Boulton was connected in the latter part of his life. In 1788 he set up several coining presses at Soho to be worked by steam (he patented his press in 1790), and after making large quantities of coins for the East India Company, for foreign governments, and for some of the colonies, he in 1797 undertook the production of a new copper coinage for Great Britain. He also supplied machinery to the new mint on Tower Hill, commenced in 1805, and it was not until the reorganisation of the mint machinery in 1882 that Boulton's press was finally abandoned.
In the scientific society of his time Boulton held a prominent place. Among his intimates were Franklin, Priestley, Darwin, Wedgwood, and Edgeworth; he was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Lunar Society, a provincial scientific society of note. His house at Soho was the meeting-place for all scientific men, both English and foreign. He died there 18 Aug. 1809.
[Smiles's Lives of Boulton and Watt, 1865; Muirhead's Life of Watt, London, 1858; Gent. Mag. 1809, 780, 883, 979.]
BOULTON, RICHARD (fl. 1697–1724), physician, educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and for some time settled at Chester, was the author of a number of works on the medical and kindred sciences, including:
- 'Reason of Muscular Motion,' 1697.
- 'Treatise concerning the Heat of the Blood,' 1698.
- 'An Examination of Mr. John Colbatche's Books,' 1699
- 'Letter to Dr. Goodal occasioned by his Letter to Dr. Leigh,' 1699.
- 'System of Rational and Practical Chirurgery,' 1699; 2nd edition, 1713.
- 'The Works of the Hon. Robert Boyle epitomised,' 3 vols. 1699-1700.
- 'Physico-Chirurgical Treatises of the Gout, the King's Evil, and the Lues Venerea,' 1714.
- 'Essay on External Remedies,' 1715.
- 'Essay on the Plague,' 1721.
- 'Vindication of the Compleat History of Magic,' 1722.
- 'Thoughts concerning the Unusual Qualities of the Air,' 1724.
Though apparently learned in the science of his profession, he was seemingly not successful in his practice, for in a letter to Sir Hans Sloane he states that he undertook to write an abridgment of Mr. Boyle's works on account of 'misfortunes still attending him;' and in another letter he mentions that successive misfortunes had made him the object of his compassion, and begs him to effect something towards putting him in a way to live. In the preface to the 'Vindication of the History of Magic' he states that he had been for some time out of England.
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Catalogue; Sloane MS. 4038.]
BOUND, NICHOLAS (d. 1613). [See Bownde.]
BOUQUET, HENRY (1719–1765), general, born at Rolle, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, was in 1736 received as a cadet in the regiment of Constant in the service of the States-General of Holland,and in 1738 was made ensign in the same regiment. Thence he passed into the service of the king of Sardinia, and distinguished himself in the wars against France and Spain. The accounts he sent to Holland of these campaigns having attracted the attention of the Prince of Orange, he was engaged by him in the service of the republic. As captain-commandant, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of Swiss guards newly formed in the Hague in 1748, he was sent to the Low Countries to receive from the French the places they were about to evacuate. A few months afterwards he accompanied Lord Middleton in his travels in France and Italy. On the outbreak of the war between the French and English settlers in America in 1754 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Royal American regiment which was then raised in three battalions, and by his integrity and capacity gained great credit, especially in Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1763 he was sent by General Amherst from Canada with military stores and provisions for the relief of Fort Pitt, and on 5 Aug. was attacked by a powerful body of the Indians near the defile of Turtle Creek, but so completely defeated them that they gave up their designs against Fort Pitt and retreated to their remote settlements. In the following year he was sent from Canada against the Ohio Indians, and succeeded in reducing a body of Shawanese, Delaware, and other tribes to make terms of peace. At the conclusion of the peace with the Indians he was made brigadier-general and commandant of all troops in the southern colonies of British America. He died in the autumn of 1765 at Pensacola, from an epidemic then prevalent among the troops.
