852 
Money 
them in what regards *******, Your 
friends are well, and much in pain when 
you mils a poft. I am, as you know, 
Moft entirely your’s, 
AND. CaDRIERES. 
To the Right Honourable Sir Henry Capel, 
one of their Majeftys Mo? Honourable 
Privy Counfel, at the Earl of Effex 
Houfe, St. James's Square, London. 
HONOURED SIR, Fuly 26, 1690. 
Your Honour’s letter of July 24, with 
the pacquet inclofed, I received here this 
morning, and finding the cipher not hard, 
I have this day difpatched it. And re- 
turn the whole pacquet as itcame. But 
thought fit to tran{fcribe that in cipher 
(with the deciphering between the leaves) 
that I might not-deface theoriginal. But 
I muft obferve to you, that it is written 
in two diftin&t ciphers (part in one and 
part in the other. It appears manifeftly, 
by fome particular fpellings and other- 
wife) to be written by a Scotchman. By 
Wilton (in the letter) I guefs he means 
the King. But Wilfon, in one of the 
fuper{criptions, I take to be fome coun- 
terfeit name, as alfo the fubfcriptions of 
J. Briot and And. Cadriere. The pacquet 
I prefume was not mtended to be carried 
to Cardigan, but was to have been en- 
quired for (by the name of Mr. Owen) at 
the poft-houfe in London. 
And it may perhaps be advifeable to 
take notice at the poft-houfe who comes 
to enyuvire for a letter for Mr. Owen. 
The dates (being written in France) are 
to be underftood according to their ftile, 
to days earlier tian our*s ‘That of June 
28 (which 1s our June 16) is, I fuppofe, 
written ironically, fora difguife. Wherein 
yt of bis eyes being bad, Gc. whereby 
ye pot was gone before he could perfectly 
read it, I {uppofe is meant of its being 
written in cipher, which required fome 
time to decipher it. And by Wil/on’s 
being factor for an Irifh bankrupt marchand, 
may poflibly import the King’s acting in 
the room of the late King James. But 
you, however, who better underftand cir- 
cumftances than I do, may better judge 
of the import of the letter than I can 
direét, and of the perfons here mentioned. 
I am, Sir, 
Your Honour’s very humbie fervant, 
Joun WALLIS. 
In thefe obfervations of Dr. Wallis, 
relative to the packet of intercepted let- 
ters, communicated by Mr. Philips, we 
have a fpecimen of that fagacity, or talent 
for happy conjeéture, by which, joined to 
that of patient and truly philofophical 
Original Letters. 
[ Oober 1, 
inveftigation, the Doftor was fo eminently 
diftinguifhed. Judgment alone, however 
tutored and improved by habits of geo- 
metrical analyfis, would never have ena- 
bled Dr. Wallis to unravel the meaning 
of cyphers fo often changed, and fo very 
intricate and perplexed as, he tells us, the 
French had contrived to make them, if to 
a found and vigorous underftanding he 
had not united a brilliant and happy 
fancy. The art of decyphering is the 
joint refult of judgment and imagination. 
It is an inftance or example of, the true 
method of philofophical inveftigation, in 
which a courfe of experiment and induc- 
tion is fomewhat narrowed and prepared 
by hypothetical theory.—Of hypothe- 
tical theories, fuggefted to the fagacious 
mind of Dr; Wallis, many, no doubt, 
were thofe which he was forced to rejeét 
before he difcovered the true key to the 
lock: the fyftem with which the whole 
letter to be unfolded completely tallied— 
the fancy was to be kept long on the ftretch 
as well as the reafoning faculty—memory 
too, or the power of recollection, for the 
purpofe of calling the aid of faéts, was 
alfo to be kept in full play. In fhort, it 
was not lightly, or without reafon, that 
Leisnitz, fpeaking of the fuccefs of 
Dr. Wallis, ‘‘in decyphering the moit 
intricate and difficult writings, and difco- 
vering the mind of the writer in fpite of 
every method that art could devife to pre- 
vent it, fays, *‘ that it was the greateft 
inftance ever known of the force and pe- 
netration of the human underftanding.”” 
It may be obferved, however, that the 
lancuace of Leibnitz, on this fubjeét, is 
too ftrong. Dr, Wallis was neither able, 
nor pretended to be able, to explain every 
thing wrapped up in the myftery of cypher 
on cypher, or cypher, as we may fay, 
with cypher. In feveral of the letters 
fubmitted to his penetration, a figure or © 
character was fometimes ufed for whole 
words, and, to involve the matter in ftill 
further perplexity, there was here and 
there interfperfed what decypherers call a 
NULL, or figure or charaéter, without 
any meaning. Ina letter to the Earl of 
Nottingham, dated Oxford, Jan. 5, 1694, 
the Doctor fays, ‘* I muft beg your Lord- 
fhip’s pardon, that I have not hitherto 
been able to decypher the papers you fent 
me for that purpofe. I have beftowed 
true pains upon them (of which it is no 
ufe to complain, fince this will not make 
the matter eafier) and have made it almoft 
my whole ftudy and employment, by day — 
and by night, ever fince, without being 
able to accomplifh it; and, I find, I muft 
beltew 
