Agustin de Betancourt was born in 1758 in Puerto do la Cruz and became an authority on mechanics and hydraulics, founding two schools of engineering, in Madrid and in St. Petersburg. First in Spain, and later also in Russia, where he spent the last part of his life, he was an outstanding figure among scientists, engineers and educationalists alike. Agustin de Betancourt was also a very close and trusted friend of Abraham-Louis Breguet and of his son, Louis Antoine. Agustin de Betancourt truly opened the Spanish Markel for Breguet and acted as an agent for him there, although Breguet did also Lake on others as his official agents. For Breguet, de Betancourt found clients in Spain as early as 1787 and until around 1807, when the local political unrest inevitably reduced Breguet's activities there. Agustin de Betancourt brought Breguet into contact with scientists such as Jose Maria de Lanz, with whom de Betancourt wrote an i mportant study of the History of Mechanics, Essai sur la composition des machines, and also introduced his friend to the Spanish community in Paris, which resulted in many important clients for Breguet. In tur n Breguet entrusted de Betancourt throughout his life with various commercial transactions and important missions. After the invention of the telegraph by Breguet and Chappe, for which Chappe took much of the cr edit, Breguet worked in collaboration with de Betancourt developing a more advanced and sophisticated version. In 1783 de Betancourt was commissioned, as a technician on the subject, to produce a report regarding the extraction of water from the mines of Almaden in Spain. From 1784 to 1791 he lived in Paris, making two short journeys to Madrid, in 1785, and to England, in 1788. That same year, 1788, he was named Director of the Madrid Real Gabinete de Maquinas but he did not move to Madrid until 1791, where he stayed until 1794. The Real Gabinete de Maquinas opened to the public in 1792. After those three years in Madrid, de Betancourt moved to London (1794-1796), then came back to Mach-id (1796-1797), left for Paris (1797-1798) and, in 1798, returned once more to Madrid where he remained until 1807. During this last stay in Madrid, in 1802, he succeeded to Count de Guzman as General-inspector of the Caminos y Canales (Roads and Canals), an institution founded in 1799, and around the same time he also founded the Engineering School of that institution. In 1807 de Betancourt left Madrid, travelled to Paris and made a short journey to St. Petersburg. In 1808 he was back in Paris and in October of that year he met with Tsar Alexander I in Erfu r t, where he agreed to enter his service and to establish himself in St. Petersburg, where he remained for the rest of his life. Agustin de Betancourt's appointment to Russia brought again new clients to Breguet. Furthermore, Breguet asked his trusted friend to check for him on the work of Lazare Moreau, Breguet's agent in Russia with whom he was not happy. Subsequently, Breguet gave his friend the important mission of bringing to an end the business relations between the house of Breguet and Moreau. In 1809, do Betancourt founded the Engineering School in St. Petersburg, of which he became General Director in 1818. In the meantime, in 1816, the was named president of the Committee of Construction and Hydraulics and was in charge of the organization of the new fair of Nizhni Novgorod. Agustin de Betancourt died in St. Petersburg in 1824.