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 UNIVERSITY 
 J-OS 
 
 \,\\\\{\K\
 
 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 A TRAIT IN THE CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE III. 
 
 OF THESE UNITED KINGDOMS; 
 
 AUTHENTICATED BY OFFICIAL PAPERS AND PRIVATE 
 LETTERS IN POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR : 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 APPENDIX OF ILLUSTRATIVE TRACTS, &c. 
 
 ABRIDGED FROM THE ORIGINAL WORK IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 BY JOHAN HORRINS, GENT. 
 
 Lend me thy clarion, Goddess ! let me try 
 To sound the praise of merit ere it dies. 
 
 Shenstone. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY W. EDWARDS, 12, AVE MARIA LANE; 
 
 SOLD BY OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH, 
 
 AND ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 MDCCCXXXV.

 
 StacK 
 Annex 
 
 ^^ 
 
 043 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE title of the work, from which the present is 
 abridged, enlarges further, "WITH A HISTORY 
 
 OF THE TRANSACTIONS WHICH FINALLY LED 
 TO THE ROYAL INTERFERENCE IN THE CASE 
 
 RECITED." But the Author imagining that the 
 generality of those who might favour him with their 
 attention would be disposed to pass by the previous 
 history, to arrive at that part of these MEMOIRS 
 where the principal character is brought forward, 
 which is riot till chapter thirteenth, a demy-octavo 
 pamphlet of about three dozen pages, reprinted in 
 the Appendix, with such- comments as seemed 
 called for, was adopted as a substitute, at present, 
 for the details of several antecedent years; the 
 occurrences of which, from the common abuse of 
 arbitrary power in corporations aggregate, which 
 the Commission of Longitude much resembled, 
 had been long verging to that state in which 
 George 3rd, from a humane spirit and the love of 
 science, interfered, to rescue from unqualified op- 
 pression the aged Claimant of the second moiety of 
 
 .;
 
 IT I'KKPACE. 
 
 ^\ 
 
 the reward of 20,000 for (Hoovering the Longi- 
 tude at sea. The trial \\hich gave occasion for tin 
 strictures, in that pamphlet, \vas \vholly uncalled 
 for by tin- public, and worse than unless at the 
 tune it was ordered; for tin- machine had given 
 the fullest satisfaction to the seamen, for whose use 
 it was intended; and had the Inventor been allowed 
 the use of it, and to resort to his mniiix m sim- 
 plifying the construction, and reducing tin pin . 
 (400*) at which only it could then be afforded, 
 the Commissioners umild not have fniMiat<l the 
 pur|>os<- of their institution, as is found toha\ been 
 the case, by their constantly n;|ctin^- the opinion 
 of the only man that fulls und rstood the subject, 
 and to whom tin highest <rratitiration that could 
 have been named, after achieving- the discovery, 
 would have been to see tin Tmx kcepofc Jpofcght 
 into general use. 
 
 The strictures on Dr. MaskeKne's report (.IN \\ , 
 entitle him for conveniency, though not then D.I).) 
 can leave but one opinion, in a very material \iew; 
 for whatsoever might be the scientific abilities of 
 that gentleman, or the goodness of the instruments 
 he used, no enquirer unconnected \\itli the party 
 
 The Timekeepers could not be made for les> on the n 
 of the successful one; Mr. Kendall contract was for 450; 
 this cost may be conceived to hare mostly arisen from the ex- 
 tensive use of jewellery, whereby to reduce the friction as 
 much as possible, and, as tin Inventor said, "to give them a 
 durability tor ages." He was not orisrinal in tlii^ method, lml 
 ind th- iii<|ii\ of it, apart from the \ ( .,
 
 PRHFACE. V 
 
 which he appeared at the head of, would have sup- 
 posed him a fit person to superintend the examina- 
 tion of a new-made Timekeeper, by John Harrison. 
 He had been unable to reply to those few pages, 
 even with the assistance of his mathematical col- 
 leagues, and although goaded to it by some pointed 
 remarks in a periodical of extensive circulation.* 
 In one passage of his antagonist's sixpenny defence, 
 he was disarmed irrecoverably by being dared to 
 say, whether his own discoveries of the Longitude 
 were not all made after, and not before the crew 
 saw land ?f In another page, he is declared to be 
 
 * " The subject of this debate is undoubtedly of great im- 
 portance to mankind, in general, as well as to our own country 
 in particular, and therefore our Author's remarks on what 
 Mr. Maskelyne has observed, in relation to Mr. H's. watch, 
 must undoubtedly merit the public attention. 
 
 Indeed it appears to us, that our Remarker has made so 
 notable a defence of himself, and of his ingenious and inde- 
 fatigable labours, that we cannot but think it will be very in- 
 cumbent on the Astronomer Royal to clear his own reputation 
 from Mr. Harrison's charges, not only of gross ignorance of 
 mechanics, but of having (in his procedure relative to the 
 celebrated machine in question) been influenced by selfish 
 views. Mr. M. he asserts, is, in a pecuniary way, interested 
 in another method of ascertaining the Longitude, viz. that of 
 the Lunar tables, which has been long in agitation : a scheme 
 on which Mr. H. bestows some observations, in order to show 
 how very far it falls short of the method of obtaining this im- 
 portant end by means of a Timekeeper." Monthly Review for 
 1767. 
 
 t What can be thought of his assurance, when long subse- 
 quently he pretended, to the younger Mudge, that " there was
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 deeply interested in the Lunar scheme for finding 
 the Longitude : this it was equally impossible he 
 should dispute; for his sanguine temperament and 
 inordinate anticipation had led to a curious scene 
 in the West Indies, which becomes of impressive 
 consequence towards developing 1 the causes which 
 led to the interference of George 3rd.* 
 
 wo occasion he should ansicer Mr, Harrison" thus masking 
 under the quintessence of affectation the gall and wormwood 
 this challenge constrained him to swallow. This brings to 
 recollection an anecdote connected with the acrimonious spar- 
 ring between Pope and Cibber. Mr. Richardson, the painter, 
 and his Son, paying a visit one day to the Genius of Twicken- 
 ham, found him reading a pamphlet. Vnwilling to be any 
 interruption, they sat down, requesting him to continue the 
 perusal to continue his task, they might have said ; their 
 attention being soon drawn to remark how his countenance 
 was writhen with anguish as he proceeded; notwithstanding 
 which, he would have smothered these appearances, on looking 
 off the page, by saying with an air of careless indifference 
 " This is one of Mr. Gibber's pamphlets, f */ is my amvscment 
 to read them." After they had taken leave, the young man 
 observed to his father, that he never could feel any desire to 
 partake of Mr. Pope's amusement. 
 
 * Prefaced thus, in the transactions of the junior Harrison 
 on the second voyage. 'On William Harrison's landing at 
 ' Barbadoes, he was told that Mr. Maskelyne was a candidate 
 ' for the premium for discovering the Longitude : and therefore 
 'they [liis informants] thought it very odd that he should be 
 'sent to make the observations to judge another man's scheme 
 'by: Mr. Maskelyne having declared, in a very public man- 
 ' ner, that he had found the Longitude himself; and he had 
 
 t It was probably that in which Cibber comments on the line 
 And lias not Sanov 1"" his Lord and W e?
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 An anomaly in the constitution of the Commis- 
 sion of Longitude, never contemplated by the 
 
 'also shewn a letter from a friend, who said, he was very sorry 
 'the Commissioners should have given him the trouble of this 
 'second voyage, before they gave him the reward.* Therefore 
 ' it was plain from this, that Mr. 31askelyne's friends were well 
 * acquainted with what intention he went to Barbadoes. 
 
 ' William Harrison acquainted Sir John Lindsayt with these 
 'facts; who agreed with him, that this being the case, Mr. 
 'Maskelyne must certainly be a very improper person to take 
 ' the observations of equal altitudes, according to the instruc- 
 'tions from the Board of Longitude. Therefore, the next day, 
 'when they came to the observatory, William Harrison told 
 'Mr. Maskelyne what he had heard, and produced witnesses 
 'to what he said, and did insist that Mr. Maskelyne should not 
 'observe: and Sir John Lindsay declared, that, if Mr. Har- 
 ' rison did insist upon it, that he did the same : for he did not 
 'think it was right that Mr. Maskelyne should [take the ob- 
 'servations] as he could not deny but what Mr. Harrison said, 
 'was true. This put Mr. Maskelyne in great confusion; and 
 'he alleged, that if he was not to observe, it would be a great 
 
 * An obvious question arises here for supposing Dr. Maskelyne had 
 found the Longitude of Barbadoes and all the Islands in the route as 
 accurately as was done by the Timekeeper, yet as he was not the inventor 
 of the Lunar method, that honour belonging to Meran, a Frenchman, 
 with whom Professor Mayer subsequently divided it, how could he claim 
 the reward ? Notwithstanding this moot point, he spoke as if he had 
 received assurances from one or more of the Commissioners to that effect : 
 and probably Dr. Shepherd who introduced him to John Harrison could 
 have informed us better on the subject. But there is no intimation that 
 Dr. Hal ley, the Abbe de la Caille, and Captain Campbell, who exerted 
 themselves assiduously to accomplish the same object, ever formed ex- 
 pectations of achieving the reward. Dr. Maskelyne was the only astrono- 
 mer, at sea, who, like Ixion, grasped a treasure in nubibus, only to 
 catch a Tartar. 
 
 t The Captain of the Tartar frigate, which took him out, with the 
 Timekeeper.
 
 Viii PREFACE. 
 
 Irani ers of it, was that one class of interested, or 
 of honorary candidates, became judges of the merits 
 
 ' dishonour to him ; and therefore he insisted upon it, he must. 
 4 After a long time spent in this dispute, William Harrison 
 'agreed, that Mr. Maskelyne should observe; provided Mr. 
 'Green [the other astronomer] took the next observation. Mr. 
 ' Maskelyne then went to work, but was so confused, with the 
 'above, that his observations were scarcely to be depended on : 
 ' for every one that was present could see that he set some of 
 'his observations down dubious, when, at the same time, there 
 'was not a cloud near : nor was he in a condition to adjust his 
 'instruments.' 
 
 The reference to his friend's letter above, is explained by 
 a private voyage to St. Helena, in a merchant brig, to find 
 the Longitude by the Moon, with the assistance of Mayer's 
 Tables, which were imported in 1750, and excited much in- 
 terest among scientific men. Captain (afterwards Admiral) 
 Campbell, an officer well versed in the mathematics, was em- 
 ployed by the Commissioners to verify the Longitude with the 
 advantage thus afforded : but as these tables, though so useful 
 under favourable circumstances, will not enable a seaman to 
 overcome the physical impossibilities so often in his way, and as 
 this gentleman, like Dr. Halley, was not disposed to estimate 
 the Lunar process higher than its practical merits deserved, the 
 trial was altogether a failure. Not so with the ardent, Canlu- 
 brigian introduced, who, contrary to tho proverb, always found 
 hope an excellent supper, as well as a good breakfast : and as 
 the sharpers who plunder Samuel Simon, the Jew, in Gil Bias, 
 found Gaspard, his apprentice, just snch a talkative young 
 man as they wanted : so the Lunar party at the Commission 
 of Longitude could not have met with a more enthusiastic 
 zealot, for their purposes, than was Nevil Maskelyne, thus 
 brought forward. He must have been either employed, or 
 materially assisted by the Board, or by some patron who kept 
 behind the scenes : for it was never said that his pecuniary
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 of another, more likely, in the opinion of the great 
 Newton, to achieve the discovery sought. Pro- 
 fessors of Astronomy from Oxford and Cambridge 
 decided without appeal, while the Mechanics were 
 not represented at the Board; and unless for a 
 season, by some casualty, had no person to attend 
 to their interests ; and as the esprit du corps, in 
 the learned mathematicians, varied not from what 
 occurs among the most illiterate groups in society, 
 the consequences were a source of infinite trouble 
 and harassing disquietude to a man of genius who 
 had sacrificed those advantages which his acknow- 
 ledged abilities would have insured him, among 
 scientific men, for the construction of astronomical 
 clocks, to the delusion which his disputes with men 
 
 resources, at this period, were equal to such an enterprize. 
 He published the result of his discoveries in a pamphlet with 
 an elaborate title ; but as the security promised the mariner, 
 who should follow his instructions, was only within a degree 
 (or sixty geographical miles) which would not now be regarded 
 by those who possess a chronometer of moderate value, we 
 pass it by, to remark on the duplicity the double-dealing that 
 seems to have pervaded this affair : for he had been introduced 
 to the Harrisons by Dr, Shepherd, a Commissioner of Longi- 
 tude, as a gentleman skilled in the mathematics, but without 
 any mention of the trip to St. Helena, not at least of the ob- 
 ject of it: and the Father and Son, either not having seen his 
 pamphlet, or not being aware of its ulterior purpose, had no 
 idea of this decided rivalry, or they would of course have ob- 
 jected to him ; he being, from direct opposition of interests, a 
 very unfit person to take the observations connected with the 
 examination of the Timekeeper.
 
 X I'KEFACE. 
 
 opposed to his success for so good a reason as that 
 it interfered with their own superior demonstra- 
 tions, threatened to make interminable, when he 
 was nearly an octagenarian.* A total disregard of 
 
 * A passage in the Journal of John and William Harrison, 
 under date 13th October, 1761, shows the consequences of 
 this legislative oversight so remarkably, that it would be doing 
 injustice to the subject to omit it. 'John Harrison and his 
 'Son both attended this Board, and, on their return home, 
 'called at Mr. Bird's, to see the instruments which were to go 
 ' to take the observations for the trial. They here met with 
 'Dr. Bradley, who had also been at the Board of Longitude, 
 'as being a Commissioner. The Doctor seemed very much out 
 'ot temper, and in the greatest passion told John Harrison, 
 ' that it' it had not been for him and his plaguy Watch, Mr. 
 ' Mayerf and he should have shared ten thousand pounds be- 
 ' fore now. This gave the Candidate an opportunity of seeing 
 ' what sort of a friend Dr. Bradley had been at the Board, who 
 'formerly had been one of the best he had, but now self- 
 ' interest seemed to be the principle.' 
 
 This weakness in the eminent Astronomer may be dated 
 from his connexion with Christopher Irwin, the inventor of 
 the marine chair, becoming engrafted on the natural vice of 
 age : it was not so singular as the defection of another friend, 
 the circumstances of which are a curiosity. 
 
 Among John Harrison's scientific cronies, was Dr. Robert 
 Smith, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of 
 Astronomy, and author of a work found in musical libraries, 
 u rider the title of Smith's Harmonics. The musical accordance 
 of time was secondary only to the mensuration of it, in our 
 
 t Tobias Mayer, a Professor at Gottingeu ; inventor of the Lunar tables: 
 for uhich the Commissioners of Longitude in England, with proper 
 liberality (the Author desires to say) voted him 3,000 out of the money 
 at their disposal : this he did not live to receive, but it was paid to his 
 widow.
 
 PREFACE. X 
 
 his age was indeed not one of the least deformities 
 in these proceeding's : and what can be thought of 
 this opprobrium when we find that Mr. Mudge, 
 junior, intending to extenuate any defects in his 
 father's Timekeepers, shows him to have been near 
 sixty when he commenced the first : that is, twenty 
 years younger than the Claimant. Neither was 
 this the extremity of that malevolence which under 
 
 Mechanician's pursuits ; and these geniuses had frequent dis- 
 cussions to solve some problem for 
 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 
 The hidden soul of harmony. 
 
 In the solution of it, however, they touched a string too dis- 
 cordant for the dulcet notes of friendship; they differed re- 
 specting the right to discovery of a principle advanced in the 
 Harmonics, but we waive the particulars here. Their estrange- 
 ment, under such circumstances, cost the rural genius some 
 tears (as he tells us.) Not so, the Cantabrigian, who, not- 
 withstanding his professed analysis of harmony, seems to have 
 been deficient of it in his composition ; and indulged an acri- 
 mony so injurious in its consequences, that not having the 
 candour to separate the cause of the Longitude from that of the 
 musical amateur, he degenerated from a zealous friend into the 
 bitter enemy of his former associate ; which, as the Professor's 
 chair gave him a seat at the Board, he could demonstrate: and, 
 like Dr. Bradley, had no idea of the propriety of absenting 
 himself when questions immediately connected with the interest 
 of the Candidate were before them a remark applicable, it 
 may be seen, to other Commissioners at personal variance with 
 him : they were a jury appointed to decide on his claim to a 
 reward of 20,000, but unlike the general practice in other 
 courts, he could not challenge any of them, though ever so 
 notoriously at enmity with him.
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 public pretexts could with impunity indulge private 
 resentment and despicable envy, for nothing- could 
 be more adverse to the common interest, than to 
 throw unnecessary obstructions in the way of the 
 work which they required from him, when he was 
 two decennaries older than the watchmaker just 
 mentioned. Did they not know that an impaired 
 siii'ht, and an unsteady hand, are among the ordi- 
 nary concomitants of age ? Yet there is evidence, 
 under different dates, of his repeated applications 
 for the loan of the successful Timekeeper (offering 
 security) having been refused ; although he dis- 
 tinctly told them that the having it by him w.r 
 months, would save him the labour of one year in 
 three. At length, after eighteen months most in- 
 jurious detention of the model, without the least 
 consideration for the good of the community, they 
 gave way on this point, but only, as might be said, 
 in mockery, for it \\i\s just then found to be neces- 
 sary that the machine should go to Mr. Kendal, or 
 he could not complete his contract with the Board. 
 That corporations will be guilty of a meanness 
 and oppression which, individually, they would be 
 perfectly ashamed of, or desire to be thought so, is 
 not a new observation, but it is insufficient to explain 
 the circumstances detailed ; for whatever might be 
 the opposition of the Lunar party to the success of 
 the Timekeeper, or their hostility to the Mechanics, 
 still it becomes difficult to believe that any set of 
 public men could throw common humanity to the
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 dog's, and equity to the devil, in this way; the 
 conjecture will be, that there must have been some 
 stirring' spirit in the depths of so foul a vortex, to- 
 wards whom his colleagues might be regarded as 
 men of straw, and such was the fact. James, Earl 
 of Morton, P.R.S., a vain, bustling and obtrusive 
 character, took the management of every thing to 
 himself, with, or without leave, does not appear. 
 He was sufficiently imbued with the sentiment 
 couched under his country's motto, and the Claim- 
 ant had the misfortune to affront him, about two 
 years betore, by not complying with certain im- 
 possibilities he prescribed under a separate Com- 
 mission, to which he had been nominated by an 
 Act, the 2nd George 3rd, which had been procured 
 to prevent the Invention from being lost by the 
 casualties of the sea, &c.* 
 
 Of this Nobleman, who seems to have coveted 
 fame at all events, like the shepherd who set fire to 
 the temple of Diana, nothing- is now known but 
 that he was a few seasons President of the Royal 
 Society; which becomes an uncompromising libel 
 on the discernment of those by whom (we suspect 
 
 * It appears from the Candidate's Journal, that he was in- 
 duced to apply for the Act against his inclination, his repug- 
 nance being overcome by the importunity of his friends ; so 
 that he may be said to have had a presentiment of the misfor- 
 tune that originated from this enactment. It was little known 
 to the public, but some account of it is given in the HISTORY 
 
 OF THE TRANSACTIONS.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 for some party purpose) he was thus promoted.* 
 He either could not, or would not, understand so 
 plain a proposition, as that, if his mode of ex- 
 plaining 1 the above Act of Parliament was allowed, 
 and works urn commenced, which by the lowest 
 estimate would require an outlay of 900, it was 
 necessary funds should be provided to meet this 
 exigency, which, as no expense had been contem- 
 plated by the measure, unless im-rely for travelling 
 charges to the gentlemen, or for lo<s of time to the 
 watchmakers, unavoidably rendered it abortive : 
 not from any oversight by those who drew up the 
 clauses, but because Lord Morton who, at this 
 Commission, as at that of the Longitude, it so 
 happened, directed every thing as he would have 
 it, put a construction on the Act. altogether fan- 
 tastical.j- 
 
 * Whatever were their inducements, it would have been 
 well if it did not recal the historical fact, that Peter the great, 
 for special reasons made a patriarch of his fool. 
 
 t It was, that if any tools were necessary in constructing the 
 Timekeepers different from those used by clock and watch- 
 makers, a number of workmen were to be immediately set on 
 preparing such tools ; which being ready, two or three more 
 Timekeepers were to be proceeded with; and these, being 
 completed, were to be tried " in such manner as the Commis- 
 sioners shall judge proper; so as to convince them that the 
 discovery made by Mr. Harrison is sufficient to enable other 
 workmen to make watches of equal goodness." It requires no 
 argument to show that this way of explaining the invention 
 would have called for an outlay, both of time and money, al-
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 When this Douglas who notwithstanding his 
 chivalrous descent, had not a spark of magnanimity 
 in his composition, took his seat at the Board, 9th 
 February, 1765, at which the success of the Time- 
 keeper was admitted by all, he accused the Claimant 
 (who was not present nor prepared) of contumacy, 
 in refusing to conform to the sentiments of a ma- 
 jority at the separate Commission , which majority 
 it is distinctly shewn in, THE HISTORY OF THE 
 TRANSACTIONS, by a reference to the number, the 
 names, and the letters of four out of eight who 
 attended two meetings of this Commission, it was 
 morally impossible he could have had.* It is com- 
 mon enough to meet with those who question your 
 understanding if you are not always of their opinion, 
 but never was this attribute of ill-informed people 
 more extravagantly exemplified than in the northern 
 Aristocrat; who could not possibly conceive how 
 any men with a grain of sense could dissent from 
 the profundity of his resolves on this, or indeed on 
 any other subject :f and reasoning rightly from 
 
 together excessive, and quite foreign to the whole intention of 
 the framers of the Act under which this Commission sat. 
 
 * Supposing otherwise, yet by not having summoned the 
 Rev. John Michell, of Cambridge, to the second meeting, 
 whose presence would probably have given him some trouble, 
 he had vitiated and rendered null the whole proceeding. 
 
 f Barry, the painter, but for whom there was the excuse of 
 partial insanity, was a chap of the same kidney: "with him, 
 a difference of opinion, was an affront, a controversy was a 
 quarrel, advice an insult, and competition a deadly and irre-
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 wrong- premises (according to Locke's definition of 
 a madman) instead of taking- the sense of the 
 meeting, either individually or collectively, and 
 then embodying what ini^ht appear to be the pre- 
 valent desire, he produced from his pocket a string 
 of resolutions ready prepared, and, as the Watch- 
 makers who were of this Commission told the Can- 
 didate, assumed that they were adopted without a 
 dissentient voice, i;'ivini>- them no opportunity to 
 show him his mistake; t if it was one.*) 
 
 missible injury." The character of Colonel Bath, in Fielding's 
 Amelia, may be adduced as a fit adjunct to the aforegoing; 
 we learn, that he was at length killed in a duel, by a Gentle- 
 man, who told him, he differed in opinion with him." 
 
 Of our existing and conspicuous public men, the scrutiny 
 need not be carried far to find Sir Andrew Agnew classes, in 
 this particular, with the Aristocrat of Caledon, brought for- 
 ward. For the Editor of a weekly paper, after commenting 
 on the gloomy and ascetic character which the mistaken Baro- 
 net would attach to Christianity; by denying the laborious 
 part of the community any recreation out of doors on a Sunday ; 
 remarks that "He seems to have no conception that any man 
 can, or ought to be allowed, to think differently from him." 
 But we must spare the " bones and leather" of our hobby, lest 
 we should be thought to lean to the doctrine of the transmigra- 
 tion of souls (the metempsychosis.) We apprehend, the wags 
 will be discovering something blockish and stupid in Sir 
 Andrew's physiognomy, at the first view, as was remarked of 
 old, in Socrates, "the wisest oj men." 
 
 * The Commissioners, under this Act, were James, Earl 
 of Morton, Lord Charles Cavendish, Lord Willoughby, of 
 Parham, the Rev. John Michel], of Cambridge, George Lewis 
 Scott, esquire, Mr. James Short, optician, Messrs. Alex-
 
 PREFACE. XV11 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the Act to 
 amend, explain and alter that of the 12th Queen 
 Anne, originated in far other than the "doubts and 
 difficulties" which according to their minutes on the 
 above date, rendered it necessary to take that course, 
 instead of paying the reward, which the proper law 
 authorities affirmed they would be perfectly justified 
 in doing a particular so much in his favour, that 
 it becomes, in a manner, impossible to divest the 
 refusal of private and personal motives. Never was 
 language more perverted than when, after hearing 
 the statements of the Earl of Morton, it is added, 
 that "they duly weighed and considered the same:" 
 for they did no such thing. The slightest cross-ex- 
 amination would have shewn them there was no 
 foundation for the refractoriness imputed to John 
 
 ander Gumming, Thomas Mudge, Andrew Dickie, James 
 Green, and William Frodsham, watchmakers. Eight of them 
 attended two meetings of the Commission. The absentees 
 were, Lord Willoughby, of Parham, for some reason unknown; 
 Mr. Andrew Dickie, because he was not sufficiently prepared; 
 and the Rev. John Michell, who was unavoidably prevented 
 from attending the first meeting, and had not been summoned 
 to the second. Of those who attended, there is evidence that 
 Messrs. Short, Gumming, Green, and Frodsham, who were 
 personal friends of the Candidate, perfectly concurred in opinion 
 with him, as to the mode of explanation required by the obvious 
 intention of the Act : so that supposing the other three to have 
 divided with Lord Morton (though it is very improbable) yet 
 as four could not be a majority among eight without a casting 
 vote, the effrontery with which he asserted to have had such 
 majority cannot be extenuated.
 
 XV111 PREFACE. 
 
 Harrison, in not complying with the resolutions of 
 an imaginary majority. They might have seen, if 
 they would, they were making themselves subser- 
 vient to the contemptible and ungentlemanly re- 
 venge of the proud Thane, for having been defeated 
 in enforcing his own construction of the 2nd George 
 3rd on the ill-fated Claimant. It is extremely 
 surprising that not one Commissioner present had 
 the sagacity to put a question or two to his Lordship, 
 which would at once have dispersed the imbecile 
 tissue he had fabricated. Had any particulars been 
 asked, it must soon have appeared that he confuted 
 himself; for his account implied that the Gentlemen 
 of the separate Commission knew nothing of com- 
 mon business,* or they could never have adopted 
 
 * In the Journal of John and William Harrison, it is ad- 
 mitted that at the third meeting there was a majority against 
 them ; but it must have been connected with circumstances 
 then generally contemplated, but now unknown; for the ex- 
 planation looked for, by all who understood the subject, could 
 not have varied much from that which afterwards took place 
 in 1765, and which the Manager himself was constrained to 
 acquiesce in; whereas his present resolutions were absolutely 
 a dead letter, without the funds necessary to make them avail- 
 able. Besides this strange difficulty (entirely of his own 
 creating) there was another beyond measure anomalous; which 
 was that, by the lowest computation, his method of bringing 
 the business to bear would have occupied from three to four, 
 or five years ; long within which time, if favoured by Provi- 
 dence, the Candidate hoped to see his Son return from the 
 West Indies (as he actually did) with a success that would 
 entitle him to a premium four times greater than that h<
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 his strange interpretation of that Act. From an 
 interview between the Earl and the Candidate, we 
 may conclude, his Lordship's plan, if followed up 
 with spirit, would have called for forty or fifty 
 pounds a week in wages to workmen; which when 
 it is considered there was no provision for carrying 
 this mode of explaining- the Act into effect, became 
 the height of ridicule: yet a Peer of Scotland, and 
 P.R.S., persisted in such an untenable argument: 
 his absurd advice to John Harrison, at the time, 
 was, to borrow all the money he could of his friends; 
 naming Mr. Short, in particular; but he did not 
 offer to back such counsel, by advancing him a 
 fraction of a pound sterling. The Commissioners 
 of Longitude being presumed to have been all men 
 of competent education, and more or less acquainted 
 with what passes in our courts of equity and com- 
 mon law, how came it, that in a case on which the 
 
 promised by this Act, which was 5,000. In despite of con- 
 siderations so obvious, this Nobleman, " wise in his own con- 
 ceit," attempted to show that if our Mechanician did not con- 
 form to his resolves, he could not be entitled to another trial . 
 Upon which Lord Sandwich, who was present, though not as 
 one of these Commissioners, interfered, to say 'there was no 
 ' sort of connexion between the explanation [under this Act] 
 'and another trial; and as he plainly saw, from what had 
 'passed, that it was not in Mr. Harrison's power to comply 
 ' with their demands, therefore he should have another trial 
 ' when he pleased, and as soon as he pleased. Upon which 
 ' the meeting dissolved ; and Lord Morton said " If this is the 
 'case, I am sure Harrison will get all the money.'" 
 
 b
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 payment of 17,500 depended, they actually, with- 
 out the least enquiry, took the word of this scientific 
 coxcomb, so grievously to the prejudice of an emi- 
 nent genius,* whose rival, singularly enough, he 
 assumed to be thought to a certain extent ; for he 
 pretended to have himself discovered, some years 
 before, a principle employed in the construction of 
 the Timekeeper, " but had not told it to man, 
 woman or child." In connexion with this, he was 
 possessed of a curious secret in mechanics, which, 
 as he said "not a workman in London could find 
 out, for they would all get wrong, if they attempted 
 it." There might be no questioning this merit in 
 a President of the Royal Society who, however, 
 previous to these disclosuresf had been fully em- 
 
 * It is scarcely necessary to observe, that in our courts of 
 law, the evidence of any witness having an interest in the 
 question litigated, or being at enmity with the party he is op- 
 posed to, if it is not wholly excluded, will be heard with 
 much doubt ; and the Judge in his charge to the jury will draw 
 their attention to the circumstance with suitable comments. 
 
 f At a Board, May 30th, 1705, at which more good humour 
 than was usual prevailed, after the business of the meeting was 
 over, a conversation ensued, which elicited these singular 
 items. Whether his Lordship miscarried of this secretum meum 
 mihi, or that the accouchement could only be effected somewhat 
 in Vulcan's manner, of classical notoriety, by breaking a dis- 
 taff, or a ladle, over his craniological system had been better 
 left to a jury of matrons (sworn to secrecy) to decide. But we 
 may safely assume, contrary to the antient legend, that Wis- 
 dom would not have come forth fortified at all points from the 
 cloven head, any more than it will from a cloven foot and
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 powered to take such steps as were preferable in his 
 opinion : the subsequent proceedings being- left un- 
 reservedly to his discretion. 
 
 we may observe that his Lordship while engrossed by such 
 demonstrations seems to have been lucky in escaping the ken 
 of the English Aristophanes, as Foote was often called, who 
 was always on the look out for some farcical display, whereby 
 to edify the galleries and replenish his purse, which was often 
 below par. It would have been a good thing to have got hold 
 of a philosopher employing workmen (conformably to his coun- 
 sel) at an expense of forty or fifty pounds a week, but without 
 any funds to pay them; these he was to borrow of Lady 
 Pantweasel, Dr. Last, or Major Sturgeon, if he could; if he 
 could not, he must go to a spunging-house perdue (maugre 
 his privilege of peerage) from whence he is redeemed by some 
 good-natured Nabob ; to whom he gives, as security, a secret 
 which all the mechanics in London would not be able to find 
 out. With something illustrating these cross-purposes, this 
 dramatic humourist would have extracted some mirth at the 
 expense of the Royal Society (as he had before done from the 
 College, in Warwick-lane) by eulogizing their choice of a 
 President, whom he would perhaps have equalled to James 1st 
 for experimental philosophy: and, for every thing else, to the 
 oracular head which Friar Bacon was so long in fabricating. 
 But some one interposes here, to observe, that as clever men, 
 like his Lordship, are constitutionally accessible to flattery, a 
 few words from the Inventor of the Timekeeper, complimentary 
 to the President's skill in these matters, his consummate know- 
 ledge and inventive powers, which the Royal Society* knew 
 how to estimate, would soon have exemplified the utility of the 
 
 * The Fellows of the Royal Society, by their successive choice of Sir 
 John Pringle, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Humphry Davy, and His Royal 
 Highness, the Duke of Sussex, have amply redeemed the unaccountable 
 blunder they must have fallen into, when they fixed on the discreditable 
 pretender brought forward in these pages.
 
