Samuel Bentham, Fig. 9, was a brother of Jeremy Bentham, the famous English publicist and writer on economics, and a step-brother of Charles Abbott, speaker of the House of Commons. He was born in 1757, went to the Westminster School, and later was a naval apprentice in the Woolwich Arsenal. His tastes and his training led him toward the administrative and constructive work of the navy, and for this he had the best education available at that time. He went to sea after a final year at the Naval College at Portsmouth; and in 1780, in consequence of his abilities, was sent by Earl Howe, then first Lord of the Admiralty, to visit the various ports of northern Europe. He went through the great ports of Holland and the Baltic, eastward to St. Petersburg, and was introduced at the Russian court by the British ambassador. [Illustration: FIGURE 9. SIR SAMUEL BENTHAM FROM AN OLD MINIATURE] The Russians took to him kindly, as he was handsome, tall, and distinguished in manner, inspired confidence, and made and held friends. He was well received by the Empress Catherine, and soon became a favorite of Prince Potemkin. He traveled over a greater part of the empire from the Black Sea to the Arctic and as far east as China, examining mining and engineering works. On his return to St. Petersburg he fell in love with a wealthy heiress of the nobility. The parents objected; but though the empress, who was interested, advised an elopement, he gave it up as dishonorable and went away to Critcheff in southern Russia as a lieutenant-colonel of engineers in the Russian army. While there he took charge of Potemkin’s grossly mismanaged factories in order to put them on a sound basis, an undertaking suggestive of the twentieth-century efficiency engineer. In this he was not wholly successful. In 1787 he built and equipped a flotilla of ships, and in the following year distinguished himself in a naval battle with the Turks, in which John Paul Jones was also engaged. One of the vital elements in the fight was the use of the large guns built by Bentham, which fired shells for the first time in naval warfare. Nine Turkish ships were burned or sunk and 8000 men were killed or taken prisoners. For his part in this battle Bentham was knighted and made a brigadier-general. There were few skilled artisans in Russia and almost none available in the southern provinces--a Danish brass founder, an English watchmaker and two or three sergeants who could write and draw were all he had. This set Bentham at work on the problem of “transferring skill” by means of machines, so that unskilled workmen might be made to produce the same results as skilled labor.