sentences:  In 1814, accompanied by his friend and fellow Merino sheep breeder George Flower (1788-1862), son of Richard Flower, Birkbeck traveled in recently defeated France.His "Notes on a Journey through France" (1814) revealed a good-tempered, fair-minded observer, well grounded in science and the humanities.A radical in both politics and religion, Birkbeck was increasingly annoyed at being taxed by a government that denied him a vote because of his Quaker faith, but that also required him to be tithed by a church he did not belong to, and in fact held in contempt.