Charles XII. was now engaged in the siege of Frederickshall, and Swedenborg’s aid was called in. He very ingeniously planned rolling machines, by which two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop, were conveyed from Stromstadt to Iderfjol, overland; a distance of fourteen miles. Under cover of these vessels, Charles was enabled to transport his heavy artillery under the very walls of Frederickshall; but it availed little, for at the siege of this town, on November 30, 1718, (old style,) this inveterate warrior received the fatal blow which ended his troublous and eventful career. He was struck in the head with a cannon ball, and though death must have been instantaneous, he was found with his right hand firmly grasping the handle of his sword; so prompt was he to put himself in an attitude of defence.
“His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress and a dubious hand;
He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale.”
In 1719 the Swedberg family were ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora, and Swedenborg from that time took his place with the nobles of the equestrian order, in the triennial Assemblies of the States. This distinction conferred little else than a change of name. He was neither a Count nor a Baron, as has very commonly been supposed.
Emanuel Swedenborg was rapidly winning for himself the name of a deep thinker and a ready writer. In 1717 he published “An Introduction to Algebra,” under the title of “The Art of the Rules.” It was highly praised for its clearness, and the order and force of its examples. The first portion of the work, however, was all that was published. The second, containing the first account given in Sweden of the differential and integral calculus, still remains in MS. His second publication this year was, “Attempts to find the Longitude of Places by Lunar Observations.” Both works were written in Swedish.
In 1719 four works proceeded from his increasingly fertile pen. “A Proposal for a Decimal System of Money and Measures;” “A Treatise on the Motion and Position of the Earth and Planets;” “Proofs derived from Appearances in Sweden, of the Depth of the Sea, and the greater Force of the Tides in the Ancient World;” and “On Docks, Sluices, and Salt Works.”
His work on the Decimal system of coinage and measures was republished in 1795. Swedenborg’s ideas on this and most other subjects were far ahead of the times in which he lived. In one of his letters he thus alludes to the discouragements he met with on this account. “It is a little discouraging to me to be advised to relinquish my views, as among the novelties the country can not bear. For my part, I desire all possible novelties; aye, a novelty for every day in the year; for in every age there is an abundance of persons who follow the beaten track, and remain in the old way; while there are not more than from six to ten in a century who bring forward innovations founded on argument and reason.”