1751. Account of a Firft-Rate MAN of WAR. the country nurfes, amount, one year 2. 6. Whether the fathers, mo- A. On the 4th query it has been faid, that the fathers, mothers, or D relations, making a demand of their children, they are given up to them, obliging them to take care of their education. It is cuftomary, in this cafe, to demand the reimbursement of their maintenance; which is generally fixed at 100 livres, or about 41. 10s. fterling yearly, from the time of the weaning of the children. But part of this is often difpenfed with, when the fathers and mothers are unable to pay the whole. E 27. At what age are the children difpofed of,-and how? Are F they put out to trades, and manufactures; or are they employed, as labourers, to till the ground? A. The children are fet to work as foon as ever they are able, and afterwards put to trades according to their different genius: But it is very uncommon, that any are employed G as labourers or husbandmen; which, however, would be a very important and useful thing. 213 To the AUTHOR of the LONDON SIR, T HE following account of a first-rate man of war, as taken from the books in Portsmouth Dock, may not be unacceptable to the generality of your readers. The Royal William (a firstrate) main maft is 115 feet two inches long, and 39 inches and diameter; the value is more than 400l. there being five fifhers wrought on it. The main top-mast is 66 feet one inch long, and 19 inches diameter; the main top-gallant mast and flag-staff is 56 feet long, and 10 inches diameter; fo that the whole height is 214 feet, which is fhort of the above lengths taken together by 23 feet 3 inches, that being allowed in the two fcarpus's to fupport the mafts as they go one above another. The main yard is 101 feet 8 inches long, and 23 inches diameter: The main top-fail yard is 71 feet inches long, and 15 inches 4 diameter: The main top-gallant yard is 41 feet 8 inches long, and 8 inches 3 diameter. There are 5 anchors of 77 hundred weight each, and 3 0thers, one of 20 hundred weight, one of 10 hundred weight, and one of 5 hundred weight. The largest cable is 23 inches circumference, and fomething more than 100 fathom long, weight 110 hundred 23 pound; the value 1651. 6s. 1d. 4. and they carry nine of that size, but fplice three together for ufe; and one of 14 inches circumference, weight 41 hundred, two quarters, and 20 pound; value 621. 10s. 4d. 4. The guns on the lower deck are 28 in number, length 10 feet, weight 55 hundred each, and carry fhot of 42 pound weight: On the middle deck are 28 in number, length 10 feet, weight 48 hundred each, and carry fhot of 24 pound weight each: On the upper deck are 28 in number, the length 9 feet 6 inches, weight 2 214 Of the Duke de SULLY's Memoirs. 34 hundred, and carry fhot of 12 pound weight each: On the quarterdeck are 12 in number, length 9 feet, weight 24 hundred, and the fhot 6 pound weight each. The number of yards of canvas in the whole fuit of fail is 7393; and they A carry more for fpare fails 6346 yards. A LETTER to a FRIEND, with I May it becomes both the intereft and the duty of other kingdoms and ftates to unite themselves against her, and to endeavour not only to reduce this exorbitant authority, but to oblige her to defift from all thoughts of it. How far this may be practicable is another confideration, but that it is fit, expedient, and even neceffary, is here proved to a demonstration. There is, next, a much fuller and more explicit account of the political fentiments and fyftem of queen Elizabeth, and of the earliest negotiations with king James, than it will be easy to find upon as good authority any where elfe. For, as I obferved before, the author was a competent judge of thefe things, fpeaks altogether from his own know Send you, Sir, herewith, the Memoirs of the duke de Sully, fo B far as they regard the affairs of England, tranflated into English, which I prefume you will think worthy of your notice, if it was only on the fcore of the author's high reputation, who was for many years the favourite of a great king, without pre-ledge, and from the mouths of thofe judice to his morals, and, after managing long the finances of a potent kingdom, was as much efteemed for his difinterestedness as before his being raised to that poft at all. Such a perfon must be prefumed to be an excellent judge of measures, and of D men; and as his peculiar character was that of speaking freely and withour referve, you may the better truft to his relations. Befides this general recommendation, give me leave to infift upon two or three points more diftinctly, in order to convince you of the importance of the book, and of its value with respect to English history. In the first place, the utility and neceffity of a balance of power in Europe is more fully and at the fame time more fenfibly fet forth in this than perhaps in any other book whatever, and we may, without carrying things too far, affirm, that in this little piece we have the teftimony of the belt king of his race, and of the wifeft minifter in France against the conduct of their fucceffors. For in thefe memoirs it is inconteftably fhewn, that when any power in Europe, acquires unreasonable weight, and aims thereby at univerfal influence, E F princes, with whom he conversed familiarly, and in the fame degree of confidence as with the king his mafter a thing very remarkable and extraordinary, but which nevertheless cannot be denied to be true. This circumftance, at the fanie time that it gives us an infight into things which otherwife we fhould never have