CHAPTER XIV

REUNITED WITH HIS FAMILY IN ENGLAND

Maury arrived in England from Mexico, on March 29, 1866, and was once more united with his wife and younger children in London, at No. 30 Harley Street. His appearance had been so completely changed by the sorrows, hardships, and anxieties of the long years of separation that none of his children knew him. Indeed, his youngest daughter, on seeing him for the first time after his arrival, exclaimed, “This is not my papa! This is an old man with a white beard!”

As soon as Maury had departed from Mexico, those who were jealous of him and hostile to the Empire and Maximilian brought pressure to bear which resulted in the abolishing of the immigration scheme. This was made known to Maury through the following letter from the Emperor: “My dear M. F. Maury,—Impelled by motives of economy and convenience to abolish the Imperial Commission of Colonization which in the month of September of last year I confided to your loyalty and superior knowledge, I must on informing you of this measure express the pleasure and satisfaction I feel for the exertions you have so successfully made in the Empire to augment its population, without which the various sources of wealth contained in its fruitful soil cannot be made productive. If your talents cannot for the present be made available in that way, I am convinced that they will be eminently useful in the direction of the Observatory which situation I formerly conferred on you, and in which I trust you will continue, that our beautiful firmament examined by your intelligent eye may procure us the means of profiting by the knowledge which science has already acquired, and of making even new discoveries to increase the fame which you have already so justly attained. Whenever circumstances will permit a new development of colonization, I intend making appeal to your advice and activity and I will now direct the necessary localities to be prepared in the Palace for the Observatory in order to be able to have you always near me. Believe me, Your affectionate, Maximilian”.

This letter probably occasioned no very great surprise to Maury, but he waited several weeks after receiving it before he replied, in part, as follows: “I read, in your letter of April 19th, fresh proofs of your Majesty’s confidence and friendly consideration; I am touched by them. I am grieved to learn that your Majesty should be compassed with difficulties so serious as must be those which made it necessary to abandon such a cherished policy as I know that of colonization to have been.... Colonization being suspended, I fear that my return to Mexico would tend rather to increase the embarrassments than to smooth any of the difficulties by which your Majesty is surrounded. This fear, my solicitude for the welfare of the Empress and yourself, and the deep concern I feel for your success in one of the noblest undertakings that ever animated the human breast, make me pause.... In stating the conclusion, I hope I may not be considered unmindful of obligations or insensible to kindness. Far from it. Proof that I recognize both in their highest sense is found in the fact that in homage to them I forego the high and honorable position so kindly offered me near the person of your Majesty in the service of your Empire.... That God may ever have your Majesties in His holy keeping is the constant prayer of your earnest well-wisher and humble friend, M. F. Maury”. Thus came to an end Maury’s attempt to found a “New Virginia” in Mexico.

Having declined Maximilian’s invitation to continue in his service, Maury began to cast about for some other way of earning money to support his family. The first thing that suggested itself to his mind was to make use of his new discoveries in the electric mine. Though the English engineer Holmes had carefully guarded the secrets embodied in these new ideas which had been intrusted to him by Maury, yet he had done nothing in their exploitation and a clear field was thus left for Maury to attempt to secure their adoption by the various European governments. He accordingly conceived the idea of opening a sort of school for instructing any representatives that foreign countries might send to him, for the fee of 500 pounds per country. This offer was made by him through a circular, which he sent out April 25, 1866 to various diplomats in London, recommending three representatives from each country. He was almost immediately invited by the French government to come to Paris to teach its representatives, for which instruction the sum of 25,000 francs was to be paid. Maury accepted this offer, and in the course of his lectures, given on May 21 and 28, 1866, he demonstrated the effectiveness of his electric mines on the River Seine at Saint Cloud in the presence of the Emperor Napoleon. This visit led to his being invited to become a French citizen, and his being offered a position in the Meteorological Observatory in Paris. His family was not willing for him to accept this position but preferred to return to the United States at the earliest opportunity, and he accordingly declined the offer.

