Letter 3346

On hearing of Sir Isaac Newton’s death Poley’s ‘thoughts were immediately Foc’d on you to succeed him as President of the Royal Society’. He discovered that Sloane was elected to succeed Newton in the ‘Amsterdam Gazet of this day’. Poley was sad to hear of Newton’s death, but thinks Sloane is the only ‘Person to repair the Loss of so great a Man’. Richard Poley (d. 1770) graduated B.A. from Queen’s College Cambridge in 1704. He was a Fellow of Queen’s College from 1717 to 1716. Poley was the Secretary to the British Envoy in Sweden from 1725 (http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27poley%27%29).