1835.] Biographical Sketch of Baron Edelcrantz. 329 



Committee for the Improvement of the Machinery employed in 

 Manufactures ; for the Estabhshment of a Fund for Civil Pen- 

 sions ; of the Investigation-Committee on the Improvement of 

 the Processes for manufacturing Saltpetre : he was member of 

 the Committee for inquiring into ihe Composition of Fire- 

 rockets, &c. He had, in addition to all this, been Chairman of 

 the General Insurance Establishment since the year 1805 ; and 

 to this establishment he gave a new constitution, possessing the 

 double advantage of renderino- it more useful and efficient as an 

 Institution, at the same time that its revenue became more lucra- 

 tive and flourishing ; thus combining and mutually advancing 

 interests that had hitherto seemed essentially conflicting. 



Practical talents such as his are rare in a man of letters, yet 

 so fully known and relied on was his capacity for conducting the 

 executive department of the state, that in 18U8 he received a 

 situation under the government in the office of Chancellor of the 

 Court. As a further mark of favour, on the 24th April of the 

 same year, he was complimented with the distinguished honour 

 of being made Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star. 

 During the revolutions in politics which characterised the 

 whole of this period, it was the constant endeavour of Edelcrantz 

 keenl}'^ to scrutinize, and fairly to weigh, the merits of every 

 proposal for a change, and next to explain fully the true conse- 

 quences to which it would lead, and so possess his countrymen 

 with a well-founded opinion of what should be warrantably 

 hazarded to gain these results. This was the motive which 

 actuated him to take the share he did in public business in 1809, 

 at the Diet of which year he was President, as well as at those 

 of 1810, 1812, 181o, 1817, and 1818, in the last three of which 

 he was always a member of the Constitutional Committee. 



After the revolution which took place in the government, by 

 which the present King of Sweden, then Crown Prince, was 

 placed at the head of affairs, when Bernadotte considered that 

 the institution of an Academy of Agriculture would materially 

 conduce to the advancement of the various arts connected with 

 the rural economy of the kingdom, Edelcrantz received a com- 

 mission requesting his attendance and advice at its organisation. 

 The precise details of what he then suggested cannot now be 

 ascertained, but the general result of his activity and superin- 

 tendence was immediately attended with the happiest effects. 

 He became the Director of the Institution immediately on its 

 formation in 1812, and by the principles on which he arranged 

 its system of investigation and research, he was able to commu- 

 nicate to it a power of accurate yet extensive observation and 

 inquiry, such as to make its efficiency as perfect as the country 

 either admitted or required. The proofs of this are abundantly 

 furnished in the Annals of the Royal Academy of Agriculture, 

 and in the Annual Reports and Registers (Arsberattelser och 



