Extracts of Henry Mackenzie’s Journal, [29 April 1784–2 May 1784]
Extracts of Henry Mackenzie’s Journal2
AD: National Library of Scotland
[April 29–May 2, 1784]
Thursday 29th.
Went to see Dr Franklin.— His House elegant & excellently situated at Passy on an Eminence commandg a View of the River & the Country beyond it.— In good health & a green old Age, except that he has the Stone wh [which] however does not trouble him except when he is driven in a Carriage. Wears now his own thin grey Locks wh look very venerable.— Walks every Day for about 2 Hours.— Would wish to visit England but for fear of the Motion of a Carriage.— Our Conversn chiefly about the Balloons, wh He thinks may be turnd to usefull Purposes & that Means may be found of directing them. He saw a Man work a Boat over the River opposite to his House by a machine like the Wings of a Windmill, wh he turnd round wt his Hand— Something like that may guide the Balloon.3 Surprised as I was, at the Adventurers not complg [complaining] of Dizziness; but some of them did feel it while near the Earth; but afterwds when they lost the Idea of relative Distance they ceased to feel it. One of the things wh appear’d most tremendous to them was the perfect & awfull Silence wh reign’d around them, the Wind having no Subject on wh to make a Noise. He thinks that both Mongolfiers & Charles’s Method of filling it will be usefull.4 The first for War, because they can be always in the Baggage of an Army & can be instantly fill’d; the Second for Journeys, because it is less exposed to Accidents, & needs less constant Attention for a long continued Purpose— Query by me of the Danger from the electric Fire in Summer; he answd that he was told the Gaz, tho highly inflammable when mix’d wt a certain propn [proportion] of common Air was quite the reverse when unmixed.
Sunday 2nd May.
Dined with Dr Franklin— Compy [Company] Mr Hartley, Mr Jay, &c. High Eulogium of Ld Chatham— Junius written by Ld Campden.—5 An Invention of a Grate by Dr F. for clear burning of Coal.—6 Flame acts as a preservative agt [against] the Burning of any Substance, therefore any thing burns slower when surrounded with Flame.— Young Franklin formerly Temple a Companion of my poor Brother Jamie at Kensington.7
2. Mackenzie (1745–1831) was a successful Scottish novelist, playwright, editor, and attorney (ODNB) who went to Paris in the spring of 1784. He arrived on April 21, stayed until at least May 11 (the extant diary is incomplete), and saw as much as possible. What remains of his MS is published in Horst W. Drescher, ed., Literature and Literati: the Literary Correspondence and Notebooks of Henry Mackenzie (2 vols., Frankfurt, Bern, and New York: 1989–99), II, 229–46. We publish here the entries documenting visits to BF.
In the spring of 1783, Mackenzie helped found the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which on Nov. 17 of that year elected BF one of their first foreign members. (WF was also elected.) See Neil Campbell and R. Martin S. Smellie, The Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–1983) … (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 4, 5, 7, 17, 19n; Trans. of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I (1788), 93. No correspondence has been located between the society and BF, but Mackenzie mentioned BF’s election in a letter to Carmichael: Drescher, Literature and Literati, I, 124–5.
3. On Jan. 11, a sieur Vallet, who had been experimenting with methods of steering balloons, propelled a boat across the Seine by means of a colossal man-powered fan made from a set of four windmill vanes attached to an axle. He and his crew repeated this experiment on each of the next two days, logging data about their crossing time and the wind direction and velocity. BF saw one of the crossings from a fair distance (Vallet was in Javel, below Paris), and described it in “Maritime Observations” (1785). He said that the wind was calm and the boat reached the opposite shore in three minutes. That would have been on Jan. 13, when Vallet was sailing with the east wind at his back; the return trip took five times as long. BF observed that the “machine” was subsequently adapted for moving balloons, and conjectured that an “instrument similar” could be used under water to move a boat: Jour. de Paris, Jan. 9, Feb. 4, 1784; Smyth, Writings, IX, 387.
BF may have been alluding to the design of M. Deumier, a flying sailboat suspended from a balloon, featuring a rudder and paddle-wheel. An engraving of it, headed “Essai sur l’art de diriger a volonté la chaloupe d.,” was distributed along with the description published in the March 25 supplement of the Jour. de Paris and is among BF’s papers at the University of Pa. Library.
4. For those methods see XLI, 6n, 218.
5. BF owned a compilation of the letters of “Junius” (XXXVI, 335), the pseudonym of the author of more than 60 letters on politics first published in the Public Advertiser between November, 1768, and January, 1772. His identity has never been proven, but the editor of a modern edition of Junius’ letters believes him to be Sir Philip Francis. “Lord Campden,” by whom Mackenzie undoubtedly meant Charles Pratt, first Earl Camden (1714–1794), served as lord chancellor, first under Chatham and then in the ministry led by the Duke of Grafton. He was dismissed in January, 1770, after publically criticizing his colleagues. As many of Junius’ letters were critical of the Grafton ministry, the identification of Camden was plausible: ODNB, under Camden; John Cannon, ed., The Letters of Junius (Oxford, 1978), pp. xiii–xix, 348–96, 539–72, 588.
6. For BF’s coal-burning fire grate, see XLI, 256–7, and the illustration facing p. 257.
7. Henry’s stepbrother James Mackenzie, who died young, had been a pupil at James Elphinston’s school in London at the same time as WTF: XXII, 108–9n; Drescher, Literature and Literati, I, 69, II, 249; ODNB, under Elphinston.