FN 705 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 25. 1696.

FN 706 L’Hermitage, June 2/12. 1696; Commons’ Journals, Nov. 25.;
Post-man, May 5., June 4., July 2.

FN 707 L’Hermitage, July.3/13 10/20 1696; Commons’ Journals, Nov. 25.; Paris Gazette, June 30., Aug. 25.; Old Postmaster, July 9.

FN 708 William to Heinsius, July 30. 1696; William to Shrewsbury,
July 23. 30. 31.

FN 709 Shrewsbury to William, July 28. 31., Aug. 4. 1696;
L’Hermitage, Aug. 1/11

FN 710 Shrewsbury to William, Aug 7. 1696; L’Hermitage, Aug 14/24.; London Gazette, Aug. 13.

FN 711 L’Hermitage, Aug.18/28. 1696.  Among the records of the Bank is a resolution of the Directors prescribing the very words which Sir John Houblon was to use.  William’s sense of the service done by the Bank on this occasion is expressed in his letter to Shrewsbury, of Aug. 24/Sept 3.  One of the Directors, in a letter concerning the Bank, printed in 1697, says:  “The Directors could not have answered it to their members, had it been for any less occasion than the preservation of the kingdom.”

FN 712 Haynes’s Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801.  Montague’s friendly letter to Newton, announcing the appointment, has been repeatedly printed.  It bears date March 19. 1695/6.

FN 713 I have very great pleasure in quoting the words of Haynes, an able, experienced and practical man, who had been in the habit of transacting business with Newton.  They have never I believe, been printed.  “Mr. Isaac Newton, public Professor of the Mathematicks in Cambridge, the greatest philosopher, and one of the best men of this age, was, by a great and wise statesman, recommended to the favour of the late King for Warden of the King’s Mint and Exchanges, for which he was peculiarly qualified, because of his extraordinary skill in numbers, and his great integrity, by the first of which he could judge correctly of the Mint accounts and transactions as soon as he entered upon his office; and by the latter—­I mean his integrity—­he set a standard to the conduct and behaviour of every officer and clerk in the Mint.  Well had it been for the publick, had he acted a few years sooner in that situation.”  It is interesting to compare this testimony, borne by a man who thoroughly understood the business of the Mint, with the childish talk of Pope.  “Sir Isaac Newton,” said Pope, “though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could not readily make up a common account; and, whilst he was Master of the Mint, used to get somebody to make up the accounts for him.”  Some of the statesmen with whom Pope lived might have told him that it is not always from ignorance of arithmetic that persons at the head of great departments leave to clerks the business of casting up pounds, shillings and pence.

FN 714 “I do not love,” he wrote to Flamsteed, “to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them, when I am about the King’s business.”