to the manuscripts and would have to content himself with simply making note of them in a catalog.
Given the material and social obstacles facing the traveler, how did natural historians and antiquaries manage their expeditions? Realizing that they were likely to encounter suspicion and resistance, travelers sought credentials that would encourage those they met to accept and assist them. Letters of recommendation were the typical remedy. Plot, noting that John Leland traveled as an official emissary of Henry VIII, desired a similar commission from Charles II: “And as for such MSS. or other Curiosities that shall be found in private Hands, a Recommendation from his Majesty must needs prove so effectual, that I shall surely be admitted to the perusal or making an Abridgement of any MSS. and of having a Sight and Examination of all other Rarities either of Art or Nature.”85 The king’s word, though, was not sufficient for Plot; he also planned a sort of letters-of-reference pyramid scheme. He obtained a general letter of recommendation (it might as well have been addressed “To whom it may concern”) signed by Ralph Bathurst, Oxford’s vice chancellor; John Wallis, professor of geometry; and James Hyde, one of Charles II’s personal physicians, among others.86 He planned to take this letter and other, more personalized letters of recommendation to the most ingenious people in every county and ask them in turn for letters to the next level of ingeniosity that the counties offered.87 Plot’s general letter of commendation was handwritten on parchment, which was more durable than paper and so better able to withstand the rigor of travel.
Through their correspondence traveling naturalists smoothed the path before them by cultivating local connections in advance of trips. In one letter to Martin Lister, Edward Lhuyd sought several different letters of introduction in preparation for his travels in Ireland and Scotland. Lhuyd wrote from Wales six weeks before embarking to Ireland. He asked Lister to point him toward “some acquaintance there who may direct us to make the best of our time” as well as particular introductions to a Dr. Wellase, mentioned in Lister’s previous letters, “and any other particular friend in Ireland.” He further recalled that John Campbell, the second Earl Breadalbane (1662–1752), had promised letters of introduction to Lister if he ever traveled to the Scottish Highlands. As that was the next leg of Lhuyd’s trip after Ireland, he begged Lister to see if that promise could be extended to him.88
In order to make the most of their travels and win access to private lands and private libraries, naturalists such as Lhuyd had to win the confidence of people who were not naturalists. The average landowner in the Scottish Highlands was unlikely to be impressed with Edward Lhuyd himself or a letter of introduction bearing Martin Lister’s signature. But the signature of John Campbell, as Lhuyd recognized, could easily open doors. Campbell’s value lay in both his stature and his local renown. He was not just any lord but one known locally in the Highlands. A naturalist’s connections, no matter how prominent, were worthless if they were not recognized by the locals to whose libraries and resources he sought access.
Other letters of Lhuyd’s confirm the importance of cultivating prominent local connections above all else. In preparation for sailing to Brittany, the last leg of his trip through Celtic-speaking regions of Britain and France, Lhuyd wrote to his friend Thomas Tonkin.89 Lhuyd had heard that Tonkin’s father-in-law corresponded with a gentleman at the port of Morlaix, where Lhuyd planned to land. Lhuyd specifically asked “his favour therefore, in getting me recommended to some scholar well acquainted with the British language, and antiquities; and then I hope to shift for myself.”90 Lhuyd had letters of introduction to two abbots in Paris, but these, he recognized, would be nearly useless in Brittany.
Sometimes even quality letters of introduction could not protect a traveler. After only three weeks in Brittany, which he spent hard at work collecting notes on the Breton language (“Armorican” to Lhuyd), his studies were interrupted by the intendant des marines of Brest. The intendant sent a messenger to Lhuyd’s lodgings to arrest him on suspicion of treason:
The messenger found me busy in adding the Armoric words to Mr Rays Dictionariolum Trilingue with a great many letters and small manuscripts about the table, which he immediately secured, and then proceeded to search our pockets for more. All these papers he ty’d up in a napkin, and requiring me to put three seals thereon, added three more of his own. I told him I had brought letters of recommendation to the Theologal of the City, who is the third person in the Diocese; upon which he went with me to him. The gentleman own’d it, and deliver’d him the letter, adding another in our behalf to his master, the Intendant, and a third to a captain of a man of war at Brest. Having secur’d our papers, he granted us the favour of going to Brest before them, a-part, that the country might not take notice of our being prisoners.91
By Lhuyd’s account, the messenger found him busy catching up on his philological note taking. He used the vocabulary lists in Ray’s trilingual dictionary as a basis for his own collections of Celtic words and compiled his vocabularies in a copy of Ray’s book, working from notes taken over the course of his travels. In that moment he was working on adding the Breton words to his master copy. This activity of writing, which required a profusion of “letters and small manuscripts,” was immediately suspicious as spy work. Despite letters from a high-ranking cleric (the “Theologal”), Lhuyd was held on suspicion of being a spy for just under two weeks in the jail in the castle at Brest. Initially refused an allowance for food and having only letters of credit with local merchants rather than cash to pay for his own, Lhuyd bargained with some Irish soldiers at the castle to pass him viands through the groundfloor window of his jail cell.92 He was released after an interpreter studied the papers that had been seized—many of which were written in Welsh and Cornish—and determined that “they contain’d nothing of Treason.” Lhuyd was aided in part by the interpreter’s vanity. Though unable to read Welsh and Cornish, he was “loath to own himself puzl’d; so told {the French officials} in general, without any exception, none of my papers related to Statematters” (which they did not, being primarily Welsh and Cornish poetry, word lists, and other philological resources, but how could the translator know that?).93 Lhuyd was released, and his papers were given back to him, but he was ordered to return immediately to England. Although he had originally intended to travel on to Paris, where his patron Martin Lister had important contacts, Lhuyd turned around and took the next boat back to England.94
As Lhuyd’s experience indicates, the difficulties facing the naturalist and antiquarian traveler were often social in nature. When traveling, naturalists and antiquarians frequently dealt with officials and other locals who had little knowledge of or respect for their credentials. Compared to these problems, bad roads and terrible weather seem hardly to have been worth remarking upon. Lhuyd rarely mentioned these inconveniences, instead dwelling on the negotiations and introductions that ensured access and assistance from local landowners. Letters of introduction to or from local notables were necessary but sometimes not sufficient to ensure access and protect them against harassment. The traveling naturalists and antiquarians struggled to gain access to private land and private libraries. Once access was granted, they had to convince private gentlemen to permit them to copy, take away, or buy samples of what they found on those gentlemen’s land and in their libraries. Beyond access to things, there was also access to information. Lhuyd noted this in his proposals for the natural history of Wales, when he spoke of the necessity of carrying money along to pay small sums to local workers, particularly miners, for information, such as details surrounding the collection of specimens.
For the traveling naturalist, such as Lhuyd, patronage was dispersed across many correspondents, acquaintances, informants, and subscribers, and yet he still had to find ways to align his interests with patrons who were not, at heart, naturalists. This made his situation both like and unlike that described in many classic studies of patronage in science and the arts, which focused on court patronage and the absolute (or would-be absolute) ruler.95 At the court all energy was focused on the ruler, and status and power were measured in one’s distance therefrom. The concentration of patronage in the absolute ruler meant that clients sought to align their interests with the ruler at all times in order to maintain patronage, which could create courts devoted to specific sciences or areas of investigation. Driven by the interests of the Landgraf, for example, the court of Hesse-Kassel under Prince Moritz (1572–1632) was a center of research into