In July, 1866 representatives from Sweden and Norway, and Holland came to London to be instructed. There is some evidence that Russia and England also sent representatives at this time. “I have a school under weigh”, humorously wrote Maury, “with Sweden and Norway as pupils—board and tuition 500 pounds. They will graduate in ‘sea mining’ this week. Monday the 16th, the school opens for the Dutch at 500 pounds. I have heard no more about turning Frenchman. But the King of Wurttemberg has been pestering me to keep the Prussians out of his pea-patch of a kingdom. ‘Barkis is willing’, but I can’t say whether anything will come out of it; I think not as the war looks like it is drawing to a close”.

The lectures which Maury gave in connection with the demonstrations of his mines gave an introductory sketch of all that his predecessors since the time of Priestly had done in this field, an account of all that had been accomplished by the South with this new weapon during the late war, and then in detail the results of his own experiments. As far as the submarine mine was concerned, he added nothing new to what he had set down in the agreement with Holmes which was drawn up by him just before leaving England near the close of the war. But as to their use on land, the following details appear for the first time among his papers: “After this hasty sketch, I come to electrical torpedoes for guarding mountain passes and roadways, etc., for the protection of strongholds and the defense of fortified positions. Shells cast for the purpose should be used, but in an emergency tin canisters, or any other perfectly water-tight cases, will answer. I am not aware that electricity was used by either of the belligerents in the late American war for springing mines on land.

“The cases for land-torpedoes should be shells cast expressly for the purpose. The thickness of the shell being from one-fourth to an inch, and even more, or less, according to the size and the probable handling in transportation.

“They should be spherical; only instead of a hole for the fuse, as in a hollow shot, they should have a neck like a bottle, with a cap to screw over—not in—the neck. The case should be charged through the neck, and the wires let in through two holes, counter-sunk, diametrically opposite, the counter-sinking being for the purpose of receiving pitch or other resinous matter to keep the water out. The fuse, being adjusted to the wires, should be held in its place by a string through the neck, while the wires are drawn out taut and sealed within and without. Having proved the fuse, first fill and then drive in a wooden peg. Then fill the space between it and the screw-cap with red lead, and screw down tight so as to make it water-tight. Now secure the tails of the wires so that they will not be chafed or bruised, and the mine is ready to be packed for transportation. They are generally to be used in stone fougasses, the wire being buried at convenient depths, and all marks of fougasses and trenches removed as completely as possible. Any number, not exceeding twenty-five or thirty, may be arranged in a single circuit for the ebonite; but if the magnetic exploder of Wheatstone be preferred, and the ground be perfectly dry, hundreds may be planted in a ladder-circuit, which you have seen handled.

“The operator may be at any distance from these mines when he explodes them, provided only he has established some mark or point which, on being reached by the enemy, should serve as his signal. The area of destruction of one fougasse, properly constructed, with a charge of twenty or twenty-five pounds of powder, may be assumed to be that of a circle seventy-five or eighty yards in diameter. Twenty mines would therefore serve for a mile. Several miles may be planted in a night, and the assailants may be enticed or invited out in the morning. Passes before an invading army may be mined in advance, and thus, if he cannot be destroyed, his progress may be so retarded by dummies or sham mines as almost literally to compel him to dig his way.

“The power to telegraph through these torpedoes is of little consequence, inasmuch as there need be but one station and one operator. Using the testing-fuse manufactured by Abel, and a weak voltaic current, the operator can at any time satisfy himself as to continuity. Thus bridges and gulfs or breaks are not required for the land as they are in sea-mining. Ebonite has the further advantage on land that it takes but a single wire.

“Forts may be protected against assault, and your own rifle-pits from occupation by an enemy, simply by a proper distribution of those new engines of war. They may be planted line within line, and one row above another, and so arranged that volcanoes may be sprung at will under the feet of assaulting columns.