known, affords us likewife a moral certainty, that we know them as they really were; for the duke de Sully was a man not to be impofed upon, and, which is a point of no lefs confequence, was a man who would not impofe upon others. In fome great circumftances he is abfolutely filent, which is another argument why we ought to believe, that in those upon which he speaks plainly, he is fincere. Laftly, there are in thefe memoirs the characters of many of our minifters and nobility drawn with great fpirit and freedom, and, we have reafon to think, with equal precifion and truth. For we ought by no G means to put upon a level such portraits as flow from fancy or conjecture, with thofe that are depicted by the hand of a mafter from the life. The former may be, and indeed fre quently 1751. Dr. Garcin's Letter to M. de Reaumur, A quently are, improbable and incon- Yours, &c. A LETTER from Neufchatel in I 215 ture, or in that beautiful work of the Divinity, called the universe, an incomprehenfible and furprizing mechanifm of force and motion, which maintains the course of their gene. rations, or of their propagation, and that, for the good of all creatures, which have life, and which are of a reciprocal advantage to each other. You see all these things, Sir, with clearer eyes than mine. But as life is fo fhort, it is not poffible for one fingle man, how learned foever he B may be, to discover all that remains for us to know; and this is what the great Hippocrates has faid long fince. To advance our knowledge, then, and particularly that of nature, which is the most agreeable and the most useful of all, it is neceffary, that there fhould be obfervers in the several parts of the earth, who, each on their part, fhould work upon divers kinds of objects, to make discoveries in them, and to communicate them to the publick. upon the general Usefulness of In- D There ftill remain many objects in the universe, whereof we do not know the ends and the neceflity for the general good of the animated be Royal Academy of Sciences of Pa-ings. The infects, as to which no ris, 1746. Tranflated from a foreign Journal. SIR, Cannot exprefs to you the charms E I feel, whenever I turn my eyes towards the feveral objects of nature, with a defign to contemplate them, as well to admire the wisdom and the power of their Author, as to fearch out directly their ends, their deftinations, or their usefulness. Al- F ready we have attained to that excellent knowledge in refpect to a great number of thofe admirable objects. We know, in most of them, their properties, and the motives to which they owe their existence, by the advantages which we reap from G them, with the other living creatures, every year, every day, and in all forts of feafons. We equally find by experience, that there is in na body has made fo many learned inquiries as you, and fuch useful difcoveries, are of this number; and the great advantages that are reaped even from filkworms, bees, and cochineal, are not, perhaps, the only ends that must be attributed to them. Thofe little animals of different orders, fo numerous, and of an infinite variety, are looked upon by most men, and especially by the common people, as a plague to mankind, as a curfed and contemptible race, proper, at least in most of their species, only to hurt and to destroy the fruits of the earth, which man cultivates, and in certain years to make great devaftation. There are fome fpecies which do a great deal of hurt, and others which are only troublefome. Some infect the air and the waters, and others caufe difeafes at certain 216 On the general Ufefulness of INSECTS. May two laft kinds of beings, is a good which equally redounds to men; for it is from thofe two reigns of creatures that we draw all our helps. times both to men and cattle. In fine, these animals feem to have been created to make war with the human fpecies, and to be its greatest enemies. And indeed, no body afcribes Nature in her mechanifm has vato them any other end, any other rious means to accomplish her works, deftination, but that of ferving as an A and to attain the end, to which the inftrument to humble man, to pu univerfal and all-wife Caufe has denish him on account of his fin. The figned her. Our infects enter into ancient moralifts, as well facred as this mechanifm, effectually to help, prophane, knew how to draw leffons by their little operations, to the againft finners, from the occafions fructification of the plants, and conwherein the infects did great damage fequently, to their propagation, that to the fruits of the earth. From B is to fay, to increase the force and thence it has followed, that they quantity of them. These are two have looked upon thefe little deftroy- effential advantages to the life of all ing animals, as a direct cause to pu- animals, and confequently, to that nish the proud and the ungrateful, of man. Were it not for the affiftinftead of confidering them, at most, ance of their little workings, the as an indirect means for that purpose. plants would receive less nourishment We do not therefore as yet know C than they commonly do, their life their true deftination; for that which would be languifhing, they would the publick opinion gives them can- have lefs vigour, they would be lefs not be the fame as the Creator had in fruitful, their propagation would be view in giving them being. The flower, and their fpecies lefs abunbeauty of their ftructure; the con- dant. In this cafe, a fcarcity would ftancy of their propagation every reign among the animals, and man year; their metamorphofes; their