 XX11 PREFACE. 
 
 Here then, the biographers of John Harrison, 
 who being wholly unacquainted with these scenes, 
 attribute his troubles to "the delicacy of the Com- 
 missioners, in deciding between him and the public" 
 may learn that the scrupulous sensations with which 
 they endow them, had no veritable existence. The 
 disinterested part of the Board were either outvoted, 
 or too indolent to interfere when so clever a Manager 
 as the President of the. Royal Society , to wit, was 
 willing to befac totum to the whole concern : while 
 those who were notoriously at variance with the 
 Claimant, at the head of the party opposed to the 
 success of the mechanics, could give a licence to 
 their personal animosity, under the commonplace 
 resort pro bono publico. It is certain the authority 
 and immunities of the Board of Longitude were 
 now either delegated to, or assumed by, an indi- 
 vidual, whose effrontery was commensurate with 
 his self-importance, and who even vaunted that the 
 Act to amend, explain and alter, that of Queen 
 Anne, was his own; and, after it was brought into 
 
 sentiment " It gives me pleasure to be praised by you, whom 
 all men praise :" and the " doubts and difficulties" would have 
 been no further heard of, except at Coventry. But the Claimant 
 was wholly unfitted for any adroitness at such a manoeuvre ; 
 it would have seemed to him like putting on a fool's coat; his, 
 was a straight forward course ; he would not compromise his 
 sincerity, though it might have been demonstrated, that the 
 rugged path in which he toiled and lost himself would soon 
 have become as smooth and level as a bowling green before 
 him.
 
 PREFACE. XX111 
 
 Parliament, denounced, as follows, to his rival, 
 through the agency of a gentleman in the Lower 
 House, named Grey.* "Tell Mr. Harrison, with- 
 
 * He was chairman of the committee when Lord Morton was 
 nominated one of the eleven Commissioners, under the 2nd 
 George 3rd, but nothing attaches to him in the present affair, 
 further than his being the bearer of this message : which yet 
 becomes a marked curiosity by the Parliamentary management 
 it illustrates at this, if not at a more extended period (or what 
 time is exempt from it?) when an independent member, if such 
 he was, could, as if only a matter of course, be the bearer of 
 a message not with a reference to public business, but ad- 
 ministering, could he not see, to the private revenge of this 
 weak but consequential Peer. Such a transaction becomes 
 an aggravated slur on a constitution by all admitted to be the 
 perfection of political wisdom in theory, but yet betraying in 
 practice such an inconsistency as the case herewith discloses ; 
 which was not mixed up with the common party distinctions 
 of Whig and Tory, or otherwise. How, under any circum- 
 stances, the House could comply with the speechifying of some 
 Popinjay by whom it might be pestered and either forward 
 swimmingly, or swamp by procrastination, a bill brought in 
 to supersede that on which our Mechanician had "pinned his 
 faith" forty years before, is for gentlemen more conversant with 
 the mysteries of legislative etiquette to say unless they ad- 
 judge the astounding denunciation of the p.R.s. to be a sheer 
 rodomontade, worthy of the quarter it came from. But what 
 can be thought of the incapacity or the misconduct of a majority 
 at the Board of Longitude, by whom so improper a character 
 as the Earl of Morton, who insiduously sought to get him 
 within his grasp, was enabled as far as in them lay, to control 
 the destiny of a man of genius who reflected so much credit on 
 his age and country, but towards whom the conduct of their 
 majority, after he had achieved the Longitude of Jamaica nearly 
 within a mile, was any thing but honourable.
 
 XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 out he will agree to the Resolutions of the Board of 
 Longitude, on the 9th instant, that this affair shall 
 never come to a decision in the House, but only be 
 put oft' from time to time." 
 
 Montesqieu has said that the united power of the 
 King, the Lords and Commons, in the Parliament 
 of England, is the highest on earth; yet here, 
 setting aside his rank (such are the discrepancies 
 in the history of man) an ostentatious but insignifi- 
 cant individual, of contemptible pretensions, and 
 who, in common parlance, would have been called 
 a conceited prig, wields this mighty power ; or at 
 least assumes to give it a direction subservient to 
 his own splenetic resolves and paltry revenge. 
 That the whole affair was of a personal nature, 
 were there no previous evidence on the point, the 
 conduct of this inflated Aristocrat, after he had 
 procured the passing of the Act, which, with ex- 
 ulting propriety, he called his own, would establish. 
 The ostensible purpose of that measure* was to as- 
 
 * There are instances in which the difference between the 
 real and the ostensible purpose of some bill brought into either 
 House of Parliament, is enough to excite the amazement of 
 those, out of doors, in the secret, when such there are ; but 
 in the present case, no liberal man, that could have traced his 
 Lordship's motives to their source, two years before, and had 
 scented his genius for mechanics, would have desired to be in 
 his confidence. The following brief dialogue, which occurred 
 in April, 1833, may place the subject in a clearer point of 
 view. ' Sir Robert Inglis asked whether Government were 
 ' acquainted with the nature of the Bill authorizing the esta-
 
 PREFACE. XXV 
 
 certain its being practicable to make more Time- 
 keepers, like the successful one, and equally accu- 
 
 ' blishment of the Glasgow lottery, while that Bill was in pro- 
 ' gress through the House ? Lord Althorp replied, that His 
 'Majesty's Government had not the least idea that a Bill 
 'authorizing the establishment of a lottery had passed the 
 'Houses of Parliament until he was apprised of the existence 
 'of the lottery itself. His attention was then drawn to the 
 'subject, and on looking at the Act, he found that no allusion 
 was made to the lottery in its title, and that the word lottery 
 ' itself occurred but once throughout the Act. It was, to say 
 ' the truth, most skilfully drawn up, and the parties who con- 
 'cocted it had fully succeeded in rendering the House and the 
 ' Government entirely ignorant of the real nature of the Bill. 
 ' Sir Robert Peel : If the lottery is not yet drawn, the Bill may 
 'be repealed [it is drawn.] Well then, all I can say is, that 
 'those who were parties to the transaction ought to be subjected 
 'to public punishment.' 
 
 The measure which the President of the Royal Society was 
 too successful in procuring, not to explain, but to subvert the 
 original Act, was not of this description, though the imposition 
 was as complete, for it did not require the sharp wits of those 
 concerned in the Glasgow business, but belonged to a more 
 common class of enactments to those bills which pass both 
 Houses pro forma ; either because they are prepared by public 
 functionaries, honourable men, whose averment, as to the 
 utility of the step, it might seem both unnecessary and invidious 
 to dispute ; or the bill was to rectify some technical informali- 
 ties, or certain local particulars, interesting only to A, B, C, 
 and D, or their neighbours, whom nobody appeared to oppose.* 
 
 * The Author remembers reading in the debates, many years ago, that 
 while a private bill was passing through its final stages in this way, a 
 gentleman in the House, cautioned them against too much precipitation, 
 and, to enforce his suggestion, related that, one day, on the third reading 
 of a bill of this description, an honourable Member happened to observe
 
 XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 rate. Towards which object (security being given) 
 the first, and most important requisite, was that 
 
 What could be thought of the application, had it been 
 known (we are justified in repeating it) that the Commissioners 
 themselves had uniformly interpreted the 12th of Queen Anne 
 as the Claimant did. So that after he had persevered forty 
 years on the basis of this conformity, rendered more unequivo- 
 cal by advances of the public money, they could not measure 
 back their steps without assuming the attitude of a swindler 
 towards so singular a dupe, as he might be regarded. The 
 HISTORY OF THE TRANSACTIONS shows that this unparal- 
 leled case should be dated from January 19th, 1765, when 
 " a great vain man" first took his seat at the Board, surcharged 
 with inexhaustible animosity towards the Claimant, for having 
 been defeated in enforcing his eccentric resolves under the 
 separate Commission. He was now enabled to embody those 
 resolutions, six in number, as far as possible, in the clauses of 
 liia bill which Parliament never knew, nor even the Board, 
 we conjecture, for no attention was paid to the proceedings of 
 that Commission after its failure. Hence a northern Aristocrat 
 whose jorte was low cunning, notwithstanding his chivalrous 
 descent, could effect a counterpart of the Glasgow Lottery, 
 though much deficient in the acuteness attributed to the parties 
 concerned in that gross imposition. To aggravate pretences 
 the fallacy of which there was no one to detect, the considera- 
 tion is very material, that there was a party at the Board of 
 
 that a man in the gallery changed countenance, and was evidently much 
 ;il;irmcd at their proceedings : this inducing him logo round and question 
 the person, he found by his statement, that was that bill to receive the 
 royal assent, it would extremely ailed his interest, if it did not entirely 
 ruin him. That he had come from the country, but could only witness 
 what was going on without knowing how to take any step in his own 
 behalf. The House being apprized of this, it led to an investigation of 
 particulars, and to the introduction of a clause, effectually to guard 
 against tin- injury pointed out: which but for the casual incident men- 
 tioned, would soon have passed into a law.
 
 PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 the Inventor should have the use of it, as much as 
 was necessary to abridge his labour. But this was 
 immediately refused: after the drawings it was 
 made from had been demanded, and were given 
 up.* No hindrance that could be superadded seems 
 
 Longitude directly opposed to the success of the Mechanics : 
 and even Lord Morton, had given sufficient indications of 
 rivalry, though it was not by the Lunar method. Exclusive 
 of a proceeding which would have blown up the whole plan of 
 this scientific Commissioner had it transpired, a question of 
 peculiar magnitude arises out of the case of John Harrison. 
 For if, without reflecting that he had his rights as well as the 
 community if, without examination, or hearing counsel in his 
 behalf, the 12th of Queen Anne was rendered wholly null and 
 unavailable, by an enactment of such an indefinite construction 
 that it bore whatever his personal enemies might chuse to affix 
 to it, the future trials of his Timekeepers being neither limited 
 in number, nor duration, nor in the degree of exactness re- 
 quired, was not the Legislature exceeding its own powers? as 
 it would do, were it to pass an Act depriving some individual 
 of his estate ; or mulcting him in a sum of money, without as- 
 signing treason, rebellion, or the like causes of legal forfeiture? 
 * To disable the Claimant as much as possible, yet " not to 
 'minish aught from the tale of the bricks," could be resembled 
 only to the conduct of the task-masters of old ; " Ye are idle," 
 said Pharoah, the prototype of the proud Scotchman. This 
 double-refined oppression , can never be explained away, when 
 it is considered he was at an age at which almost all men desire 
 to have the evening of (a well-spent) life to themselves. It is 
 true his ardent spirit never brooked long reposef while his head 
 
 t Quod erat demonstrandum; literally, which was to be demonstrated: 
 was a scrap of latin he probably got from his friend Dr. Smith, of Trin. 
 Col. Cam., and was fond of; as they told him to English it the labour 
 is my delight!
 
 XXV111 PREFACE. 
 
 to have been forgotten,* and when every thing was 
 done that could be done to frustrate the professed 
 
 and his hand vindicated his genius, but the difference need 
 scarcely be pointed out, between the labour of choice, and the 
 dictum that weighed him to the ground. 
 
 Exclusive of the enmity borne him by the northern Peer, it 
 is to be lamented that he fell into such ignorant hands. A 
 Colbert, :i Chatham, a Frederic 3rd, or Cromwell, on ascertain- 
 ing: the drift of his ambition, which was to see his chronometry 
 brought into general use, would have thought the business 
 done to their bands, and counted it folly to interfere, unless it 
 had been to stimulate his pride, by affecting to doubt his com- 
 petency for what he had undertaken ; but the Manager, who 
 judged of the meanness of others by his own (as when he ad- 
 vised the Candidate to borrow all the money he could, yet 
 did not offer to lend him a stiver) was entirely incapable of 
 entering into the merits of the subject in that view: and witli 
 the exception of Sir John Cust, who would not bow to the 
 Baal the Royal Society had sent them, the Commissioners of 
 Longitude have left a stigma on their names a brand of re- 
 proach, which a patent scrubbing-brush can no more efface 
 than it can the indelible complexion of the Ethiopian. 
 
 * The consideration is very important towards analyzing the 
 gross imposition practised on Parliament by this consequential 
 character; that the 12th of Queen Anne having left untouched 
 the right of property in the tangible materials that might there- 
 after be used for discovering the Longitude, whatever form 
 might be given them, Lord Morton assumed, by what he 
 called " the reason of the thing," that they were public pro- 
 perty; and accordingly inserted a clause in his bill to that effect 
 without once consulting the Attorney, or the Solicitor 
 General on a point of so much interest to his rival: for if those 
 authorities had differed with him, WHAT THEN? Granting 
 however the correctness of the Thane's decision, without further 
 enquiry, yet there can be but one opinion on the collateral
 
 PREFACE. XXIX 
 
 intention of his own bill (an intention which he 
 thus made a jest of the greatest power on earth to 
 enforce) the conclusion we are left in is, that the 
 real purpose of this psuedo philosopher,* was to 
 
 bearing of the question which is that " the reason of the thing" 
 especially demanded of him to exercise this asserted right with 
 all possible forbearance, and with the avoiding of any injury 
 or hardship in enforcing it. Now as the contrary is glaringly 
 evident, and he indulged a revolting inhumanity towards the 
 aged Claimant, without the least regard to " the reason of the 
 thing," the unavoidable inference is that he was ready to 
 appeal to this argument, if it squared with his views, but still 
 more ready to throw it to the dogs when it thwarted his dis- 
 graceful purpose. 
 
 * That there is a class of philosophers by experiment, as 
 well as experimental philosophers, the Author once had a 
 remarkable proof. Some years ago he received (and has by 
 him) a letter on business, from a person who till then he was 
 not aware aspired to any higher concerns than those it treated 
 of. It was most grossly illiterate, both in the grammar and 
 orthography; but that a dealer and chapman should be so de- 
 ficient, not being altogether singular, as the world goes, he 
 might have thought no more of it; had not the letter been seen 
 by a friend, who informed him, to his utter astonishment, that 
 the writer of it was a metaphysician and a philosopher that 
 he had published a tract to controvert a particular theory of 
 Newton's; and he referred him to a periodical where he might 
 see an account of the work. That the same sagacity which 
 elevated this metaphysician and philosopher to contend with 
 Newton, could not serve him to put two words together right, 
 as might be seen in this document, being too paradoxical for 
 the Author's solution, he leaves the problem as he found it. 
 But it is worth observing, what "thin partitions do their 
 bounds divide" between these philosophical pretenders, and
 
 XXX PREFACE. 
 
 annihilate as far as his influence extended both tlu 
 Invention and the fair fame of an original genius, 
 towards whom he seemed destined to verify the 
 Poet's stricture 
 
 Knvy will merit like its shade pursue, 
 
 And, like the shadow, proves the substance true. 
 
 Of the sentiments of the other Commissioners, 
 the only particular known, shows that Sir John 
 Cust (the Speaker of the House of Commons) \v;is 
 a dissentient from the proceedings for throwing 
 cold water on the invention of the Timekeeper (as 
 we think we may term them without a breach of 
 propriety.) He seems to have detected and despised 
 the affectation and effrontery l>y which 1/ord Morton 
 kept his colleagues in a thraldom so injurious both 
 in a public and private view ; in consequence of 
 which, the unprotected situation of the aged 
 Claimant was an appeal to his humanity and good 
 offices. The Applicant having drawn up a memo- 
 rial for presentation at a Board held on May 2 1th, 
 1766, principally containing a reference to a plan 
 
 certain enterprizing lovers; of whom Richardson has given us 
 a specimen in his Sir Charles Grandison ; where a military 
 gentleman, ycleped Captain Anderson, makes a great im- 
 pression on the heart of the Baronet's youngest Sister, by the 
 elegance, good taste, and propriety of sentiment displayed in 
 the letters with which he assailed his Mistress: but unfor- 
 tunately, by a change of quarters, the Captain lost his letter 
 writer, and with that his conquest: his next billet deux being 
 glaringly deficient both in orthography, and in the notions 
 advocated.
 
 PREFACE. XXXI 
 
 before given in, for establishing a manufactory of 
 Timekeepers,* provided the second moiety of the 
 reward was no longer detained, but withal having 
 an allusion to the opinion of the Law Officers, 
 which had been entirely in his favour; showed it 
 to the worthy Baronet, who advised him to suppress 
 it, unless he had a mind for an open breach with 
 the Commissioners, which he said would be the 
 certain consequence were it delivered in. He then 
 offered to dictate a letter for Messrs. Harrison, and 
 (in the words of the manuscript quoted) would try 
 to get them a favourable answer. A copy of the 
 letter is preserved, which, under such strange cir- 
 cumstances, Sir John dictated, and was to try to 
 get a favourable answer if he could. The father 
 and son were not wanting in gratitude for his kind- 
 ness, though the result was not favourable; for 
 to a letter given in on the 24th May, no answer 
 at all could be got till the 22nd of October, five 
 months after; although it consisted only of as many 
 lines, which were merely a reference to something 
 before-said. No assignable reason can be noticed 
 for this dilatory extreme, but the despotical caprice 
 
 * Sir John said, "he knew their minds," and that it would 
 not be in the least attended to. That a proposal for a manu- 
 factory of Timekeepers, by the Inventor, of incalculable im- 
 portance in that day, though not much wanted now, could not 
 be mentioned to these Commissioners of Longitude, seems in- 
 credible, but is thus identified, and may be handed over to 
 the future historian, who is descanting on the progress of the 
 arts and sciences in the reign of George 3rd.
 
 XXX11 PREFACE. 
 
 of the Manager some counterpart of whom in 
 Shakespear's time, probably enabled the poet to 
 seize that forcible idea 
 
 Man's but a walking shadow, a poor player, 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more. 
 
 The rest of the Board, we cannot doubt, however 
 they might incline this way or that, would have 
 disavowed any participation in so aggravating- and 
 useless a stretch of power ; why then did they not 
 check this audacity, so much in want of a bridle ? 
 is a question that immediately occurs. It is evident 
 they were responsible (but, as it has happened, to 
 posterity only) for the conduct of the individual, to 
 whom they had delegated their authority, or by 
 whom it was assumed on a sufferance not ascer- 
 tained, but consonant to the opposition he continued 
 to manifest after he had lost his seat at the Board 
 of Longitude. 
 
 The Earl of Morton* was not now living, but 
 
 * It is almost superfluous to say, that the Author is not 
 acquainted directly, or indirectly with the respected nobleman, 
 or his connexions, who inherits the title and estates of the 
 Earldom of Morton, and who he presumes will readily admit, 
 as an abstract proposition, that in all lengthened genealogies, 
 fools and wrongheads may be looked for, as well as wise and 
 clever men: which must have been Addison's opinion, when 
 he gave us the portraits in the gallery at Coverley Hall. In 
 the strictures adverted to, there is no more intention to annoy 
 the present representative of the family than the publishers of 
 Swift's private letters, edited by Dr. Hawksworth, had to
 
 PREFACE. XXX111 
 
 seemed to have left his animosity towards the 
 Claimant as a legacy to that party at the Board 
 whose views he always promoted, apparently with- 
 out understanding 1 them : (for there is no trace of 
 his partiality to the Lunar method.) Never were 
 ostensible duties more remarkably made a stalking- 
 horse for private incentives, and vengeful mis- 
 givings, than when, in 1772, the talented veteran 
 having, some time before, under the disadvantage 
 of being refused every facility in their power, com- 
 pleted another Timekeeper (an improved copy of 
 the successful one, which it was quite contrary to 
 the common interest that he should waste his valu- 
 able time in showing he could imitate) it was re- 
 quired of him to submit this, his last work, to a 
 trial of twelve months, instead of that which the 
 Act, the foundation of his labours, had prescribed. 
 Although twelve months could not but be supposed 
 to make a very serious difference to an octagenarian, 
 
 grieve the descendants of a Courtier of Queen Anne's circle, 
 who seems to have resembled the character of Nasiedenus in 
 Horace. The Dean, after having been several times invited, 
 one day took his dinner with this Aristocrat, and thus com- 
 ments on the fare : "his wine was poison, his carps were raw, 
 and his candles tallow ; yet, with all this, the puppy has four- 
 teen thousand a year. I will take care how he catches me so 
 again ; besides every body has laughed at me for dining with 
 him." These letters give an idea of the habits and mode of 
 life of Swift, at that time, and the present purpose is to de- 
 velope the causes WHICH FINALLY LED TO THE ROYAL 
 INTERFERENCE in the case of John Harrison.
 
 XXXIV PREFACE. 
 
 yet he would have waived this discrepancy, had 
 there not been other circumstances connected with 
 it, too momentous to be overlooked. For having" 
 been instructed by their late Manager to hold the 
 teazing, the disheartening and insiduons uncer- 
 tainty over his head, they refused to say whether 
 such trial, however favourable the result, would be 
 satisfactory: and as this was a direct contravention 
 of the implied compact between him and the legis- 
 lature, when he set to work (about his thirty-third 
 year) which had always led him and the Commis- 
 sioners, //// Jsord Morton took /iw seat among 
 them, to consider the reward, in the event of a 
 successful trial to the West Indies, as much his 
 own as any other property that might be formally 
 conveyed; it could not be expected he should ac- 
 quiesce in his labours being rendered as intermina- 
 ble (at his great age) as his personal enemies might 
 chuse to dictate. Yet neither did that forcible ob- 
 jection fully show the gist and bearing of this dis- 
 graceful business which was, that ten months of 
 the trial they required were to be under the especial 
 superintendence of the Astronomer Royal, whom of 
 all men he regarded as his mortal enemy : whether 
 correctly, or otherwise, we need not stop to enquire; 
 when it appears that Dr. Maskelyne though unable 
 to reply to the diminutive octavo given herewith, 
 and suffering judgment to go against him by de- 
 fault, was relieved by his party from "the slough 
 of despond :" who were not ashamed to enable him,
 
 PREFACE. XXXV 
 
 in this way, to take tenfold vengeance for having 
 been hung in chains on his own premises. The 
 esprit du corps could never more decidedly have 
 called for the unqualified contempt, and resentment 
 of the public, had it been known that the meritori- 
 ous individual was thus set up as a mark for malig- 
 nant shafts, by persons whose learned designations, 
 to say nothing of their Christian ministry, could 
 not control that wild beast which Frederic 3rd said 
 every man carries in his breast. Those gentlemen 
 who have seen the caricature which Dr. Knox was 
 supposed to have given of our Universities, in his 
 day, may involuntarily ask, if the conduct of these 
 savans was not too much in accordance with that 
 questionable picture? No redeeming feature ap- 
 pears, for with such a transparent purpose in view, 
 they dared to heave the gauntlet of defiance at their 
 Sovereign, after having excited his indignant re- 
 sentment in behalf of the sufferer ; and inducing 
 him, with that promptitude and decision of cha- 
 racter, which were his attributes, immediately to 
 adopt the only course consistent with the limited 
 authority of the crown, to do justice to the aged 
 Claimant of the second moiety of the reward for the 
 discovery of the Longitude at sea. 
 
 As in the course of this ABRIDGMENT, a tract 
 designated as the Journal of John and William 
 Harrison is frequently cited, some account of it 
 becomes important. After the death of the younger 
 Harrison (William) it was discovered that he and
 
 XXXVI PREFACE. 
 
 his Father had kept a Journal, or narrative, of 
 their transactions with the Commissioners of Lon- 
 gitude and others: (which becomes of no small 
 curiosity and interest, with reference to the object 
 of these pages.) It often goes into detail where the 
 minutes of the Board supply only a meagre outline 
 of what passed, and, what is more important, 
 brings us acquainted with particulars of which there 
 is but a n-arbled account, or which there might be 
 good reasons for excluding altogether from these 
 official reports such as the refusal of a check on 
 the computations after the return from Jamaica; 
 and of his repeated applications for the loan of the 
 successful Timekeeper, to make others by, which, 
 although of the highest importance to the under- 
 standing of his case, do not, with one exception, 
 appear on their minutes. As it is very unusual for 
 persons situated in life as these Journalists were, 
 to engage in a trouble more appropriate to men of 
 education and leisure, it may be concluded they had 
 cogent reasons for commencing this account of their 
 proceedings when brought into contact with a pub- 
 lic Board, defectively constituted, as was the Com- 
 mission of Longitude. These they ha\<- distinctly 
 stated, and it appears that though the recommenda- 
 tions the Candidate brought with him from the most 
 eminent scientific men (including Dr. Bradley) 
 had insured him suitable encouragement in the long 
 interval while he was prosecuting his labours, till 
 he was enabled to stale himself prepared for the
 
 PREFACE. XXXV11 
 
 trial prescribed ; yet when the success of the Time- 
 keeper was anticipated, and probably within the 
 nearest limits of the Act, such unequivocal symp- 
 toms of jealousy were apparent in the Professors 
 from Oxford and Cambridge, at seeing- the Me- 
 chanics carry off such a largess, to the prejudice of 
 men of science, as led the Father and Son to believe 
 that, whatever might be the merits of the Invention, 
 pretexts would never be wanting to procrastinate 
 the payment of the reward indefinitively (which was 
 soon verified after the return from Jamaica.) For 
 the satisfaction therefore of their descendants, and 
 the friends of the family that it might be seen 
 their failure (in this point of view) was not attribu- 
 table to their own neglect, but arose from causes 
 they could not control, they adopted the practice 
 of committing to paper, on their return home, what 
 had passed between them and the Commissioners, 
 or other persons connected with these proceedings. 
 The Manuscript, which is in folio and bound, ex- 
 tending to 113 pages, commences in March, 1761, 
 with an order from Lord Anson, respecting the 
 intended trial, and concludes in May, 1766, with 
 the delivering up of the three machines, considered 
 by the Candidate as "the first essays towards this 
 long-desired Invention." 
 
 It is not in the hand-writing of either of the 
 Harrisons, except a few verbal corrections by the 
 Son, and, from circumstances, the Author con- 
 cludes the present copy to have been written out
 
 XXXV111 PREFACE. 
 
 tVoni a rough one, or from notes afterwards thrown 
 away, by Walter Williams, an attorney, an inti- 
 mate friend of William Harrison ; who latterly 
 became Secretary to the Apothecaries' Company, 
 and as such had apartments at their 11 all, in Black- 
 friars.* It sometimes offends against grammar, 
 and now and then the construction of the sentences 
 is not consonant to the intended meaning 1 . A con- 
 sideration of some interest, is the traits occasionally 
 developed in the distinguished characters of that 
 time: tli<M xiinetimes do not square with history, 
 or with the biography of the parties, which is par- 
 ticularly the case with Lord Alison, and Mr. Gran - 
 ville. The Earl of Egmont reminds us of De Foe's 
 "Tarpaulin Lords;" for he regarded conscientious 
 objections, about the wording of an oath, no more 
 than his boatswain would have done; and Dr. 
 Bradley, as has been seen, was avowedly a judge 
 in bis own cause. We may add, that the Narrative 
 of John Harrison and his Son, which was not 
 known to be in existence when discovered among 
 their mathematical books, was to him, in his limited 
 sphere, what the diaries of Lord Melcomb Regis 
 and the Karl of Waldgrave were to those noblemen 
 
 in the political world: but the burden of his theme 
 was of far more importance to mankind than the 
 
 ffirmoil of party politics, when they wrote, which 
 
 * He was the Father of Mr. Williams, the Chamber 
 Counsel, well known by various compilations on jurisprudence, 
 which were well received by the profession.
 
