Brewster’s correspondent in the long list of British generals, point out those who have been promoted from the ranks; let him indicate in what number of the gazette we are to look for the promotion of a Sergeant from the halbert to a commission. With the archiepiscopal mitre on the Woolsack we have at present nothing to do. I said, and believe to this very moment, that had the Duke of Wellington been the son of a mechanic or farmer, and entered in the army as a private soldier, he might have carried the halbert to this very moment.

Dr Brewster’s friend is probably no inhabitant of London. Should he come there, he is anxious for an invitation at dinner. He says¹⁰ that he sat down with Cavendish¹¹, Sir Wm Herschel¹², James Watt¹³, Maskeline¹⁴ [sic], Playfair¹⁵, Hutton¹⁶, Davy, Wollaston, Young, and Chenevix¹⁷, and he wants to know with what mighty living, he is to be invited next. Well, if you should happen to know him, invite him with Sir Frederic Herschell [sic], Sir James South, Capt Kater, Mr Babbage, Mr Barlow, Mr Bailie¹⁸ [sic], Capt Parry¹⁹, Lieut. Collonel [sic] Colby, Mr Robt Brown²⁰, Mr Troughton²¹, Prof Leake²², Dr Brewster (if this last can be made to agree) Sir Robert Seppings, Mr Wallace²³, Mr Airy &c &c, and he must be very fastidious indeed if he does not like the company.

Do not give yourself the trouble, as our northern friend wants you to do, to tell me whether you were more gratified by being a member of the Royal Society or a correspondent of the Institute²⁴. That a man of your standing should be a member of the first Scientific body of your own country must be a matter of course. But in order to state the question fairly, we ought to ask a german, a Swede, a Russian, an Italian, whether they should prefer belonging to the Royal Society or to the institute.

What is said about calumniating the french is mere humbug. Was there or was there not, in the french Senate a Commission for preserving the liberty of the press, and another for the preservation of individual liberty? Was it, or was it not the duty of the Senate to preserve the liberty of the french people? Did that Senate even so much as remonstrate against Napoleon’s tyranny? Did they not disgracefully abandon their former master when fortune forsook him? Let the discourses of Lacepede²⁵ to Napoleon be read²⁶, and it will appear that a more disgusting specimen of abject flattery cannot be found in history. Did Monge²⁷ sign or not the death warrant of the unfortunate Louis XVI?²⁸ Was or was Carnot²⁹ not a regicide? Human nature certainly shudders at those things, but they are not imputations, they are historical facts, and if our Reviewer wants proof, let him recur to the inflexible Moniteur ³⁰. Let him read the history of the french revolution by Montgaillard³¹, and let him then talk of calumny and shuddering³². And you Sir! are called upon to approve by your silence of such acts; you are not to suffer, on pain of the indignation of our Scotch friend, that any one testifies his abhorrence of the part which the french savans took in the horrors of the french Revolution, in the murder of Louis XVI; you are not to allow any one to state how much he despises the vile abettors of Napoleon’s tyranny. If it should come to this, if Regicide, murder, slavish subservience to a foreign despot, could find many defenders amongst the learned of England, then indeed, it could be said, not that Science, but that virtue and morality were declining in that country.

Believe me, my dear Sir | Very sincerely yours | G. Moll.

Did you succeed in repeating Dr ten Eycks³³ experiments?³⁴ I do not well understand how he manages his apparatus.

Address: M. Faraday Esq | F.R.S. | Royal Institution | Albemarle Street | London