Page:The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/50

 when all considered themselves lost, the keel of the vessel being within a quarter of a fathom of the bank. Second, from the crew of a privateer, who came on board declaring themselves to be French, while we thought they were Danes. Third, from an English guardship on the following evening, which on the strength of a report mistook us in the darkness for the privateer, and fired a whole broadside into us, but without doing us any serious damage. Fourth, in London I was soon after exposed to a still greater danger; for some Swedes, who had approached our ship in a yacht, persuaded me to sail with them to town, when all on board had been ordered to remain there for six weeks, the news having already spread that the plague had broken out in Sweden. As I did not observe the quarantine, an inquiry was made; yet I was saved from the halter,—with the declaration, however, that no one who ventured to do this in future would escape his doom."

In October, 1710, he writes to Benzelius,—

"This island has also men of the greatest experience in this [mathematical] science; but these I have not yet consulted, because I am not yet sufficiently acquainted with their language. I study Newton daily, and I am very anxious to see and hear him. I have provided myself with a small stock of books for the study of mathematics, and also with a certain number of instruments. . . . The magnificent St. Paul's Cathedral was finished a few days ago in all its parts. . . . The town is distracted by internal dissensions between the Anglican and Presbyterian churches; they are incensed against each other with almost deadly hatred. . . . Were you, dear brother, to ask me about myself, I should say I know that I am alive, but not happy; for I miss you and my home. . . . I not only love you more than my own brothers, but I even love and revere you as a father. . . . May God preserve you alive, that I may meet you again!"

It was in the middle of the reign of Queen Anne. Handel arrived from Italy the same year, to find an atmosphere