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The early decades of the 19th century were marked by widespread political, military and economic turbulence. As the French Revolutionary wars of the 18th century segued into the Napoleonic wars of the 19th, military upheaval coincided with the emergence of a modern proto-working class as industrialisation and capitalism transformed the nature of production, labour and survival for much of the population. Inextricably linked to these changes are the great Dragon Emancipation reforms that swept through the European continent from 1805 onwards, chiefly propitiated—or so goes the popular narrative—by the celebrated British dragon Temeraire and his role in the passing of the British Dragon Rights Act and its continental equivalents. But what is less frequently acknowledged by these narratives is that Temeraire would not have been in the position to usher such change had it not been for the actions of a man to whom historical research has paid significantly less attention: his first and only captain, Sir William Laurence.

William Laurence was born in 1774, the third son of Lord and Lady Allendale. He joined the Navy at age 12, and was appointed lieutenant in 1791 before being promoted to commander in 1799 and to post-captain in 1802. During his career he participated in many of the key naval battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, including Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, although he seems to not have made much of an impression either way on his commanders—for example, he is not mentioned a single time by either Admirals Jervis or Nelson. This suggests a solid yet unremarkable Royal Navy man, one fully committed to its structures and strictures both, and one who, had he remained active in the service long enough, would eventually have been promoted to the rank of admiral and likely gone down the pages of history as yet another footnote in the Naval Rolls. This promising career was famously upended in 1805, when HMS Reliant, which was Laurence's first command as captain, captured the French ship l'Amitié, which was carrying Temeraire's egg to Napoleon. Upon hatching, the dragonet "ignored all and sundry save for Laurence, whose initial dismay at this preference was poorly disguised," (as recorded by acting captain Thomas Riley^[1]), setting off a chain of events that saw Laurence appointed Temeraire's captain against the explicit wishes of the Royal Aerial Corps, adopted as a son by the Jiaqing emperor of China, declared a traitor to England, turned war criminal, transported to Australia and eventually pardoned and made Baronet in reward for his—incorrectly attributed—role in the capture of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Reichenbach in 1813. Despite this extraordinary life and set of accomplishments, modern scholarship often relegates Laurence to a secondary role, swept along by Temeraire's modernising zeal. In this essay I will argue that while the dragons of the time were doubtlessly the chief drivers and originators of their own emancipation, Laurence's contributions and allyship, driven primarily by sustained and formative experiences of Othering at key points in his life, are worthy of re-evaluation.^[2]

Fundamental to this argument are two specific events—Laurence's refusal to step down as Temeraire's captain shortly after their first meeting in 1805, and his (and Temeraire's) decision to fly to France with a small sample of Afrocantharellus draconicus, from which the cure for the 1806 Dragon Plague could be readily distilled. Both of these events were critical in making Laurence an outsider, the first from the same Royal Navy where he had served for almost 20 years by the time he met Temeraire, and the second from the Royal Aerial Corps and British society as a whole. These experiences of rejection and exclusion would have been fertile ground for the development of the empathy and open-mindedness that contemporaneous sources repeatedly describe as characterising his relationship with Temeraire. A third, and arguably equally important event was his decision to join the Navy against the explicit wishes of his family. This led to an estrangement, especially with his father, which we know about thanks to the extensive notes that Arthur Hammond, then a junior diplomat in the service of the British government, took over the matter of Laurence's adoption by the Jiaqing Emperor in 1806. Although a career in the Royal Navy was by no means disreputable, it certainly entailed a change in prospects and outlook; most officers did not marry until being appointed post-captain^[3] and found their standing amongst upper class society irreversibly altered by their lengthy journeys at sea and absences from British shores. However, it was hardly a rarefied profession: whereas the Royal Aerial Corps was constrained by the small number of dragons in England at the time and never exceeded 10,000 servicemen, the Royal Navy employed over 2% of Britain's male population by 1805.^[4]

The tensions between the Admiralty and the Corps' Aerial Command (which was a mostly-independent unit under the purview of the Navy until 1923) would have made transitioning from one to the other a complicated affair, especially as Laurence, a 30 year old man with no experience of dragon handling at all, would have likely had no advocates or sponsors in the latter. The Corps prized compatibility between dragon and captain above all else whereas the Navy preferred its steady, unperturbable hierarchy. A letter from Midshipman Ezekiah Martin describes Laurence shortly after his arrival at Loch Laggan covert in 1805 as "a stiff, removed and unyielding fellow, somehow still aboard his ship even though we are miles removed from any shore."^[5] Although he went on to develop deep ties with many aviators in the Corps, it cannot have been an easy beginning for Laurence, and his relative geographic and social isolation would have been crucial to cementing the developing bond between him and Temeraire. His ignorance of the specific expectations the Corps placed on developing bonds between captain and dragon^[6] allowed him to build a bond with Temeraire wholly unlike those of other captains of the time. By all accounts he treated the dragon as an equal and a peer rather than an inferior talking beast, and saw in his requests for things like baths or books little more than those to which any sapient creature should have been entitled; likely an extension of his family's abolitionist views^[7]. All of this saw Temeraire gain exposure to the western canon of philosophical texts on governance, natural philosophy and politics^[8] that, in a manner considered completely outlandish in Britain, ironically resembled in spirit the education he would have received had his egg remained in China.