“The only attempt that was made in the late American war to bring the electrical torpedo into play on the land was made by the Confederates at Fort Fisher, in 1865, just before its fall. The narrow landspit over which the attacking party had to advance was mined. The officer in charge used the magneto exploder. But the mines would not go off, owing no doubt to defective arrangement, for the instrument was new to him, and he had not been posted up as to the virtues of the ladder-circuit. The instrument used on this occasion was just such a one as this before you. It was the first that had reached the Confederacy. Here is then a most striking illustration of the importance of previous study and drill in this new and important arm of defense”.

In addition to Wurttemberg, Maury offered this instruction in electric mining to her enemy Prussia, and also to the Governor General of Canada for the sum of 1000 pounds sterling. These offers were not accepted. His experiments had, however, been made known in this way to a number of different governments, later information concerning his discoveries leaked out through his agent in London to other countries, and finally his system became so generally known that his particular contributions to the development of this weapon of warfare were lost sight of, and as a consequence Maury has not been given the credit that is justly due him in histories of the electric mine.

The money which Maury received from these demonstrations of mines came at a time when it was greatly needed, for he had lost practically all his property in the United States through the war and after his last arrival in England he had had the further misfortune to lose, through the failure of a banker, all he had brought from Mexico. At about this time, however, assistance came to him from another source. Indeed, before his departure from England near the end of the war, a “Maury Testimonial” had been begun at the instigation of some of his English friends, especially the Reverend Dr. Tremlett, and by Commodore Jansen. While Maury was in Mexico, these friends solicited funds for him both in England and on the Continent, Tremlett even taking the trouble of traveling through Sweden, Denmark, and Russia for that purpose. A few months after Maury’s return to England this sum had reached the total of 3000 guineas. Holland contributed 1100 pounds, the Grand Duke Constantine gave privately 1000 pounds, and naval officers, scientists, and friends of Maury in England and elsewhere on the Continent subscribed the remainder.

The presentation was made at a special dinner given in Maury’s honor at Willis’s Rooms in London on June 5, 1866. Sir John Pakington, First Lord of the Admiralty, presided, and there were present the Danish, Mexican, and Argentine ministers, six British admirals, high officers of the Swedish and Russian navies, General Beauregard of the Confederate army, Professor Tyndall, and many of Maury’s personal friends like John Laird, Commodore Jansen, and Dr. Tremlett, who was Honorary Secretary of the Testimonial Fund. The purse containing the 3000 guineas was presented in a handsome silver-gilt casket, and was accompanied by the following testimonial: “We the undersigned beg your acceptance of the accompanying purse of Three Thousand Guineas in appreciation and acknowledgment of the eminent and disinterested services which through years of untiring zeal in the cause of science you have rendered to the maritime nations of the world. Receive from us this public testimony of our regard with every wish for your future welfare and happiness”.[22]

In July, 1866, Maury was engaged by Richardson and Company, a publishing house of New York City, to write a series of geographies for the public schools. It was agreed to make the series embrace “First Lessons in Geography”, “Intermediate Geography”, “Manual of Geography”, “Academic Geography”, and “Physical Geography”. Maury was to be paid $10,000, $1000 for each volume on the receipt of the manuscript and $1000 more for each volume three months after publication. He was to receive also $600 for revising each book, for five successive years. The following year an additional agreement was signed for the publishing of “Practical Astronomy for Schools”, Maury to receive $1500 after the delivery of the manuscript and $1500 three months after its publication.

In August, 1866 Maury wrote, “I am hard at work on Geography No. I, ‘Brave’ drawing the maps. Well, I could not wind up my career more usefully—and usefulness is both honor and glory—than by helping to shape the character and mould the destinies of the rising generations”. Most of the work on these school books was completed before he left England to return to Virginia in the summer of 1868, but at that time only the first two of the series; namely, “First Lessons in Geography” and “The World We Live In”, which was the “Intermediate Geography” of the contract, had been published. From the very beginning their reception in the United States was very flattering, and Maury was delighted with his success.

