John Deschamps took place on 23rd August 1765. His widow died at Winchester on 27th December 1801, aged eighty. Their son assumed the name of Chamier on the death of the last male representative of that refugee family, and is the ancestor of the present English family of Chamier.
IV. Maty.
The Pasteur Matthieu Maty, of Beaufort, in Dauphine, became a refugee in Holland in 1685, along with his little sons, Charles and Paul. Both these boys rose to considerable eminence. Charles Maty became the author of a Dictionnaire Geographique Universal, published at Amsterdam in 1701, and again in 1723. (Perhaps he was “Monsieur Maty, pasteur Francais a Utrecht" in 1718.)
Paul Maty was born at Beaufort in 1681, and (according to Haag), was Catechist at the Hague in Saurin’s School for the Poor. He certainly was the pasteur of Montfort, near Utrecht, in 1715. On 8th September 1715 he married Jeanne Crottier des Marets, a lady of a refugee family from Lyons. In 1729 he printed a letter on the mystery of the Trinity, in which he started a new dogma concerning our Divine Saviour. There was a very ancient sect known as the Monophysites; if our theologist had obtained followers they might have been named Triphysites. The only interest we have in this letter is that it was replied to by one of our refugees, the Pasteur Armand de La Chapelle, in a pamphlet entitled, “Reflexions en forme de lettre au sujet d’un systeme pretendu nouveau sur le mystere de la Trinité,” 1729. Paul Maty refused to appear before his synod, and was expelled from his church. He then applied himself to the study of medicine, and in 1740 he retired to England along with his son.
This son, named Matthieu, had been baptised on 19th May 1718, at Montford. He had taken the degree of M.D. at Leyden on nth February 1740. Aspiring to literary employment in England, he printed some fugitive pieces, among which were Ode sur la Rebellion en Ecosse (1746) and Eloge Critique du grand medecin, Boorhaave (1747). In order to bring himself into notice in London he began to publish in 1750 a magazine of literary news, entitled Journal Britannique, which was continued till 1755. The British Museum being organised in 1753, Matthew Maty was appointed one of its sub-librarians. In the same year he was made F.R.S. On 16th November 1754 Mr. Duncombe wrote to Archbishop Herring:
“I have lately commenced an acquaintance with a F.R.S., Dr. Maty, a man of learning and genius. He published every two months at the Hague une feuille volante (as the French call it) entitled, Journal Britannique. He has continued it five years. . . . The Dr. is in easy circumstances, and knows nothing of my mentioning his name here.”
He was a member of the Medical Club which met every fortnight at the Queen’s Arms, in St Paul’s Churchyard. In 1754 Dr. Richard Mead and M. Abraham De Moivre died, and Dr. Maty published concise memoirs of both; his tiny volume entitled, Memoire sur la vie et sur les écrits de Mr. Abraham De Moivre, is the life of which all subsequent biographies of the famous mathematician are abridgments. He also wrote memoirs of Rev. Thomas Birch, D.D., the historian of the Royal Society, who died in 1766. Dr. Maty was elected Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society 4th March 1762. And on 25th June 1765 he was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. On 30th November of the same year he became the Secretary of the Royal Society. He was chosen to be the Principal Librarian of the British Museum in 1772, on the death of Dr. Knight.
Dr. Maty married in London, on 13th December 1743, in the French Church in the Savoy, Miss Elizabeth Boisragon. In the same Church, of which he was afterwards a trustee.his children were baptised — Henry Paul (born 1744),Jeanne(1753),Louise(), and Marthe (1758). He died in the beginning of August 1776, and was survived by his second wife (née Mary Deners), one son, and three daughters. He left a manuscript nearly ready for publication, viz., “The Memoirs of the Earl of Chesterfield,” a work undertaken to do honour to a great statesman, but refusing to deal with his religious opinions. This memoir was published in 1779, prefixed to Chesterfield’s Works, in four volumes, edited by Justamond. A portrait of Dr. Maty, by Bartolozzi, was given to his friends as a legacy to the extent of 100 copies, after which the plate was destroyed. His funeral sermon was preached by his wife’s nephew, Charles Peter Layard (afterwards known as Dean Layard), from which I give an extract — a good specimen of the preacher’s eloquence.
“A Sermon preached at Oxendon Chapel on Sunday, August 11, 1776, occasioned by the Decease of the late Matthew Maty, M.D. of the Royal College of
