John Gardner (vicar of Battersea), and perhaps the printer John Nichols. Fruitless applications were made after 1783 to William Pitt the Younger (who thought the matter very important), Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, and Sir Joseph Banks. An advertisement was published (October 1786), 'with no material effect'. The death in a debtors' prison (1 April 1787) of Floyer Sydenham led Williams to press the matter. The club, not being unanimous, was dissolved, and another (of eight members) formed. At its first meeting (spring of 1788) the constitution of the Literary Fund, drawn up by Williams, was adopted, each member subscribing a guinea. An advertisement (10 May 1788) invited further subscriptions. The first general meeting to elect officers was held on Tuesday 18 May 1790 at the Prince of Wales's coffee-house. In the course of twelve years £1,738 was distributed among 105 persons. The society was incorporated 19 May 1818; in 1842 it became the Royal Literary Fund. By the close of the century it possessed an income exceeding £4,000, half from investments, and half from annual contributions. Later life At the instance of Dr. Hooper of Pant-y-Goetre and Morgan of Tredegar, Williams undertook to write a history of Monmouthshire, and in 1792 visited the county to collect materials. Shortly afterwards Roland, during his second term of office as minister of the interior, invited Williams to Paris. He went over about August 1792, was made a French citizen, and remained till the execution (21 January 1793) of Louis XVI, a measure which he strongly deprecated. While in Paris he published Observations sur la derniere Constitution de la France, 1793. He brought with him, on his return, a letter to William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, from Lebrun, minister of war, who wished to make Williams a medium of communication between the two governments; but no notice was taken of it. An engagement previously entered into for completing the continuation of Hume's History of England was cancelled, owing to the political odium incurred by his visit to France. His History of Monmouthshire, 1796, with illustrations drawn and partly engraved by his friend Gardner, and a very modest introduction, was considered a standard work on the subject; unfortunately it has no index. After the peace of Amiens (1802) he again visited France. It was surmised that he had been entrusted with some confidential mission by the English government. Before leaving he had published Claims