VIRAJ DESAI

VERSATILE NEWTON

The apple did not fall on my head because I was holding it in one hand and munching it. In my other hand was Newton and the Counterfeiter, a well-researched and elegantly written book by Thomas Levenson centered on the genius Sir Isaac Newton.

It was Britain’s worst liquidity crisis; recovering still from the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution that saw the Catholic King James II driven out by Mary Stuart and William of Orange. The antiquated silver coins were melted down and sold as bullion in Holland and France where they fetched a much higher price.

The Royal Mint produced nearly half a million pounds worth of silver currency between 1686 and 1690, but in the next five years it could find no silver to coin, putting the Treasury in a spot.

It was then Newton got an SOS from Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Montagne. Lord Montagne knew Newton from Cambridge days and was convinced that only a genius like Newton could solve the problem. When Newton took over as warden in May 1696, he found the Royal Mint riddled with corruption and inefficiency. He was rapidly forced to deploy all his wits against a horde of counterfeiters, chief of which was William Chaloner, a wily rogue who clipped shillings.

Newton realized that the problem had to be fought on two fronts – replacing old coins and eliminating clippers and counterfeiters. He pursued Chaloner relentlessly through the back alleys of the crime-ridden London, interviewing more than two hundred accomplices and enemies until he had enough evidence to build an airtight case. Subsequently, Chaloner was hanged in March 1699.

The book brings out the tenacity of character and the sheer intensity of concentration, and the determination not to let a problem go till he extracted all the answers. John Maynard Keynes described Newton as a versatile genius – lawyer, economist, historian, theologian, mathematician and astronomer. The book reads like a spy thriller and is recommended to anyone looking beyond gastronomical delights.