[490] William Paley (1743-1805) was afterwards a tutor at Christ's College, Cambridge. He never contributed anything to mathematics, but his _Evidences of Christianity_ (1794) was long considered somewhat of a classic. He also wrote _Principles of Morality and Politics_ (1785), and _Natural Theology_ (1802). [491] Edward, first Baron Thurlow (1731-1806) is known to Americans because of his strong support of the Royal prerogative during the Revolution. He was a favorite of George III, and became Lord Chancellor in 1778. [492] George Wilson Meadley (1774-1818) published his _Memoirs of ... Paley_ in 1809. He also published _Memoirs of Algernon Sidney_ in 1813. He was a merchant and banker, and had traveled extensively in Europe and the East. He was a convert to unitarianism, to which sect Paley had a strong leaning. [493] Watson (1737-1816) was a strange kind of man for a bishopric. He was professor of chemistry at Cambridge (1764) at the age of twenty-seven. It was his experiments that led to the invention of the black-bulb thermometer. He is said to have saved the government L100,000 a year by his advice on the manufacture of gunpowder. Even after he became professor of divinity at Cambridge (1771) he published four volumes of _Chemical Essays_ (vol. I, 1781). He became Bishop of Llandaff in 1782. [494] James Adair (died in 1798) was counsel for the defense in the trial of the publishers of the _Letters of Junius_ (1771). As King's Serjeant he assisted in prosecuting Hardy and Horne Tooke. [495] Morgan (1750-1833) was actuary of the Equitable Assurance Society of London (1774-1830), and it was to his great abilities that the success of that company was due at a time when other corporations of similar kind were meeting with disaster. The Royal Society awarded him a medal (1783) for a paper on _Probability of Survivorship_. He wrote several important works on insurance and finance. [496] Dr. Price (1723-1791) was a non-conformist minister and a writer on ethics, economics, politics, and insurance. He was a defender of the American Revolution and a personal friend of Franklin. In 1778 Congress invited him to America to assist in the financial administration of the new republic, but he declined. His famous sermon on the French Revolution is said to have inspired Burke's _Reflections on the Revolution in France_.