 PREFACE. XXXIX 
 
 is daily becoming of less interest, and a dull affair 
 to trace. Taken altogether this Narrative becomes 
 an epitome of the difficulties and discouragements 
 which a man of uncommon genius, but born under 
 an adverse planet, may have to contend with ; not 
 so much in the specimens he gives of his talents, as 
 of that envy, the offspring of mediocrity, which 
 John Harrison fully experienced from men whose 
 names, with scarcely an exception, are nowhere to 
 be found but on their college rolls, or parish regis- 
 ters. Had not George 3rd, with more considera- 
 tion and consistency than was to be found in the 
 mathematical chairs at Oxford or Cambridge, taken 
 by the hand the first discoverer of the Longitude at 
 sea, we might have been left to apostrophize this 
 enterprizing man in the language of Johnson, on 
 a far different occasion 
 
 Around his tomb let art and genius weep, 
 
 But hear his fate, ye blockheads, hear and sleep.
 
 THE DEDICATION, written in his Lordship's 
 life-time, was addressed to Baron Erskine : it could 
 not be prefixed to the TRAIT, but is retained in 
 the Appendix to the Work in Manuscript, from 
 having 1 originated in the remarkable circumstance 
 that the honourable Thomas Erskine, afterwards 
 Lord hisrh Chancellor of Great Britain,* was a 
 
 ' 
 
 * It is remarked by Sir Nathaniel W. Wraxall, in his 
 "Own Times," that had Lord Erskine been born one grade 
 higher in the aristocracy, had he been the son of a Marquis 
 instead of an Earl, he would have been precluded, by the 
 regulations of the Scotch nobility from practising at the bar ; 
 and consequently cut off from such a source of fame and 
 emolument as it proved to him. Are there not those who would 
 suggest a doubt here ? Would not this enterprizing genius, on 
 rinding where his forte lay, have preferred relinquishing the 
 barren privileges of aristocratical consanguinity, if they were 
 such a serious obstacle to his advancement ? especially as he 
 was said to have finally determined on this professional choice 
 from being unable to support his family on a commission in the 
 Army, for which he had exchanged the Naval service. The 
 Author may add a circumstance respecting this Nobleman's 
 relatives, which he has not seen noticed any where. His 
 Lordship, when Sergeant Erskine, being in company, at table, 
 with a young man entirely deaf, accosted him with much facility 
 by the digitalis verba, or finger alphabet; explaining that he 
 had been used to converse in that mode with an uncle he had : 
 who was, he said, a very learned man, and knew seven lan- 
 guages.
 
 xlii 
 
 junior midshipman on board the Deptford man of 
 war, in which ship the Timekeeper was taken out 
 to Jamaica on the first trial. This incident led to 
 an acquaintance, and to sentiments of kindness 
 between his Lordship and the younger Harrison, 
 which were retained during life ; and it precluded 
 the Author from resorting to any other Patron, as 
 it became, in his apprehension, a sort of profanation 
 to withhold from the shade of that lamented Noble- 
 man what had been addressed to his accomplished 
 mind before the mortal scene closed on him in the 
 fulness of a forensic reputation, and a consequence 
 so immeasurably contrasted with his outset in pur- 
 suit of fame and fortune. It may be proper to add, 
 that the patronage sought had no reference to Lord 
 Erskine's opinions as a statesman, politics being 
 wholly excluded from these pages, to the end that 
 the Work may be acceptable to all parties, to 
 devotees of every political creed, except the repub- 
 lican.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Page 
 
 No further reliance could be placed on the Commis- 
 sioners his Sovereign's high sense of equity suggests an 
 application in that quarter a letter to Dr. Demainbury 
 the King's Astronomer at Richmond his Majesty sends 
 for the younger Harrison to Windsor, and interrogates 
 him on his Father's situation with the Board of Longitude 
 the party business into which their proceedings had 
 degenerated Lord Morton had been deficient in common 
 humanity, as well as a sense of equity great importance 
 of the loan of the Timekeeper affected to be excluded 
 from the minutes quotation from a printed tract most 
 injurious conduct of the northern Peer he sweeps off the 
 votes, except Sir John Cust's a question; how he had 
 such influence ? the provision for the effects of heat and 
 cold, how managed declaration of George 3rd to the 
 Applicant, that he would see him righted gross exag- 
 gerations of Wolcot the Timekeeper to be tried at Rich- 
 mond this interview long-remembered by William Har- 
 rison, from the humane attention it evinced the King 
 
 dissatisfied with the trial, and the published report 
 authorized by the Board of Longitude arrangements for 
 the examination great error of the Watch the patience 
 and self-command of this Prince unfounded calumnies 
 of Wolcot great disquietude of John Harrison singular 
 discovery of the cause of error in the Timekeeper the
 
 \li\ CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 trial resumed an interruption from an accident to William 
 Harrison the suavity and condescension he experiences 
 from his Sovereign on that occasion extract from a letter, 
 written at the time the trial recommences de novo is 
 extended from six weeks to ten, and the reason for it 
 his Majesty held that the trial directed by the 12th of 
 Queen Anne, or some fair equivalent for it, could not be 
 departed from without manifest injustice 1 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 William Harrison waits on the Commissioners to report 
 the trial the King had authorized him to use his name 
 and sanction for the statement an examination of Mr. 
 Kendal's Timekeeper was also successful he prays them 
 to grant a certificate a mistaken persuasion would circu- 
 late his Majesty's personal attention to the subject excites 
 no deference in the Board : dissembled motives of Lord 
 Sandwich and Dr. Maskelyne personal animosity in- 
 dulged under public pretexts a copy should have been 
 furnished to the British Museum what passed could have 
 happened in no other country proceedings on the reading 
 of the Memorial a clencher for the Claimant's Patron 
 they overlook Mr. Kendal's Timekeeper pervert their 
 right to decide as Commissioners they knew their answer 
 would be reported at Buckingham House how it might 
 be interpreted an allusion to certain puritanical writers 
 the good subjects of Richard Cromwell how would 
 Montesqieu have treated the question ? a novel Saturna- 
 lia no dispassionate man would have withheld due praise 
 from the Sovereign he would have been blameless to 
 Timon of Athens a list of the Commissioners present at 
 the Board, November 28th, 1772 the Mathematicians
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 a majority on the occasion Lord Chesterfield's vague 
 defence of clergymen not to be expected that they should 
 be exempt from reproach isolated merit of this Prince a 
 fit theme for the pulpit he had neglected to ask leave of 
 
 the Commissioners bad example of the Collegians four 
 
 months' delay a sentiment of Francis I. rarity of such 
 self-command among distinguished men Charles II. and 
 other monarchs not so placable had George 3rd been 
 more irritable? a supposed case for the Attorney, or the 
 Solicitor General cannot the King commit for contempt, 
 as well as the Judges who represent him on his bench at 
 Westminster? . , ,.18 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A remark connected with the popular cry of " Wilkes 
 and liberty" at that period rashness of the Commissioners 
 William Harrison's version of the affair the Consul 
 and Antiochus the younger Harrison's conduct tends 
 much to avert the serious consequences that might have 
 ensued the Commissioners were provoking a trial of 
 strength with the Crown the Collegians would have much 
 disgusted their friend Tully the firmness of the King 
 might have been severely illustrated irritated and de- 
 grading motives of the opposed party at the Board their 
 conduct would have been reprobated in all our courts of 
 justice the prudence of the Claimant's Son blunts the 
 edge of the mischief a petition to Parliament becomes 
 necessary measures taken for its success Lord North 
 is written to his apathy an expedient to rouse his Lord- 
 ship's attention ; but it fails the Author's surprise at that 
 
 particular inattention of the Treasury bench expected 
 
 contest on the second reading of the petition the gentle-
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag; 
 
 men of the opposition volunteer their services George 3rd 
 not a friend by halves ; a passage in a letter illustrating it 
 the junior Harrison not conversant with books beyond 
 his avocations Mr. Burke and Sir George Saville advo- 
 cate the justice of the claim they knew not the origin of 
 the Act to amend, explain and alter that of the l_ili 
 Queen Anne Lord North is neutral, but might have 
 enquired of his Maje.sty on the subject coincidence be- 
 tween Mr. Burke's opinion and the king's; who is with- 
 held by the forms of the constitution from personal inter- 
 ference he would have given his testimony under an 
 inferior title, had it been necessary he is not quite so 
 successful as he sought for, and the causes the original 
 advances of money were to be included in the reward 
 nothing said about the right of property in the work Lord 
 Morton decides the question his own way incapacity of 
 that nobleman the King's discriminating view of the sub- 
 ject William Harrison prints extracts from certain Acts 
 of Parliament for circulation in both Houses the Peti- 
 tioner had relinquished every other professional advantage 
 was well-entitled to receive the grant without deduction 
 the younger Harrison accounts to his correspondent for 
 this partial failure unaccountable demeanour of Lord 
 North the placability of his royal master the self-denial 
 of this Monarch far greater than that of the Gentlemen 
 who took up the cause of John Harrison 43 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Pleasant winding up of the log-book value of a friend 
 like George 3rd to the unfortunate few exemplary per- 
 sons willing to incur so much inconvenience as must have 
 resulted from the resolution the King took firmness and
 
 CONTENTS. xlvii 
 
 Page 
 
 consistency of his character many a poor fellow would 
 covet such aid Wolcot, or Peter Pindar, enabled to get 
 his bread by his scurrility, while an action of so much merit 
 is unknown the default an inuendo on the courtiers of 
 that day, and on some Fellows of the Royal Society 
 the adulatory compliments to Princes unnecessary here 
 what may be effected by a stroke of the pen the malignity 
 
 of Junius exposed his panic should he be discovered a 
 
 quotation from his letters commented on flattery a losing 
 speculation the Author has waited in vain for some dis- 
 closure from the private letters, or memoranda, of the 
 men of note near his Majesty's person frivolous engage- 
 ments of Prince George Ashmole's diary some benefi- 
 cial agent much wanted, to extend our knowledge of this 
 Monarch it becomes obligatory on the Author to resort 
 to the press ambition of the Princess Dowager of Wales 
 and the Earl of Bute independent spirit of George 3rd 
 his virtues very imperfectly known an allusion to the 
 Duke of Sully, to a Boswell, and to Mr. Croker Prince 
 Frederic and Bub Dodington love of justice in the King, 
 and his cultivated intellect his public life given by various 
 writers, but our knowledge of his private worth extremely 
 defective Fenelon wrote chiefly for Princes ; the present 
 work blends with the same purpose an allusion to the 
 history of the preceding transactions, and to the Earl of 
 Morton a matter of fact more likely to impress the 
 reader than inventive resources, however ingenious 
 analogy between the purpose of the Telemachus and the 
 first intention of these MEMOIRS to "teach the young 
 idea how to shoot;" when the mark involves the safety 
 of multitudes the middle and higher ranks of society may 
 profit by the example here George 3rd differed from 
 other monarchs like "good Aurelius" Britain the only 
 country that contemned the power of Buonaparte a 
 ijcuuine British King has some features not recognized in
 
 xlviii CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 history the House of Brunswic raised to a distinction 
 not surpassed by any dynasty recorded may it continue 
 to flourish through revolving centuries 69 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 1. Remarks on a Pamphlet published under the 
 
 authority of the Board of Longitude 89 
 
 No. 2. A letter to Dr. Demainbury (the King's Astrono- 
 mer at Richmond) 191 
 
 No. 3. Voyage in the Deptford man of war to Madeira, 
 and from Madeira to Jamaica accuracy of the 
 Timekeeper; and the return, with a very tempestu- 
 ous passage, in the Merlin sloop 201 
 
 No. 4. A letter from Lieutenant A. Howe, on the com- 
 parative merits of the Lunar process for finding 
 the Longitude, and that by Chronometry 20G 
 
 No. 5. A quotation from a periodical. A digression in 
 blank verse, on the fate of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 
 and some remarks on monumental honours 203 
 
 No. 6. On the character of Mr. George Graham 214 
 
 No. 7. Some remarks on the respective characters of 
 George 3rd and Dr. Samuel Johnson ; suggested 
 by Mr. Croker's annotations on the biography of 
 the Moralist 220 
 
 No. 8. A Note on Junius and Wolcot 229 
 
 No. 9. Anecdotes of George IV. when Prince of Wales. 238 
 
 No. 10. Observations on the injurious and oppressive 
 effects of a claim under the copy-right Act from 
 eleven colleges or libraries 252
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 64, line 3rd in the Note for latter read letter. 
 138, at the bottom for Orxford read Orford. 
 160, line 7th from the bottom for pro found read projund. 
 174, line 7th in the Note for after read often. 
 224, line 5th for from America read from North America.
 
 
 ALL prospect of any further reliance on a Commis- 
 sion of Longitude, presided at, and controlled, by 
 two individuals at enmity with the Claimant, being 
 thus extinguished ; the general and fair report 
 which their Sovereign had acquired of a high sense 
 of equity, may be conceived to have led the Father 
 and Son, after suitable reflection, to decide on an 
 application to that quarter in their desponding 
 situation. John Harrison being wholly domestic, 
 was probably not much acquainted with Dr. 
 Demainbury, a Swiss by birth, his Majesty's 
 astronomer at Richmond ; a gentleman of scientific 
 abilities, but chiefly known at present by his mar- 
 riage with the sister of John Home Tooke having 
 exposed him to some illiberal epithets from the 
 popular demagogue, Wilkes, when they were point- 
 edly opposed in politics.* A similarity of pursuits, 
 William Harrison being no mean proficient in 
 astronomy, having brought on an intimacy with 
 the Doctor, who would be disposed to check the 
 oppressive conduct of his opponent at Flamstead 
 
 *Horne Tooke was at that time a noted Tory in his party 
 opinions. 
 
 B
 
 Hill, and who knowing 1 the sentiments his Majesty 
 expressed in conversation on a subject in which he 
 took uncommon interest, could safely predict the 
 result, were a statement of John Harrison's case to 
 be addressed to himself in such a form, that he 
 could, with the gracious permission of his Master,* 
 
 * George 3rd was no stranger to the person of John H arrison , 
 whose fame and success had several years before given him a 
 curiosity to see and converse with so extraordinary a subject ; 
 \\lio being honoured with a message to that eflVct, \v;iited on 
 his Majesty at Buckingham House, attended by his Son. The 
 particular date of this interview cannot be ascertained ; the 
 Author conjectures it to have been after the return from 
 Barbadoes, as it appears to coincide in time, that the King was 
 found surrounded by his then infant family through whom the 
 Old Man, plainly dressed, but with exemplary neatness, as he 
 always was, passed unnoticed to so flattering a colloquy : 
 while the Son, who, like most young men who do not know the 
 world, had imagined it was necessary to be fine in order to be 
 introduced to the King, having equipped himself with a laced 
 suit, of the fashion of that day, and being mistaken by the 
 i oy;il children for a nobleman, they hung round him and caught 
 his hand. The conversations of those theologians and meta- 
 physicians. Dr. Beattie, and the Chief Justice of CheMt i . 
 were preserved by such interlocutors, and Dr. Johnson's inter- 
 view in the library was not lost to the public ; but in this 
 affair neither the Father nor Son having a tincture of letters, 
 what passed between the Monarch and a genius so gifted in his 
 <iw n department is unknown. It may be presumed however to 
 have been gratifying both to the Prince and the subject; and 
 it is not unlikely that the recollection of the condescension our 
 Mechanician experienced on this occasion contributed to the 
 final resolution he took, when cut eft" from all hope of justice 
 Grorcr HaMingo, Ksqviire.
 
 read, or otherwise submit it to him : a letter accor- 
 dingly, adapted to explain the unmerited and in- 
 surmountable difficulties the dilemma into which 
 the Applicant had got by relying- on the famous act 
 of Parliament, so often quoted, was transmitted to 
 the Doctor;* the immediate consequence of which 
 was that the King' sent for the junior Harrison to 
 Windsor, and interrogated him closely on this 
 recapitulated case of his Father. They seem to 
 have risked injuring their plea, by the strong lan- 
 guage applied to the conduct of the Commissioners 
 of Longitude ; but the treatment they complained 
 of, did not require much precaution to expose. The 
 party business into which the proceedings of their 
 Boards had wholly deviated from the time when it 
 was probable the candidate would achieve the 
 discovery sought, was commented on in the Preface, 
 as likewise, the disgracefully oppressive conduct of 
 the Nobleman who figures in these MEMOIRS as 
 if he had not a drop of" the milk of human kindness" 
 in his composition, nor yet the commonest sense of 
 equity ; for many a pothouse oracle would have 
 allowed some consideration to the fact that the 
 Commissioners themselves (we are justified in 
 repeating it) had invariably interpreted, and by 
 
 by the conduct of his personal enemies at the Board of Longi- 
 tude, to address himself to that superior who was considered 
 not less the support of the attribute in his palace than on Banco 
 Regis. 
 
 *It is given as No. 2 in the Appendix. 
 
 B 2
 
 the tangible logic of pecuniary advances, had always 
 led the Claimant to construe the 12th of Queen 
 Anne consonant to what afterwards appeared to be 
 the opinion of the Crown Lawyers. The pretence 
 of attaching- no importance to the repeated refusals 
 of the loan of the Timekeeper, by excluding them 
 from their minutes, could influence no one outside 
 of the apartment where this oppression, so remark- 
 ably disgraceful towards a man of his years. was 
 sanctioned, and least of all George 3rd, who un- 
 derstood the subject, and whose resentment might 
 have been anticipated, had he been present at their 
 conferences with closed doors. Although not 
 acquainted with the origin of Lord Morton's inde- 
 fensible conduct, the King could not respect a 
 majority at the Commission of Longitude, which 
 had si, long been implicitly ruled by so overbearing 
 a character; by whom in fact, though not in form, 
 all the powers of these public functionaries were 
 exercised. The spirit of his oppressive resolves 
 seemed, after his demise, to have been fully trans- 
 mitted to the predominant party at the Board, or 
 how could they with any regard to decency, require 
 that the Timekeeper, last completed, should be 
 tried by Dr. Maskelyne, and no one else ? 
 
 Among the printed tracts which this remarkable 
 atVair gave occasion for, on the part of the Claimant, 
 \\.is one published two or three years before the 
 date of the letter to Dr. Demainbury, and in the 
 argument the following passage occurs. " This \\ a^
 
 " all the answer he could ever obtain on these points, 
 " while the late President of the Royal Society, 
 " who had great influence at the Board of Longitude, 
 " was avowing, in all companies, a resolution to 
 " insist on sending him to the most distant and 
 *' inhospitable parts of the world, before he should 
 "receive the rest of the reward." After having- 
 ceased to be a Commissioner, and consequently 
 having no more right to interfere with the concerns 
 of the Board than any other person outside the door 
 of their apartment, it is impossible to divest such 
 intermeddling of malevolent misgivings and the 
 meanest personal enmity. " After having lost the 
 " brief authority with which he was armed, he could 
 " not desist from playing fantastic tricks before high 
 " heaven !" We would omit the context ; but if he 
 did not " make the angels weep," this callous 
 dishonour to the northern peerage surcharged with 
 anguish the excellent old man, who had been above 
 forty years dependant on the national pledge. As 
 the division on any disputed question before the 
 Board is never stated on their minutes, it results 
 that, with the exception of Sir John Cust, the 
 Manager may be allowed to have swept off the 
 votes of the Admirals and the Civilians (and the 
 Lunar junta were always on satisfactory terms with 
 their good friend.) How this Nobleman of limited 
 understanding, and of very dubious scientific pre- 
 tensions, could drive the world before him, in this 
 way, is a point, which the Author, leaving to more 
 
 B3
 
 6 
 
 competent pens, finds that though the Inventor of 
 the Timekeeper compromised his provision tor the 
 different effects of heat and cold as much as he 
 could; yet as the 12th of Queen Anne had prescri- 
 bed a voyage to the tropics for the final adjudication 
 of the reward, it followed, that if necessitated to 
 give the compensation part of his machine a bias 
 to counteract one climate more than another, his 
 attention must have been directed to the equinoctial 
 line, rather than to the arctic circle.* Hence his 
 Majesty's reasoning as probably the reader will, 
 and finding that the ex-|>ivsidrnt, then deceased, 
 but who seemed to have left the Prophet's mantle 
 to the party at the Board jealous of the mechanics, 
 had insisted on William Harrison and a Time- 
 keeper beiiii- sent to Hudson's Bay, testified his 
 indignation at so gross a departure from the origi- 
 nal implied compact with any person who should 
 undertake the discovery of the Longitude. "These 
 people have been cruelly treated;" he was heard to 
 say, as if interlocuting with himself; he then turned 
 towards the applicant, addressing him by his sur- 
 name, with this remarkable and laconic intimation 
 " By God, Harrison, I will see you righted :" 
 an expression the author would have felt reluctant 
 
 *A circumstance unknown in the time of John Harrison, 
 but which recent observations in the Polar Seas has brought 
 to notice, and which might have had a material effect in a trial 
 to that quarter, is that extreme cold has a considerable ten- 
 dency to accelerate the motion of the chronometers taken out.
 
 to quote, had he thought it came under the descrip- 
 tion of common, or prophane swearing 1 ; a weakness, 
 which, amidst the most gross and exaggerated per- 
 vertions of his colloquial intercourse, the low satirist 
 Wolcot, otherwise, Peter Pindar, never imputed 
 to this injured monarch: whose well known chris- 
 tian piety, we should add, sufficiently indicates that 
 the words were not lightly used, but became, in 
 their intention (Deo volente) a pledge, the redemp- 
 tion of which may justly excite the curiosity of the 
 public. This gracious interview, by the encourage- 
 ment it afforded, was retained in memory to a late 
 period by William Harrison, whose longevity ex- 
 ceeded that of his Father. It showed that the 
 loftiest station in the community, and the most 
 remote disparity of relative circumstances prevented 
 not " George the good" from participating in the 
 well founded anxiety of two individuals situated as 
 these were, by having sacrificed every other pros- 
 pect in life to that of accomplishing this national 
 desideratum. 
 
 The application for a trial of the Timekeeper at 
 the Observatory in Richmond Park, coinciding 
 with his Majesty's desire to appreciate the merits 
 of the machine by his own inspection, he chose it 
 should be of six weeks duration, the usual period 
 of a voyage to the West Indies, that having been 
 the standard prescribed by the Act of 1714, which 
 he reprobated so sinister a deviation from, without 
 the consent oj the Candidate. Nor was he more
 
 favourable to the published report of proceedings 
 at Flamstead Hill; since it was manifestly unjust 
 to make the Inventor responsible for an uncontrol- 
 led examination by a Lunar Candidate, when he 
 distinctly showed the untitness of the Timekeeper, 
 at that period, for such a test. Indeed his Majesty's 
 desire to try the one recently completed was of itself 
 presumptive evidence of bis dissatisfaction with tin- 
 conduct of the Commissioners, to whom he was 
 setting- an example of probity towards the claimant, 
 which, under tin- domination of the Karl of Morton, 
 they seem entirely to have lost si^ht of: nor once 
 to have reflected that he had his rights as well as 
 the public. 
 
 The Watch having- been previously prepared, 
 instead of being- entrapped from the Inventor, 
 without any knowledg-e of the schemes of the JMan- 
 '/-</, and bis unsuccesful Lunar associate, as in 
 the former instance, the arrangement was soon 
 made. The King- took the key of one of the three 
 locks attached to the box in which the machine was 
 kept; the Astronomer, or his representative, had 
 the second, and William Harrison, who attended 
 on behalf of his Father, the third key. This dis- 
 position of concerns however may be rather con- 
 sidered as intended to constrain the parties to due 
 attendance at the meridian hour, than as meant for 
 a check, which there was little occasion for when 
 all wished well to the result. It had been widely 
 different at Greenwich, where, when judg-ed of by
 
 9 
 
 their overt acts, neither Lord Morton, nor Dr. 
 Maskelyne, wished any good to a plan that inter- 
 fered with their own more rational purposes.* 
 
 We are now to suppose the trial at Richmond 
 commenced; the very first day, however, proved 
 so inauspicious that the Timekeeper was found to 
 have erred to a degree that would have rendered it 
 quite useless for its intended purpose, and on the 
 second day it was no better : but if the reader an- 
 ticipates a portion of that fretful impatience which 
 usually characterizes the spoiled children of afflu- 
 ence, taking- into account moreover the predispo- 
 sing 1 misfortune, that the subject of these pages had 
 been early acknowledged heir apparent to the crown 
 
 * The absurdity of such a train of precautions as Lord Mor- 
 ton projected for the examination of the Timekeeper, while 
 the clock was left entirely out of the question, was abundantly 
 ridiculous when the Astronomer Royal was regarded by John 
 Harrison as his sworn enemy and rival ; but under different 
 circumstances, either with respect to the Clock, or the Watch, 
 he could and would rely on the fair dealing of his neighbour, 
 and felt not that anxiety with which he had been oppressed 
 while a scrutiny, to be reported to the public (if unfavourable) 
 was going on, for which his enemies had the meanness to take 
 him wholly unprepared. There was no necessity, at Rich- 
 mond, for a scrupulous observance of those forms, (except as 
 regarded the meridian hour,) the neglect of which at Flamstead 
 Hill, in the instance of the clock, was held up by the Author 
 to unqualified, and to merited contempt, as he thinks. The 
 present examination, in this point of view, coincided with 
 that decorous observance so necessary and desirable to be 
 preserved towards the King, or his agents.
 
 10 
 
 of a powerful empire, and that we do not expect 
 from princes, in common, that practical acquain- 
 tance with the world by which an Alfred, a Henri 
 quartre, a Frederic III. or Cromwell, became con- 
 spicuous for an intimate knowledge of mankind, 
 and for that self command, in a certain sense, 
 which usually results from adversity: or from the 
 necessity of appreciating the views and wants of 
 others continually inculcated in private life: as- 
 suredly, if he expects to find His Majesty, on the 
 awkward discovery just mentioned, deemed it in- 
 expedient, not without som- rest ntment, to sacri- 
 fice his time and patience to so futile a purpose as 
 this specimen of the machine promised, when also 
 the third, and even the fourth day, led to the same 
 conclusion, he either knew nothing of George the 
 Third, or his assumptions were mediately derived 
 from the worthless satirist before mentioned, whose 
 turgid exaggerations of the colloquial intercourse of 
 this 'friend of mankind, and of merit/ like the 
 wares of his own razor vender, the public may thus 
 be convinced were 'made to sell' without the least 
 regard to the truth of their edge. In opposition 
 to the doggrel hocus-pocus of Wolcot, who never 
 was an auricular witness of what he pretends to 
 recount, the present data coming in a regular form, 
 show that this Monarch's deportment, in what may 
 be called the private relations of society, would 
 have been respected in proportion as it was known. 
 Severe as the test described was, the sentiments of
 
 11 
 
 the King, or that most useful aggregate of qualities 
 comprised in the term, steadiness, were not appa- 
 rently shaken by so unlocked for a failure in the 
 anticipated correctness of the machine; which he 
 attributed to the mal -practices of some sinister 
 agent he appeared anxious to discover: or to one 
 of those accidents no human prudence could guard 
 against. In brief, with a refinement on humanity 
 equally creditable to his head and his heart, this 
 Prince was willing to ascribe the default to any 
 cause rather than a defect in the construction of the 
 Timekeeper, which would have reduced its value 
 below the utility of those commonly made for the 
 pocket. For he rightly judged, that the aged 
 mechanician, whose mind was wrapped up in the 
 success, and consequent reputation of his discovery, 
 would not long have survived the disgrace, had so 
 unexpected a sequel been imputed to his incompe- 
 tency for what he had undertaken. 
 
 The reader, if he has himself cherished and ma- 
 tured a scheme of magnitude, on which both fame 
 and emolument depended; or if he has witnessed 
 in others that inquietude, that anguish, compre- 
 hensively denoted when we repeat that 'hope de- 
 ferred maketh the heart sick,' may fully conceive 
 the painful suspense of John Harrison, as well as 
 his solicitude to exculpate himself before so august 
 an inspector of his deserts, who, when the insignia 
 of royalty were laid aside, condescended to become 
 the active and zealous friend of a humble man of 
 science.
 
 1-J 
 
 As the Timekeeper had been regulated, and iu 
 correctness ascertained, by the Inventor, before it 
 \vas sent to Richmond, the question, of equal in- 
 terest and difficulty, was how to account for so 
 strange and ruinous an error, which continued un- 
 abated on the fourth day. At this time, William 
 Harrison, whodoubtlt >s had conferred on the afiair 
 with his Father, suggested that the cause must be 
 attraction. No sooner \\as the idea started, but 
 his Majesty, on a sudden recollection, exclaimed 
 he had found it out; and, in liis ardour, instead 
 of directing either of the persons before him to do 
 that office, he hastened liiinxlf to open the door of 
 a closet in the apartment, where appeared three 
 most po\\ rful combinations of loadstones, which 
 it \vas unaccountably forgotten had been deposited 
 there; and the effect of which left so unlocked for 
 a disappointment no longer a mystery;* but it 
 
 * The surprising neglect in not removing these loadstones, 
 neither the King nor William Harrison appear to have thought 
 otherwise than entirely accidental. It did not interrupt the 
 civilities that passed between the family of the latter and the 
 young folks of Dr. Demainbury. The probable cause of an 
 oversight so totally ruinous as it might have proved, to the 
 scrutiny commenced, was, that the Doctor being subject to 
 tits of the gout, and his Son (a gentleman about the age of 
 thirty) attending for him at those times, the pungency of an 
 attack from that malady prejudiced the recollection of the 
 Astronomer so much as to lead to this deficiency in the instruc- 
 tions he would give his representative: at the same time it 
 becomes a remarkable illustration of the truism on what 
 casual incidents the most momentous concerns of an individual, 
 and inclusively those of the public, often depend.
 
