SKETCH OF WILLIAM MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 551 



a pedestrian tour tlirongh Norway, published his book Through 

 Norway with a Knapsack. 



While living here he became unwittingly connected with the 

 Orsini plot for assassinating Louis Napoleon with bombs, which 

 resulted in the destructive attempt of January 14, 1858. He was 

 introduced to Orsini, whom he describes as " a highly educated, 

 refined, and courteous Italian gentleman," in the fall of 1857, and 

 having lived in Italy and witnessed the abuses of the despotisms 

 with which the country was then saddled, "heartily sympathized 

 with his patriotic yearnings for the liberation of his country." 

 Orsini represented to him that the patriots were preparing for a 

 great effort to drive out the foreign intruders, both Austrian and 

 French, but that the watch ui3on them was so close that they could 

 not introduce or hold ordinary arms. He had therefore invented 

 a new form of stellar gas burner which could easily be converted 

 into a bomb and used as a hand grenade. The gas-burner shells 

 were, however, too small for a charge of ordinary gunpowder to 

 produce effective explosion. Mr. Williams therefore suggested 

 fulminate of mercury in lieu of the powder, and taught Orsini 

 and Fieri how to make it themselves. They also learned how to 

 make fulminate of silver and some other detonating compounds. 

 Orsini, in his final confession, said that the English chemist (Mr. 

 Williams) who taught him how to make the fulminate had no 

 knowledge of its intended purpose. This assurance was accepted 

 by Napoleon and the French police, who gave Mr. Williams no 

 further trouble than that of a few days' secret watching of his 

 movements in Birmingham, which was so delicately conducted 

 that he only discovered it accidentally. Mr. Williams's sym- 

 pathies with the Continental peoples who were oppressed by for- 

 eign despotisms were very strong, and he sometimes expressed 

 them vehemently in his lectures, when he would denounce the 

 Hapsburgs and hold up the Swiss as a pattern people. 



Mr. Williams devoted considerable attention, toward the last 

 of his residence at Birmingham, to the chemistry and manufac- 

 ture of paraffin oil, for which he had patented a process of distilla- 

 tion from shale. Having been appointed manager of the Lees- 

 wood Oil Company, whose works were at Caergwile, near Wrex- 

 ham, Wales, he left Birmingham in 1863, carrying with him a 

 testimonial presented to him by students and friends of the insti- 

 tute. The oil-distilling process was worked with complete suc- 

 cess, but without jDrofit ; for the product of the newly discovered 

 oil wells of Pennsylvania came into the market at the time and 

 destroyed the sales. Mr. G. Combe Williams writes that " during 

 this part of his career his foresight and influence over the work- 

 ing class, for whose social and intellectual advancement he had 

 devoted so much time and energy, were clearly demonstrated, for 