The first little book contained only sixty-two pages. Its preface stated that the pupils were to be taken on imaginary voyages and journeys twice around the world—once by sea and once by land, and it closed with these very significant words: “The teacher should _teach_, as well as _hear recitations_”. The second book had just one hundred pages, and was published the same year. These two books were later merged into one, which was entitled “Elementary Geography”, and afterwards called “New Elements of Geography”. In the preface of the 1922 edition of the latter is the following tribute to Maury’s ideas of pedagogy: “Maury refused to follow the plan of all accepted textbooks of that day. His plan was to present, in simple words and in the form of a story, interesting facts about the different peoples of the earth, their homes, their industries, and the lands where they live; and at the same time to call attention to those physical laws which largely determine the condition, the character, and the industries of a people.... When published, these geographies were such a radical departure from the old methods that many teachers were not prepared to accept them; but leading educators have gradually come to Maury’s position, and to-day the principles that he advocated are endorsed by the Committee of Fifteen of the National Educational Association”. The account of the other books in Maury’s geographical series, which were not published until after his return to Virginia, will be found in the next chapter.

When Maury left Mexico he had some hope of becoming connected with the laying of submarine cables in the Atlantic. But the only opportunity that presented itself was the offer of 1000 pounds for the use of his name in connection with the North Atlantic Cable. Maury was unwilling to agree to this, and the proposition did not materialize. He kept up his interest in such engineering work, however, and in July, 1866 he wrote that he had filed “provisional specifications” for a patent to improve the manufacture and laying of deep-sea cables, which would decrease the cost almost one half. But in the final successful laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, completed in that very same month, Maury had no part. Though Field had been, before the war, quite ready to accord him due credit for his assistance in laying the first cable across the Atlantic, yet at the banquet given him by the New York Chamber of Commerce at the Metropolitan Hotel, on November 15, 1866, he only casually referred to Maury’s name. Two years later at a dinner in his honor in Willis’s Rooms, London, on July 1, 1868, Field did not even mention, in his speech, the name of Maury, who that very day sailed at last for his home in the United States.

The success of the Atlantic Cable, however, brought Maury another decoration. This was offered by Maximilian in the following letter: “My dear Counselor Maury,—It was with pride that I heard of the scientific triumph just achieved, and due to your illustrious labors. The Transatlantic Cable, while uniting both hemispheres, will continually recall to their minds the debt of gratitude they owe to your genius. I congratulate you with all my heart, and I am pleased at announcing to you that I have appointed you Grand Cross of the Order of Guadalupe. Receive the assurance of the good wishes of your affectionate, Maximilian”. Maury, not realizing perhaps that Maximilian recognized justly his right to share in the honor of the final success of the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph, replied modestly, “The letters of the 16th and 18th of August with which I am honored show how kind and good your Majesty always is. They do me much—too much honor, for I had no hand in the achievement to which your Majesty so graciously refers. The Telegraphic Cable in which I am to take part is not yet ready; when it is, I hope to deserve the Imperial ‘well done’ which is ever ready to encourage all good works. For the present, therefore, I do not ask for the decoration of Grand Cross of the Order of Guadalupe”.

In the same letter, Maury shows that he was not unmindful of the trend of events in Mexico, for he continued, “Events have vindicated the wisdom of my not returning to Mexico. Jealousies within and enmity without had already paralyzed my efforts to serve your Majesty and Empire. I still see in the efforts of the Emperor and Empress of Mexico to give good government with its blessings to that distracted country one of the most sublime moral spectacles that is to be found in the annals of dynasties. As soon as I discovered that I could not assist in the noble work I resolved to stay away, for I have not the heart either to hinder or embarrass your Majesty in these great labors. Animated by the sentiments which I professed when first we met, I have the honor to subscribe myself an humble but true friend of your Majesty’s. M. F. Maury”.

