i821.j New Patents and Mechanical Inventions. 
437 
him too much of the unfortunate so¬ 
vereign, and not enough of the enemy, 
to have driven him to extremity. I did 
not show myself sufficiently rigorous : it 
was a fault which cost me dear. Three 
times I restored to him his crown, 
and 3 ^et I was not bound to him by 
any tie to act in his favour. Some 
time afterwards, in my tufa, fortune 
turned her back upon me, and his 
young daughter whom I espoused, be¬ 
came a mother. History will declare 
which of the two, the Emperor of Aus¬ 
tria or the Emperor of the French has 
been the most generous. 
However little I frequented the so¬ 
ciety of Francis II. I believe I may ha¬ 
zard the following character of him : 
This prince has more reflection than 
imagination ; more judgment than sa¬ 
gacity; he would see things in a much 
better light if he delighted in seeing 
with his own eyes; he would form 
surer judgments were he not in the 
habit of taking them ready-made from 
the mouths of others. Easy to be 
influenced when his self-love is not 
attacked, I believe him to be as easily 
prevailed upon as other sovereigns. Al¬ 
though he well knows that the interests 
of people and of kings are not the same 
as they were twenty-five years ago, he 
is still entirely for the ancient system : 
if ever he makes any concessions to 
his people, they will be wrested from 
him by the force of events: a mere 
practitioner by dispositoin, his policy is 
only that of some nobles who, in place of 
advancing with the age, would wish to 
make it retrograde. In other respects,he 
is a prince of any easy temper, of a tried 
candour and probity, and of a rare 
friendship. 
We have next some remarks under the 
head of u Prussian War.” Alexander I. 
Gold and the intrigues of England 
performed wonders. Already several 
powers demanded nothing better than 
to seek a quarrel with me. Prussia got 
the start of the others, and on my re¬ 
fusal to deliver up Hanover, she de¬ 
clared war against me. 
I have always had sufficient saga¬ 
city not to confirm usurped reputations. 
That of Prussia was of this number; 
and the event has proved it. To believe 
certain folks who talk of an invincible 
power, because they have seen fine uni¬ 
forms filing off on a parade, Prussia was 
the first military power on the conti¬ 
nent. I believed not a word of it, but 
I took good care to say nothing. It 
was the only power over which 1 had 
not yet proved my superiority. It was 
necessary, at least for once, to come in 
contact with it, in order to assign the 
palm where it was due; nevertheless I 
should not have been the first to sound 
the charge. 
The King of Prussia, it is true, a 
prudent and thoughtful man, partook 
not of the vulgar opinion on the supe¬ 
riority of his military force. While he 
considered it respectable, he confessed 
that other sovereigns might rival with 
him; but he adored the Queen who, 
pressed by the Prussian youth, solicited 
the King to declare war against France. 
William, less convinced than seduced, 
took as a pretext, the refusal which I 
had given him of Hanover, in order to 
march against me. It was a fault; but 
in fine, as great men as the King of 
Prussia have committed equally great 
faults, for less handsome women: the 
Queen of Prussia, whom I saw at Tilsit, 
was the handsomest woman in the 
world. 
(To be completed in our next.) 
NEW PATENTS AND MECHANICAL INVENTIONS. 
To Andrew Timbrell, of the Old 
South-Sea House , London , for an 
Improvement in the Rudder and Steer¬ 
age of Ships. 
N the subject of this improvement 
the patentee says, 4 ‘ experience 
has convinced every nautical man of 
the danger and inconvenience attend¬ 
ing the labour at the wheel, in conse¬ 
quence of the sea striking with violence 
into the vacuum between the stern-post 
and the rudder; this danger increases 
with the velocity of the ship, and dur¬ 
ing her rapid progress rushes with such 
weight and power into the chambers, 
and against the weather angle of the 
rudder, as to shake the whole stern- 
frame, and render the steering of the 
ship in boisterous weather most labo¬ 
rious and dangerous. This improve¬ 
ment which traverses on the stei n-post, 
acts as a minor helm, gives additional 
effect to tile power of the rudder by the 
space of the vacuum it covers, and per¬ 
mits the water to pass smoothly from 
the ship’s bottom along the sides of the 
rudder, without noise, agitation, or 
counteraction; thus reducing the ma¬ 
nual labour at the wheel equal to the 
power of one man, and giving such ease 
and 