 13 
 
 was not easy to say whether the relief to the i'ather 
 and son, or the pleasure to the King was greatest, 
 at so satisfactory an explanation. 
 
 Four days, in this manner, proving abortive, the 
 examination recommenced; and it would appear 
 that having calculated the regular calls on his time, 
 his Majesty suffered no unnecessary engagement, 
 or impediment, to interfere with his consistent 
 purpose, which showed him punctual to the meri- 
 dian hour, when the Timekeeper was to be com- 
 pared with the astronomical clock, or with the sun; 
 and the scrutiny proceeded as propitiously as could 
 be desired for above three weeks, when an unex- 
 pected interruption occured. William Harrison 
 being in the daily practice of travelling between 
 London and Richmond, injured his arm by some 
 accident, in such a manner, that the wound fes- 
 tering, incommoded him much, besides the danger 
 of irritating it; but he was not confined to the 
 house, and it might have been suggested, that if 
 he had taken lodgings near Kew Park, an easy 
 walk to the observatory would not have prejudiced 
 his recovery. But his Majesty understanding it 
 would be equally inconvenient to Mr. Harrison to 
 be separated from his family, or to remove them 
 from town, acquiesced in his dutiful representation 
 of the circumstance; gave up the month he had 
 already attended as a nullity; and, with unequalled 
 sauvity and condescension, (for where was the pa- 
 rallel in a crowned head ?) agreed, that as soon as
 
 14 
 
 the invalid found himself capable of renewing his 
 attendance the trial should recommence de novo. 
 
 At that period, William Harrison, in a letter to 
 his father in law,* after apprizing him of the acci- 
 dent, and consequent injury to his arm, continued 
 as follows: "I informed his Majesty of it, who, 
 with his usual goodness, was pleased to order our 
 trial to be put off till my health should be suffi- 
 ciently re-established." 
 
 We may pause here, to ask Has the united 
 diligence of a Hawkins and a Boswell, aided lat- 
 terly by the industry and tact of Mr. Croker, elicited 
 any particular in the life of 'our great lexicogra- 
 pher and moralist' of superior, nay, of equal inte- 
 rest to this most creditable TRAIT in George 3rd, 
 totally unknown as it is, and might for ever have 
 
 * This was Mr. Robert Atkinson, of Hatfield Chace, in 
 Yorkshire, who, from the interest he took in the result of the 
 trial, though not conversant with the subject, desired to know 
 what was going on, and the letters having been preserved in 
 the family, were presented to the Author some years ago. 
 Mr. Neale entitled lii-, captivating work 'The Romance of 
 History,' (avowedly as such) and there are passages in this 
 narrative which strain belief, and might have brought the 
 writer under the imputation of dabbling in the romance of 
 regal biography, had not the discovery of these letters oppor- 
 tunely relieved him from this undesirable predicament. A 
 caution in point may be recollected. Young Stanhope is 
 advised by his Father to avoid asserting any thing which, 
 though he might himself know it to be perfectly true, was too 
 surprising to be credible without authentic support, and would 
 expose his veracity to be questioned, which no man likes.
 
 Jo 
 
 remained, but for a concurrence of fortuitous cir- 
 cumstances in the next century ?* 
 
 The renewed examination, to which it may be 
 superfluous to say, his Majesty attended with the 
 
 *Dr. Johnson benefitted the world by accident, it may be said, 
 and not of afore-thought; for, according to Sir John, who 
 expresses some astonishment at the circumstance, he could 
 never be brought to acknowledge any higher motive for wri- 
 ting than money. It was to an occasion when he wanted the 
 needful that we owe his Rasselas, and had he originally suc- 
 ceeded in procuring a place of 70 a year, in Ireland, he 
 would never have been heard of. It is not too much therefore, 
 to assume, that we are indebted to the physical wants of the 
 author of the Rambler for the mental entertainment he dis- 
 penses; and, in this view, no disparity can be greater than 
 the respective merits of the sovereign and the subject: yet 
 while particulars of dubious importance, regarding the latter, 
 continue to be diurnally recorded, a conduct which deserved 
 to be treasured in the recollection of those that knew of it ; 
 and to have been immortalized by the pen of him who ' wrote 
 for all ages,' as Ben Jonson said of his friend, is consigned to 
 the obliterating waters of Lethe, like some play never heard 
 of after the first night it was brought forward. If the repeated 
 story of the Doctor's standing a few hours bareheaded at a 
 book-stall in foul weather, by way of penance for his former 
 offence to his Father, is placed in juxta position with the self 
 denial of the King for days, weeks, and even months pending 
 the present concern, can the biographers of the imitator of 
 Juvenal find much to approve in the first instance, without 
 acknowledging far more commendation due to the Monarch 
 thus engrossed by humane and beneficial purposes, which 
 called for most of the virtues that do honour to the cottage as 
 well as to the palace. [These considerations are further illus- 
 trated at No. 7 in the Appendix.]
 
 16 
 
 punctuality as before, proved, extremely fa- 
 vourable for the Timekeeper; and thence seemed 
 a source of no small satisfaction to the regal astro- 
 nomer. But as the contract he had imposed on 
 himself was for six weeks (the common length of a 
 West India voyage) and a month had been fruit- 
 Uly lost, prior to the completion of that time, it 
 would not be supposed the King felt any desire to 
 deviate from the agreement, by extending the pe- 
 riod settled. Those who would have reasoned thus, 
 however, knew nothing of George 3rd, than whom 
 no man was more consistent to his purpose; no 
 calculation of the inconvenience to himself (which 
 must have been frequent) was suffered to interfere 
 with the important object he kept in view, and 
 hence, at the expiration of the time in reference, 
 he is found forthwith proposing to extend the six 
 weeks to eight. Nay, when the eight weeks were 
 concluded, tins practical philosopher, vindicating 
 the energy of his character, would have those eight 
 weeks enlarged to ten; in order, as he said, to 
 prevent any cavilling among- those who held, with 
 him, that the 12th of Queen Anne should be con- 
 sidered as defining the duration of the trial. 
 Whether that was a proper one, or the contrary, 
 had nothing to do with the question, after the Can- 
 didate had staked the labour of the prime of his life 
 on the faith of this legislative pledge, with the en- 
 couragement and assistance of the Commissioners 
 of Longitude. From these ulterior circumstances
 
 t 
 
 17 
 
 the original appropriation of six weeks to the busi- 
 ness reached fourteen more than double what the 
 contract called for, had not this correct philanthro- 
 pist (and father of his people) interpreted it with a 
 bearing wholly different from that which the Board 
 had adopted by the former direction of the Earl of 
 Morton: and this may recal the emphatical man- 
 ner in which he declared to the representative of 
 John Harrison, that he ' would see him righted.'
 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IT now becomes expedient to annihilate a portion 
 of time and >paer, n<t for the ludicrous purpose 
 quoted in the Bathos, but to bring William Har- 
 rixui before the next Board of Longitude, Novem- 
 ber 28th, 1772, with a memorial from his Father; 
 in which, of course, the attention of the Commis- 
 sioners was especially requested to a statement of 
 his having made another Timekeeper (with an 
 improvement, which is described) the error of 
 which in a trial of ten weeks at Richmond, with 
 his Majesty's permission, was very considerably 
 within the nearest limits prescribed by the Act of 
 the 12th of Queen Anne.* He ini^lit have added, 
 but refrains from it (what was sufficiently known) 
 that the King had authorized him to use his name 
 and sanction in the fullest manner in confirmation 
 of the previous opinion he had entertained of his la- 
 bours. He had precedingly adverted to a trial of Mr. 
 Kendall's Watch, which was also favourable; he 
 therefore humbly hopes these results will be satisfac- 
 tory prays them to grant him a certificate, &c. 
 
 * The error of the Timekeeper in the (en weeks was four 
 and a half seconds.
 
 19 
 
 With those who contemplate the passing 1 scene 
 in an abstract view, the general persuasion would 
 be, that the most distinguished authority referred 
 to by the memorialist would level the way to the 
 object sought; that the deference the respect 
 which would be paid to the daily personal atten- 
 dance, which it was known the King had given to 
 this business, would be a rallying point round 
 which jarring opinions might concentrate as to a 
 focus, to do justice to the exemplary and patient 
 investigation which their Sovereign had devoted to 
 this scientific concern; yet not even a trace of the 
 least concession, that would be expected, is disco- 
 verable in the proceeding's of these men of educa- 
 tion, as they were all to be presumed, and many of 
 them of learned designations. It was not the 
 Longitude (for that seemed sent to the place the 
 polite preacher scrupled to name) it was a personal 
 affair, viz: John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, and 
 Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, versus John 
 Harrison and his illustrious supporter. The first 
 of these Commissioners, for reasons that elude 
 research, had found himself affronted, by being 
 reminded of his impressive tautological assurance; 
 and the other had been stung to the quick by being 
 challenged to produce his Lunar observations made 
 during the voyage to Barbadoes, which, notwith- 
 standing his confident behaviour at that Island, 
 did not bear him out. The rest of the majority at 
 the Board, principally formed of the Professors of
 
 abstract sciences, as our Mechanician termed them, 
 might be regarded as so many mutes, metaphori- 
 cally furnished with the bowstring 1 , to strangle and 
 distort any opinions unfavourable to their principals. 
 The power of the Commissioners, as such, being 
 superior to tliat of the crown, their proceedings 
 being cognizable only by Parliament, the individu- 
 als, alluded to, could indulge their private animo- 
 sity under a public pretext, as Lord Morton had 
 done before them; yet it can scarcely be. supposed 
 thev would take their /est of re\eni-e with so little 
 
 w 
 
 regard to decency, that in aim ing a knoc -k-down 
 blow at the aged Claimant, they were indifferent 
 
 / 
 
 if it drew blood into the cheeks oi his extraordinary 
 friend and adviser. So it is, however, their own 
 minutes testify this reckless audacity ; and a copy 
 of them should have been furnished to the British 
 Museum, and other public repositories for the be- 
 nefit of those writers, or readers, who study the 
 mixed constitution of these kingdoms; for the 
 affair is so itisuiated it could have happened in no 
 other country on earth: certainly not at the period 
 in question. 
 
 At a meeting, &c., November 28th, 1772, 
 ' A memorial from Mr. John Harrison, of this 
 ' day's date, was read, setting forth that he has 
 4 made another Watch, with some improvements, 
 4 which had by the King's permission undergone a 
 ' trial of ten weeks at His Majesty's Observatory 
 ' at Richmond : at the same time enclosing a copy
 
 21 
 
 4 of the result of the said trial; during- the whole of 
 ' which, as he alleges, it went very considerably 
 
 * within the nearest limits prescribed by the 12th of 
 ' Queen Anne, and therefore praying- (as he hopes 
 
 * the trial will be satisfactory) to have a certificate 
 for the remainder of the reward. And the said 
 
 * Mr. Harrison's Son, who was attending 1 , was called 
 ' in, and acquainted that the Board do not think 
 ' fit to make any alteration in the mode which they 
 
 * have already fixed upon for the trial of his Father's 
 
 * Timekeeper ; and that no regard will be shewn to 
 
 * the result of any trial made of them in any other 
 ' way.' 
 
 From a copy of the memorial, before the Author, 
 it appears they were not correct in making 1 him lay 
 all the stress upon the result of this trial ; for he 
 also refers them to another, and of Mr. Kendall's 
 Watch, which came likewise, within the nearest 
 limits of the Act, but which in their haste to de- 
 molish the Memorializer's expectations, notwith- 
 standing the high quarter he was supported from, 
 they pass by. Had they confined themselves to 
 declaring, ' that they did not think fit to make any 
 ' alteration in the mode of trial they had fixed on,' 
 it might have been alleged they were asserting their 
 privilege to decide, as Commissioners, but the 
 clencher that follows is redundant, unnecessary, 
 and unpardonably hostile towards the applicant's 
 gracious Patron; who, whatever difference of opini- 
 on might prevail, was manifestly entitled to the 

 
 J-J 
 
 most decorous consideration, aiid respectful de- 
 portment, from these public functionaries. The 
 words * no regard will be shewn to the result of any 
 trial made of them in any other way:' though 
 nominally addressed to William Harrison, they 
 knew it would be his duty to report as early as he 
 could at Buckingham House; where they might 
 be correctly rendered that a trial under His Ma- 
 jesty's immediate and assiduous inspection was not 
 worth a kickshaw that if he had any reliance on 
 the service he might do the Claimant by such a 
 proceeding, he might as well have j-m-n him a 
 rope to bang himself; that they troubled not them- 
 selves about any proceedings he mi^ht think pro- 
 per to adopt, with n i^ard to the Timekeeper; and 
 that he was welcome to have his labour for his 
 reward, if he chose ! 
 
 Such a demonstration in the seventeenth century 
 would have been worthy the pens of 
 
 Withers, Prynn and Vickers, 
 
 Inspir'd with ale, or viler liqours : 
 
 and nearer our time might be thought to savour 
 more of Jacobin insolence than of that loyalty, 
 which yet, the parties concerned, no doubt, like 
 erst the good subjects of Richard Cromwell, would 
 have professed in all due form.* How Montesqieu, 
 
 * Richard Cromwell in his retirement at Cheshunt, or at 
 Hursley, under an assumed name, was difficult of access to 
 the neighbouring gentlemen. The desire to know a person 
 who had experienced such an extraordinary reverse of fortune 
 
 *
 
 23 
 
 who calls England ' u republic disguised under the 
 form of a monarchy,' and who finds the ruling prin- 
 ciple in despotic governments is fear, in monarchies 
 honour, and in republics virtue, would have recon- 
 ciled this strange aberration from self-control with 
 his definition, the Author knows not; but he thinks 
 it his duty to give the names of those who revelled 
 in 'loud misrule' at so novel a Saturnalia; and 
 should it happen that their descendants or represen- 
 tatives possess any papers connected with a scene in 
 
 was common among them, but this motive he was aware of, 
 and although of a sociable turn, felt disposed to repulse their 
 advances. He had however a chosen set, with whom he was 
 wont to pass the cheerful bottle round, and if, by much per- 
 suasion, he was induced to add another good fellow to his con- 
 clave, the new comer was always welcomed by having to pass 
 through a special initiatory process. He came on an appoin- 
 ted day, and the glass having circulated till the party grew 
 mellow, the ex Protector suddenly took the candles and fol- 
 lowed by the company, ascended to a garret where no furni- 
 ture appeared but an old trunk ; the lid of which each in his 
 turn pressed with the most ignoble part about him, and while 
 so seated drank prosperity to the good people of Old England. 
 After which, the trunk being opened, was found filled with 
 addresses from a great number of towns, corporations, and 
 sundry folks, all tendering their lives, fortunes, and, what not ? 
 with the most decorous and befitting promptitude to Richard, 
 
 by the grace of Successor to our Lord Protector Oliver, 
 
 of blessed memory. A few choice specimens of these ad- 
 dresses* were then read, amidst peals of laughter, which closed 
 the ceremony. 
 
 * It has been observed that the custom of presenting addresses to our 
 Sovereigns on their accession took its origin from those spoken of.
 
 Jl 
 
 which the younger Harrison, unlike Crunmer of 
 yore, found no benefit from producing- the King's 
 token, they may be induced to favour the enquirer 
 with a communication of their contents. They 
 cannot but be desirous of rescuing their progenitor, 
 or kinsman, from the imputation of participating 
 in so gross a failure of that deference, that homage 
 which all ranks, professions and descriptions in 
 society, are accustomed to slum the occupant of the 
 throne; and which especially no dispassionate man 
 would have withheld when the inheritor of that 
 paramount office is seen, as here, actuated by mo- 
 tives which Timon the misanthrope could not have 
 impeached: a difference of opinion \vas not a likely 
 canst- of umbrage, with George 3rd: but it should 
 not have been signified in such authoritative and 
 offensive terms. 
 
 List of the Commissioners who sat at a Hoard of 
 Longitude, November 28th, 1772. 
 
 Right Honourable the Earl of Sandwich 
 
 Ut Lord of the Admiralty. 
 Sir Charles Hardy Admiral of the Blue. 
 Rev. Nevil Maskelyne Astronomer Royal. 
 
 Mr. Hornsby Savilian Professor Astr:O\on. 
 
 Dr. Smith Sav: Prof: Geom: Oxon. 
 
 Mr. Shepherd Plumian Prof: Astr: Cam. 
 Dr. Waring Lucasian Prof: Math: Cam. 
 
 Dr. Smith Lowndes's Prof: Astr: Cam. 
 Hugh PaJkisser, Esq. Compt: Navy. 
 Philip Stephens, Esq. Secretary Admiralty.
 
 25 
 
 From the above, it appears that the clergymen 
 (who formed the Lunar party) mustered as six to 
 four in proportion to the lay Commissioners; and it 
 is much to be regretted that they should have borne 
 out Lord Chesterfi eld's undesirable defence of their 
 order, who thinks * they are neither the better, nor 
 the worse, for wearing a black coat.' It cannot be 
 expected of those persons educated for the Christian 
 ministry that they should divest themselves of 'what 
 composes man' (in the language of Pope) but from 
 their presumed habit of turning over the pages of 
 the sacred volume, it is not requiring too much 
 from them, that they should illustrate by their prac- 
 tice, with more promptitude than the laity, the theo- 
 ry of good works that indispensable rectitude of 
 deportment, in all the relations of society, which so 
 often becomes the theme of their seventh day dis- 
 courses. Yet the Commissioners from Oxford and 
 Cambridge, having all of them the cure of souls 
 (or being supposed to have so) were men of this 
 world, in whom the selfish attribute seemed un- 
 checked by the inward monitor: they forgot that in 
 the same verse from which they exhorted their au- 
 dience to fear God, they enjoined them to honour 
 the King. Had all the laymen present swerved 
 from this important obligation (which we do not 
 know) it became the province of these Divines to 
 have remonstrated with to have admonished them 
 of such a failure in their bounden duty ; unless they 
 were insensible to the reproach, that they were 
 
 4 
 
 ft
 
 26 
 
 more influenced by hatred and all uncharitableness, 
 than by their spiritual calling 1 .* It is certain that 
 
 * The Author thinks proper to guard against the misconcep- 
 tion (for it would be one) that his remarks on those Commis- 
 sioners from Oxford and Cambridge, who were all of them in 
 priest's orders, were intended to apply to gentlemen of the 
 clerical profession generally some of whom, it behoves him 
 to say, he has long known, and with increased esteem. But 
 the obligation of a correct MEMOIR writer is to take persons 
 and things as he finds them, and ' neither to extenuate, nor 
 set down ought in malice.' There is undesirable evidence that 
 the pseudo Philosopher who cuts such an anomalous and 
 dashing figure in these transactions, though nobody thinks of 
 him in our time, v. as supported by Bachelors and Doctors of 
 Divinity in brutally refusing a man seventy-four years of age 
 those facilities which he told them would save him the labour 
 of one year in three. It would be unjust towards the Author 
 to suppose him warped by the desire of censure, when enga- 
 ged with the documents before him : besides he has enough of 
 the Englishman about him to feel the irksomeness of giving 
 any foreigner an unfavourable idea of our Universities at the 
 period in reference. He takes pleasure in unqualified praise, 
 where it is deserved; conformably to which, he has endea- 
 voured to bring forward George (iraham;* not as the first 
 clock and watchmaker of his day ('which Tompion had been 
 before) that being well known, but as a philanthropist of the 
 most exalted virtue: superior to 'the Man of Ross' immorta- 
 lized by Pope: for he could control himself under circumstan- 
 ces of all others the most incompatible \vith mental infirmity 
 and the baser passions of our nature. Surely, it cannot but 
 be observed, that the strictures which apply to the conduct of 
 the mathematical Commissionerson the 28th of November, 1772, 
 when it is distinctly seen they were a majority at the Board, 
 are founded on their own minutes of that date. But though con- 
 
 See No. 6 in the Appendix. 
 
 ^W
 
 27 
 
 Hugh Peters, Praise God Barebones, or any other 
 notorious Covenanter, could ha\ 7 e done no better 
 than these orthodox Churchmen. How could they 
 
 scious of the rectitude of his motives in animadverting thus, 
 while such evidence bore him out, the Author felt disquieted 
 at the idea that he was making himself enemies, which few 
 men like, if they can avoid it: when just as his ABRIDGE- 
 MENT was going to the press, happening to look into the Ram- 
 bler, a coincidence in the paper No. 180 drew his attention 
 at once; he was satisfied that the freedom he had used amoun- 
 ted not to a tenth part of the caustic bitterness involved in a 
 quotation from Le Clerc, whose sentiments, Dr. Johnson ap- 
 parently assimilates with his own, on the moral delinquencies 
 of learned collegians. He hopes, therefore, the Gentlemen 
 of Oxford and Cambridge, if they feel aggrieved, will 'place 
 the saddle on the right horse.' 
 
 ' A wealthy trader of good understanding, having the com- 
 ' mon ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to an 
 ' university, resolving to use his own judgment in the choice of 
 ' a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the 
 ' nearest way to the heart of an academic ; and on his arrival 
 'entertained all who came about him with such profusion, 
 ' that the professors were lured by the smell of his table from 
 ' their books, and flocked round him with all the cringes of 
 ' awkward complaisance. This eagerness answered the mer- 
 ' chant's purpose; he glutted them with delicacies, and softened 
 ' them with caresses, till he prevailed upon one after another to 
 open his bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions, 
 'jealousies, and resentments. Having thus learned each man's 
 ' character, partly from himself, and partly from his acquain- 
 ' tances, he resolved to find some other education for his sou, 
 ' and went away convinced, that a scholastic life has no other 
 ' tendency than to vitiate the morals, and contract the under- 
 ' standing.' 

 
 
 have made their resentment plausible, if they had 
 quarrelled with any gentleman, who, remarking- on 
 their total inattention to such isolated merit in a 
 crowned head, and that crown too worn by their 
 liege Lord, had designated them as blockheads, 
 and held cheap the learned lumber they imported 
 from Alma Mater; since Mich ill digested crudities 
 had clarified their \\ its no better? The irritated tone 
 is document evince-, M < ins not a little aj'nTa\ ated 
 bya consideration which t boy were too stultified by 
 theiraninioMty towards the Claimant andall \\\*abet- 
 tors to attend to. In what volume of the Rodleanor 
 tin Shelves of Ashmole, ^c., where, if their love 
 of books bad been equal to that of the peripatetic 
 Apellicon* could they have found a parallel to the 
 
 * A wealthy citi/rn of Athens who expended vast sums in 
 the purchase of books, particularly the works of philosophers, 
 am I. among others, he procured the original manuscripts of 
 Aristotle. He is said, however, to have been more anxious 
 to possess volumes of systems than to understand them: and, 
 which is much worse, he is accused of not having had n roursr 
 to the most reputable means to stock his shelves, if money 
 would not serve his turn. The literary appetite of this antient 
 casually brings to recollection a modern whose name escapes 
 us, whose singular custom it was, at his studies, to lie on the 
 fioor, and have the books be wanted around him, within reach: 
 so that, with reference to an animal less particular in its habits, 
 he might be said to wallow in learning. Experience shmv> 
 however, (we advance it with diffidence) that books though 
 they may powerfully stimulate literary ambition, will neither 
 remedy a deficient capacity, nor square with the inclination of 
 those who have engaged apartments in the Castle of Indo- 

 
 29 
 
 9k 
 
 TRAIT before them? In the whole range of the 
 
 lence.* Hence it need not surprise us, when we learn from 
 the biographers of the poet, Gray, that when at Cambridge, 
 he would sometimes divert himself with the ignorance too often 
 found at home in dwellings set apart for the extension of know- 
 ledge, and by courtesy associated with Apollo and the Muses, 
 as well as the genii of sundry sciences: a proficiency in which, 
 either real or nominal, qualifies for the imposing distinction of 
 Artis Magister. That the University Commissioners of Longi- 
 tude, notwithstanding their official gowns, would have drawn 
 some sarcastic glances from him who awakened ' Pindar's rap- 
 ture on his lyre,' is a point we waive; but if these Professors, 
 howsoever designated in their several degrees, were not men 
 of mediocrity common-place characters, whom each season 
 turned out by dozens, scores and hundreds! from those na- 
 tional seminaries,! could party animosity have shown them so 
 devoid of candour? could it have rendered their visuals so 
 opaque as not to discern the distinction which George 3rd so 
 
 * Fielding in the sequel of the bird batting adventure, in Joseph An- 
 drews, has a severe stroke at the deficiency of those clergymen who, after 
 leaving college, by associating daily with fox-hunters, or the best 
 (illiterate) shots, and disputing on the pedigree of Miss Slouch, while the 
 horses of Peleus' Son are totally forgotten, have let their former intellec- 
 tual armour grow so rusty, for want of use, that he introduces one who 
 did not know there had been such aa author as ./Eschylus. Consonant 
 with this almost incredible imputation, it may be observed that a consti- 
 tutional predilection for books is not always visible in the physiognomies 
 of graduates who duly conform to the rules of Alma Mater. 
 
 t We have somewhere met with the name of Professor Hornsby joined 
 to those of certain learned men in discussing the precession of the equi- 
 noxes, or some other astronomical data, and far be it from us to withhold 
 his due merit from that gentleman, if he excelled in those elaborate disqui- 
 sitions, but it was at the expense of an ignorance of common things ; for he 
 did not know that, in reckoning by the chronometer, ships always took 
 their departure from the last land they saw, ' which never could be 
 Greenwich.' 
 
 t When Mr. Croker, in 1818, introduced his bill for consolidating the
 
 30 
 biography of princes, antient and modern, where 
 
 highly merited among his compeers of every age and country ?* 
 He was no ordinary proficient in what he gave his* full atten- 
 tion to: and we have reason to believe that, like John Har- 
 rison, he was well qualified to discuss the eclipses of Jupiter's 
 satellites. It is notorious that his affections were noways 
 'dark as Erebus;' for he loved music, and was much gratified 
 with the compositions of Handel, but when it tract on astrono- 
 iy by Mr. (afterwards Sir NVilluun) Herschel, who was pro- 
 ionally a musician, and excelled in il,r tVll in his way he 
 
 several acU relative to the Longitude and for remodelling the Board; having 
 judged it expedient to preclude the necessity of sending to the Universities 
 for scientific assistance, while it could be obtained much nearer, he 
 thought proper to observe, that he designed no disrespect to the Gentle- 
 men who had heretofore attended. 'Certainly it was very far from his 
 ' intention to reflect on such well known and respectable names as that of 
 'a Vince and his coadjutors; they were too well known in the scientific 
 ' world to be affected by any observation of his, were he inclined to 
 ' detract from their merits.' Abstractedly considered, this would bespeak 
 the assent of the public, but there was neither a Professor Vince, a 
 sideral Airy, nor a Dr. Izaac Milner in the time of John Harrison. By 
 the \va\. Mr. ( roker appears to have had no conception of that jealousy 
 of the Mechanics, which the dishonourable refusal of a check on the 
 computations, after the !ir-t voyage, might have been sufficient to apprize 
 him of. 
 
 This insensibility, or this stultified indifference to the merit which 
 might have been expected to rivet their attention by its newness, but 
 \\ hirh was left to be recorded half a century after by a penman who has 
 not seen a college, except in travelling, and who could say, with Corio- 
 lanus, ' I have miiffortunes to shew you, which shall be yours in private,' 
 becomes a reproach which the Gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge, 
 feeling for the honour of their institutions, may desire to shake off, but 
 they should be reminded of Charles II. saying to the Duke of York, 
 when he had married Anne Hyde, that 'he must drink according to his 
 brewing.' 
 
 t In Dr. Miller's 'History of Doncaster' who was his personal friend, 
 are some interesting particulars of Young Herschel's early progress in 
 England. His first engagement was by the month in the hand of the 
 Dnrbam Militia.
 
 31 
 
 was the shadow of a precedent to be pointed out?* 
 Yet instead of this isolated merit, and the moral 
 value of his deportment in this appropriation of his 
 
 regretted that one so capable of conferring lasting obligations 
 on the world should be occupied with the modulation of sounds, 
 and found a remedy which we all know. 
 
 As learning did not expand the mind in these savans enough, 
 when ' all the world's a stage,' to induce them to look round 
 on the European boards for a performer with the diadem who 
 joined scientific utility to the most humane considerations, 
 like the one England could show the Author (however une- 
 qual to remedy this hallucination) has his attention drawn to 
 the neighbouring kingdom, where Lewis 15th nearly coeval 
 in chronology, was so surprising a contrast to George 3rd 
 in the particular view contemplated That morbid satiety 
 which converts whatever is most desirable in life into its 
 scourge and bane, became in him its own punishment, and 
 singularly illustrative of the poet's axiom, that 
 
 Some are, and must be greater than the rest; 
 
 but who infers from hence 
 
 That such are happier, shocks all common sense : 
 
 never was it more strikingly set off than by this Monarch ; 
 whose favourite Mistress (if she might be called so, whom a 
 particular distemper disqualified for his bed) derived her in- 
 fluence from having discovered that the most certain way to 
 rule her paramour was to vary the amusements of the passing 
 
 * This will not be understood as if the Author had ran- 
 sacked those volumes, which would be wholly inconsistent, 
 while he does not write as a classic ; but he presumes that had 
 the set off, adverted to, been to be found, the circumstance 
 would long ago have transpired, through the information of 
 literati less conspicuous for their thoughtiess apathy than those 
 brought forward.
 