This bond was significantly deepened by the arrival in London of the Chinese Embassy led by Imperial Prince Yongxing, and their demand that Temeraire be immediately unharnessed and returned to China. While the British government of the time, eager to avoid open war with China, agreed to send Temeraire back to China, Temeraire and Laurence themselves were both very clear in their refusal to be parted from each other, much as they had been when the Corps first demanded this of Laurence. Instead, the trip exposed human and dragon both to the incomparably high standards of living that dragons enjoyed in China, and validated their conception of their relationship as one between equals, rather than one beholden to military hierarchy. When their return to England coincided with the height of the 1806 Dragon Plague pandemic in Britain, and the eventual discovery of Afrocantharellus draconicus mushroom's curative properties, Temeraire and Laurence were forced to make a choice: were they willing to place human welfare above the lives of all of Europe's dragons?

They were famously not. The decision to deliver the Dragon Plague cure to Napoleon came at the cost of Laurence's career in the Corps, and, legally, his life, as he voluntarily returned to England afterwards and immediately surrendered himself for trial on the charge of treason. He was sentenced to execution, but this was commuted to transportation to Australia in light of his contributions to the British war effort during the French invasion of Britain in 1807. These actions, where he led a mixed human and dragon guerilla against the French—dishonourable by the standards of the time, likely war crimes if we were to apply current definitions—were carried out secretly and served to further set him outside the very same society he was duty-bound to defend and protect. Because his deeds and trial were widely publicised in newspapers, gazettes and magazines of the time, Laurence received universal blame within Britain for enabling Napoleon's ultimately failed invasion, a reputation that he never fully escaped. Letters and documents from other aviators^[9] suggest that he would at least have enjoyed some degree of support for his choices amongst his fellow officers, but while the insular nature of the Corps would have likely made it something of a safe haven for him, not even the partial redemption that followed his actions at the Battle of Reichenbach was sufficient to fully restore Laurence's standing in British society at large. He remained a polarising and frequently reviled figure. It is therefore unsurprising that he elected to withdraw himself from much of public society after the Peace of Reichenbach in 1813, and take up the life of an unassuming gentleman of leisure at the estate of his acquaintance,^[10] presumed British intelligence agent Lord Tenzing Tharkay.^[11]

These repeated experiences of Othering would have exposed Laurence, a privileged man from an extremely wealthy and powerful background, to circumstances not commonly encountered by men of his station. That these events saw him become a supporter of, and advocate for, dragon rights rather than come to resent the ways in which his encounters with dragons derailed his life and career suggests a progressive character and outlook not unheard of in his time, but not particularly common either. Without a doubt, his experience growing up in an overtly abolitionist household would have contributed to this outlook, but that cannot be the only explanation, as otherwise Britain's dragons would have surely been granted rights well before he advocated for them.

To sustain this argument, it is thus essential to look beyond Laurence's own words. The man was a poor chronicler of his daily life, and it is likely that this lack of textual sources accounts, in part, for his current diminished perception. This lack of documentation dates back to his early days. Laurence's logs from the Reliant are devoid of any of the flourishes^[12] that some of his contemporaries indulged in, and what little reporting was required of him as Temeraire's captain he did with similar alacrity. He guarded his privacy zealously, refusing all requests for interviews and editorials during his lifetime; this avoidance seems well justified, given the ambiguous or downright negative ways in which his actions were consistently portrayed by the press after 1807. He seems to have been a far better correspondent than diarist, especially after his retirement, and exchanged many letters with Temeraire, which the dragon zealously kept until his death (but then destroyed, likely out of respect to Laurence's desire for privacy). Correspondence with others—Admirals John Granby and Jane Roland, his family—has generally met the same fate. The few letters by his hand that have been made public come from unexpected sources, such as a brief reply to Napoleon,^[13] who wrote to him from exile in St Helena in 1818 asking about Empress Anahuarque and their son Napoleon Joseph Pachacuti Yupanqui, then heir to the Incan-Franco Empire, and very formal exchanges with his adoptive brother the Daoguang Emperor of China.^[14] As such, most primary sources on Laurence are his contemporaries, the most prolific of which were unarguably Temeraire himself, and Arthur Hammond, who first met Laurence in 1805. These differing—and frequently opposing—perspectives have held significant sway over Laurence scholarship since, and are a neat metonymy for human and draconic thinking on the man amongst British scholars, at least for much of the 19th century, obfuscating his contributions and importance not only to Temeraire but to the Draconic Rights Movement more broadly.

