When Sir Isaac was one day conversing with her royal highness on some points of ancient history, he was led to mention to her, and to explain, a new system of chronology which he composed during his residence at Cambridge, where he was in the habit, as he himself expresses it, “of refreshing himself with history and chronology when he was weary with other studies.” The princess was so much pleased with his ingenious system, that she subsequently, in the year 1718, sent a message by the Abbé Conti to Sir Isaac, requesting him to speak with her, and she, on this occasion, requested a copy of the interesting work which contained his system of chronology. Sir Isaac informed her that it existed merely in separate papers, which were not only in a state of confusion, but which contained a very imperfect view of the subject, and he promised, in a few days, to draw up an abstract of it for her own private use, and on the condition that it should not be communicated to any other person. Some time after the princess received the manuscript, she requested that the Abbé Conti might be allowed to have a copy of it. Sir Isaac granted this request, and the Abbé was informed that he received a copy of the manuscript with Sir Isaac’s leave, and at the princess’s request, and that it was to be kept secret.[93] The manuscript which was thus rashly put into the hands of a foreigner was entitled “A Short Chronicle from the First Memory of Things in Europe to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great.” It consists of about twenty-four quarto printed pages,[94] with an introduction of four pages, in which Sir Isaac states that he “does not pretend to be exact to a year, that there may be errors of five or ten years, and sometimes twenty, but not much above.” The Abbé Conti kept his promise of secrecy during his residence in England, but he no sooner reached Paris than he communicated it to M. Freret, a learned antiquarian, who not only translated it, but drew up observations upon it for the purpose of refuting some of its principal results. Sir Isaac was unacquainted with this transaction till he was informed of it by the French bookseller, M. Cavalier, who requested his leave to publish it, and charged one of his friends in London to procure Sir Isaac’s answer, which was as follows:— “I remember that I wrote a Chronological index for a particular friend, on condition that it should not be communicated. As I have not seen the manuscript which you have under my name, I know not whether it be the same. That which I wrote was not at all done with design to publish it. I intend not to meddle with that which hath been given you under my name, nor to give any consent to the publishing of it.—I am your very humble servant, “ISAAC NEWTON. “_London, May 27th, 1725_, O. S.”