 32 
 
 time, being vindicated by these ministers, who 
 might have found it, if they ircrc ////// //<>, a proper 
 and edifying theme for pulpit eloquence, it up- 
 day and hour inexhaustibly if possible. t Of these varieties 
 'tin- Minimum bonum of the Bourbon) Zimmerman has pre- 
 served a specimen so surprisingly dissimilar to the rational and 
 humane occupation, the history of which is given herewith, that 
 it seems fitter to class with the vagaries of children than to be 
 stored 
 
 within the hollow crown 
 That rounds the temples of a mortal king. 
 Being one day in the pleasure grounds of the royal demesne 
 at Versailles, he saw a tall person in a rich court dress, with 
 a pair of stags horns affixed to his head, running full speed, 
 pursued by a number of others, all in court dnsses. The for- 
 mer on reaching a canal in the* park immediately plunged in 
 and scrambled through, followed by the whole pack. Our 
 solitary prompter, on asking the meaning of this scene, was 
 gravely informed, that it was for the entertainment of the 
 Court. The stag, if he was some unfortunate namesake of 
 Lucan's preceptor, might have been alleged to be in character, 
 though a cornuto is not often run down in Franco; but such a 
 chase would not have much exhilarated any who could read 
 and write, on this side the channel; and Squire Western 
 would have objected with a fearful oath, that the dogs could 
 never recover the scent if they had lost the sight. Should the 
 enquiry take another turn, we find Lewis figuring like Abel 
 Drugger: having in his impatience siezed the bellows, when 
 present at an experiment by which a charlatan Alchymist 
 undertook to verify the discovery of the philosophers' stone ; 
 not indeed in the production of gold, but of virgin silver; a 
 
 t When La Pompadour was told that the King had become much ena- 
 moured with a young lady (whose picture had been preconcertedly shown 
 him) it gave her no apparent concern ; well knowing that the influence 
 of her rival could be but temporary.
 
 33 
 
 peared that George 3rd, by having neglected to 
 enquire of the Commissioners of Longitude, if a 
 
 specimen of which, from the crucible, on being assayed, pro- 
 ved of the same alloy as the French crowns. 
 
 We cannot drop this Monarch without a tribute of respect 
 to his Successor, the most virtuous and the most unfortunate 
 that ever sat on the throne of France. He wanted the firmness 
 of George 3rd, and like Charles I. was too fatally influenced 
 by uxorious counsels;* but in cultivating science and in hu- 
 manity, the parallel is remarkable between these individuals 
 of such exalted rank. In the Parisian intelligence circulated 
 in our papers in 1814, we find His Majesty, the Emperor 
 of Austria this day visited the Mazarine Library. He consi- 
 dered with particular attention the fine globe of varnished 
 bronze, which Lewis XVI. had made for his own use. The 
 copy of the projet for the voyage of La Peyrouse, which be- 
 longed to the above Monarch, having been presented to the 
 Emperor, he cast his eyes upon some marginal notes. He 
 was informed that they were in the hand-writing of Lewis XVI. 
 himself, and that they proved the extent of his industry and 
 talents, although he had been represented by the factious as 
 ignorant and stupid. ' It is with Kings as it is with other men,' 
 observed his Majesty, ' those who make the most noise do not 
 always merit the most renown, and justice is never done them 
 in their life-time.' This observation, of the descendant of 
 Rodolph of Hapsburgh, applies correctly, we would say, to 
 the particulars of George 3rd preserved in these pages; equally 
 disregarded, as they were in that day, by the ignorant, who 
 could not be expected to notice, and by the learned, whose 
 path they crossed, and whose duty it was to have brought the 
 world acquainted with facts peculiarly interesting in an inheri- 
 tor of the regal office. But we are justified in the persuasion 
 
 * The Memoirs ofM. Bertrand de Moleville, an emigrant of distinction, 
 are explanatory of this allusion. 
 
 D
 
 ////// tit KicltinoinL MijtjjiHU/i" tin /r.w<// Juroui- 
 able, n'tnild be allowed to be regular; and not 
 thinking 1 he had to deal with people whose wits 
 were in the Moon, in an enlarged sense; had done 
 more mischief than good service to the cause he had 
 at heart. Inadvertency and precipitation are out 
 of the question; for they had taken no less than 
 four months to make up their minds to this posture 
 of defiance to 'the influence of the crown;' that 
 being the interval between the trial and its rejection: 
 a length of delay, which, as the interest His Ma- 
 jesty took in the subject was no secret, will not be 
 much approved, and augured unfavourably to the 
 sequel. Instead of inculcating by example that 
 moderation which they are professionally expected 
 to enjoin their flocks, they might by their rashness 
 have led to a most serious breach of the peace; un- 
 less indeed, and the circumstance cannot be viewed 
 without suspicion, for its meanness, they relied on 
 the characteristic forbearance of this Prince, to 
 avert such baneful consequences. What he said, 
 when the report of proceedings, and a copy of the 
 minutes reached him, is not known : in the ab- 
 sence of evidence we may conclude he improved on 
 the sentiment of Francis I., who thought it became 
 not the King of France to resent affronts that had 
 
 (conformably to the sentiment of the imperial Austrian) that 
 posterity will do that justice to this Monarch which was denied 
 him in his life-time.
 
 35 
 
 been offered to the Count of Angoulesme.* In 
 like manner, if the King of England chose to merge 
 the regal character in that of the astronomer, or 
 mathematician, for the time being, he would, con- 
 sonant to this idea, acquiesce in placing himself on 
 a level, as such, with these his good (or his bad) 
 subjects.f Here, however, it is evident that to the 
 
 * This sentiment is occasionally met with both in history 
 and works of fiction. Lewis llth though his memory is odious, 
 affected it. The Emperor Adrian meeting one by whom he 
 had been injured before his accession to the purple, said to 
 him, with a significant look, you are safe now : and the Author 
 of Klimius, or the World under Ground; (the Danish Gulli- 
 ver) makes his hero, who had risen from a very low station, 
 say, it did not become the Emperor of Quama to revenge the 
 wrongs he had suffered when a chairman. 
 
 t If the Telescope being, at seasons of leisure, in that hand 
 destined to hold the sceptre, exposed him to the contumely of 
 brotJter astronomers, who were too much engrossed by their 
 own accomplishments to be attracted by any merit, in a supe- 
 rior quarter indeed, but not set off by those capitals A.M. 
 or LL. D., how can their successors make out a case which 
 the famed scientific Monarch, who to this day supports the 
 spheres on his shoulders, could have heard without shaking 
 his curls, like Jupiter, and giving a nod tremendously signi- 
 ficant of his dissent from self-sufficient hallucinations, which 
 would thereafter expose them to a petrifying cross examination 
 from Minos, Eacus, or Rhadamanthus ? 
 
 The unworthy treatment which the beneficent head of the 
 state subsequently experienced from these his graceless sub- 
 jects, who had authorized the publication of a trial categorically 
 analyzed herewith: and to which the Astronomer Royal, with 
 all the mathematical talents of Oxford and Cambridge to assist 
 him in confuting the experience of Dr. H alley, Dr. Bevis,
 
 36 
 
 casualty of the throne being- graced by so placable 
 an ornament to it, was owing- that we hear no more 
 of this premeditated indignity (for it has the Ap- 
 pearance of being 1 such) shown to "the King-'s most 
 excellent Majesty." In fact, though clumsily mas- 
 ked with "an escutcheon of prelaw" for which 
 Cromwell would have kicked them down stairs. 
 History teaches that these beneficial constraints of 
 temper, an of ran- occurrence amoiiLT distinguished 
 men. Socrates and \\ ashington,* were remarka- 
 
 O 
 
 ble for practising self-command, even against the 
 discoveries of the physiognomist ; and Themistocles, 
 when struck \\i\\\ a cane l>y his colleague, in the 
 heat of argument, had the presence of mind to re- 
 collect that the common cause of Greece was of 
 
 and the learned Abbe De la Caille, had no reply forthcoming, 
 ted by the consideration that they never enquired 
 for, nor once contemplated publishing tlu register of the going 
 of the last made Timekeeper, under his Majesty's inspection, 
 as an appendage to Dr. Maskelyne's report of the successful 
 Watch. Had they done as much, it might have tended to 
 extenuate the nefarious party motives, in the spirit of which 
 that trial was concerted and thrust forward, lint having neg- 
 lected this cheap expedient of doing some justice to the genius 
 of John Harrison, and the merit of his illustrious Patron in- 
 clusively, we are constrained to apply to their conduct a 
 phrase heretofore confined to some bad play, which is held 
 to be 'damned beyond redemption.' 
 
 * It is not generally known, that Mr. Stuart, the painter, 
 after attending to the lines of the President's face, was of 
 opinion, that had he been born among the aboriginal tribes, 
 he would hav<> been one of the fiercest of the savage race.
 
 37 
 
 more importance than a personal quarrel ; he there- 
 tore persisted in his purpose, by saying, " strike 
 again, if you will but hear me." And let us not 
 omit the Great Captain of the age, who is emi- 
 nently distinguished by this virtue in the field:* 
 but if the appeal is to those that wore the diadem, 
 and more especially to our own annals, it becomes 
 difficult to name any monarch in the list, from Eg- 
 bert the Great, excepting Alfred, and (perhaps) 
 Edward VI., worthy of being placed with George 
 3rd at the same elevation in the temple of honour.f 
 Charles II. being ungovernably incensed, on an 
 occasion totally different, and by no means reputa- 
 ble, has never been acquitted of participating in 
 the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey; and the 
 
 * And certainly, at Waterloo, the absurd conduct of the 
 Colonel commandant of a regiment of Volunteer Cavalry, 
 from Brussels, which reminds us of Sir John Suckling's cam- 
 paign, was well calculated to try a gallant soldier's patience. 
 
 f But though George 3rd possessed that most useful, and 
 often invaluable quality of self-command, in an eminent de- 
 gree, on important occasions, he did not constrain himself to 
 a stoic's demeanour in ordinary and trifling occurrences. A 
 friend of the Author chanced to be present at the following 
 incident. His Majesty (always an early riser) was one morn- 
 ing, about seven o'clock, engaged in driving a number of 
 deer from one paddock to another, in Windsor great Park. 
 Among the idlers that gathered along, and followed his motions, 
 was Dick Such-a-one, a barber at Windsor, who was mightily 
 officious in assisting to drive the deer, but, as is often the case 
 in an overacted part, doing a deal more harm than good ; till 
 at length, the King growing impatient at the ill-timed efforts
 
 98 
 
 nu uiorable deniiiiitl made by his indignant tatlu i . 
 at the bar of the House of Commons, for the five 
 Members who had withdrawn, terminated in tlu- 
 Buonaparte of that day being enabled to exclaim, 
 if he would, in the cant of his courtiers, "Moub 
 [England] is my washpot; over Edom [Scotland] 
 will J cast out my shoe: upon Philistia [Ireland] 
 will I triumph." 
 
 If we may add to these oppo>rd illustrations 
 (stepping three or four centum s hack) llt-nry VI. 
 whom nature designed for a monk in his own tinu s, 
 and for a Moravian in <nn>, M-UHS out of tlu- ques- 
 tion: but the seventh Harry would have gone near 
 to mulct tin-in of all their property without (ailing 
 in Empson or Dudley: and Henry VIII. would 
 shortly have annihilated any of his subjects who had 
 had the temerity to menace him in this fashion. 
 If we bring in the Brandenburgher, Frederic 
 III. who, though absolute by prescription, did not 
 rule with a leaden mace instead of a sceptre, like 
 our Tudor, that Monarch would have suffered no 
 Commissioner, or any other functionary in his do- 
 minions to forget the respect due to the throne, 
 though the mantle of Atlas might be thrown over 
 
 of tonsor, made a stroke at him with his whip, to deter him : 
 upon which the neighbours, who took up the affair as if by 
 common consent, assured him he was knighted : and he was 
 ever after called, Sir Richard: a ilistiin-tinn with which, how- 
 ever, he could not quarrel much, as it probably increased his
 
 m 
 
 it for a season. Had George 3rd been as irascible 
 as his Grandfather, who never forgot his German 
 predilections, and was once found at the head of 
 some companies of his guards, in the court yard of 
 St. James's, trying the sword he had used at the 
 battle of Oudernarde, and determined not to be so 
 vilely thwarted any longer by this pest/iouse of a 
 constitution, which bore no resemblance to that he 
 had left at Hanover, where no man could contradict 
 him, but at his peril. Had George 3rd we say, 
 who excelled in that suavity which becomes a dia- 
 mond of the first water in a Monarch's crown, been 
 of the same composition as his predecessor, he 
 would immediately have sent for one or more of the 
 Judges, or the Attorney and Solicitor General; 
 certainly for some responsible functionaries; and 
 submitted to them (as well as his agitation and ve- 
 hemence would allow) that the Commissioners of 
 Longitude had told him ' no regard would be paid 
 'to the result of any trial of a Timekeeper, or 
 
 * Watch-machine, under his immediate inspection; 
 
 * and that if he had a mind to try what experiments 
 
 * he would it did not matter any thing to them : they 
 *had nothing to do with it. The Board have said 
 ' what they would have done, and they will not alter 
 'their orders.' In having so said, and by this au- 
 thoritative language of defiance, were they not 
 guilty of a high misdemeanour and a contempt of 
 the regal Office, which it was his duty to uphold, 
 to support the dignity of, and to claim the respect
 
 10 
 
 due from e\erv subject to the Crown, or he could 
 not say he was transmitting 1 the lustre of it unim- 
 paired to his Successors. And in conclusion, re- 
 quiring to know if there was no way to deal with 
 those fellows who had shown him this outrage. 
 We need not doubt, it would he alleged in behalf 
 of their Client, by one or other of the authorities 
 consulted (had it been hut to gain time, either to 
 let his Majesty ^row cooler over the difficulties <>t 
 the case, or to look for precedents, if there were 
 any.) That the Bench being the King's, who 
 antiently sat there in person, but now deputed his 
 Judges to represent him, and that court bein^ ac- 
 cuvtomed, in common \\itb others, and with both 
 Houses of Parliament to commit for contempt, it 
 would be strange if the head of it could not be pro- 
 tected from such contumelious language, which it 
 would be quite inconsistent with his paramount 
 rank in the state to tolerate; and which although 
 nominally addressed to the per^m \vhom he had 
 directed to state to the Board the result of the trial 
 at Richmond, was virtually and to all intents, the 
 same as if it had been repeated to him, at his Palace 
 of St. James. That it would be very surprising if 
 the Judges in his own Court the Court of the 
 King's Bench, or the Kind's Seat, could not ex- 
 tend to their principal the benefit of a privilege 
 available in their own case. Would they not be 
 fully justified in issuing their warrants, placing the 
 offending parties in duress in the usual form, for
 
 41 
 
 contempt of court (including a gross licentiousness 
 of demeanour and insulting' demonstrations towards 
 our sovereign Lord the King', &c.P) Even were 
 such committals not borne out, if the case came to 
 be arg-ued before a committee of privileges; yet both 
 houses would readily concur in relieving 1 the Judges 
 by a bill of indemnity, for their laudable endeavours 
 to support the respect due to the Throne, so essen- 
 tial to the well-being- of the state: and which his 
 Majesty, so far from having- forfeited by any act 
 derogatory to his station, had, on the contrary, been 
 setting a most distinguished example to princes, by 
 the scientific and rational appropriation of his time. 
 The above sketch, which is noways opposed to 
 probability, shows the danger these unlearned Col- 
 legians ran, by forgetting, we cannot say, but by 
 not choosing to remember those considerations, 
 never to be lost sight of, in transactions in which 
 the Sovereign is a party. They were indebted only 
 to the extreme urbanity and goodness of heart of 
 this Prince for not being brought into collision with 
 him, like the earthen pot and the brazen one in the 
 fable; after having stretched out their fists to beard 
 their liege Lord in this manner. The Earl of 
 Sandwich, we believe, had never seen the small 
 pamphlet (given as No. 1 in the Appendix) which 
 was the real source of this refractory and disgrace- 
 ful spirit in the Lunar party. Dr. Maskelyne being 
 unable to disprove the six pennyworths of truth sent 
 him in this wrapper, which might have been la-
 
 4*2 
 
 beled"take physic science' was "exposed to feel 
 what wretches feel" or passionate and presump- 
 tuous men writhing- under their inability either to 
 reply to, or to swallow such an operative bolus. 
 
 It is not discoverable that the Nobleman in allu- 
 sion took any interest in the Lunar method of 
 finding the Longitude. And while he resented the 
 being reminded of his tautological assurance, there 
 seem to have been separate views at the Board. 
 Had the King loudly expressed his dissatisfaction 
 at what had passrd, his Lordship was sufficiently a 
 courtier to have taken his cue from it ; as he would 
 not have liked to have been involved in a serious 
 affair for the sake of the Lunar junta, whom he 
 might have discovered, for the first time, were ma- 
 king an excellent use of him: on which discovery 
 he would have alleged that, being in the chair, it 
 devolved on him to state the answer of the majority 
 to Mr. William Harrison that he regretted the 
 turn the business took, and making his acknow- 
 ledgments according to etiquette, he would have 
 left the Mathematicians to crawl out of the suffo- 
 cating quicksand, into which they had plunged, 
 head or heels foremost, by invoking every saint in 
 the reformed calendar. 

 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 , 
 
 A reflection incidentally arising out of the prece- 
 ding- circumstances, to which, in parliamentary 
 language, it may be attached as a rider, is that, 
 any political writer in search of a set off against 
 " Wilkes and liberty," the popular cry of that pe- 
 riod, had the curious document quoted been in his 
 way, would have argued from it, that the privileges 
 of the commonalty could be in no danger, unless 
 from the licentious use of them, if these public men, 
 the Commissioners of Longitude, to wit, could 
 treat an indirect communication of the King's sen- 
 timents, on a subject of magnitude, with no more 
 ceremony than they might have done a report from 
 the Jockey Club, on some point connected with 
 their motto, "the Devil take the hindmost." The 
 rashness of their conduct, considering his Majesty 
 would send for the minutes of the Board, is the 
 more extraordinary, as the Author has by him a 
 copy of this memorial, and underneath, in the 
 hand-writing of William Harrison, is his version 
 of the affair, which, strange to say, is more favour- 
 able to the Commissioners than their own denun- 
 ciation of the royal interference, and as follows
 
 II 
 
 November 28th, 1772. Mr. William Harrison, 
 'in his Father's name, pri M nted the above inemo- 
 4 rial; and Lord Sandwich gave him the following 
 answer. The memorial you delivered in has been 
 'read. We do not find it contains any new matter, 
 'and the Board has already told you what they will 
 'have dom-, and they have no reason to alter their 
 'opinion. To which Mr. Harrison replied, my 
 'Lord, 1 am sorry to differ with your Lordship, 
 'and did hope there was new mutter; us from the 
 'trial winch has been at Richmond, 1 have leave 
 'to say, his Majesty is well satisfied. Here Lord 
 'Saiid\\ich interrupted him, and said, Sir, to be 
 'sure, your authority is very ^reat; but if you huve 
 'a mind to try what experiments you will, that is 
 'nothing to this Hoard. \Ve have nothing to do 
 'with them; the Board has told you what they will 
 'have done: and they will not alter/ 
 
 Certainly there never was a better illustration of 
 the common phrase 'the laws of the Medes and 
 Persians alter not.' They could draw a line which 
 was not to be stepped over as authoritatively as 
 Fopilius Lena; and George 3rd unexpectedly found 
 himself almost as much in limbo as Antioclms. 
 The wand of the "proud republican," or the circle 
 he drew, could not be more restrictively menacing 
 than were the eccentric flights of these functionaries: 
 in whom it seemed impossible to separate an irri- 
 tated and degrading stimulus from more correct 
 motives. But the words, " Sir, to be sure, &c."
 
 may be allowed to soften the deformity of the offi- 
 cial statement, which has no equivalent salvo, al- 
 though six learned graduates either were, or might 
 have been, assisting at this edict against all trials 
 not having their sign manual; and Presto, 
 begone. 
 
 We are at Buckingham House; where, after the 
 King had perused the regular report of proceedings, 
 which he would do first, the Author conjectures 
 that the junior Harrison showed him his own state- 
 ment, which he would have in his pocket, and it 
 is highly creditable to him as a plain, but con- 
 scientious citizen, that he should, by withholding 
 no part of the truth, have lessened the mischief 
 which these thoughtless men, maugre their erudite 
 designations, might have found they were concoct- 
 ing, by having thrown away their historical horn- 
 books. To adhere to the letter of their right, as 
 Commissioners, at such a juncture, without deign- 
 ing to show common civility to his Majesty, was 
 hazardous enough ; for it was provoking one of 
 those trials of strength on which the revolutions 
 of kingdoms have often been known to depend. 
 To make their privileges the vehicle of a deliberate 
 affront to "the fountain of honour," would have 
 been generally resented by the public, in behalf of 
 their Sovereign, had it been bruited; as savouring 
 more of a puritanical contempt for royalty, among 
 these Ecclesiastics, than of that deference which 
 their friend, Tully, whoso greatly admired a triune
 
 40 
 
 constitution in theory, would have upbraided them 
 with the want of. Henry IV. as we learn from 
 Sully, was much prejudiced against all parliaments 
 by the conduct of that of France ; and George 3rd 
 after the treatment he had received, might have 
 resolved, consistently with the firmness of his cha- 
 racter, that let what would be the consequence, he 
 would never set his hand to any bill constituting 
 such a commission ; over which he had no control; 
 though he knew and saw tin v\xt<matic oppression 
 shown to the vein -raldr Claimant (who had relied 
 on the public faith) by making his labours inter- 
 minable if they could ; ostensibly under a public 
 pretext, but it was so evident the Astronomer Royal 
 found it much easier to adopt this nefarious course 
 than to reply to the strictures on his examination of 
 the successful Timekeeper, "published under the 
 authority of the Board oj Longitude," (synonimous 
 with his own) that there was not a court of judica- 
 ture in the kingdom but would have reprobated this 
 perverted stretch of their power. 
 
 The moral correctness of the part which William 
 Harrison bore in this transaction is deserving of 
 notice ; as he must have severely felt the pressure 
 of the disappointment, when it appeared that the 
 royal sanction was as much a cypher in the arith- 
 metic of the Commissioners, as the estimate of the 
 damage done by Dr. Maskelyne to his Father's 
 machines ; which, from that spirit of favouritism 
 which frustrated the purposes of their institution,
 
 47 
 
 is nowhere to be found. He was under no obliga- 
 tion to prevent his enemies from running their heads 
 against the wall, by these consummately rash de- 
 monstrations ; but as a patriotic man, who desired 
 not to profit by the "confusion worse confounded" 
 which their folly might have created, he may be 
 concluded to have mollified the resentment which 
 it is probable his royal Patron would feel (for some- 
 thing must be conceded to human nature) in the 
 first instance, at finding all the trouble he had 
 volunteered to incur, thrown away ; by showing 
 him this memorandum of what passed at the Admi- 
 ralty;* in which luckily, the passage referred to, 
 tended to blunt the edge of that cutting instrument, 
 into which they had converted the " brief authority" 
 they were armed with. 
 
 A petition to Parliament being now the only 
 
 * The interest which the subject may excite makes it worth 
 while to observe, that, in politics, William Harrison was 
 strenuously opposed to the American war; condemned the 
 coalition between Mr. Fox and Lord North; and deprecated 
 the French revolution in its early stages, though he could not, 
 like the gifted Edmund Burke, foresee all the consequences 
 that followed.* These opinions on by-gone subjects being now 
 those of almost every reflecting person, may be adduced in 
 favour of the correctness of his judgment, though he was not 
 a man of reading. 
 
 * By the way, although Lord Chesterfield's name is not associated 
 with that of Mr. Burke on this subject, yet he discerned afar the porten- 
 tous signs in the horizon, and, many years before, predicted to his Son, 
 that, ' before the eighteenth century should be out, the trades of king and 
 priest would not be half so good as they were.'
 
 IS 
 
 resource against misfortunes originating ten years 
 before, in the Earl of Morton s having been insuj'- 
 ferably provoked by a non-compliance iril/i the 
 impossibilities he projected, measures were taken by 
 the junior Harrison, with the advice of " GEORGE 
 III. OF THESE UNITED KINGDOMS," to form a 
 friendly party in the legislature, opposed to that 
 which it was to be expected the Commissioners of 
 Longitude, after this dictum, would exert all their 
 influence to muster against the prayer for the redress 
 sought. As a matter of Course, Lord North would 
 be among the first applied to. The copy of this 
 letter is missing, but the same arguments were 
 embodied in another, \\hieh is preserved, addretted, 
 under date, December 18th, J772, to John Robin- 
 son, Esq., Secretary to the Treasury, and supposed 
 to be his Lordship's chief confidant. As the appli- 
 cant took no step of any moment without consulting 
 his Majesty, the reason of this auxiliary duplicate 
 \\ax probably, that the King from a knowledge of 
 his Minister's constitutional temperament, told him 
 Lord North would be in danger of falling asleep 
 over the business, without this precaution; by which 
 it was designed that Mr. Robinson should give his 
 principal a jog on the elbow, or something equiva- 
 lent to a fillip on the nose (for he loved a joke) to 
 avert such an awkward sequel to the importance 
 attached to the Premier's support of the petition. 
 This prudential step, however, does not appear to 
 have been attended with the results looked for.
 
 49 
 
 His Lordship manifested either so much apathy, or 
 so much indifference to the subject, that on the 2nd 
 of March following-, William Harrison thus writes, 
 " I have at last got my answer from Lord North, 
 " which, like all the rest, is nothing- at all ;" and 
 ag-ain, " Lord North seems to pay no attention at 
 "all, but would willingly waive off every thing* 
 " that takes public money out of the common chan- 
 " nel of pensions," &c.* 
 
 That the honourable Frederic North, first Lord 
 of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 with a knowledge of the interest his royal Master 
 took in the success of the Claimant (and how could 
 
 * Crabbe the poet (afterwards zealously patronized by Mr. 
 Burke) was equally unsuccessful in addressing his Lordship, 
 who, like 
 
 A plain good man, and Balaam was his name 
 was no more obliged to admire what had Apollo's sanction, 
 than to attend to uncommon merit in mathematical mechanics. 
 If neither of these attempts to reach the Premier's sensorium 
 (wherever that was) could penetrate it, yet by those who are 
 not admitted behind the scenes in the national drama, it would 
 be universally supposed that a knowledge of the interest which 
 the principal actor took in the Petitioner's success, would 
 have elicited, if not much alacrity, yet some readiness in the 
 Prime Minister, to take the cue from his Patron in this part 
 of the piece. The absence of this deference, when combined 
 with the direct opposition which Lord Sandwich, another 
 cabinet minister, lending himself, perhaps unawares, to the 
 revenge of the Lunar party, is found to offer to the King's 
 views, leaves a field open for the arguments of philosophical 
 politicians, with whom we are unequal to interfere. 
 
 E
 
 .50 
 
 he be ignorant of it?) should, maugre this surmise, 
 have given occasion for the above account of an 
 application to him, by direction from that quarter, 
 for his countenance in the matter, is enough to 
 "confound the wisdom of the wise, and to bring to 
 nought the understanding of the prudent." If by 
 "all the rest" was meant, as seems, those who took 
 the lead on the side of Administration in either 
 House, who were solicited for their support, it fa- 
 vours the notion that, in this country, the conse- 
 quence of the Prime Minister, for the time being, 
 outweighs that of the regal office.* Whether it be 
 that "the loaves and fishes," as they are called, 
 are more immediately under his distribution, "and 
 where the carcass is, there will the vultures be," 
 is an enquiry we waive. 
 
 In the present case the political centurions, ma- 
 il ipuli and cornets, whose standard was the purse 
 of the state, (borne by certain valiant men) lay on 
 their arms, but on the look out, for the nod of 
 Command, not from St. James's, but from Downing- 
 street. Not so, the gentlemen of the opposition, 
 who, when the day of battle came (as is usual on 
 
 * In this view, the analogy between our own free institutions 
 and some of the despotic sovereignties in the East is remarka- 
 ble. In these the office of Prime Minister, or Grand Vizier, 
 becomes hereditary ; the nominal Monarch being kept a pri- 
 soner in his palace, is shewn to the people from time to time, 
 on days of ceremony. If we mistake not, Hyder Ali and his 
 Son Tippoo Saib were usurpers of this class. After the death 
 of thr latter, the lawful heir was restored by the conquerors.
 
