A Man Without a Price
A Russian princess admitted defeat with a most gracious compliment.
1770s
King George III 1760-1820 Catherine II, Empress of Russia 1762-1796
A Russian princess admitted defeat with a most gracious compliment.
1770s
King George III 1760-1820 Catherine II, Empress of Russia 1762-1796
John Smeaton (1724-1792) was an English engineer who made advances in water and steam power, and engineered bridges, canals, harbours and land drainage schemes. Such was his reputation that Empress Catherine of Russia, who had a high regard for English know-how, dangled the lure of her glittering Court and immense treasury in the hope of landing him.
The Empress Catherine of Russia was exceedingly anxious to have his [Smeaton’s] services in the formation of great engineering works in her dominions,* and she commissioned the Princess Dackshaw* to offer him his own terms, if he would accede to her proposal. But his plans and his heart were bent upon the exercise of his skill in his own country, and he steadily refused all the offers made to him.*
It is reported that when the Princess found her attempts unavailing, she said to him, “Sir, you are a great man, and I honour you. You may have an equal in abilities,* perhaps, but in character you stand single. The English minister, Sir Robert Walpole, was mistaken; and my sovereign, to her loss, finds one who has not his price.”*
From ‘The London Anecdotes’ Volume 2 (1848), edited by Charles Maybury Archer. Archer, of Haverstock Hill, Middlesex, was a paper-manufacturer, who contributed to the Morning Chronicle. Archer is relying on an account by Smeaton’s daughter Mary (Dixon) in ‘Reports of the late John Smeaton [...] in the Course of his Employment as a Civil Engineer’ Volume 1 (1812, 1837).
* This story comes of good authority. It occurs in a speech to the Committee of Civil Engineers given at Fellfoot near Kendal on October 30th, 1797, by Mary Dixon, one of Smeaton’s daughters; Archer’s account is fuller and a little easier to read.
* Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1743-1810). In her memoirs she called herself Princess Daschkaw, and Mary Dixon referred to her as the Princess De Askoff. Dashkova had played a key role in the court intrigues that brought Catherine to the throne, and was one of her most trusted counsellors. In 1768 she embarked on tour of Europe that lasted fourteen years, spending December 1776 to June 1779 in Edinburgh. Well-read and an experienced writer, on her return to Russia Dashkova was showered her with distinctions. She was appointed Chairwoman of Imperial Russian Academy (which she helped to found) and Director of Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1783.
* Not that Smeaton had any objection to helping Russia progress. In 1774, English sailor Sir Charles Knowles, whom Catherine had engaged to modernise the Imperial Navy in 1771, commissioned a waterpump from Carron Iron Works of Falkirk for draining the docks at Kronstadt, St Petersburg, and Carron consulted Smeaton on the design. It was tested in 1777, and inspected by the Empress in 1782, who was delighted with it. On Britain’s proud role in shaping the modern Russian Navy, see Samuel Greig.
* The most prominent among them was surely James Watt, who in 1769 had patented the first steam engine capable of driving industrial machinery, but he politely declined Catherine’s overtures too. Catherine nonetheless sent promising Russian students to the firm of Boulton and Watt in England to learn the techniques of steam engine design.
* Dashkova was not referring to any remark by Walpole directed specifically at Smeaton. ‘Every man has his price’ was by this time quoted as one of Walpole’s favourite sayings; John Wesley did so in Sermon 123, delivered at Halifax on April 21st, 1790.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How did John Smeaton impress Princess Dashkova?
By turning down a lucrative job offer.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Catherine offered Smeaton a job in Russia. She told him to name his terms. He declined the job.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IAccept. IISum. IIITurn.