m 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_.

[497] Elizabeth Gurney (1780-1845), a Quaker, who married Joseph Fry
(1800), a London merchant. She was the prime mover in the Association for
the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate, founded in 1817. Her
influence in prison reform extended throughout Europe, and she visited the
prisons of many countries in her efforts to improve the conditions of penal
servitude. The friendship of Mrs. Fry with the De Morgans began in 1837.
Her scheme for a female benefit society proved worthless from the actuarial
standpoint, and would have been disastrous to all concerned if it had been
carried out, and it was therefore fortunate that De Morgan was consulted in
time. Mrs. De Morgan speaks of the consultation in these words: "My
husband, who was very sensitive on such points, was charmed with Mrs. Fry's
voice and manner as much as by the simple self-forgetfulness with which she
entered into this business; her own very uncomfortable share of it not
being felt as an element in the question, as long as she could be useful in
promoting good or preventing mischief. I can see her now as she came into
our room, took off her little round Quaker cap, and laying it down, went at
once into the matter. 'I have followed thy advice, and I think nothing
further can be done in this case; but all harm is prevented.' In the
following year I had an opportunity of seeing the effect of her most
musical tones. I visited her at Stratford, taking my little baby and nurse
with me, to consult her on some articles on prison discipline, which I had
written for a periodical. The baby--three months old--was restless, and the
nurse could not quiet her, neither could I entirely, until Mrs. Fry began
to read something connected with the subject of my visit, when the infant,
fixing her large eyes on the reader, lay listening till she fell asleep."
_Memoirs_, p. 91.

[498] Mrs. Fry certainly believed that t