It is said by Dr. Crell that Scheele was invited over to England, with an offer of an easy and advantageous situation; but that his love of quiet and retirement, and his partiality for Sweden, where he had spent the greatest part of his life, threw difficulties in the way of these overtures, and that a change in the English ministry put a stop to them for the time. The invitation, Crell says, was renewed in 1786, with the offer of a salary of 300_l._ a-year; but Scheele's death put a final stop to it. I have very great doubts about the truth of this statement; and, many years ago, during the lifetime of Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish, and Mr. Kirwan, I made inquiry about the circumstance; but none of the chemists in Great Britain, who were at that time numerous and highly respectable, had ever heard of any such negotiation. I am utterly at a loss to conceive what one individual in any of the ministries of George III. was either acquainted with the science of chemistry, or at all interested in its progress. They were all so intent upon accomplishing their own objects, or those of their sovereign, that they had neither time nor inclination to think of science, and certainly no money to devote to any of its votaries. What minister in Great Britain ever attempted to cherish the sciences, or to reward those who cultivate them with success? If we except Mr. Montague, who procured the place of master of the Mint for Sir Isaac Newton, I know of no one. While in every other nation in Europe science is directly promoted, and considerable sums are appropriated for its cultivation, and for the support of a certain number of individuals who have shown themselves capable of extending its boundaries, not a single farthing has been devoted to any such purpose in Great Britain. Science has been left entirely to itself; and whatever has been done by way of promoting it has been performed by the unaided exertions of private individuals. George III. himself was a patron of literature and an encourager of _botany_. He might have been disposed to reward the unrivalled eminence which Scheele had attained; but this he could only have done by bestowing on him a pension out of his privy purse. No situation which Scheele could fill was at his disposal. The universities and the church were both shut against a Lutheran; and no pharmaceutical places exist in this country to which Scheele could have been appointed. If any such project ever existed, it must have been an idea which struck some man of science that such a proposal to a man of Scheele's eminence would redound to the credit of the country. But that such a project should have been broached by a British ministry, or by any man of great political influence, is an opinion that no person would adopt who has paid any attention to the history of Great Britain since the Revolution to the present time.