To get the measure of the man, we must instead turn to his^[15] dragon. Of Temeraire's many writings, the most salient to this discussion is his first autobiography. The quantity and quality both of references to Laurence contained within it leave no doubt that the relationship between them was phenomenally warm and heartfelt,^[16] and highly significant to them both. Most of the first volume is focused on their time together in the Royal Aerial Corps, but a particularly heartwarming example is found in chapter 23, where between lemmas 17 and 18 Temeraire recollects how Laurence would frequently read Newton's Principia Mathematica to him during their time in the Corps, to the point that both of them ended up memorizing large sections of it, and how this went on to inspire Temeraire's subsequent mathematical research.^[17] Throughout the volume Temeraire also references other books that he and Laurence read together (which ranged from St Augustine to The Wealth of Nations to collections of Chinese poetry), and recalls multiple conversations on political matters such as the abolition of the slave trade and emancipation. He notes that while Laurence and he would often disagree on the finer points of their arguments and have spirited debates, these disagreements were never once predicated on the supremacy of humans over dragons; Laurence's consideration of Temeraire's personhood was a constant in their interactions. In short, Temeraire credits Laurence with treating him as a fully sentient being from the day of his hatching, something which he snidely remarks, he soon realised "was perplexingly not an action that could be expected of all humans,"^[18] and underscores the importance of Laurence's role as advocate and ally in catalysing the first tentative reforms at Loch Laggan covert in 1805, and in Temeraire's education and subsequent political activism and reform.

A slightly more removed perspective on both Laurence and his relationship with Temeraire through their years in the service of the Corps comes to us from Arthur Hammond, who journeyed with them on multiple occasions and was an extremely avid diarist. From their first journey to China to address the grievances of Imperial Prince Yongxing, Hammond struggled to find common ground with Laurence, who he deemed "impracticably committed to his rather particular sense of duty."^[19] Even this early in their acquaintance he identifies multiple instances in which Laurence foregrounds Temeraire's stated intentions and desires at the expense of what Hammond sees as Britain's best interests, which are often focused on commercial or transactional outcomes. By repeatedly recording his frustration and surprise at the strength and nature of the bond between dragon and captain, he also emphasises its atypical nature. The fact that, like most Britons not part of the Aerial Corps, Hammond would have had limited exposure to dragons but still felt quite capable of passing this judgement provides us with clear insights into the way in which society at large viewed dragons and their expected place then.

Indeed, the impression Hammond's portrayal of Laurence gives us is often less that of a person and more of a tool to be manipulated to deliver on Hammond's own schemes—not altogether different to how dragons were seen and treated by the Corps. Of particular note here are his actions at the end of the War of the Sixth Coalition, where alongside Incan-Franco Empress Anahuarque and the Prince of Talleyrand they orchestrated a betrayal of Napoleon in order to further the Empress' claim on the throne of the Inca-Franco Empire. Hammond, who at this point had known Laurence for nearly eight years and traveled across the world with him, was clear in his journal that redeeming his standing by putting him forward as the man who captured Napoleon was in no means a motivating force behind his actions, and that no bond of friendship influenced his actions, only his intimate knowledge of Laurence's character. While "other approaches to forcing Napoleon's surrender that do not involve WL" are tempting to him and might have been hatched^[20] he ultimately believed that "we can surely rely on his habitual rectitude as much as in T's reckless fearlessness et cetera et cetera to guarantee as much as possible the success of this specific venture."^[21] Three weeks later, with Napoleon captive at a rural cottage outside Reichenbach following the betrayal of Anahuarque's Incan legions, Hammond wrote of being "confronted by WL, armed as expected with the most fastidious and uncompromising regret over the portrayal of his actions in yesterday's dispatches. Never mind that likely I have done the man a splendid favour by giving Britain something new to think about when his name and Napoleon's are mentioned together—an act for which I know better than either to demand or expect any semblance of gratitude. He must have the unvarnished truth, and he must have it always."^[22]

Reading between the lines of Temeraire's and Hammond's depictions of Laurence, a clear picture begins to emerge. It is that of a man who was devoted to his duty and personal notions of honour and morality above all, even when this devotion could come at a great personal cost. But Laurence did not stumble when that duty grew to encompass a twenty-ton Celestial dragon. While lip service to this kind of moral fortitude was characteristic—indeed, expected—amongst men of his social standing, we have very few instances of any of them truly embodying it to the extent that Laurence did. And while the absence of a personal record means that we cannot truly know how Laurence himself thought of his actions or their motivations, the ways in which they were received by his contemporaries, human and dragon both can still inform our understanding of the kind of man that would have made those choices.