 51 
 
 the second reading) volunteered with one reverbera- 
 ting voice in support of the aged Claimant; their 
 device being the goddess, Astrea, who seemed to 
 have descended through the roof of St. Stephen's 
 arena, with the aegis of Jove for their panoply. 
 The petition of John Harrison thus, incidentally, 
 introduces the curious and novel spectacle, of his 
 Majesty at the head of that phalanx to which he 
 was opposed on the subject of the American war, 
 but to which he owed the victory on a question un- 
 incumbered with the usual display of Whig and 
 Tory muster rolls. Mr. Fox advocated the hearing 
 of the petition when it was presented, and we shall 
 soon introduce his colleagues; but for the present 
 must observe, it would be a very mistaken in- 
 ference, to imagine that after the application his 
 Majesty had already given the subject, it sufficed if 
 he wished well to the inventor of the Timekeeper, 
 in his endeavours to recover the second moiety of 
 the reward, so long detained. This friend to merit, 
 was not a friend by halves', and the letter above 
 quoted furnishes indubitable evidence of the patient 
 attention the King gave to the details of proceed- 
 ings adopted for that purpose. It discloses also 
 the extraordinary fact, that but for the consolation, 
 the kind encouragement and countenance derived 
 from such a source, the father and son, totally des- 
 pairing of success, would have dropped the further 
 prosecution of their object, as quite hopeless. The 
 passage which ascertains a circumstance at once so
 
 52 
 
 important to the petitioner and his descendants, 
 and so honourable to the persevering consistency 
 and humane condescension of this monarch is as 
 follows. 'As I before told you, I will not leave a 
 'stone unturned, and therefore have now in the 
 'press a case to give to every member of Parlia- 
 ' ment ; and which you may expect to see in a few 
 'days. I do not think it possible to get any more 
 'of our reward; but my business, after this, will 
 'be, to sit down quietly, without having to say to 
 'myself, had I taken such or such a step, I might 
 'have succeeded. I am certain if I do not succeed 
 'now, it will be morally impossible afterwards: as 
 ' I have an opportunity of laying before his Majesty, 
 'every Tuesday, every thing I have done : and I do 
 'not write one word, or take one step, without ac- 
 'quainting him with it.' 
 
 The junior Harrison being unfortunately (like 
 his father) not a man of reading unconnected with 
 his avocations, nor viewing circumstances in alight 
 foreign to the anxious purpose of his pursuit, the 
 observations on the prominent characters of either 
 House of Parliament, in that day, which may be 
 conceived to have incidentally arisen out of the con- 
 ferences and counsel he was thus honoured with, 
 and which, as coming from such a quarter, would 
 be enquired for by the future historian, are wholly 
 lost. 
 
 The debates, on the first and the third reading 
 of the petition, have been sought for without sue-
 
 53 
 
 cess; but that on the second, which seems always 
 considered the most important, are preserved; and 
 from the speeches of Sir George Saville and Mr. 
 Burke being given in the first person, it would ap- 
 pear that the reporters found their interest in cater- 
 ing for the public curiosity. 
 
 ' April 27th. The Petition presented from John 
 
 * Harrison, the Inventor of the Timekeeper; &c. 
 4 was again read. 
 
 ' Sir George Saville. I think, Sir, it is a dis- 
 
 * grace to this nation, that a man who, as his peti- 
 
 * tion sets forth, has spent forty years of a life of 
 
 * now fourscore, in studying and making so great 
 
 * a discovery as his watch most certainly is, should 
 ' still remain without his reward, though he had 
 
 * the positive engagement of Parliament to depend 
 
 * on. I much wish, Sir, that he might at once 
 
 * have his just due, and that speedily, lest heaven 
 
 * should give him that reward which his country 
 4 most unjustly denies him. By the Act of Queen 
 
 * Anne, which offered the premium, he is absolutely 
 '* entitled to it, his Watch having gone to the West 
 
 * Indies, with an accuracy in the performance much 
 
 * within what is required by that Act. But by the 
 
 * last Act, which was explanatory of the first, and 
 
 * which was framed in consequence of his claim, 
 
 * there arises such difficulties, that it seems the 
 
 * Board of Longitude cannot do him justice. This, 
 ' I think, is so great a grievance upon a man who 
 
 * has made a discovery highly important to that art
 
 ' upon which the wealth, power and happiness of 
 
 * this country so essentially depends, that it would 
 4 be to the last degree cruel not to repeal this last 
 4 Act, in order that he may have his claims ad- 
 ' judged by the first. 
 
 * Mr. Dyson spoke to the form of this matter, 
 ' being against Sir George's proposal;* and Lord 
 ' North remarked, that Mr. Harrison, in his peti- 
 tion, rather arraigned the Board of Longitude; 
 ' and observed, that as the Board had required other 
 ' Timekeepers and experiments to be made, which 
 
 * were not yet concluded, it would be proper to call 
 ' for the minutes of that Board, relative to the trail - 
 ' suctions concerning Mr. Harrison, before a con- 
 ' elusion could be come to. 
 
 ' Mr. Edmund Burke. Mr. Speaker, I must 
 
 * own, I am astonished at the replies which have 
 
 * come from the other side of the House. Where, 
 ' Sir, is the dignity, where is the sense, where even 
 ' the justice of the representatives of a great, power- 
 ' ful, enlightened, and maritime nation, when a 
 ' petition of a man is laid before them, claiming 
 
 * This Gentleman's name occurs once or twice in the lists of 
 the Commissioners, as Secretary to the Treasury; and Jerry 
 Dyson is mentioned in the private correspondence of Junius 
 with Woodfal: but as we know no further of him, and the re- 
 porters have not favoured us with his argument, if he had any, 
 it casually brought to mind the quaint epitaph in Joe Miller 
 
 Here lies the body of Daniel Saul, 
 Spitalfields Weaver, and that's all.
 
 55 
 
 * not favour but justice; claiming- that reward which 
 
 * the law would give him, and to see it refused, 
 'upon what principles? Why, a man at eighty 
 ' years of age is to make more Timekeepers ; and 
 1 he is not only to make them, but to make more 
 1 voyages to the Indies to try them. Good God ! 
 1 Sir, can this be the House of Commons of Bri- 
 'tain? This most ingenious and able mechanic, 
 ' who has spent above forty years of an industrious 
 
 * and valuable life in search of this great discovery 
 ' and has discovered it; who has, according to 
 
 * the verdict of the whole mechanical world, done 
 1 more than ever was expected and even gone 
 
 * beyond the line drawn by that Act of Parlia- 
 
 * ment, in consequence of which he undertook the 
 ' work ; this man is now, at the age of fourscore, 
 ' to have his legal right withheld from him, by ad- 
 
 * hering to an Act which stands between him and 
 ' his reward. This instance will be a fresh one, 
 
 * Sir, added to the long and black catalogue of 
 ' genius and parts being exerted through long cour- 
 ' ses of lives in the service of the public, and ending 
 
 * in poverty and misery, monuments of the base 
 
 * ingratitude of mankind ! It is a case, Sir, that 
 
 * will admit of no delay; form is to come in between 
 
 * such a man and his reward; we are to have papers 
 ' called for with all the tediousness attendant, 
 ' before the inventor of this noble discovery is to 
 1 have his just rights. Is this a conduct worthy 
 ' of the munificence of this House ? of a nation that
 
 56 
 
 ' owes to her navigation, her wealth, her conse- 
 1 quence, her fame ! * 
 
 * Lord North rose in explanation, and in a can- 
 
 * did manner professed himself much inclined to do 
 
 * justice to Mr. Harrison. He said the papers 
 ' might be had in twenty-four hours; exculpating* 
 ' himself from designed delays. 
 
 ' Mr. Burke answered, that nothing- could be 
 1 further from his idea than to be so ill a friend to 
 
 * Mr. Harrison's cause, as to irritate the noble Lord; 
 4 that he meant no such thing*, and assured the House 
 ' that he wished only to induce the Treasury to be 
 
 * willing* speedily to do the old man justice.' 
 
 The debate concludes with the proceeding's of the 
 Board of Longitude being ordered to be laid before 
 the House. Also that an extract of a letter from 
 Captain Pocock to the Comptroller of the Navy, 
 giving- a favourable account of a Watch made by 
 Mr. Kendal, on Mr. Harrison's principles, be read 
 at the same time. The immediate purpose of 
 John Harrison's friends, or of the royal party, 
 as we may call it, was the repeal of Lord Morton's 
 Act, which had proved equally injurious to the 
 
 * The ardour of Mr. Burke, to whom the descendants of 
 the Petitioner seem greatly beholden, was not likely to fail 
 him on a theme which may be allowed to have been more than 
 usually congenial to his cast of mind. It is the Author's 
 persuasion, that had that Gentleman been debarred both 
 politics and literature, and then asked whose fame he envied 
 most? he would immediately have answered that of John 
 Harrison.
 
 57 
 
 Claimant and to the public: but none of those who 
 spoke, nor perhaps any person in the House, knew 
 the disgraceful origin of that measure. Had Mr. 
 Burke had leisure to trace it to the separate com- 
 mission, and discovered that by the resolutions of 
 the obtrusive and consequential character, who took 
 every thing to himself on that occasion, an outlay 
 of at least 900 might have been incurred, for 
 which no funds were provided; and yet that the 
 Board of Longitude never enquired into the truth 
 of that nobleman's statements; though it is pre- 
 tended on the minutes, 9th February, 1765, that 
 they " duly weighed and considered the same," his 
 eloquence would have held up such gross incapacity, 
 or such culpable neglect to the contempt and odium 
 it merited. Lord North acts a neutral part fairly 
 enough.* He had either wanted time, or inclina- 
 tion, to notice the proceedings of the commission 
 of Longitude; and William Harrison had not suc- 
 ceeded in drawing his attention to the subject, when 
 he wrote to him by his Majesty's advice. Yet 
 there was a course which might have enabled his 
 lordship to come forward in the House with his 
 mind not like a partial blank. He knew that the 
 
 * We have recently seen that Lord Sandwich, the Premier's 
 colleague in the cabinet, opposed himself point blank to the 
 King's view of the subject, and to the zealous interest he took 
 in it. The why and the wherefore of so singular a circumstance 
 is left to the future historian to explain, if competent. With 
 the Author of the Memoirs, it suffices to contribute these un- 
 questionable facts.
 
 King had given much attention to this affair; and 
 had he availed himself of those frequent opportuni- 
 ties for conversation which his official business 
 threw in his way, he might (to use a metaphor) 
 have borrowed his Master's observation glass, if he 
 had lost his own. The frivolity of the logic from 
 the opposite side (that is the Treasury benches, 
 where the strength of the enemy lay) it seems was 
 such, that Mr. Burke scarcely preserves good man- 
 ners in adverting to it; and declines to reply in 
 detail to what the reporters did not think of suffi- 
 cient importance for their purpose. He assumes, 
 exactly as the King had done, that no man of com- 
 mon sense, if disinterested, could entertain a ckmbt 
 on the question, yet probably he did not know half 
 the reasons on which George 3rd had formed that 
 conclusion. 
 
 As the salutary forms of the constitution, though 
 intended only to circumscribe bad, or weak princes, 
 yet unavoidably also limit the sphere of action of 
 the good; of whom the Author of Cato observes, 
 " it would be happy for their subjects, if they were 
 absolute;" so in the interval from February to May, 
 or, it is more likely, from Christmas, this ornament 
 to the throne is seen addressing himself, every 
 Tuesday,* to all that minuteness of investigation, 
 
 * Sir Nathaniel W. Wraxall has given us an abstract of the 
 tiresome routine of a drawing-room day, which would be 
 enough to show that the kingly office was not a sinecure in the 
 reign of George 3rd. 
 
 ' It is a fact that during many years of his life, after coming
 
 * 
 
 and operative advice, towards overcoming the diffi- 
 culties with which it was anticipated the progress 
 of the case throug-h Parliament would be sur- 
 rounded: for the Commissioners, instead of taking 1 
 this opportunity to do away with their recorded 
 effrontery, on the 28th of November preceding-, 
 sounded the tocsin, and strained every nerve to 
 oppose the Petitioner's success to defeat, to wit, 
 
 'up from Kew, or from Windsor, often on horseback, and 
 'sometimes in heavy rain, to the Queen's House; he has gone 
 'in a sedan chair to St. James's, dressed himself, held a levee, 
 'passed through all the forms of that long and tedious ceremony; 
 ' for such it was in the way that he performed it; without leaving 
 'any individual in the circle unnoticed: and has afterwards as- 
 'sisted at a Privy Council, or given audience to his Cabinet 
 ' Ministers and others, till five, and even sometimes till six 
 'o'clock. After so much fatigue of body and mind, the only 
 'refreshment or sustenance that he usually took, consisted in 
 ' a few slices of bread and butter and a dish of tea, which he 
 ' sometimes swallowed as he walked up and down previous to 
 'getting into his carriage, in order to return to the country.' 
 
 To this singular, though unquestionable account, may be 
 attached as a rider that in the spring of 1773, if the levee 
 was on a Tuesday, the King gave audience to William Har- 
 rison, who either read, or laid before him for his inspection, 
 sundry written or printed tracts, together with drafts of letters, 
 &c., connected with the prosecution of the petition through 
 Parliament: to the details of which his Majesty attended like 
 one who had no other business on that day : for, it should be 
 observed, that hurried manner which he is accused of when 
 the bow was unstrung, could not be recognized in an affair 
 like this, which called for a deliberate judgment and a cool
 
 60 
 
 the important and amiable purpose this Prince had 
 embarked in, and was determined, from the first, 
 to accomplish, if practicable : while he was re- 
 strained by those landmarks which long prescription 
 had set out for the sovereign in all cases pending 
 the decision of either House of Parliament; and 
 still more coerced by certain reasons of propriety, 
 the "chains invisible" which, by converting his 
 requests into commands, preclude the head of the 
 state from personal solicitation or interference, at 
 times when it would not only be allowed, but com- 
 mendable in a subject, of whatever rank, to exert 
 himself as to him seemed best. 
 
 The Applicant, in a part of his petition, after 
 stating the success of his last made Timekeeper, 
 which, in a trial of ten weeks, had erred only four 
 miles instead of thirty, which it was allowed by the 
 Act, continues 'that your Petitioner has laid un- 
 ' doubted evidence thereof before the Board of Lon- 
 'gitude, and is ready to produce the same to this 
 'honourable House.' This "undoubted evidence" 
 was very uncommon for it was that of "GEORGE 
 III. OF THESE UNITED KINGDOMS" who, had 
 the forms of the lower House indispensably so re- 
 quired, would have appeared at the bar, under an 
 inferior title, and given his testimony in accordance 
 with the redress sought. But this most distinguish- 
 ed deponent, though successful in a considerable 
 proportion, was not so to the full extent of hispurpose, 
 1250 being deducted for money advanced at dif-
 
 61 
 
 ferent periods many years before, to enable the 
 Petitioner to prosecute his experiments. 
 
 It should be observed, that when the Candidate 
 was assisted by the Commissioners, so far back as 
 1737 with an advance of money, in consequence of 
 the recommendations he brought with him from 
 scientific men of the first eminence, it was stipula- 
 ted in behalf of the public, that such advances were 
 to be regarded as loans to be thereafter included in 
 the reward if he became entitled to it; and this was 
 consonant to equity; nothing being said about a 
 right of property in the work he should produce; 
 but when the Machines he had constructed were 
 claimed and taken possession of, under Lord Mor- 
 ton's Act, the case was totally altered. If any 
 person should assist a mechanic with money to 
 complete some works in hardware, and afterwards 
 secure them to himself without leave of the maker, 
 or enquiring his price, it would be universally held 
 that the latter was exonerated from the original 
 debt. This the P. R. s. either from the effects of 
 education and habit, or of an original flaw in his 
 mental conformation, was incapable of discerning,* 
 
 * There are men of such a cast of mind (an aberration 
 of intellect we should call it) that they cannot be brought to 
 comprehend, or conform, to some sentiment to which the gene- 
 ral sense of mankind attaches much value. Thus, Lewis XI. 
 when he had bought off the threatened invasion of France by 
 Edward IV., congratulated himself on the dexterity of his 
 management; for he had found, by calculation, it would have
 
 but George 3rd desiring 1 to hold the scales with 
 fairness between the Claimant and the community 
 reasoned thus, without hesitation, and being a bet- 
 ter accomptant than the deceased patrician, he ob- 
 served, that the sum in question bore but a small 
 proportion to the interest of the moiety detained 
 since February, 17(55, if it was taken only at three 
 per cent., and much less still, if that of the whole 
 reward was computed from August, 17(>2, which 
 subsequently the House of Commons in committee, 
 after hearing evidence, allowed he became fully 
 entitled to at that period:* and the King believed 
 
 cost him considerably more to have put his kingdom into a 
 proper state of defence ; and he had not one idea in common 
 with those who condemned (behind his back) the meanness of 
 such political tactics. 
 
 * This decision of the Committee virtually rescinded the vote 
 of the Commissioners; who, on no apparent ground but the 
 computations which he had been refused to name a check on, 
 and was denied to inspect, decided that the Watch had not 
 kept time within the Act on the trial to Jamaica. But what- 
 ever might be the sentiment of the House on the injustice he 
 had experienced, it was followed by no practical result in his 
 behalf: the reason the why and wherefore of an incongruity 
 so anomalous in a country and under a constitution by the 
 theory of which the rights of all are respected alike, was never 
 accessible. 
 
 This was impressed on the Writer by the case of a Noble- 
 man, nearly of the same date, being 1760, which is a remark- 
 able set off to that of John Harrison. The Duke of Athol 
 possessed the royalty of the Isle of Man, with the rights, 
 privileges, and immunities annexed thereto. These it became 
 expedient that Government should purchase, for the better
 
 63 
 
 it would have been paid then, had not the Board 
 with such an infraction of justice refused him a 
 
 preservation of the revenue His Grace was treated with ac- 
 cordingly; and by a liberal agreement received 70.000; 
 which was at the extraordinary rate of 140 years purchase: 
 to which was added a pension of 2000 (on the Irish estab- 
 lishment) for the lives of himself and the Duchess which was 
 enjoyed forty years. In 1804, the revenue of the Island 
 having much improved in the interval, the Inheritor of this 
 peerage complained of the serious loss and injury to the family, 
 by the transfer above forty years before ! On the part of 
 Government it was alleged that this improvement was owing 
 to the greater vigilance they were enabled to exert by their 
 cruizers, &c., and therefore was not to have been expected, 
 had the management continued in private hands an explana- 
 tion which seems satisfactory enough. But, though it would 
 be difficult to say that any contractor for naval or military 
 stores might not on such a precedent claim compensation for 
 a calculated loss twenty or thirty years after signing the arti- 
 cles,* his Grace, who must have reckoned accurately on his 
 resources, goes down to Parliament, and by that influence 
 which in all countries, whatever maybe their form of Govern- 
 ment attends on high rank and great possessions procured to 
 the Dukedom of Athol a grant of 3.500 per annum, in per- 
 petuity to replace the pension extinct. 
 
 The old observation, that it is much easier for a rich man 
 to obtain an addition to his wealth, than for a poor one to 
 procure what is necessary to his existence, comes home with 
 
 * At this time, the Author was not aware that in the debate on the 
 grant, one of the speakers (Sir John Miller) indignantly opposed it on 
 the same ground; for he" wished the house joy of what they were going 
 to do. Henceforth they would have business enough upon their hands 
 in remunerating every contractor who had made a bad bargain." Wood's 
 History of the Isle of Man, page 313.
 
 64 
 
 check on the computations. It appears further, 
 that William Harrison, with the concurrence, if 
 not at the suggestion of his Patron printed, for cir- 
 culation among the Members of both Houses, brief 
 extracts from five Acts of Parliament, comprised 
 between the 12th of Queen Anne and the 5th 
 George 3rd inclusively,* to show that the pecuniary 
 
 uncommon force to the case of this Nobleman, f contrasted 
 with that of the Client of a special pleader George the ood. 
 And though not applicable to the latter, it recals the spirit of 
 the sentiment in that verse, often quoted, from The Wisdom 
 of the Son of Sirach 'When a rich man speaketh, every man 
 4 holdeth his tongue, and look, what he saith, they extol it to 
 
 the clouds: but if the poor man speak, they say, what fellow 
 
 is this? and if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him.' 
 
 * That of the 26th George II. recites how by virtue of the 
 powers vested in them by the first Act, they had 'heard and 
 'received several proposals made to them at different times for 
 ' discovering the said Longitude, and were so far satisfied of 
 
 the probabilities that they thought it proper to make Experi- 
 
 ments thereof, and accordingly certified the same from time to 
 'time to the Commissioners of the Navy for the time being, 
 'together with the name of Mr. John Harrison, who was Au- 
 'thorof the said Proposals; whereupon bills were made out 
 'for several sums of money, amounting in the whole to 1250, 
 'all which respective sums were paid to the said John Harrison 
 ' by the Treasurer of the Navy, pursuant to the directions of 
 'the said last mentioned Act of Parliament, as parts of the 
 'said Two Thousand Pounds therein mentioned; which the 
 'said Commissioners for discovering the Longitude thought 
 
 t No reference was intended to financial politics : neither is the Author 
 acquainted directly, or indirectly, with any member of the noble family 
 alluded to, or with their connexions.
 
 65 
 
 encouragement by which the Commissioners were 
 enabled to assist ingenious men, from 2000 placed 
 at their disposal for that purpose, was always con- 
 sidered by the Legislature as wholly distinct from 
 the premium provided for the successful Candidate. 
 Thus situated, the injury he had received by the 
 unfair detention of his recompence, as his Majesty 
 thought, in concurrence with men of the first rate 
 talents, without adverting to the decision of the 
 long robe, well entitled him to have any demon- 
 strations like this deduction of 1250, waived in 
 
 'necessary for making the said Experiments. The continuation 
 ' of the Act places Two Thousand Pounds more at the disposal 
 'of the Commissioners, for enabling them to cause such further 
 1 Experiments to be made as they shall think proper for the pur- 
 ' pose aforesaid.' 
 
 The Applicant states, with reference to the 5th George III, 
 that 'when he delivered up all the Timekeepers, they had ac- 
 tually stood him in a much larger sum than had been issued 
 to enable him to make and try them.' He was assisted by 
 his friends, particularly Sir Martin Folkes, and Mr. Graham : 
 the East India Directors sent him 200 ; also Charles Stanhope, 
 esquire, is mentioned as having called four times on the Can- 
 didate, and on each occasion left 20. (We regret we know 
 no further of this Gentleman than the name.) It was John 
 Harrison's misfortune that he lost too soon, by death, the 
 protection of the eminent and scientific Baronet; who was in 
 all respects a contrast to the mean and incompetent northern 
 Earl, into whose gripe the Claimant was delivered, by the mis- 
 conduct of the Board (Sir John Cust excepted; in making no 
 enquiry after the proceedings of the separate Commission.* 
 
 * Some remarks on the steady friendship of Mr. Graham will be found 
 at No. 6 in the Appendix. 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 the final settling; especially, and the consideration 
 is of prime importance, that the Petitioner had re- 
 linquished every other advantage in life, which his 
 extraordinary abilities might have insured him, to 
 
 9 
 
 solve the problem of the Longitude, by and with 
 the encourageuientof the Commissioners, themathe- 
 niiitical Commissioners, be it observed, till his 
 ui innate success was /ii-/i/y probable. 
 
 The debate on the grant not being to be procured, 
 tlic ostensible causes of this partial failure do not 
 appear; but the real circumstances, or what William 
 Harrison took to be so, are thus accounted for to 
 his friend. After adverting to the weary struggle, 
 but unexpected success of the contest, with such 
 powerful opponents, he proceeds ' I fad I been so 
 4 happy as to have pushed matters, with my Lord 
 ' North, while Sir George Saville, and some more 
 ' of my most worthy friends were in town, I had 
 * received the whole, without any deduction, but 
 ' out of politeness* to Lord North, his Lordship 
 
 * It will be recollected that, on his Lordship's motion, the 
 papers of the Commission of Longitude were ordered to he 
 laid before the House were they read with any attention 
 then ? and how is that to be reconciled with the politeness 
 (as the younger Harrison calls it) with which this deduction 
 was carried? and received with equal civility by the Premier, 
 we must suppose : but by what code of good breeding Lord 
 North could have justih'ed the ill-manners and uncouth oppo- 
 sition he was showing his excellent Master, for what might 
 have been called a drop in (he bucket, at the Treasury, we 
 cannot divine.
 
 1 flung me out of 1250.' He means that the ma- 
 jority gave way so far to please the Minister. That 
 the Premier, with a knowledge of his royal Mas- 
 ter's sentiments on the subject (and who can doubt 
 he knew them) should yet have suffered his satis- 
 faction to be in any degree alloyed by this bonus 
 to the Treasury, is passing strange indeed! and, 
 we may assume, could not at that time have hap- 
 pened tinder any other Government, bearing re- 
 semblance to a monarchy. The fact inclusively 
 shows that the placability and candour of this con- 
 siderate Prince allowed even those who might be 
 concluded to be most subservient to what he had so 
 much set his mind on, freely to differ in opinion 
 with him, both by their words and actions, provi- 
 ded they were not open to reproach, like the party 
 who refused the old man the loan of the successful 
 Timekeeper: and who damaged his machines, as 
 if in children's sport. Another circumstance which 
 highly bespeaks attention, is that Sir George Saville, 
 and some of those who divided with him, would 
 directly have declined all pretensions to compete 
 with John Harrison's superior friend, had they un- 
 derstood the self-denial to which he had constrained 
 himself, pending this business; particularly during 
 the trial of the Watch, to which their own sacrifices 
 bore no resemblance. They had attended in their 
 places in the House, when this, as well as ordinary 
 business, was the order of the day, but unluckily, 
 by suffering country engagements, or amusements,
 
 68 
 
 to interfere with the probable sequel of the discus- 
 sions, the Applicant was not so fully benefited as 
 would have resulted, could his Majesty have im- 
 parted a portion of his own arduous perseverance 
 to the gentlemen, with whom he was perfectly 
 agreed in opinion. For if it be allowed to judge of 
 what we do not know by what we do, nothing but 
 what was physically insurmountable would have 
 thwarted his dignified purpose; he would have rode 
 from Lincoln, or from York, and in all weather 
 too, if by that he could have restored the "father of 
 modern chronometry" to the elevated ground he 
 occupied when the success of the Timekeeper was 
 universally admitted.* 
 
 * The following speculative analysis of the general character 
 of monarchs, though it leans to an exaggerated extreme, and 
 certainly allows of manifold exceptions, may be given to illus- 
 trate the surprising contrast between George 3rd and the ele- 
 vated order of men to which he belonged by birth. 
 
 'Kings are beings very different from other men; their sen- 
 ' sations are of another kind ; their exemption from the general 
 ' lot of hardships in some degree attending all other situations, 
 ' makes them strangers to commiseration and sensibility; the 
 ' pleasures of friendship are exchanged for those of flattery and 
 'obsequiousness; the nature of their education is calculated to 
 'destroy all natural disposition at least the effects are the 
 ' same as if it were a part of the plan; they begin so early to 
 'live by rules of art, that they are in masquerade the whole 
 'of their lives; whether their design be to oblige or offend, 
 'they are equally under the necessity of employing artifice. 
 'There is no other rank in life that can be so generally defined, 
 ' because there is no other order of men who are framed so
 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THUS after having- been piloted, to the best of the 
 Author's endeavours, through a channel safe enough 
 in his belief, as it exhibits proper marks and au- 
 thentic bearings, the reader is landed in the plea- 
 sant conclusion that for the realizing: 8750 of 
 
 O 
 
 this moiety in nubilus John Harrison was primarily 
 indebted to a friend in need, who, as the proverbial 
 rhyme has it, was "a friend indeed :" for it is not 
 often that men experience such beneficial services 
 
 'much alike, and have such a sameness in so many respects.' 
 If we contemplate this Monarch as a private Gentleman, 
 divested of the cares of state, and of the anxieties of a large 
 family, but endowed with an ample fortune, would he not 
 soon have found his place and class with the Hanways and 
 the Howards of that period ? Men whose enlightened purpose 
 it was essentially to benefit their neighbours, or the community, 
 if they could, in various ways, if they had no specific calls 
 for their attention at home : for it may be observed of those 
 eminent philanthropists, the Man of Ross, Jonas Hanway, 
 John Howard, and Alderman Harrison of Leeds,* that they 
 were either unmarried, or had no progeny, excepting Mr. 
 Howard, whose Son was of weak intellects. 
 
 * John Harrison imagined himself connected by blood with this patrio- 
 tic character, such being the tradition of the family ; but this affinity can- 
 not be traced.
 
 70 
 
 from their equals in private life as are here recorded 
 of the Sovereign's disinterested friendship for a man 
 of genius, whom he highly respected, and the hard- 
 ship of whose case he commiserated. Few persons 
 even of the most exemplary character are found 
 willing- to incur so much inconvenience as must at 
 times have resulted from the resolution the King 
 took at Windsor, in the preceding year. But 
 George 3rd consonant to Lord North's averment 
 on a quite different occasion,* "would have lived 
 on bread and water," had there been no other way 
 to redeem his pledge: and many a poor fellow who 
 has been buffeted in the world whom fortune has 
 dealt unkindly by, who is more conversant with 
 her frowns than her smiles, will, with a sigh, ac- 
 knowledge the value of such an active and consis- 
 tent friend-t 
 
 * Sir N. W. Wraxall's Own Times. 
 
 t The unsuccessful party (the Lunar junta, and their sup- 
 porters) wholly insensible to the merit of the share the King 
 had in this concern, revenged themselves for their defeat, by 
 aftectingto call the grant he had procured "a snug money bill." 
 But the Author, without "having presutn'd into the heaven of 
 heavens," or " drawn imperial air," scruples not to have re- 
 course to those balances which Homer and Milton brought 
 out on occasions of high behest : and stowing the Professors 
 from Cam and Isis severally, with their gowns turned inside 
 out, like military delinquents, and their square caps disposed 
 a posteriori, in one scale, he places George 3rd in the other, 
 without his crown, but with a telescope instead of the sceptre 
 in one hand, and a chronometer, as a substitute for the globe 
 in the other. The scales being then poised by the majestic
 
 71 
 
 That the unprincipled satirist, VVolcot, or Peter 
 Pindar, should have got his bread by the quarto 
 catchpenny scurrility so often levelled at this orna- 
 ment to the House of Brunswic, while an action 
 so much to be admired, drifts unheeded "down the 
 stream of time," is a caustic inuendo on those titled, 
 or privileged, functionaries of the Court, whose 
 discernment was unequal to the preservation of 
 "A TRAIT" so novel in a monarch. The trans- 
 actions at the Observatory, it may be said, were 
 wholly connected with the private life of the King, 
 and no more to be looked for from such a quarter 
 than his experiments in agriculture, which, though 
 not private, were happily not dependant for our 
 knowledge of them onRosencrantzor Guildenstern ;* 
 but when William Harrison saw his Majesty every 
 
 shade of Newton, whose off hand rests on an armillary sphere, 
 the one surcharged with the discoveries of nine days in each 
 Lunar month, "wind and weather permitting," proving lighter 
 than inflammable gas, kicks the beam with a jerk that ejects 
 the contents into " Limbo Lake," which, by Apollo's leave, 
 we find with a fall ten thousand fathom deep below and Mr. 
 Croker looking into the abyss through the optics Dr Maske- 
 lyne lent him, is overpowered and blinded, by the vapours 
 from an immense heterogeneous mass, emitting Lunar corrusca- 
 tions, 
 
 "which more damnation doth upon them pile." 
 