By the end of June, 1866, matters had come to such a pass in Mexico, through the exhaustion of the resources of the government, the announced determination of Napoleon III to withdraw all French troops from the country, and the opposition to Maximilian’s regime by both republicans and clericals in Mexico as well as by the government of the United States, that the throne appeared so much in danger that the Empress determined, much against Maximilian’s wishes, to go to France to make personal appeal for assistance from the Emperor Napoleon, who had promised Maximilian to support him in Mexico for five years. After failing to secure help from the French Emperor who had concluded that it was not politic for him longer to support his protegees in Mexico, she left the palace of Saint Cloud, after exclaiming, “What after all should I, a daughter of a Bourbon, have expected from the word of a Bonaparte!” Going thence to Pope Pius IX in Rome, she was equally unsuccessful in obtaining papal intervention. So terrible was the effect of this failure upon the overwrought Empress that she immediately afterwards, October 1, lost her reason and became hopelessly insane.[23]

Maximilian was informed of his wife’s condition, and made up his mind to abdicate the throne. In this he was advised by General Bazaine, through instructions from his master, Napoleon himself, who wished Maximilian to leave with the French troops. But in an evil hour he listened to the advice of the clericals and made up his mind to remain in Mexico. Events then moved rapidly to a tragic climax. The French troops began leaving in February, 1867, the last embarking March 12; the republican government under Juarez extended its power rapidly, and on May 15 at Queretaro Maximilian with his Mexican generals Miramon and Mejia were betrayed by Colonel Lopez to the Juarists and, after a trial by court-martial, were shot on June 19. Of this event Maury wrote, “Poor Max! He died for his honor. He and ‘my’ Carlotta are the martyrs of the age”.

As affecting his own affairs, he afterwards wrote of this Mexican tragedy, “But for my good luck in having J. D. and Mal. for enemies to send me here into banishment, and then kind Mexican villains to intrigue me out of Mexico, you see the rocks that but for enemies I should have split upon”. A very few years afterwards the mills of the gods ground out their punishment for the faithless Emperor Napoleon, and his empire went down like a house of cards before the onrush of the German armies in 1870. Of Maury’s connection with Maximilian and Napoleon, his cousin Rutson Maury wrote, “It was a special Providence that carried you away from Mexico and that prevented your linking your fortunes with those of Louis Napoleon”.

Maury’s decision to remain in England turned out better, in every way, than he had anticipated. Here in London in the midst of most pleasant and congenial surroundings he lived with his wife, three youngest daughters, and son Matthew, Jr., who was then attending the London School of Mines. During this peaceful life, in 1866, Maury became a regular member of the Church, being confirmed with his son and his daughter Lucy in Dr. Tremlett’s church at Belsize Park, London, by Dr. Charles Todd Quintard, Bishop of Tennessee, who was then in England to attend the Pan-Anglican Assembly at Lambeth and also to raise money for the University of the South at Sewanee.

In 1868, Maury was signally honored by Cambridge University which bestowed upon him the degree of LL.D. He was accompanied to Cambridge for the ceremonies by his wife, his daughters Mary and Lucy, and his friend, the Reverend Dr. Tremlett. Maury thus humorously referred to the occasion: “So you don’t know what I mean by the ‘coronation’, eh? Why boy, I’m a Cambridge LL.D. and am going there, I and Max and the Queen on the 28th—she to unveil the Prince Consort and I to be rigged up in ‘died garments from Bozra’ in a gown and a cap and a beautiful red silk cowl and hear myself all done up in Latin!”

The “Max” whom Maury mentioned in this letter was Max Müller, the famous Sanskrit scholar. Still another distinguished savant received the LL.D. on the same day; this was William Wright, translator of Egyptian manuscripts and hieroglyphics at the British Museum.[24] He wrote afterwards to Maury of the bestowal of the degrees as follows: “I have not been at Cambridge lately, but I know that all our friends there are well. Max Müller is now in Germany; I hope to see him at Kiel at the end of September, when we shall both attend the gathering of the German Orientalists. Lord, what a figure we three of us looked, dressed up like _lobsters_, in the midst of that big hall, gazed at by such a host of people, ‘when shall we three meet again?’ Certainly never under the like circumstances. I was glad to see that Oxford conferred its degree the other day on your poet Longfellow”.