Regrettably, additional draconic perspectives on Laurence are limited—given the lack of rights and opportunity of British dragons at the time most records are exclusively oral, and not many were comprehensively recorded. Those dragons whose active service overlapped with Temeraire’s focused primarily on their own military deeds and pecuniary accomplishments; insofar as Laurence supported Temeraire and his intellectual and political ambitions other British dragons were tolerably fond of him, and even deemed him "a fine enough captain, if you truly must have one."^[23] Of Temeraire's biographers, the one that focuses most on Temeraire's early days, and therefore on his relationship with Laurence, is famous draconic historian Titania. Although written in the 1950s, her book has much in common with pamphlets from the heyday of the speciesist separatist Draconic Supremacy movement a century earlier, and her biases and unreliability have been thoroughly discussed elsewhere. According to her, Laurence is little other than an uncultured, war mongering boor, and his suggestion that Temeraire remove the infamous chapter with the mathematical proofs from his autobiography is part of the evidence she presents to support this claim.^[24] More recent draconic scholarship is more forgiving, but these texts still tend to primarily focus on the contributions and agency of Temeraire and other dragons of the time, including polymath Perscitia, who was the first draconic Member of Parliament and Lung Tien Lien, who was responsible for the parallel introduction of the substantial draconic rights gains in France at the time. Perhaps understandably, few authors are interested in exploring the significance of a human in what is fundamentally a draconic movement centred on gaining personhood, recognition, and independence. Thus while Laurence is frequently—and positively—acknowledged as Temeraire's captain and well-liked companion, he remains a minor historical figure; as an example, in the 936 pages of Euphorie's history of the Napoleonic wars and their impact on the dragon population of Europe,^[25] he warrants only seven mentions.

On the other side of the species divide, contemporaneous human sources often emphasise Laurence's role and responsibilities as Temeraire's captain and commander. Thus, those who struggled to believe that Temeraire, or indeed any dragon, "was possessed of the capacity for well-reasoned thought that so clearly characterises a gentleman of refinement,"^[26] frequently attributed to Laurence ultimate fault for the gains of the Draconic Emancipation Reforms, and for supporting dragons' rights over human welfare^[27]—one final act of Othering. More than one political cartoon of the day portrayed the two of them as puppet and puppet master, with Laurence pulling the strings, or hiding behind a curtain and using Temeraire, who was then one of very few newly elected draconic MPs, as a mouthpiece to deliver on a radical, abolitionist, and unreservedly pro-draconic Whig agenda.^[28] While Temeraire's own reflections do consistently support the argument that Laurence subscribed to much of his agenda, by the time the Great Reform Act was being voted, popular perception of draconic intelligence had decidedly changed, as had the cartoons: a memorable one in the Standard depicted Temeraire controlling multiple puppets, one of them a hapless-looking but clearly recognisable Laurence dressed in his Aerial Corps uniform. Some commentators extended this further and saw in Laurence's actions direct threats to the stability of Great Britain, and of the British Empire more broadly, sometimes going as far as calling for the annulment of his pardon. This proved a long-lasting image: Alistair Willoughby, great-nephew of Nesbit Willoughby (whose life Laurence saved during his ill-fated attempt to destroy the port town of Garramilla/Baishi in 1809 off the coast of northern Australia) referred to Laurence more than once as the "great Wrecker and Saboteur of that finest of Britannia's children" and directly blamed him for the gains of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1856 and the ultimate insolvency and collapse of the East India Trading Company in 1868… fifteen years after Laurence's death.

Yet, beyond occasional invective, the way in which Laurence's many voyages impacted not only diplomatic relationships and draconic welfare, and the manner in which he was—and continues to be—perceived beyond Britain's shores has received remarkably little academic attention. After all, he was one of the most accomplished travellers of his generation, and in under a decade visited all continents save for North America and Antarctica. With the exception of his transportation to Australia after the 1807 Invasion, where as a convicted traitor and prisoner his standing in the newly established Sydney Covert was at best tenuous, these voyages were always undertaken in his full capacity as a member of the Aerial Corps, and frequently intersected Arthur Hammond's rising career as a member of Britain's diplomatic corps. Thankfully, the latter often—but not always^[29]—recorded Laurence's activities with his characteristic zeal, giving us direct insights into how their impact reverberated for years or even decades after his departure.

