His previous trips had all ended in failure. And Dombey’s scientific training as a physician and botanist gave him an understanding of the importance of accurate weights and measures, so it was highly likely that he would be able to convince Congress to adopt the new French standards, which would later come to be known as the metric system.ĭespite his qualifications, Dombey lacked one important attribute: luck. His knowledge of plants would also be of help in his agricultural trade negotiations with Jefferson. Having already been on several trips to South America to collect botanical specimens, he was an experienced trans-Atlantic traveler. In many ways, Dombey was an excellent choice for this mission. (The grave would be renamed the kilogram a year later in 1795.) Dombey was to negotiate with Jefferson for grain exports to France and to deliver two new French measurement standards: a standard of length (the meter) and a standard of mass called, rather ominously, a grave, to be considered by the U.S. But storms had pushed Dombey’s ship off course and deep into pirate territory.įrance had supported the United States against the British in the War of Independence, and now they intended to build closer economic ties with the new American nation. A French physician and botanist acting under orders from the French government, Dombey had left the port city of Le Havre, France, weeks earlier for Philadelphia and the meeting with Jefferson, the United States’ first secretary of state and future president. These waterborne gangs had the tacit approval of the government in London to harass and plunder other countries’ maritime commerce and keep part of the spoils as their profit.Īfter seizing control of the ship, the pirates came across a sailor speaking Spanish with a curiously French accent-Joseph Dombey. The marauders now swarming Dombey’s ship were a particular breed of pirate: British privateers-the state-sponsored terrorists of the 18th century. ĭombey’s fate that day arguably delayed the adoption of the metric system in the United States by almost a century and left us as one of the few countries in the world still using non-metric units for our everyday measurements. Left: a bust of Joseph Dombey Right: Thomas Jefferson, patiently waiting.
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