During the ceremonies, the Dean made a long oration in Latin, which was addressed to the newly-made “learned Doctors”. The portion of this which introduced Maury is as follows: “I present to you Matthew Fontaine Maury, who while serving in the American Navy did not permit the clear edge of his mind to be dulled, or his ardor for study to be dissipated, by the variety of his professional labors, or by his continual change of place, but who, by the attentive observations of the course of the winds, the climate, the currents of the seas and oceans, acquired these materials for knowledge, which afterwards in leisure, while he presided over the Observatory at Washington, he systematized in charts and in a book—charts which are now in the hands of all seamen, and a book which has carried the fame of its author into the most distant countries of the earth. Nor is he merely a high authority in nautical science. He is also a pattern of noble manners and good morals, because in the guidance of his own life he has always shown himself a brave and good man. When that cruel Civil War in America was imminent, this man did not hesitate to leave home and friends, a place of high honor and an office singularly adapted to his genius—to throw away, in one word, all the goods and gifts of fortune—that he might defend and sustain the cause which seemed to him the just one. ‘The victorious cause pleased the gods’, and now perhaps, as victorious causes will do, it pleases the majority of men, and yet no one can withhold his admiration from the man who, though numbered among the vanquished, held his faith pure and unblemished even at the price of poverty and exile”.

Thus did England make amends for its former failure to honor Maury before the Civil War when medals and decorations were bestowed upon him by so many other European governments. While in Cambridge, Maury gave a lecture on “Science and the Bible; Educational Ideals of the South” to further the interest in England in the financial support of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. In this address he contended for religious education in the college, and maintained that the Bible and science do not conflict if each is rightly interpreted.

Not long after Maury’s return to England, his friends began to urge him to return to the United States. There was some talk of a professorship in astronomy for him at the University of Virginia; and a definite offer of a chair in the Virginia Military Institute was made to him by the Superintendent as early as February, 1867. A little later he was asked to become the vice-chancellor of the University of the South, and for several months he was favorably inclined toward accepting this position. He finally decided, however, in favor of the professorship at the Virginia Military Institute at $2000 a year. He did not go to Sewanee, he said, because he thought the Episcopalians at the North were not disposed to assist the institution and the financial arrangements did not give the assurance of reasonable grounds for success.

Maury’s letter of acceptance of the Chair of Meteorology in Virginia Military Institute is, in part, as follows: “I thank you kindly for your letter of the 3rd inst. (April, 1868), explaining my duties in the new Chair. They being such as therein defined, you have induced me to accept. I should lack courage to undertake a regular course of lectures as one of the faculty, simply because it would lead me into an untried line of life; and as my rule is to put my heart into whatever I attempt to do, and try my best, I should have to work overmuch—especially at the beginning—and I am afraid of that. The consideration, therefore, that I am not to be charged with a class, or expected to deliver a regular course of lectures, removes a ‘sea of troubles’ and leaves me in a field of research in which I am not altogether a ‘raw hand’.... You certainly do draw a very bright picture of the work that is before me (The Physical Survey of Virginia)—of the results that are expected from it, and of the success that is to attend my labors. We do not weigh in the same balance the force that I can bring to the work. Therefore, as bright as your picture is, I have my fears of what there may be on the other side. ‘Still, it’s wise and brave to hope the best’, and, bringing willing hearts and ready hands to the work, we’ll try to rub even the dark side bright, should it be turned towards us”.

Though the General Amnesty was not passed until May 22, 1872, and Virginia had not as yet been restored to normal relations with the Union, her passing from Federal military control to home rule taking place from April to November, 1869, still the Northern attitude toward the Confederate leaders had already undergone considerable change, as evidenced by the release of Jefferson Davis under bail of $100,000 in May, 1867. Maury felt sure, therefore, that he would not be molested if he returned to the United States, and accordingly after bidding his many warm friends in England farewell, he set sail with his family from Liverpool, on July 1, 1868, for the home from which he had been absent for six years,—years filled with unusual and trying experiences.