Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Chemistry, Gender, Taxonomy, Nationalism, Race, Military Technology, War, Government

Institutions mentioned:

Royal Navy

    The writer informs Mr Punch that she 'is a young female, being a science of recent origin' but explains that she is 'a case of beauty in distress' because she is being employed by the Russian Government—'an odious and brutal tyrant and his thralls'—against the allies ('the champions of liberty, to whose assistance I would devote myself'). Lists the various chemical compounds which she believes will be used to arm 'savages with thunderbolts', and attacks 'that horrid man' Mortiz H von Jacobi for using her and her 'sister, Mechanics' against the Baltic fleet. Pleads with the British Government to let Michael Faraday exploit her 'tremendous powers of destruction' against the common enemy'.