The most significant of these relationships was of course with China, given its importance as Temeraire's homeland. Even today, Chinese scholars, nobles and diplomats (both human and draconic) are united in viewing Laurence's harnessing of Temeraire as barbaric, although there remains substantial disagreement (compare Han Yisong and Lung Qin Jun's opposing perspectives on the matter, for example) as to whether it is better or worse that he did not realise he was doing it to a Celestial—whose company was only available to the Imperial family—of all possible dragons. Either way the consensus was that he, and by extension all Britons and Europeans, was a brutish and uncouth savage. His worthiness and suitability for the tremendous privilege and liberty granted to him by the Jiaqing Emperor, who named him an adoptive son in order to solve the diplomatic complications of Temeraire's harnessing also remains debated, although much of this scholarship has not been translated into English and is therefore beyond the scope of this essay.^[30] But it is unarguable that this act of ennobling would have set Laurence even further apart from his peers in the Corps. Although Temeraire was demonstrably disappointed by the ways in which Laurence refused to exercise them,^[31] the privileges accorded to an inner member of the Qing Imperial family were meant to reinforce the separation between the Imperial household and the people over which it ruled. Even setting foot inside the Forbidden City, where Laurence was lodged more than once, was something that most Chinese citizens could never aspire to. For Laurence, this boon meant further estrangement from his family^[32] and more broadly from his fellows, who seem to have found his elevation everything between bemusing and hilarious.^[33] For the more conservative factions of the Qing court, it was an insult and capitulation to an obnoxious, undeserving foreign regime, and a clear sign of Imperial weakness.

That line of thought did not die with Prince Yongxing's botched attempt to have Laurence assassinated in 1806; if nothing else his companion dragon Lung Tien Lien made sure to keep it alive for the rest of her life, and never disguised the contempt in which she held Temeraire and Laurence both, fomenting dissent both in France and China by whatever means were available to her. Laurence's decision to aid the British at Garramilla/Baishi in 1809 did him no favours in the eyes of the court; Temeraire's cook and Imperial spy Gong Su was instrumental in convincing Prince Mianning and his father the Jiaqing Emperor to overlook what they perceived as a clear betrayal, and instead maintain cordial relations until Laurence's second visit to China in 1812. It was only through his exposing of the destabilising activities of General Fela and his conspirators that he was able to regain a significant measure of Imperial trust.

Increased contact between China and Europe would no doubt have led to shifting cultural norms with regards to dragon rights independently (e.g. Temeraire's egg would have likely reached Napoleon had the Reliant not captured l'Amitié, and the maritime route between Guangzhou and Garramilla/Baishi was established by late 1808, and rapidly followed by other ports on the north eastern coast of Australia). But Laurence's support of Temeraire's loud advocacy for conditions that matched those he had experienced in China was frequently viewed as a reflection of his own conflicting relationship with that nation. Insofar as it normalised relationships with Britain and increased British access to Chinese ports, cementing its standing as Europe's greatest mercantile power^[34] Laurence's adoption was something to be celebrated by Britain's military and political leadership, but the inherent tension of having a member of the Chinese Imperial family (even if a reluctant and primarily performative one) captain one of Britain's greatest military assets (with divided loyalties of his own) was present in the mind of more than one of the officers of the Aerial Command.^[35] Despite these misgivings, this connection was leveraged to great effect when the Jiaqing Emperor committed 300 of China's finest fighting dragons to join the war effort against Napoleon in Russia in 1812, a contribution that some have argued was decisive to the outcome of the campaign…^[36] although it was not without its own unintended consequences. As the Grande Armée retreated from Moscow, Commander Joachim Murat freed Russia's hobbled, captive and borderline feral dragons and set them loose upon the country overnight. Recent estimates put the ensuing death toll at at least 100,000 civilian human casualties, and 3,000 draconic ones, most of them light or medium weight autochthonous breeds.^[37] Most historians accurately attribute responsibility for this horrific event solely to Murat, whose disregard for animal life was well-known even then,^[38] but, for example, in Lyot's revisionist treatment of Kashchey the Deathless' legend, the mythological antagonist is fashioned into a thinly disguised caricature that is half Murat, half Laurence. The story of Laurence's furtive overland journey into Russia from China, accompanied by 300 unharnessed dragons and traversing the countryside in small bands as winter approached and securing supplies became an ever-harder challenge, is blended with the traditional Russian folktale of the unkillable foreign invader with his draconic army that sweeps into Russia to mercilessly terrorise its young women.

Elsewhere in Europe, Laurence's deeds have also seen him become legend. Contrary to his standing in Russia, he remains widely celebrated as a folk hero of sorts^[39], primarily due to the decision to share the Afrocantharellus draconicus cure in spite of the consequences to himself^[40]. And while Temeraire left no doubt in his autobiography^[41] that this was a decision they made together, their relative contributions are perceived differently through the continent, and by humans and dragons. The latter tend to give more credit to Temeraire for the decision, especially in places that did not see any improvement in draconic rights until the temptations of Napoleon's League of Dragons made these necessary to retain their loyalty. On the other extreme is France, which tends to attribute the decision to share the cure primarily to Laurence. Historian Brumaire argues that since Lung Tien Lien had been established in France for years at that point, and Napoleon had already undertaken some of his more significant pro-draconic reforms by the time, this view likely stems from quotes given to newspapers by Napoleon and other highly ranked officers which praised Laurence for his action and generally embracing the universal humanist spirit of the French Revolution and republicanism in general. This narrative has proven enduring: the names Guillaume and Laurent have been popular within the Armée de l'Air since 1808, and modern French iconography of St Laurent [sic] sometimes features an eighth treasure: a small wooden box filled with mushrooms.^[42]

