Barton. Newton was appointed to the lower office
(the _Wardenship_) in March, 1695-96, when the young lady was not sixteen
years old, and before she could have been a resident under her uncle's
roof. The state of the coinage had caused much uneasiness; it was one of
the difficulties, and its restoration was one of the successes, of the day.
The best scientific advice was taken: Locke, Newton, and Halley were
consulted, and all were placed in office nearly at the same time; Newton in
the London Mint, Halley in the Chester Mint, Locke in the Council of Trade.
Neither Locke nor Halley had any nieces. Before Newton's appointment there
was some negociation of a public character: the Wardenship was not vacant,
and the government seems to have tried to induce Newton to take something
subordinate. March 14, Newton wrote to Halley, in reference to a current
rumour,--"I neither put in for any place in the Mint, nor would meddle with
Mr. Hoar's [the comptroller's] place, were it offered me." On the 19th,
Montague informs Newton that he is to have the _Wardenship_, vacant by the
removal of Mr. Overton to the Customs. Four years afterwards, when the
great operation on the coinage, by many declared impracticable, had
completely succeeded, Newton, a principal adviser and the principal
administrator, obtained the Mastership in the course of promotion. Montague
was raised to the peerage in the following year, and mainly, as the patent
states, for the same service. So that, though Montague was the patron as to
the Wardenship, yet scientific assistance was then so sorely needed, that
no hypothesis relative to any niece would be necessary to explain the
phenomenon of Newton's appointment: while, as to the Mastership it may
almost be said that Montague was more indebted to Newton for his peerage,
than Newton to Montague for that promotion which any minister must, under
the circumstances, have granted. {433}

In no account of Newton that I ever read is it stated that Mrs. Barton was
an intimate friend of Swift, probably through Halifax. Having been told
that there is frequent mention of her in Swift's _Journal to Stella_, I
examined that series and the rest of the correspondence, in which her name
occurs about twenty times. One letter from herself, under the name of
Conduitt (November 29, 1733), is indorsed by the Dean, "My old friend Mrs.
Barton, now Mrs. Conduitt," and establishes the identity of Swift's friend
with Newton's niece: otherwise