D would be very much troubled to find choice of a proper food; their di- fufficient provifions for his neceffities. verfity in kinds and fpecies; and fi Were it not for them, in a word, the nally, their number, which is pro- crop of the fruits would be always, digious, and equally spread over the and in all places, lefs or unfavourwhole earth, tho' one more and ano- able, which would make the world ther lefs abundant, according to the have lefs to fubfist on, from whence climates and the nature of the fea- would refult alfo, that it would be fons, are things which do not per- lefs peopled. It is true, that those mit an enlightned mind to think, little animals fometimes do a great that they have no other end in their deal of harm, but this harm proprocreation, but that of hurting man, duces every time in return, a much and that almost all in general. greater good afterwards: This is what I fhall explain hereunder. E The reflections that I have made, Sir, upon their nature, and upon the F actions which pafs among them, or at leaft in a great number of their kinds, have created in me, in obferving them, fome new fentiments in their favour, which agree much better with the advantages which man reaps from the fruits of the earth by culture, and with the need which all the plants and all the animals have to preferve themselves. It is certain, that all which is fuitable to these G it These new ideas, without doubt, will not appear fo ftrange to your eyes, if I should not explain them, as they would be to the eyes of a multitude of people, who do not take the trouble to open them to difcover the truth, as you do, as to the various fprings which nature employs in all her operations. But you will not difapprove, Sir, of my entering into this detail. I 1751. The wonderful Mechanifm of NATURE. I am going to lay before you the feveral ideas which I have formed to my felf upon this fubject, and which a curious man, who is intent on the ftudy of the works of God, ought, I think, to lay hold on, if he will affure himself, with fatisfaction, of the A good and of the advantages, which infects produce in the world. 217 plants; and that then it goes out of them to return again into the general mafs, there to circulate again as before, to be prepared there anew, and to become proper to ferve again as a common nourishment to all forts of plants, in diverfe other places. It is clearly feen by this idea, that, were it not for a like circulation, which ought to furnish daily to the plants, and to each of them, little portions of matter well prepared and very much rarefied, all animated B creatures would perish. The plants, which are the firft creatures which give life to the others, could no longer grow, fructify, nor multiply, if the fubtilized matter ceafed to enter into the compofition of the parts which conftitute their bodies. Νοιν it would cease entering into them, if it totally ceafed to circulate in the world. The firft idea which he ought to form to himself, does not, as yet, concern thofe little beings; it concerns properly the matter, which nature employs to nourish the plants and animals; and this knowledge serves as an introduction to the reit. You know perfectly, that this matter confifts of a general mafs finely divided into particles, that is to fay, very much rarefied and fpread over the whole globe of the earth; that C this fame matter circulates in all places and in all climates, under an invifible form, by the force of the folar heat, and of the motions of the air made by the winds; that it most commonly afcends up to the atmofphere, and precipitates by rain, to D enter into the earth and into the waters; that from thence it is introduced into the plants, there to circulate with the fap, of which it is the effence, to nourish, increase, and ftrengthen in them all their parts, to animate in them the organs of fruc- E tification, and to carry into them buds proper to the fpecies of each kind, of which buds, which are the principles of propagation, the air, the earth, and the water, are full, and whereof I am affured by my own obfervations; that one part of this matter ftays in the faid plants, fixes there, and is modified in them into their proper fubitance, while another part goes out of them as fuperfluous, by transpiration, from thence to circulate in the atmosphere and around the globe as before; that, G in fine, from the plants it paffes, for the greateft part, into the animals, to nourish them and maintain their functions, as it had done in the May, 1751. F I pafs to a fecond idea, which a curious man ought also to form to himself on this fubject: Which is, that in the mechanism of nature, death is abfolutely neceffary, as well to the animals as to the plants, to maintain that circulation, and confequently to give courfe to the new generations of those two forts of beings. For if thofe beings ceafed to die without ceafing to propagate, or to multiply, their number would become too great, and the mass of circulating matter would be exhausted in the end; from thence there would happen an entire fcarcity of food, and all would fall into dreadful diforder. If the matter which circulates, and which ferves to nourish, was all employed, how could we enjoy life, how could we beget an isfue, how could all the species of creatures fubfift and continue their generations? All nature would be entirely difordered by it, the buds of all kinds, which are spread in it and infinitely numerous, would remain ufelefs. It is eafy to comprehend, that in fuch a fyftem all would be contradictory. E e The |