It can be surprising that Laurence's reputation survived Napoleon's capture in 1813 since it owed so much to him in the first place, but two factors can explain this. By that point the Napoleonic wars—especially the Russian campaign, which would have been fresh in the popular consciousness—had claimed countless lives, and Napoleon's image as a shrewd commander had been significantly damaged in the eyes of most French citizens. In addition, the peace negotiated with Empress Anahuarque spared France much of the humiliation that would have ensued after a more thorough defeat, giving her a strong motivation to maintain the new status quo. Imperial records show that she worked actively to maintain Laurence's positive image in the public, although it is not clear if she did to appeal directly to him, either out of a misguided sense of his importance back in Britain or because she had briefly considered marrying when him they first met in South America,^[43] or to Temeraire, who of course greatly approved of positive portrayals of his "dear captain" and whose own fierce independence and growing political power would have acted as strong counterbalances to any British desire for revanchism.

(transition??? this is so over the word count already omg)

William Laurence was a man with the social mien to move from the perfumed drawing rooms of Britain's aristocracy to the lowest berths of its sailing ships and the dimmest corners of its dragon coverts. But which of these did he truly belong to? Throughout this essay I have demonstrated that it was none of them. The circumstances of his life—dragon captain, convicted traitor, accidental foreign prince—were so unique that the easy unthinking belonging of most men of privilege was denied to him at all times once Temeraire came into his life, both through active and passive means. A man who saw himself not so much constrained and bound by duty and honour as devoted to them and whose only recorded public activities after the Peace of Reichenbach were quiet and steady charity labour on behalf of victims of Napoleon's invasion in 1807, I have also shown that Laurence remains a undeservedly neglected figure amongst British historians, both human and draconic. This is in spite of his importance and formative contributions to Temeraire's character and life, and his role in shaping the relationships between humans and dragons throughout Europe. Indeed, it is an interesting counterfactual digression to imagine how the beginning of the 19th century would have unfolded had Temeraire accepted being harnessed by Midshipman Jonathan Carver (who went on to have a lengthy but completely unremarkable naval career of his own) as originally intended by Laurence, or by Aerial Lieutenant Robert Dayes, who was rejected by Temeraire—perhaps we would be living in a very different world now. Some (e.g. popular historian Rosabella Shawcross) have speculated that Laurence's withdrawal from society at the close of the Napoleonic wars was due to what today we would recognise as shell shock, or post traumatic stress disorder (although of course neither Laurence nor his contemporaries would have had the ability to see it as such). However, I believe that is more likely that Laurence did not choose seclusion^[44]—he had seclusion forced upon him.

