Hevelius’s business: an unpublished letter from Henry Oldenburg to the Earl of Tweeddale

Abstract

In the years 1672—74 the very existence of the Royal Society hung in Xthc balance. With the deaths of John Wilkins in November 1672 and Sir Robert Moray in July 1673, the Society lost two of its most prominent and energetic Fellows, while the problems of mounting arrears, lack of funds and declining activity grew ever-more acute (1). To make matters worse, the outbreak of the third Anglo-Dutch War in March 1672 seriously disrupted the one facet of the Society’s operations which had flourished hitherto, namely the correspondence of the Society’s Secretary, Henry Oldenburg. As the relevant volumes of The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg show, letters continually went astray, and foreign virtuosi often had to reroute their letters through Oldenburg in order to reach destinations rendered inaccessible to them because of the hostilities (2). Many of Oldenburg’s continental contacts were thus inconvenienced in various minor ways by the conflict, but one Foreign Fellow who, in addition, suffered significant financial loss, was the Danzig astronomer Johann Hevelius. In the early months of the war, Hevelius had written to Oldenburg apparently seeking the assistance of his Royal Society colleagues in securing the return of shipping captured by Scottish privateers in which Hevelius had a substantial stake (3). Replying to Hevelius in August 1672, Oldenburg reported that he had enlisted the aid of the Society’s President, Lord Brouncker, on Hevelius’s behalf and that they would attempt to obtain a Royal Letter ordering the release of the vessels which were then being held in Scotland.