Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan

[1] He seems to have been brought up at Lisbon, where he became a monk of the order of St. Augustine, and was pursuing his studies in the Portuguese capital when the city was destroyed by the earthquake of 1755.

For some time he acted as tutor on continental tours, and made the acquaintance of leading scholars of the day, especially in the Netherlands.

Magellan was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1774, and was a corresponding member of the academies of science in Paris, Madrid, and St.

[2] In June 1778 Magellan was at Ermenonville, the seat of the Marquis de Gerardin, and there, with M. du Presle, he visited Jean-Jacques Rousseau a few days before his death on 2 July.

He added a postscript describing his visit to Du Presle's Relation des derniers Jours de J. J. Rousseau, London, 1778.

Although there are claims that, due to his laxity and unorthodoxy, he renounced his faith, his correspondence and other sources confirm he never gave up Catholicism.