________________

1. forgot to write down the date we're off to a strong start. Anyhow it's from here: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1762 ^[▲]
2. Also he was very gay, which also counts. ^[▲]
3. Smallwood, AL, "SHORE WIVES: THE LIVES OF BRITISH NAVAL OFFICERS‘ WIVES AND WIDOWS, 1750–1815". MA dissertation, Wright State University, Ohio, USA, 2008. ^[▲]
4. Dancy, JR, "British Naval Manpower during the French Revolutionary Wars, 1793-1802", PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 2012. ^[▲]
5. Shawcross, R. (ed.) Taking Flight: an Eyewitness Account of the Making of the Modern Aerial Corps, pg 285. Penguin, 1999. ^[▲]
6. Or as Titania says, "their tendency to violently abuse newly-hatched dragons' instinct to imprint in order to perpetuate a system of subjugation and oppression across centuries," A Draconic History of the British Isles, pg 92, New Loch Laggan University Press, 1976. ^[▲]
7. Although Lord Allendale was not as active in parliament as William Wilberforce and died years before the slave trade was abolished, he was still recognised by the latter as a formidable contributor to his efforts. See Hochschild, A, Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. Macmillan, 2005. ^[▲]
8. Temeraire, Flight of the Celestial: A Dragon's Tale, volume 1, pg 87. Allen & Unwin, 1978 ^[▲]
9. For example, on her retirement Captain Catherine Harcourt wrote a letter to fellow Longwing captain, Emily Roland, in which she stated, "You found your happiness in Africa, but even now, Nothing will lessen the Recollection of the Terror of those days, and my Abject Uselessness as I bore witness to Lily's continued Suffering. There was Nothing I would not have done for her, then and always, and for Other Dragons too; I wish that your Bond with Excidium will blossom into one much the Same." (Shawcross, pg 194) ^[▲]
10. "Flying to LL last week I had the Great Fortune to stop at Loch Tulla and once again abuse W&T's Hospitality. I found them even more Domestic than on the occasion of my previous Visit, if you are yourself capable of conceiving such a Thing." Letter from Commodore John Granby to Captain Augustine Little, 10th August 1828. (ibid, pg 294) ^[▲]
11. Also an outsider by virtue of his half-Nepalese ancestry, just for the record. ^[▲]
12. I wanna add this one just because it's pretty: https://i.redd.it/a5adjmiv6ch21.jpg ^[▲]
13. Which he signs "Yours in amity," which is not gay at all. ^[▲]
14. Court records show he wrote to Laurence annually to offer his good wishes on his birthday and ask if he had begun considering marriage yet and/or was interested in any number of concubines the Emperor could offer him, and Laurence always replied in the negative in impressively proficient and formal court Chinese. Some scholars have argued that Temeraire must have written those letters to the Daoguang Emperor for him, because Hammond's journals from their first trip together are clear that Laurence was not particularly skilled at learning either spoken or written Chinese. Those same scholars consistently forget that, from 1813 onwards, Laurence lived with Tharkay, who certainly spoke Chinese. ^[▲]
15. Kinda awkward… ^[▲]
16. An impression supported by the many mentions of his time in the service and "[his] dear captain" that Temeraire would go on to make in his countless parliamentary speeches. ^[▲]
17. In a footnote Temeraire also notes that Laurence strongly argued for him taking out the proofs from his autobiography, but that he left them in because "they are quite fundamental, and of course should prove rather stimulating" (vol 1, pg 513) to anyone who follows along (he is wrong). Then he goes on a digression about how while the Navy rightfully prizes trigonometry in its officers it is a shame that it stops short of expecting familiarity with Newton's and Leibniz's calculus, and how he hopes the Corps, now that it is abandoning its habit of harnessing dragons at hatching and relying on that to make promotion decisions, will start expecting more of its captains too. He then adds a footnote to the footnote to make it clear that he only expects them to master the first two volumes of the Principia anyhow, and hopes this can be done in a way that does not discriminate against anyone's background and lack of means. ^[▲]
18. Temeraire, vol 1, pg 79. ^[▲]
19. Hammond, AF. Complete Journals 1803-1842. Box 4, pg 12. National Archives, Richmond,UK. ^[▲]
20. HAH ^[▲]
21. Hammond, box 15, pg 23. ^[▲]
22. Ibid, box 16, pg 9. ^[▲]
23. Resquiescat, Hic sunt dracones, pg 254. Trans, Club, F. Wiley and Sons, 1835. ^[▲]
24. Titania, Clawing Free, New Loch Laggan University Press, 1953. ^[▲]
25. Euphorie, Un bref récit des exploits et des réalisations du dragon européen en relation aux guerres napoléoniennes. Presse de la École Normale Supérieure Draconique, 1827. ^[▲]
26. Musgrove, A. The London Morning Herald, (editorial), 29/11/1814. ^[▲]
27. For instance, the more serious consequences of the distribution of the Dragon Plague cure were reserved for Laurence alone; Temeraire was simply sent to the breeding grounds in Pen Y Fan despite it unambiguously having been a mutual decision. Temeraire's daughter and biographer, Ning, convincingly argues that this reflected not only a fear of angering China, but, yet again, a widespread belief amongst the Admiralty and the Aerial Command in the lack of intellectual sophistication of any dragon despite aeons of undeniable evidence to the contrary. ^[▲]
28. Add citations. ^[▲]
29. En route to China across the Pacific Laurence was cast overboard near northern Kyushu in 1812, and was missing in action for about a month and a half before rejoining the Potentate off the coast of Nagasaki. Little was known of how he survived during these six weeks until in 2002 Furuya Chidori, who was a high school student at the time, made a startling discovery. Until 1897 there had been a small shrine near Kurume in northern Kyushu that was home to the local suiryuu, Kiyomizu-ryuu. Kiyomizu had an extreme fondness for both reciting and composing poetry, and shrine records made note of how she was known to make everyone who crossed her path pay for the privilege of her company with a couple of verses. Local historians had long been perplexed because in 1812 she abandoned traditional Japanese forms and began composing "something that is trying to be a Shakespearean sonnet, if you reverse-engineer it and then try to recreate iambic pentameter with Japanese morae," as Furuya would memorably go on to state. Although Kiyomizu was long dead, Furuya found a few strange references to a madcap chase of a foreigner across Chizuken and Chizugo prefectures that same year which involved not only Kiyomizu-ryuu, but also the local daimyo and his dragon, Arikawa-ryuu. The latter had recorded in her day book that they had nearly caught the foreigner off Nagasaki and were going to take him back to the local governor to deliver the mandatory death sentence when they were suddenly attacked by a large foreign black dragon, who swept down upon them viciously calling for "Rorenso" and snatched their quarry away. Rorenso, Furuya convincingly argues, is clearly a transliterated rendering of "Laurence". Who would definitely have been familiar with Shakespeare. ^[▲]
30. The most widely available source in English remains Ning's biography of Temeraire. ^[▲]
31. Temeraire, vol 1, pg 321. ^[▲]
32. Once again documented by Hammond, who blithely dismissed it as "an inconsequential predicament" (box 4, pg 46) ^[▲]
33. I swear this was in the Shawcross, but I can't find it anymore??? ^[▲]
34. Arguably, Laurence was an (accidental?) architect of the full incorporation of European dragons into the capitalist economic system—including the shift to a fundamentally alienating commodification of their labour—and the significant upheavals that this led to amongst the nascent working class worldwide. One of the chief demands of the dragons that fought in the Sixth Coalition was for the establishment of an institutional process for distributing prizes and shares after a battle in a manner that closely mirrored that which had been customary in the British Royal Navy for decades. This request was instigated by Temeraire, who had learned of the system through Laurence during their earlier travels; together they had already been successful at arguing for the introduction of wages to be paid directly to the dragons in the service of the Royal Aerial Corps. Although Temeraire was always vocally proud of his access to the Navy's Investment Funds and of banking at an establishment with primarily human customers, which he held up as examples of successful mutually beneficial coexistence between humans and dragons, the incorporation of dragons into the labour market led to the emergence of more targeted dragon-only investment ventures and banks, such as the one led by Pecuniarius (whose famous cow emblem cleverly references the original Latin meaning of the word: cattle, a visual pun that would have appealed to any marginally literate dragon of the time).
    