 * Extract from the debates, in April, 1815. " Mr. Whit- 
 ' bread enquired respecting a commission which had been 
 'granted to Lord Yarmouth, Mr. Nash, and Mr. Bicknell. 
 ' Lord Yarmouth in explanation, said, that many years ago 
 'his Majesty had determined to keep many parts of the parks
 
 72 
 
 Tuesday, either at St. James's, or Buckingham 
 House, it could not be far removed from the me- 
 diate, or the intermediate observation of those lords, 
 who, as Voltaire has it, are " powdered in the tip 
 of the mode, and know exactly at what hour the 
 King rises and goes to bed." Are we to suppose 
 then, that the Sovereign, while assimilating his 
 
 'and forests in his own hands, on a farming system,* in order 
 'to give a respectability to the profession of farming, and that 
 'this idea had been seconded and followed up most beneficially 
 'for the country by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, 
 'Mr. Coke, and several others. Since his Majesty's illm >>, 
 'it had been judged proper by the Prince Regent, to give a 
 'power of attorney to three persons to take these farms under 
 'their trust, and to receive the rents from the tenants in the 
 'same way as had always been done; so that the whole, in 
 'case his Majesty should providentially recover, might be 
 ' restored as nearly as possible in the same state.' 
 
 There seems some want of precision in the above account; because 
 what a land-owner retains in his own hands he is understood to farm him- 
 self, in distinction from that portion which is tenanted. The beneficial 
 example his .M:ijosty set to the nobility and country gentlemen of England 
 had its full effect, and reminds us of what is related of the usages among 
 the Chinese, whose dense population requiring the most marked attention 
 to agriculture, the Emperor is accustomed once a year to descend from 
 his celestial consequence, and hold the plough himself. Our Sovereign 
 was diverted with the epithet of " Fanner George" which got into circu- 
 lation shortly, and which, said they, he first learned from meeting a 
 Peasant, early in the morning, driving some sheep towards Windsor. 
 The King stopped to look at them, and asked who they were for? for 
 Farmer George was the answer. "And who is' Farmer George, I thought 
 I knew all the Farmers in this neighbourhood ? He lives at that Great 
 House yonder," pointing to the Castle, "and zum volks calls un the 
 King, but we calls un Farmer George." In connexion with this, an 
 humourous print of small price, might be seen in that day, called 
 " Farmer George and his Wife."
 
 ideas with those of the discoverer of the Longitude, 
 
 O 
 
 appeared to the knowing ones like Peter the Great, 
 fresh from the dock-yard in Holland, to the courtiers 
 of Lewis XIV. and that the reply, well understood, 
 when it was enquired in the anti-room "with whom 
 is the King engaged ? would be 
 
 Lord Sir! a mere Mechanic, strangely vile and low. 
 
 Then with the easy transition of the Poet, 
 
 One asks what news? 
 
 And the context supplies the rest : 
 
 he's told of some new plays ; 
 
 New eunuch's, harlequin's, and operas. 
 
 With reference to the direct object of the Writer, 
 how much it is to be regretted, that gentlemen of 
 professed literary or scientific education, Fellows 
 of the Royal Society and others, to whom the pub- 
 lic features of the transactions with William Har- 
 rison it is highly probable were well known, if the 
 private marks were not, should, either out of regard 
 for some friend or friends, connected with the Com- 
 mission of Longitude, or benumbed by experiment- 
 ing on a torpedo caught near "THE CASTLE OF 
 INDOLENCE" in some lake the Poet forgot, have 
 
 o ' 
 
 been entirely silent on a subject calculated to excite 
 the utmost deference in select men of imposing de- 
 nominations, congregated for such a purpose as 
 denotes a Society styled Royal, and which collec- 
 tively appeals to the patronage so implied: but in 
 this case, without having contributed a single asso- 
 ciate, who, instead of those indefinite professions 
 which princes are accustomed to receive (especially
 
 74 
 
 in France) has indulged (the opportunity being- so 
 handsome) that fearless laudatory spirit, distin- 
 guished as such from the echo of official panegyric; 
 because the merit it informs us of is enhanced, in- 
 stead of evaporating, by any attempt to dwell on 
 particulars, and explain in detail. It would have 
 rendered null and void the obligation of resorting 
 to precedent in those addresses which neither the 
 above Society, nor any other, patronized by George 
 3rd would probably have withheld, had some new 
 privilege been conferred on its corporation. The 
 difference scarcely needs to be pointed out, between 
 these eulogies lor what may be effected by a stroke 
 of the pen,* and those which, as in the present in- 
 
 * Of this description was the celebrated affair of the Miller 
 at the court of Frederic III.; and as that transaction, the know- 
 ledge of which was soon circulated over Europe, may not be 
 familiar to many readers of the present time, in this country, 
 sucli are informed, that a Judge, having decided that the 
 Miller was bound to pay his rent, after his Landlord had di- 
 verted the course of the stream that turned the mill, and conse- 
 quently rendered it useless, was ordered to be punished for a 
 decision so contrary to equity. f The case of this Miller and 
 that of our Mechanician, were much the same in principle 
 though different in detail: for after the opinion of the Com- 
 missioners had flowed in the same channel with his so long a 
 period, after they had drawn from him the labour of all the 
 prime of his life, they had no more right to dictate further trials, 
 
 t As it was not said the Judge was bribed, the affair may be conjectured 
 to have turned on some technical chicanery that attached to the Miller's 
 agreement not having provided against a circumstance so unlocked for. 
 In England it would have been held irreconcilable to the Common Law.
 
 75 
 
 stance, were indeed amply merited by a conduct 
 the singular perseverance of which seems more cha- 
 racteristic of the professors chair than of the diadem : 
 
 unlimited in number, duration and exactness, than the Landlord 
 had to turn the course of the stream by which the Miller was 
 to get his bread. The desire of doing justice to an injured 
 subject may be divided between these potentates, but how great 
 is the disparity seen in what cost Frederic no further trouble 
 than the perusal of the sufferer's case, enquiring into its authen- 
 ticity, and affixing his signature to an order consequent ; 
 and the surprising self constraint by which George 3rd, to 
 redeem his pledge, attended fourteen weeks at the meridian 
 hour ; and afterwards condescended, every Tuesday to examine 
 and give an opinion on the several written or printed tracts 
 which the junior Harrison laid before him, to know his advice, 
 pending the application to Parliament. The trouble to the 
 descendant of Albert the Achilles was not a ten-thousandth 
 part of that incurred by the Elector of Hanover ; he could, by 
 the stamp of his booted foot, order matters instanter as he 
 deemed fitting. In Germany, George 3rd could have imitated 
 his neighbour, but in England he may be said to have toiled 
 through the obstacles in the way to the redeeming of his pledge; 
 and he was treated by the Commissioners, in November, 1772, 
 as has been seen, and they have themselves recorded. His 
 virtue was its own reward, except the recording Angel trans- 
 mitted it to the Eternal Throne : while, on the contrary, the 
 eclat of the Miller's affair soon passed the frontiers of Frederic's 
 domains ; and such respectable natives of Prussia as happened 
 to be in London, or its vicinity, were convened by advertise- 
 ment to celebrate this signal triumph of justice with a convivial 
 dinner. But with the exception of the venerable Mechanician, 
 his friends, and descendants, it does not appear that any set 
 of Englishmen, fellows of the Royal Society, or others, ever 
 drew a cork to honour the love of justice, the humanity, the
 
 76 
 
 while tin command of temper which characterizes 
 it far exceeds what experience commonly leads us 
 to expect, either among philosophical recluses, or 
 men of the world. Withal, not the least consider- 
 ation, for it bespeaks uncommon attention, is the 
 manifest contradiction here found to the rancorous 
 assumptions of Junius a man (or a woman, or a 
 menial hermaphrodite) whose malevolent passions 
 centred in self, notwithstanding his stormy preten- 
 sions to the amor jut trice. Such unfounded perso- 
 nalities lead only to the conviction, that he never 
 desired to meet with attributes in his Sovereign 
 directly the reverse of those bis effrontery hurled at 
 the throne, from behind the dead wall, where he 
 snorted through his pasteboard gnomon, or "grin- 
 ned horribly a ghastly smile," but ducked down 
 with affright, if in danger of being discovered, 
 which he declared he could not survive three days.* 
 Let us hear him. "Accustomed to the language 
 "of courtiers, you measure their affections by the 
 "vehemence of their expressions, and when they 
 "only praise you indirectly, you admire their sin- 
 "cerity."- The party spirit of this writer may be 
 
 singular patience and perseverance of their Sovereign. A pro- 
 phet is without honour in his own country, and alas, a beneficent 
 King is so here : even though his merit shines with irrefragable 
 lustre when set off against that of the most celebrated of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 * The consciousness of his ignominious ingratitude, if de- 
 tected, probably led to this extraordinary declaration.
 
 77 
 
 resembled to that of Bellarmine, though it is not 
 easy to say which was the most intolerant in his 
 way.* If his sentiments of George 3rd are esti- 
 mated by the tangible materials with which the 
 public are furnished herewith, they are of no more 
 value than "the gross of spectacles, with copper 
 " rims and shagreen cases, that Moses brought from 
 "the fair, and," at which Mr. Primrose exclaimed 
 as we do, "a murrain take such trumpery." The 
 case brought forward in these MEMOIRS indubitably 
 offered as fine a field for operations as an accom- 
 plished courtier could desire, " who trusted to the 
 "vehemence of his expressions to convince the 
 "monarch of his sincerity " It was susceptible 
 of being magnified into something superhuman, 
 by some skilful adulatory adept, who would have 
 been wrapt into the third heaven, if his feathered 
 unction had quickened the royal ear; but who they 
 were that mounted by this ladder to preferment, 
 or dreamed of kissing hands, or were enabled to 
 mark one day with a white stone (if they were 
 classically cognizant) could be known only to " that 
 sage enchanter Merlin, who knew a point more 
 than the Devil himself" or to Junius, who knew 
 better still. Neither could indirect praises pass for 
 staunch encomiums with our Sovereign, for both 
 
 O ' 
 
 the one and the other were a losing speculation ; j* 
 
 * A digressive Note here is transferred to the Appendix 
 under No. 8. 
 
 t When Adams, the optician and mathematical instrument
 
 78 
 
 and thence, it is to be lamented that the contrary 
 evil resulted that neither the disciples, nor the 
 non-conformists, of this anonymous choak-dog* 
 have preserved an item of the present case; and the 
 Author has waited in vain, while 
 
 " Year chases year, decay pursues decay," 
 
 for some disclosure from the self-edited, or the post- 
 humous memoranda, of the one, or the other, noble 
 lord, or distinguished commoner, honoured with 
 some office near his Majesty's person, or frequently 
 in his way at the period in reference (which assimi- 
 lates with the chronology of Junius.) The visits 
 of the Princess Dowager of Wales to fortune- 
 
 .~ / 
 
 tellers, attended by the heir apparent to the crown 
 have reached posterity ,f with other matters, scarcely 
 
 maker, presented his "Treatise on the Use of the Globes," to 
 the King, who had given him permission to bring the volume 
 out under the royal sanction, his Majesty looked over the dedi- 
 cation, and said, "This is not your writing." "No Sire," 
 replied Adams, "It was composed for me by Dr. Johnson." 
 "1 thought so," answered the king; "It is excellent and 
 the better for being void of flattery, which I hate." The Life 
 and Times of William 4th. By John Watkins, LL.D. 
 
 * The name given by the shipwrecked sailors of the Antelope 
 packet to a marmalade or sweetmeat esteemed by the inhabi- 
 tants of the Pelew Islands: and with which they were pre- 
 sented. 
 
 f The following passage in the " Diary of a Lover of Litera- 
 ture" (Thomas Green, esquire, of ) which the Author 
 
 had not seen when he wrote ; is too much in accordance with 
 this melancholy neglect. 'The education of the Prince ap- 
 " pears to have been a wretched one. Shut up from all liberal
 
 79 
 
 of more importance than the diurnal records of the 
 learned Elias Ashmole, who tells on one day, that 
 he scratched his posteriors too closely, and on ano- 
 ther, that his maid took physic! but the manhood 
 of Prince George (who afterwards reigned near 
 sixty years) wanted a Pacolet, or some more visible 
 familiar, to make us better acquainted with his 
 virtues: a consideration which, after the Author 
 had more than once offered the official and private 
 papers connected with the subject to Gentlemen of 
 far superior attainments, but found the proposal 
 declined with more politeness than prudence, ren- 
 dered it imperative on him to resort to the pen 
 and the imprimatur, before his recollections should 
 be consigned to the sable bier along with himself. 
 
 A review of these pages predisposed the writer to 
 concede much in favour of that nobleman, of ill-fated 
 political notoriety, who had the superintendence of 
 this Prince's education in his adolescency; but he 
 is not aware of any conclusive evidence coinciding 
 with the conjecture; and an authority to which he 
 defers,* has revived the combination between Anne 
 of Austria and Cardinal Mazarine, who kept Lewis 
 
 'acquaintance and liberal knowledge, his Mother represents 
 'him as shy, backward, good-natured, cheerful, but with a 
 ' serious cast of mind; not quick, but to those whom he knew, 
 ' intelligent.' Had not the native vigour of his intellect shaken 
 off this drag-chain, such an education was adapted to produce 
 at most nothing better than the "leather and prunella" of 
 Lewis XIII. 
 
 * Sir Nathaniel VV. Wraxall's Own Times.
 
 HO 
 
 XIV. in an ignorance subservient to their own 
 ambitious views,* to apply it to a similar attempt 
 at engrossing- power between the Princess Dowager 
 and the Earl of Bute. But whatever were the 
 defects in the course of instruction, or the discou- 
 ragements to application, or the bias given to the 
 royal pupil, they neither produced an impression 
 of no decided features, nor a counterpart of the 
 Thane himself, whose demeanour was no-ways 
 
 * It is remarkable how extensive a range this evil takes. 
 Mr. Sharp, the surgeon and traveller, writing fiom Italy near 
 a century ago, tells us that, at the age of fourteen, the prin- 
 cipal employment of the Prince Royal of Naples, afterwards 
 Ferdinand IV. was, playing puppets. If we may rely on 
 "A Year in Spain by a young American," the faults of Fer- 
 dinand VII. were partly natural, and otherwise the effect of 
 education. Instead of being trained up and instructed with 
 the care necessary to fit him for the high station to which he 
 was born, his youth was not only neglected, but even pur- 
 posely perverted Godoy, whose views were of the most am- 
 bitious kind, took great pains to debase the character of the 
 heir apparent. But these instances are not of so much curio- 
 sity as a circumstance brought forward at a meeting of the 
 Society of Antiquaries, in November, 1832. ' Henry Ellis, 
 ' esq., Sec., communicated the draft of a letter to Queen Eliza- 
 'beth, from Lord Paulet, her Majesty's Comptroller, a Trea- 
 ' surer of the Household, and afterwards Marquis of Winchester, 
 ' written in the year 1571, and giving her Majesty a history of 
 'the debt under which she then laboured. He ascribes its 
 ' origin to the extravagance of her father ; stating that on the 
 ' death of Henry VII. it was discussed in the council whether 
 ' the young king should be educated " in worldly wisdom," or 
 ' or in pleasures and amusements ; when the sage counsellors,
 
 81 
 
 prepossessing 1 .* Like most men of a prompt and 
 energetic cast of mind, this Monarch formed his 
 own character, independent of adventitious aids, 
 and of the sentiments of those about him.f And 
 if the case of John Harrison, in which he volunta- 
 rily eng-ag-ed, and followed up with determination, 
 
 ' anxious to retain their places, decided upon the latter course, 
 ' and thus laid the foundation of the debt, which was increased 
 ' in the reign of Edward VI. and on subsequent occasions. 
 
 Some explanation would seem desirable to those whom it 
 has sufficed to adopt what floats on the surface of history. 
 According to which, Henry, having an elder Brother, was 
 designed for an ecclesiastic, and acquired great learning, which, 
 at a subsequent period, enabled him to write against Luther 
 in Latin. If it was agreed by Counsellors, who so little de- 
 served the name, to lead him into such a dissipated and vo- 
 luptuous course, yet, judging by common experience, he must 
 have recurred to his scholastic exercises from time to time, or 
 he could not have written that book,* if its authenticity is un- 
 questioned. 
 
 The selfishness imputed to the Council could only be ex- 
 ceeded by its impolicy. It had the worst consequences com- 
 monly seen in spoiled children; and Henry, who wanted a 
 bridle more than spurs, became as headstrong and odious a 
 tyrant as the Democracy of Athens. 
 
 * The Author has somewhere read it might be resembled 
 to that of Philip II. when resident in this country. 
 
 t Edward III. may be quoted here; as his character rose 
 so much superior to what might have been expected from the 
 influence of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. 
 
 * How happens it that the learned ecclesiastics, and talented laymen, 
 of the Romish persuasion, do not possess an undisputed copy of a polemic 
 treatise rendered so remarkable by the sanction from the Pontifical chair, 
 and its consequences?
 
 82 
 
 but with that discretion which the impossibility of 
 coming- forward in the regal character imposed on 
 him, may be considered as a fair specimen of the 
 fruit " the tree should be known by" who is there, of 
 whatever party, the republican excepted, but will 
 regret that the returns of revolving seasons, from 
 the same stem, like those of the productive plant 
 in the wilderness, " were wasted on the desert air." 
 That true knight-errant, as Smollet calls* Henry 
 IV. of France, was fortunate in liis Sully; in Eng- 
 land the splendid talents of Dr. Johnson, were fol- 
 lowed through their minor ramifications by a Bos- 
 well; since that commented on extensively by Mr. 
 Croker; and we should covet the sayings and doings 
 of the conqueror at Waterloo, when the batoon and 
 gorget are laid aside; for this is as it should be; 
 but it cannot be too much regretted that the busy 
 idlenessf of Prince Frederic's castle-building court 
 should have been daily registered by a consummate 
 politician of the Wai pole school (whose reveries, 
 whatever importance might attach to them in their 
 day, and before the French revolution gave those 
 affairs a kick head over heels, we are now in danger 
 of falling asleep over) while the meritorious Grand- 
 son of George II. has the vault closed over him, 
 without either the courtier, or the man of business, 
 the philosopher, or any of the contemporary literati, 
 having favoured us with some few particulars of a 
 
 * In his Travels. 
 t- Laborious idleness their time employs. Spectator.
 
 83 
 
 case of which none could have quoted the counter- 
 part in a crowned head A TRAIT which not only 
 vindicated that love of justice befitting- his exalted 
 station, but evinces a cultivated intellect in this 
 Prince; not engaged in difficulties that concern only 
 the metaphysician, but anxious on a question of 
 vital importance, as connected with that art pre-em- 
 inently conducive to the prosperity of his subjects. 
 His public life has been duly recorded by political 
 communicants of various creeds, but his private 
 worth (that in which he must have desired to reign 
 in the hearts of his people) though attempted by 
 literary artists of skill and industry, it may now be 
 seen is much injured by the loss of those materials 
 which there was no retainer, of whatever rank, 
 about the court, of sufficient abilities and sagacity to 
 preserve; and thence our knowledge of George 3rd 
 on points of the most lively interest, is proportiona- 
 bly defective. 
 
 The accomplished Fenelon in his description of 
 Elysium and Tartarus, as Addison observes, lays 
 a stress on the misery of bad, and the happiness of 
 good kings, because his work was designed princi- 
 pally for the instruction of his royal pupil; a pur- 
 pose which, under a parity of circumstances, will 
 be supposed to be the object of the present writer, 
 if any distinguished preceptor honours him by 
 taking the same view of that portion of the work in 
 which " George the good" is brought forward. For 
 
 although THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSACTIONS
 
 84 
 
 WHICH FINALLY LED TO THE ROYAL "INTER- 
 FERENCE" was thought indispensably necessary in 
 the way of explanation, it cannot be expected to 
 excite the same interest, notwithstanding the ex- 
 traordinary figure which a Nobleman unknown to 
 lame cuts in the bustle of the scenery. In propor- 
 tion as plain and substantial matters of fact may 
 be conceived to convey a moral lesson better than 
 the best romance, from Crusoe to the Waverleys, 
 the Author would persuade himself he has stepped 
 on high ground in an abstract view, and exclusive 
 of his mode of dealing with the subject, on which 
 it behoves him to observe a decorous silence. Like 
 the mythological Novel of Telemachus, his produc- 
 tion is primarily addressed to those persons usually 
 of distinguished rank, and conspicuous for their 
 learning, who are engaged in moulding the ductile 
 thought of some illustrious pupil, and "teaching 
 the young idea how to shoot" when the mark, as 
 may happen, is identified with the welfare of myri- 
 ads of the population of some extended empire. 
 But as those destined to wear the diadem, and their 
 heirs, apparent or presumptive, with the branches 
 of their House inclusively, constitute but a very 
 small proportion of mankind, and as the details 
 given are illustrative in no ordinary degree of a 
 perseverance and humanity seldom supported with 
 such consistency in private life; they become an 
 example of virtuous self-denial, which all gradations 
 in society, but especially the middle and the higher
 
 85 
 
 ranks, may profit by reflecting 1 on, and reduce to 
 practice, each according- to his ability. If the va- 
 rious casualities in life should place oppressed genius, 
 of either sex, within the reach of his sustaining- 
 hand, let him carry the ever honoured merits of 
 George 3rd as an amulet, worn in imagination, to 
 refresh and stimulate him to a conduct above all 
 praise in this state of being, and an accredited 
 passport to the mansions of the blessed. 
 
 GEORGE III. King of these Sister Islands, and 
 their extensive dependencies, differed as much from 
 the common standard of men destined by birth to 
 such paramount rank as history tells us " good 
 Aurelius," or Trajan, did from most of those that 
 assumed the purple in " Imperial Rome." It was 
 not in arms alone, nor yet in the sciences, that 
 THESE UNITED KINGDOMS vindicated their supe- 
 riority, when, by universal admission, "we were 
 "the only people that never submitted to the law of 
 " the Conqueror, but by steadiness and perseverance, 
 "finally overcame him."* This cogent acknow- 
 ledgment sufficed not (the Author would show) to 
 make the name of an Englishman a passport to 
 respect; for even a King, born and bred among us, 
 a genuine British King, has some impressive fea- 
 
 * After the final surrender and deportation of Buonaparte 
 to St. Helena, in 1815, this sentiment became very common 
 on the Continent; and our countrymen found the benefit of it 
 in travelling, by the respect with which they were treated of 
 which the writer knew personal instances.
 
 tures in his mental portrait, tor which the resem- 
 blance may be sought in vain throughout the volume 
 of Clio (where the Author hopes he is procuring 
 its insertion, in indelible characters, on the same 
 page where we read that) the merit of this Monarch 
 was fostered, and his energies called into action, 
 by the peculiar constitution the unparalleled form 
 of Government that obtains here, and here alone ; 
 by his efforts (and those of his Successor) for the 
 protection of his dominions, and of Europe, which 
 sustained under the all-seeing eye of Providence 
 by the valour and skill of his commanders both by 
 sea and land, raised the House of Brunswic to a 
 distinction never surpassed by the most celebrated 
 dynasties in modern history, or those referring to 
 antecedent ages; equally founded as it is on the 
 arts of peace, and the ability to repel aggression 
 exciting the "faint hu//as" of many a dying High- 
 lander on Waterloo's eventful field,* and the ar- 
 dent prayers of every well-wisher to Old England 
 Scotland and Ireland inclusively, who, in men- 
 tal perspective, would hail its limited but illustrious 
 Monarchy transmitted through revolving and re- 
 mote periods of the allegorical Traveller for ever 
 progressing with a scythe and hour-glass. 
 
 * his last breath in faint huzzas. Burnt.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No 1. 
 
 REMARKS [BY JOHN HARRISON] ON A PAMPHLET LATE- 
 LY [IN 1767] PUBLISHED BY THE REV. NEVIL MAS- 
 KELYNE, UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD OF 
 LONGITUDE. 
 
 A PUBLICATION having lately been made by the 
 Rev. Mr. M askelyne, Astronomer Royal, under the 
 authority of the Board of Longitude, manifestly 
 tending, by the suppression of some facts and the 
 misrepresentation of others, to impress the world 
 with an unjust opinion of my Invention, and falsely 
 asserting that my Watch did not at certain periods 
 therein mentioned keep time with sufficient exact- 
 ness to determine the Longitude within the limits 
 prescribed by the Act of the 12th of Queen Anne; 
 I think it incumbent upon me to submit some ob- 
 servations thereon to the impartial public; and the 
 rather, because the said Pamphlet is rendered so
 
 90 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 confused by unnecessary repetitions, and voluminous 
 tables, that a man must be pretty conversant in 
 these matters, to trace and combine the facts, so as 
 to check the conclusions, which would consequently 
 be taken upon trust by the generality of readers, 
 unless publicly contradicted. As it will be my en- 
 deavour so far to avoid the use of all terms of art as 
 to make the subject generally intelligible, I flatter 
 myself I shall not be thought impertinent for giving 
 a short explanation (though quite unnecessary to 
 the far greater part of my readers) of what the 
 Longitude is, and what the service required of the 
 Watch* 
 
 The Longitude of any place is its distance East 
 or West from any other given place; and what we 
 want is a method of finding out at sea, how far we 
 
 * The ensuing paragraph would have been left out, had not 
 Mr. Mudge, admiring it for its clearness, given it insertion in 
 his reply : and also by reason that in a work adapted as 
 far as the writer could effect it, for general perusal, it may be 
 of use to some tyros ; and occasionally serve to make the Ladies 
 distinctly acquainted with a word so often in their way, on 
 taking up a newspaper. They will please to observe that four 
 seconds of time are equivalent to a geographical mile, rather 
 more than a statute mile, in space ; which gives fifteen such 
 miles to a minute, and sixty, or a degree, to four minutes. By 
 the same progression, the earth revolves 21,600 miles at the 
 equator in the twenty-four hours ; but the motion of our globe 
 on its polar axis becomes trifling when compared with its ve- 
 locity in its orbit, for Mr. Whiston tells them that while he 
 is writing, himself and his study are carried at the rate of 
 25,000 miles an hour !
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 91 
 
 are got to the Eastward or Westward of the place 
 we sailed from. The application of a Timekeeper 
 to this discovery is founded upon the following- 
 principles: the earth's surface is divided into 360 
 equal parts (by imaginary lines drawn from North 
 to South) which are called Degrees of Longitude; 
 and its daily revolution Eastward round its own 
 axis is performed in 24 hours; consequently in that 
 period, each of those imaginary lines or degrees, 
 becomes successively opposite to the Sun (which 
 makes the noon or precise middle of the day at each 
 of those degrees;) and it must follow, that from 
 the time any one of those lines passes the Sun, till 
 the next passes, must be just four minutes, for 24 
 hours being divided by 360 will give that quantity ; 
 so that for every degree of Longitude we sail West- 
 ward, it will be noon with us four minutes the later, 
 and for every degree Eastward four minutes the 
 sooner, and so on in proportion for any greater or 
 less quantity. Now, the exact time of the day at 
 the place where we are, can be ascertained by well 
 known and easy observations of the Sun if visible 
 for a few minutes at any time from his being ten 
 degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from 
 an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high 
 in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when 
 such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at 
 the same moment what o'clock it is at the place we 
 sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered. 
 To do this, it is not necessary that a Watch should
 
 5J APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 perform its revolutions precisely in that space of 
 time which the Earth takes to perform her's; it is 
 only required that it should invariably perform it in 
 some known time, and then the constant difference 
 between the length of the one revolution and the 
 other, will appear as so much daily gained or lost 
 by the Watch, which constant gain or loss, is called 
 the rate of its W//<,'-, and which being 1 added to or 
 deducted from the time shewn by the Watch, will 
 give the true time, and consequently the difference 
 of Longitude. 
 
 I shall now proceed to make such remarks as 
 occur to me on perusal of Mr. Maskelyne's Pam- 
 phlet. 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne begins by telling us that the 
 Board of Longitude, at their Meeting, April 26th, 
 17<H>, came to a resolution that my Watch should 
 be tried at the Royal Observatory under his inspec- 
 tion, and that he accordingly received it on the 5th 
 of May, 1766.* He then says, ' I most days wound 
 
 * It has been shown in the work that this trial, although 
 nominally the resolution of the Board, does not appear to have 
 been wanted by any persons at the time, except Lord Morton 
 and Dr. Maskelyne, between whom the private business was 
 concocted ; which enabled the latter to exhibit a set orT against 
 his own unsuccessful demonstrations by the Moon. We will 
 yet do the other Commissioners, including the consequential 
 Peer, the justice to suppose they were ignorant of what passed 
 at Barbadoes; for, with a knowledge of that scene, to have 
 expected much fairness from the Astronomer Royal, and that 
 he would not be glad to avail himself of any defect he thought
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 93 
 
 ' up and compared the Watch with the transit clock 
 'of the Royal Observatory myself; at other times it 
 ' was performed by my assistant Joseph Dymond, 
 'and afterwards William Baily; this was always 
 ' done in the presence of, and attested by one of the 
 ' Officers of Greenwich Hospital, when he came to 
 'assist in unlocking- the Box in which the Watch is 
 ' kept, in order to its being 1 wound up.' 
 
