Was born in 1758 in Puerto de la Cruz. An authority on me-chanics and hydraulics, he was a close and trusted friend of Abra-ham Louis Breguet and of his son, Louis Antoine. He truly opened the Spanish Mar-ket for Breguet and acted as an agent for him there. Betancourt found Spanish clients for Breguet from as early as 1787 until around 1807, when local political unrest reduced Breguet?s activities there. Betancourt brought Breguet into contact with scientists such as Jose Maria de Lanz, with whom de Be-tancourt wrote an important study of the History of Mechanics, "Essai sur la composition des machines", and introduced his friend to the Spanish community in Paris, which resulted in many important clients for Breguet. In turn Breguet en-trusted de Betancourt throughout his life with various commercial transactions and important mis-sions. After the invention of the telegraph by Breguet and Chappe, (for which Chappe took much of the credit), Breguet worked with de Betancourt to further develop it. In 1783 de Betancourt was com-missioned 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 traveled bet-ween London, Madrid and Paris. During his last stay in Madrid, in 1802, he succeeded to Count de Guzman as General-Inspector of the Caminos y Canales (Roads and Canals), and also founded the Engineering School of that insti-tution. In 1807 de Betancourt made a short journey to St. Petersburg. In 1808 he was back in Paris and in October of that year he met with Tsar Alex-ander I in Erfurt, 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 appoint-ment to Russia brought Breguet more new clients. Breguet asked his friend to inform him about the work of Lazare Moreau, Breguet?s agent in Russia with whom he was not pleased, and indeed, in 1809 Breguet asked de Betancourt to terminate the business relations between the houses of Breguet and Moreau. That same year, de Betan-court founded the St. Petersburg Engineering School of which he became General Director in 1818. In the meantime, in 1816, he had been 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.