    However, his circumstances were not widely shared. Indeed, as E.P. Thompson points out in The Making of the English Working Class (pgs 132-154, 1966 revised edition, Vintage), in the decades of relative peace that followed the Peace of Reichenbach British dragons quickly established themselves as a formidable merchant and labour class that in some cases and professions could easily outcompete human labour by virtue of their physical prowess. Uneducated human labourers, already struggling to cope with the demands of a rapidly industrialising economy and the demise of small-scale agrarian production, were often unable to adapt to this additional challenge. This led to generalised downward pressures on wages and condemned substantial numbers of humans and dragons both to profound poverty, birthing a multi-species proletariat that frequently stood at odds with itself and struggled to recognise the true shared origin of their situation (see, for instance, the Swing Riots), and would not attain power and security until the labour reforms of the late 19th and early 20th century. ^[▲]
35. Shawcross again god bless this woman and her love of trawling through dusty archives. ^[▲]
36. e.g. Brumaire, but also, grudgingly, Hammond, box 12, pg 20. ^[▲]
37. For instance, the Malen'kiye zvezdy breed was hunted to extinction, not because they were particularly dangerous or given to attacking humans, but because their size seems to have made them easy targets. ^[▲]
38. Zamoyski, A. Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March. pgs 174-175, Harper Collins, 2004. ^[▲]
39. Of course, folk heroes, although beloved, are perennial strangers and outsiders, existing as they do in the liminal space beyond the mundanity of everyday life. ^[▲]
40. Indeed, when the Tswana took the UK to court in 1997 demanding reparations for the original theft of the Afrocantharellus draconicus specimen by Captain Thomas Riley and his crew on the Allegiance, they claimed it had been a clear act of biopiracy and biocolonianism as defined under the International Convention on Endangered Species Trade. The UK government responded by arguing that it was nothing of the sort because Laurence, who was unquestionably a member of the Royal Aerial Corps at the time and the true architect of the theft (although Catherine Harcourt outranked him, as commander of Lily smh UK government), had ensured it reached all dragons in Europe as soon as possible. The UK had derived no financial gain from the theft, and thus, the act could not be construed as one of (bio)piracy since there was no profit motive. Of course they chose not to mention that they were the ones who spread the plague to the continent or Laurence was sentenced to death for his actions! In any case, the International Court of Arbitration threw the case out but not, it must be said, on the strength of this argument. ^[▲]
41. Temeraire, vol 1, pgs 367-375. ^[▲]
42. Which at least once has led to memorably hilarious outcomes that would have likely sent Laurence into a fit of apoplexy: goes to africa, gets dragon plague cure -> brings mushrooms to france -> st laurent was famous for distributing gifts of the church to the poor and needy -> eating mushrooms on his feast day becomes a ~thing in france -> some hippies name a hallucinogenic mushroom Psylocybe laurentius. ^[▲]
43. Dream on, lady. He's taken. ^[▲]
44. Saves the world, moves to Scotland to live with a "very dear friend", both of them bachelors. Said friend builds a pavilion for Laurence's 20 ton dragon as his first act of modernizing the estate after years of neglect. Laurence never moves out, never marries. Friend never marries either. The man was gayer than a Christmas tree. ^[▲]