Page - 191 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

191The North Beckons no other plans for Venus transit expeditions involving Jesuit astronomers put forward before September 1767. In the end, it was Chappe d’Auteroche—whom Hell had known since his visit to Vienna in 1761—who went to Baja California along with two Spanish observers. They managed to observe the Venus transit, but most of the company—Chappe included—perished soon after from an epidemic disease.67 Boscovich stayed in Italy and saw nothing of the transit, whereas Mayer, upon advice from Lalande, became one of the Venus transit observers financed by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1769. He was, however, not invited until late 1768. As for other possible inviters of Hell—governments or scientific societies— one might proceed by elimination. Sweden is not likely to have reckoned with foreign observers, since the Swedish Academy of Sciences had sufficient per- sonnel within its own ranks and was in any case reluctant to engage foreigners for patriotic reasons.68 The same applies to France. As for Britain, Hell was neither a fellow of the Royal Society of London nor is he known to have been in personal contact with British astronomers before the 1770s.69 Further pos- sible sponsors asking the Viennese court astronomer to travel to faraway terri- tories would be Portugal or Spain, but the fact that the expulsion of the Jesuits from their lands took place in June–September 1759 and February–April 1767 respectively makes such an invitation highly unlikely. Paradoxically, if Hell received an invitation from a national government or ruler, the situation in Catholic countries around 1766–67 makes a non-Catholic power more likely to have been the inviter. One such power with overseas 67 Chappe’s observations and journal was published by Cassini de Thury as the Voyage en Californie (Paris, 1772). Portions of this work and formerly unpublished accounts of Chappe’s travel companions have been collected in Nunis, 1769 Transit of Venus. 68 In a remark in his application for funding to the Swedish king, Wargentin plays the patri- otic card in a way that almost amounts to blackmail: “Most gracious King! Able men are to hand in our country, but the academy possesses no funding either for their travel gear, when that time comes, or for acquisition of the necessary number of instruments. In- stead, the academy will some day soon be forced to admit to the foreign academies its inability to fulfil their wishes in this matter, so that the foreign academies may have the time to consider dispatching some astronomers to us themselves […]. His Royal Majesty’s great care for the sciences, his grace for his academy and care for the honour of his king- dom in such an extraordinary case, would hardly allow the academy to make to foreigners such a confession of its poverty.” Quoted from Nordenmark, Wargentin, 375–76. 69 When contact had finally been established in the context of Hell’s assignments connect- ed with the construction and equipment of the new observatory in Eger, the other party’s response was slow and meagre, suggesting that contact with Hell may not have been top priority for Maskelyne. For details, see below, Chapter 8.