84 Presidentship of the Earl of Macclesfield 1763 



His deafness, perhaps his most outstanding peculiarity, 

 was of old standing. When in 1760 he was received by 

 Buffon into the Academic Franchise (and he was one of 

 the first members of the Academy of Sciences to attain that 

 honour) the following epigram was made about him : 



La Condamine est aujourd'hui 

 Re9u dans la troupe immortelle ; 

 II est bien sourd ; tant mieux pour lui, 

 Mais non muet ; tant pis pour elle. 



While he remained in London M. De La Condamine un- 

 fortunately made himself notorious by publishing in the 

 newspapers an appeal to the English Nation of which the 

 first paragraph ran as follows : 



"M. de La Condamine, Knight of St. Lazare, one of the forty of 

 the French Academy, member of almost all the Academies of Europe, 

 particularly of the Royal Society of London, lately arrived in London, 

 took a lodging at a milliner's, the sign of the Golden Angel. He had 

 lived in this house for about eight days, when on Friday the 26th 

 instant, returning home at nine o'clock in the evening, he perceived 

 he was followed by two men, shabbily drest, one of which was 

 armed with a stick. They both entered his chamber and seized 

 him, at the same time presenting him with a paper, and threatening 

 by word and gesture, making a sign for him to follow them." 



He goes on to narrate that he had taken the opinion of 

 counsel as to what he should do, and to his surprise was 

 informed that he could hope for no justice or satisfaction, 

 and that the best thing he could do was to keep silence. 

 So he makes this appeal to the English public to know if 

 it is agreeable to the laws, in which they glory, that a stranger 

 should be exposed to an insult such as he had never suffered 

 amongst the many barbarous countries through which he 

 had travelled. 



An answer to this appeal promptly appeared in the news- 

 papers. It averred that the two men of whom he complained, 

 and whose language and errand he, in his deafness and 

 ignorance of English, obviously did not understand, were 

 legally engaged in serving on him a writ granted by Mr. 

 Justice Garnon upon a deposition on oath by one of the 