 Not one of those attestations appears in the Book : 
 perhaps Mr. Maskelyne thinks his assertion of the 
 fact will be sufficient for the public, and indeed so 
 it might have been to me, had I not received dif- 
 ferent information : but the truth is, the Commis- 
 sioners appointed a set of Gentlemen to attend by 
 rotation the winding up of the Watch ; they were 
 to unlock the Box the Watch was in, to see it 
 wound up and compared with the Clock, then to 
 lock the Box again and take the Key with them, 
 and Mr. Maskelyne was to have another Key, there 
 being two Locks to the Box :* the Officers of 
 Greenwich Hospital were appointed for this service, 
 some of whom from the infirmities of age, and mis- 
 he had discovered in the Timekeeper, whether real or imagi- 
 nary, might have reminded the Clergymen, who formed the 
 Lunar party, of what was often in their way, that " men do 
 not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles." 
 
 * It may not perhaps be improper here to observe, that the 
 Locks were such as might be picked with a crooked nail, that 
 the Lock of which the Officers had the Key was on the 10th 
 of July out of order, and that Mr. Maskelyne was sorry this 
 should ever come to the ear of the public. Pamphlet.
 
 94 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 fortunes in the service, were scarcely able to get up 
 the hill to the Observatory, so that when they came 
 there, as can be proved from undoubted eye-wit- 
 nesses, they only unlocked the Box, sat down until 
 Mr. Maskelyne had done what he thought proper, 
 and then locked the Box again, and departed: and 
 whatever attestation they may be supposed to have 
 made, 1 can prove that at several times when Gen- 
 tlemen of my acquaintance happened to be present, 
 the attendance of the Officers was by no means an 
 effectual check upon the comparison of the Watch 
 with the Clock. I would not be thought to accuse 
 those Gentlemen of neglect of the duty imposed 
 upon them ; on the contrary I applaud their dili- 
 gence in being ready at all hours of the day to 
 attend when Mr. Maskelyne was pleased to appoint: 
 and therefore I will even for the present (though 
 contrary to fact) suppose they have been the check 
 proposed by the Commissioners of Longitude against 
 any unfair access to the Watch, still ike Clock with 
 which it was compared iras left entirely in Mr. 
 Maskelyne's power, and an alteration of the one 
 could not but produce just the same effect as an 
 error of the other, nor is there even the least pre- 
 tence of a check either on the Clock, or on its com- 
 parison with observations of the Sun ; nay on the 
 contrary, Mr. Maskelyne did at this time take the 
 Key of the Clock from Mr. Dymond in whose cus- 
 tody it used to be, and kept it himself.* 
 
 * This blunder, which, if he had been of Irish manufacture,
 
 NO. 1 APPENDIX. 95 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne then proceeds to give us an ac- 
 count of the Watch's going- from day to day, which 
 
 might have passed for a good bull of that country, was per- 
 fectly characteristic of Lord Morton's understanding; by whom 
 the rules to prevent any tampering with the Timekeeper were 
 produced ready prepared, at the Board, in April, 1766, to 
 which the trial previously determined on by his Lordship and 
 Dr. Maskelyne (the personal enemies of the Inventor, to wit) 
 was submitted as a matter of form, rather than of necessity. 
 What estimate can be made of the judgment, or of the good 
 nature of those present, when no person pointed out the ridicule 
 these precautions involved? although it was the more obvious, 
 because in Dr. Halley's plan, some years before, which all of 
 them knew, (or they did no honour to their office) and which 
 was to send the Timekeeper to roll six months on board a ship 
 in the Downs : the vessel being to communicate by signal with 
 Deal Castle, where the Clock was kept, it is ordered 'that the 
 ' astronomical Clock should be locked up in the room where 
 ' it stands, and the keys of the said room put in possession of 
 'some proper person, to be named by the Commissioners of 
 ' Longitude, and by Mr. Harrison ; and that no person should 
 'be allowed to take the time from the said Clock by a Watch, 
 'or otherwise.' Here it is evident as much precaution was 
 thought necessary to prevent any unfair dealing with the Clock, 
 as with the Timekeeper ; and yet his Lordship, who certainly 
 desired to be thought as clever a fellow as any round the Wre- 
 kin, had not an item of any such particular in his plan. We 
 would not insinuate he had but one piece of learning, like 
 Ephraim Jenkinson, in the Vicar of Wakefield, but the nor- 
 thern Peer recals to mind that " astronomical jargon" which 
 an eminent Statesman, who was above affectation, but found 
 it necessary to make something like a flourish, tells his Son, 
 he got by heart from a Master, when he was to bring in his bill 
 for the reformation of the Gregorian calendar. It leans to no 
 impossibility, if we suspect the Gentlemen of the Royal So-
 
 9(3 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 in his 15th page he concludes thus: 'From the 
 
 * foregoing 1 numbers it appears, that the Watch was 
 
 * getting.from the very first near 20 seconds per day ; 
 ' a circumstance which is not my business to account 
 ' for ; but which, as it kept near mean time in the 
 ' voyage to Barbadoes, seems to shew that the Watch 
 ' cannot be taken to pieces and put together again 
 
 * without altering its rate of going considerably, 
 4 contrary to Mr. Harrison's assertions formerly.' 
 
 When I made the discovery upon oath, of the 
 principles and construction of the Watch, to six 
 gentlemen appointed by the Board of Longitude 
 and to Mr. Maskelyne, (who insisted on Inning ;i 
 right to attend, as being a Commissioner) which 
 discovery was finished on the 22nd of August, 1765, 
 as appears by the annexed certificate,* the Watch 
 
 ciety were now and then mystified by plausible quotations 
 from their President, which if closely questioned, it would 
 have been found he did not understand himself: such at least 
 is the safest conclusion left for those who compare the speci- 
 mens he has given of his capacity, in common things, with his 
 elevation to the chair of Newton. 
 
 * ' We whose names are hereunto subscribed do certify, 
 'that Mr. John Harrison has taken his Timekeeper to pieces 
 'in the presence of us, and explained the principles and con- 
 ' struction thereof, and every thing relative thereto, to our en- 
 'tire satisfaction; and that he also did to our satisfaction an- 
 'swer to every question proposed by us or any of us relative 
 'thereto; and that we have compared the drawing of the same 
 'with the parts, and do find that they perfectly correspond." 
 
 NEVIL MASKELYNE, THOMAS MUDGE, 
 
 JOHN MICHELL, WILLIAM MATTHEWS, 
 
 WILLIAM LUDLAM. LARCUM KENDALL. 
 JOHN BIRD, August 22, 1765.
 
 .NO. 1. APPENDIX. 97 
 
 then remained in my hands, all taken to pieces : 
 I little imagined the Board of Longitude would 
 take it from me, as not conceiving any use they 
 could make of it: and having besides received as- 
 surances from them, that they only wanted the for- 
 mal delivery of it, in compliance with the terms of 
 the new law, without meaning to deprive me of the 
 use of it: I therefore went on making some experi- 
 ments, and altered the rate of its going, thereby 
 to determine a fact I wanted to be satisfied about. 
 The Watch was under this experiment the latter 
 end of October, 1765, when upon receiving the 
 Certificate for the remainder of the first moiety of 
 my reward, I was ordered to deliver it to the Board. 
 My Son, attending with it, being asked if it was 
 then as fit as before to ascertain the Longitude, re- 
 plied in the affirmative; for as I have before shewn, 
 the rate of its going, when once ascertained, does 
 not prevent its keeping the Longitude. He was 
 not asked the present rate of its going, nor could 
 he have answered with precision if he had, because 
 we had not had notice sufficient to determine that 
 point; but we did, at that time, tell several of our 
 friends that it went about eighteen or nineteen se- 
 conds a day, fast, and we have at several times 
 since (without ever dreaming that this was to be- 
 come a point of public discussion) had occasion to 
 mention the same thing to several Members of 
 Parliament, Commissioners of Longitude and other 
 Gentlemen, insomuch that we did not believe any 
 
 H
 
 98 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 body was uninformed of it, who at all attended to 
 the business of the Longitude.* 
 
 * That our passions make us listless to what a common sense 
 of propriety might otherwise have preserved our attention, is 
 exemplified here, when the Astronomer Royal in his eagerness 
 to make the most of a machine that overset his own pretensions 
 to the reward, so entirely overlooked the delicacy of his situa- 
 tion, as to have neglected fortifying the projected inquest with 
 a certificate to the effect, that when he received the Timekeeper, 
 it was declared by the Inventor, or by some competent person 
 with his sanction, to be in a tit state for the examination, and 
 that its rate of going was so and so. The want of such a docu- 
 ment, which, in the usual course of things would have preceded 
 the pages occupied with the daily registering, or the calcula- 
 tions consequent, becomes a hiatus which those Commissioners 
 who authorized the publication of a trial so surreptitiously 
 commenced, should have been aware might thereafter make 
 their mental remains stink in the nostrils of all who honour 
 genius contending with the storms and adverse currents of life; 
 and would deprecate the despotic treatment seen here, even by 
 the tacit admission of the parties ; for it never was denied that 
 the Watch gaining near twenty seconds a day was known to 
 several Gentlemen, members of Parliament and others, some 
 of whom were Commissioners: which makes the chance almost 
 as a centum to an unit that Dr. Maskelyne could not be igno- 
 rant of what it was not very convenient to him to know. But 
 this discreditable affectation in a collateral descendant of Igna- 
 tius Loyola (as he seemed j proved in the sequel an important 
 link in the concatenation of events which made his Majesty, 
 who placed no kindof reliance on the Doctor's demonstrations, 
 very desirous to ascertain the merit of the last made Timekeeper 
 under his own observation ; a propitious circumstance for 
 the Inventor, when application was made for that very purpose, 
 as has been described.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 
 
 This may serve to account for the circumstance 
 which Mr. Maskelyne declares, it was none of his 
 business to account for, why the Watch was getting 
 near twenty seconds per day; but as to his inference, 
 I must say it betrays the most absolute ignorance 
 of Mechanics, and of this machine in particular, 
 in which it is obvious (and for this fact I appeal to 
 the Watchmakers who saw it taken to pieces) that 
 its going at the same rate when put together again, 
 as before, depends (if none of the parts are altered) 
 upon nothing more complicated than putting a 
 single Screiv into the same place from whence it 
 was taken. Indeed this passage, and the ignorant 
 and puerile remarks which Mr. Maskelyne has been 
 suffered to prefix to my written description of the 
 Watch (to the disgrace of this country in those 
 foreign translations it has already undergone) bring 
 strongly to my remembrance an observation made 
 by some of the Gentlemen present at the discovery, 
 "that they wondered at his patience in attending so 
 "long to a subject he seemed so totally unacquainted 
 "with."* 
 
 * Even though he took thought for the morrow, to be pre- 
 pared for the explanations, according to Mr. Mudge, as follows 
 ' there has been a time when the Doctor was very ready to 
 'court him [Mr. Mudge, senior] and that was when Mr. Har- 
 ' rison was about to make a discovery of the principles of his 
 ' Timekeeper, that he might, through the assistance of my 
 'Father, obtain such information in mechanical matters, as 
 ' not to appear absolutely ignorant of a subject which he was 
 ' desirous of being thought properly acquainted with ; and in
 
 100 APPENDIX. NO. 1, 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne then proceeds to tell us of a change 
 that happened in the going of the Watch, and says, 
 *this change began in the beginning of August, on 
 'the few and only hot days we had last Summer, 
 * which yet were not extreme, the Thermometer 
 4 within doors having never risen above 73 degrees, 
 'the rest of the Summer in general was remarkably 
 'cool and temperate.' When I took this Watch to 
 pieces I informed Mr. Maskelyne and the other 
 Gentlemen, that in trying any experiments with it, 
 in respect to heat and cold, it would be proper that 
 
 'order to get this information, he was then almost a daily visi- 
 'tant of my Father's, and very often, that he might have as 
 ' much of his time as he could, dined with him." 
 
 Some men, (we hope not the present scribe) says Pope, are 
 
 forced, in spite 
 
 Of nature and their stars, to write. 
 
 Dr. [M.iskclyne seems to have equally contended with his des- 
 tiny, in desiring to be master of mechanics; for not all the 
 lessons he sought of Mr. Mudgewere available to any purpose: 
 which makes it rather ludicrous, when his name appears at 
 the head of the list of three Gentlemen and three Watchmakers 
 who attested that the Inventor had fully disclosed the principles 
 and construction of the Timekeeper. We may conclude the 
 Gentlemen who attended would willingly have dispensed with 
 the Doctor's signature, as a frontispiece to their own, for 
 from some passages in his Pamphlet, it would appear he 
 either did not understand what was explained, or (in the 
 sailor's phrase) forgot it before you could say Jack Robinson. 
 But to form an idea of the orlensiveness of this passage to Dr. 
 Maskelyne, let us only suppose some one had told Cardinal 
 Richlieu, he was a mere pretender to poetry; or Sir Robert 
 Walpole, that he knew nothing of polite gallantry.
 
 NO. 1 APPENDIX. 101 
 
 it should be so fixed that, as far as could be, the 
 heat should have an equal influence on all sides of 
 it; and it is obvious that the Thermometer ought 
 to have been kept in the same Box with it; but as 
 this was not done, I apprehend the effects of heat 
 mentioned above do not merit much attention; and 
 therefore shall only observe that the Watch was 
 placed in a Box with a Glass in the lid and another 
 in one side, in the seat of a window level with the 
 lowest pane of the window, and exposed to the 
 South-East, whilst the Thermometer, which was 
 to ascertain the degree of heat the Watch was ex- 
 posed to, was placed in a shady part of the room : 
 now it is obvious that while the Air surrounding- 
 
 
 
 the Thermometer might be very temperate, there 
 might, if the Sun shone upon it, be a heat in the 
 Box, superior to what was ever felt in the open air 
 in any part of the world; and perhaps greater than 
 any human being could subsist in, and consequently 
 improper, or at least unnecessary for this experi- 
 ment.* 
 
 * To any objection to this arrangement, which no logical 
 adroitness could have made a case in favour of the Timekeeper, 
 Dr. Maskelyne would have coldly answered that the Com- 
 missioners (Lord Morton and the Lunars, to wit) had seen it, 
 and had not ordered to the contrary. A disposition of the 
 Timekeeper and of the Thermometer so incongruous that it may 
 be called fantastical, is remarkably opposed to that guardian 
 solicitude which it may be said "hopeth all things, and endu- 
 reth all things" in pursuit of its enlightened purpose, which 
 was seen at Richmond, and might be summed up in the con-
 
 1<)J APPENDIX 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne next tells us of on irregularity 
 which he says happened in cold \\ rather, and says, 
 'However, it seems in general that tin I Yost must 
 'have been the cause of these irregularities, as weB 
 
 *as of llir \\ at. h\ yfuintr so imu-li slo\\T 111 tin 
 'month of January, than it had ^i if before.' Mr. 
 Maskc'lvnc oii"Jit alonir \vith this to have published 
 what I told him win -n I -\plaiiu-d it ; that tin- pro- 
 vision against the i-m-rls of h< at and cold \va* not 
 
 sick-ration that his Majesty wished well to the Intention. On 
 
 th- i ..ntr.irv, the Astronomer Hoyal h;i- lift it to !> inferred 
 from his overt acts, that he was much worse than indifferent 
 to the success of the result. About twenty yearn after, Mr. 
 Mudge, who had two Timekeepers on trial for the rewards 
 under the 1 Itli <eorge 3rd, complained that they were cam* d 
 backwards and forwards every day across an open court im 
 sected by some steps, on account of its unequal level ; justly 
 thinking that if the bearer accelerate! In- |>u . m hi. I \v. .tther, 
 he might, without intruding it, give tin U at< !i ;t i:n.i \\ in 
 the plane of the bu I a n ,i. . m t< %. \Nli-tli.i 
 
 this arose from the Doctor's apathy towui ! tin- uccess of tin 
 Machines, or from his d m .J kno\s I. dge, 
 
 we cannot say, but th.tt tin a: was something disingenuous in 
 bis conduct, is rendered suspicious by the very singular per- 
 version of a common uonl. hi .nl\ . i tin- to tin siiu.ition <>l 
 thegreatinoiii.it 1 lam-t- ul II ill \\ini. tin I nut-keepers were 
 ki pt, und that of tin- transit room, \*ln-r tin \ u ere compared 
 vntli the Clock, he suys the former was one pair of stairs 
 abort the otln i : \%hich of COIHM-, notw ithsl.nnlinu >ln -lifti- 
 4-tilty of supposing any apartment al*>cf tin tun-it room, uould 
 be universally understood to in* .m ov r In ,id : \t in t.n-t it 
 was in a se|Kii<n< l.uildmu, on tin- other side of the court 
 mentioned.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 103 
 
 in this machine extended to all degrees; that I 
 never had tried it so low as the freezing- point, 
 which according- to the best informations I have 
 been able to procure is a degree of cold that never 
 did exist between the decks of a ship at sea, in any 
 climate yet explored by mankind. 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne then comes to the rate of its going 
 in different positions; and says, 'It is obvious, 
 ' these last-mentioned trials of the Watch in a ver- 
 tical position could not be designed to shew how 
 'near it would go at sea, where it can never obtain 
 'these positions : the intent of them is to prove how 
 'near Mr. Harrison's execution of his Watch comes 
 *up to his principles, with respect to the making 
 'all the arcs described by the balance, whether large 
 'or small, to be performed in the same time, as 
 'Mr. Harrison asserts them to be.' Mr. Maskelyne 
 here also might have had candour enough to inform 
 the public, as I did him, that although the Watch 
 was quite sufficient to answer the purposes required 
 of it in navigation, and to fulfil what was prescribed 
 by the Act of Queen Anne, yet it was far from being 
 in a state of perfection, as an universal exact Time- 
 keeper for every purpose ; I shewed him and the 
 rest of the Gentlemen the reasons why the machine 
 then before them, would not go at the same rate in 
 such different positions into which the motion of a 
 ship could never put it; and whilst I explained to 
 them those imperfections in the particular machine 
 we were examining, I also in the clearest manner
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 I was able, pointed out the means of remedying 
 them with certainty in others, which the Gentle- 
 men skilled in Mechanics seemed perfectly to com- 
 prehend, and to be satisfied of the truth which I 
 again assert, that Watches made on my principles 
 will endure a much greater motion and change of 
 position than they can ever be subject to in a ship; 
 and that they will not be affected by any degree of 
 heat or cold, in which a man can live. 
 
 If any thing was meant to be concluded with 
 respect to me by this experiment, either in point 
 of property or reputation, common justice would 
 have required that I should have had an opportunity 
 of seeing- the facts ascertained; and when such a 
 trial \v;is directed as put the result in the absolute 
 power of a single person, that I should have been 
 satisfied of his integrity, disinterestedness, and 
 ability for the purpose.* I would not be under- 
 stood to attack Mr. Maskelyne's knowledge of the 
 theory of Astronomy: as for any thing I know to 
 the contrary, it may be of the very first rate, espe- 
 
 * Would not Dr. Maskelyne himself, had the case been 
 reversed, and had he had no interest in the particulars, have 
 thought what passed at Barbadoes incompatible with his su- 
 perintendence of the trial? a remark which may be extended 
 further by those who recollect that in Parliament any member 
 is expected to withdraw from a question involving his own 
 private concerns; yet John Harrison never found the benefit 
 of this decorous sentiment at the Board of Longitude, where 
 his personal enemies instead of absenting themselves, had 
 effrontery enough to take the lead against him.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 105 
 
 cially as the Commissioners have thought proper to 
 entrust him with the execution of their commands ;* 
 
 * There was more decorum than earnestness in the deference 
 to their commands; for though he was not wanting in respect 
 tor Dr. Maskelyne in his official department, he held the other 
 mathematical Commissioners very cheap as practical astrono- 
 mers, and the following, among other particulars found in his 
 Journal, illustrate the cause. One conclusion which we do 
 not hazard much in advancing is, that our Mechanician, by 
 whom his son had been ab!y instructed in whatever was neces- 
 sary to his purpose, was better qualified for the Professor's 
 chair than his superior scientific opponents, as they thought 
 themselves. But it may have been unfortunate for him to foil 
 them at their own weapons in this manner; as their conduct 
 leaves it to be sufficiently inferred that they would chew the 
 cud of resentment now and then, and certainly knew how to 
 indulge it: he is found elsewhere complaining of personal rude- 
 ness from them. 
 
 'At a Board, August 9th, 1763, William Harrison desired 
 ' to know how many observations of the first satellite of Jupiter 
 ' were necessary for ascertaining the difference of Longitude 
 'between Portsmouth and Jamaica? to which Mr. Blisse 
 ' [Astronomer Royal] answered, he thought fourteen emersions, 
 ' and fourteen immersions. William Harrison said he thought 
 'that must be a work of a long time; for scarcely more than 
 
 * half that number was ever to be had at any one place in a 
 'year. At length the Board determined there should be as 
 ' many observations got as could be that season, and it should 
 'be satisfactory. 
 
 ' Mr. Harrison then desired the Board would please to ex- 
 ' plain what they meant by equal altitudes made on three days. 
 ' Mr. Blisse answered, they meant that they should be three 
 ' succeeding days ; and that the preceding and following limb 
 
 * of the sun should be taken at each hair in the instrument ; 
 
 * and there being three hairs in the instrument, consequently
 
 106 APPENDIX. NO. I. 
 
 and which he has ever been as ready to undertake: 
 but alas! as to his skill in Mechanics, he knows 
 little or nothing of the matter he has ventured to 
 take in hand.* 
 
 ' there would be six observations each day. Mr. Harrison 
 4 informed the Board, he looked upon this to be next to an im- 
 ' possibility, and that he could say so from experience: that 
 he had been kept five months, by order of the Board, at 
 ' Portsmouth before, and that during that whole time no such 
 ' thins could have been done : so he hoped they would put it on 
 ' three different days, and that if they only got one correspon- 
 ' dent equal altitude, that should be a sufficient observation for 
 ' the day. This was agreed to by the Board : they having 
 'first called in Captain Campbell, to have his opinion, which 
 4 agreed with Mr. Harrison's.' 
 
 * Not Adams's proposal to borrow some silver of brother 
 Truliber could be more offensive to that dealer in live bacon 
 than this reiterated charge of ignorance of what, it so happen- 
 ed, the Doctor desired of all things to be thought to possess a 
 consummate knowledge without prejudice to his reputation as 
 an astronomer, on which he felt sufficiently comfortable, accor- 
 ding to precedent, and any compliments levelled to batter in 
 breach at his solid works would have been a waste of powder. 
 His interest being of very material consequence at the Board of 
 Longitude, as he could command the votes from Oxford and 
 Cambridge, and it being discovered that he was constitutionally 
 disposed to inhale the subtle particles from watchmakers' shops 
 and workrooms, he became of course the Mecaenas of horolo- 
 gical mechanics : three of whom, with whose merits we would 
 not be understood to interfere, received mainly through his servi- 
 ces 500 each, for their improvements in chronometry ; and mat- 
 ters prospered as they should, both with the Patron and his Cli- 
 ents, till one day, like thesnuffcollector in the Spectator, having 
 taken too large a pinch of some laudatory stuff, it produced a
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX 107 
 
 I think it more consistent with the respect I owe 
 to the public, and myself- to speak out plainly, 
 than to have recourse to insinuations, on a subject 
 of this nature; I therefore declare, that I am not 
 satisfied with the truth of his reporting other obser- 
 vations relative to the Longitude, as I do maintain 
 that in both his voyages the observations which he 
 said he made the land by, were not calculated till 
 after he had seen the land ;* and I am certain those 
 
 quarrel between the Doctor and Sir Joseph Banks, who denied 
 either the originality or the utility accruing from an invention 
 for which the learned Collegians had voted 500. This sparring 
 gave birth to a pamphlet from Flamstead Hill, for private circu- 
 lation only, which the Author has not seen ; but from his confi- 
 dence in the Baronet's superior knowledge, he surmises, that 
 when a case is to be made out at all events, the party may be 
 resembled to a barrister, who cannot deviate from the purpose 
 for which he has received a retaining fee. 
 
 * Dr. Maskelyne, knowing his Antagonist had incontro- 
 vertible evidence of this humiliating fact, thought it the safer 
 course to attempt no reply. But what can be said of the ma- 
 jority at the Board, who, in 1772, Lord Morton being then 
 dead, inherited the mantle of that Philosopher by experiment, 
 and assuming it by turns, disregarded the most palpable truisms, 
 to so good purpose as to insist on the last made Timekeeper 
 being tried at Greenwich, and nowhere else: id est, by their 
 colleague, a person noways remarkable for self control, and 
 who might be reasonably presumed to have been excited almost 
 to frenzy by the astounding failure recorded here, which he had 
 no ink that would blot out. Without undervaluing the profes- 
 sional abilities of the Astronomer Royal, it was obvious that 
 such a cause of exasperation was likely to make his hand un- 
 steady, and to show his heart not " hung in the right place.'"
 
 108 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 he has given, in the publication now before us, are 
 not genuine, for he pretends to find each observa- 
 tion of the transit of the Sun to the hundredth part 
 of a second of time, a degree of exactness about 
 twenty times beyond what any other observer has 
 hitherto found practicable: moreover I know him 
 to be deeply interested in the Lunar Tables ; a 
 scheme set up some years ago for the reward in 
 competition with my Invention,* and for which 
 large sums of money have already been paid by the 
 public. 
 
 Although I flatter myself the reader is already 
 in possession of very sufficient reasons for rejecting 
 the whole Pamphlet as partial and inconclusive, 
 
 It was consistent therefore with the character of George 3rd 
 immediately to interfere on seeing this state of the business ; 
 which in its result, produced a remarkable domestic state 
 paper; for as such may be regarded the minutes of the Board 
 of Longitude that sat November 20th, 177*2, from the serious 
 public consequences that might have followed the contest the 
 Commissioners were provoking. Had not this paper been 
 official, it might have seemed incredible that any set of men 
 seated in an apartment at the Admiralty, could in such peremp- 
 tory terms, addressed to a person who they all knew had wait- 
 ed on them by his Majesty's direction, signify to the occupant 
 of the throne, as in effect they do, that he had better mind his 
 own business and not interfere with, them. The acrimony of 
 political and of religious zealots is proverbial enough, yet here 
 we have a scientific Cabal, supported by volumes stratum 
 super stratum, whose conduct might make it supposed that not 
 one of them could read or write. 
 
 * See the Preface.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 109 
 
 yet I intreat his patient attention whilst I advance 
 one step farther, and shew, that although Mr. Mas- 
 kelyne has presented us with a set of observations 
 which according to his mode of calculation, prove 
 what he advances, yet those very observations when 
 rightly reasoned upon prove the contrary ; and that 
 in each of the periods he refers to, except those of 
 the severe frost and improper positions (against 
 which Mr. Maskelyne ought to have informed the 
 world I never warranted this particular Watch) it 
 kept time with sufficient correctness to determine 
 the Longitude within the limits of the Act of Queen 
 Anne. 
 
 The reader by this time knows enough of the 
 subject to see, that in order to try whether the 
 Watch would or would not keep time with sufficient 
 exactness to determine the Longitude, Mr. Maske- 
 lyne's first operation, after receiving it, should have 
 been to ascertain the rate of its going. But no 
 such thing happened; he knew it had not gone ex- 
 actly correspondent to mean time, during the voy- 
 age to Barbadoes; it had been publicly enough 
 declared that its rate of going had been since altered; 
 and, if he had not received that information, he 
 might nay must have discovered it in the first 
 twenty-four hours trial; however, without once 
 attending to this essential circumstance, he goes to 
 work, comparing the first period of six weeks 
 (which he observes is generally reckoned the term 
 of a West India voyage) when it was in an hori-
 
 110 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 zontal position, with mean time, instead of the cor- 
 rected time, and each succeeding- period with that 
 immediately preceding- it! Who can hesitate in 
 pronouncing- that his conclusions must be all erro- 
 neous ? He should first have ascertained the rate 
 of its going- by a length of observations of the Sun 
 or Stars, or by a perfect pendulum Clock if he had 
 such a one, and then have corrected the time shewn 
 by the Watch accordingly. However, supposing 
 for a moment hisyizc/sto be genuine, I will deduce 
 the real result in the best manner the observations 
 will admit, rejecting those made while the Watch 
 was in improper positions, and those during the 
 frost, for the same reasons that Mr. Maskelyne lays 
 no stress upon them, and for those I have already 
 stated. I shall therefore (pursuing his idea of six- 
 weeks) take it during the first tranquil six weeks 
 that it had, viz. from July the 6th, to August the 
 17th, in which time it gained in all 11 minutes, 
 50 seconds, or 16 -- seconds per day which I will 
 assume as the rate of its going, or if Mr. Maskelyne 
 pleases I will take the average of his whole time of 
 examination, from the 6th of July to the 3rd of 
 January, and from the 9th of January to the 4th 
 of March, which will come out at the rate of 16 -- 
 seconds per day fast, and I say that according to 
 either of those rates of going, the Watch kept the 
 Longitude within the limits of the Act of Queen 
 Anne, during any period of six weeks that can be 
 pointed out, excepting those of extreme cold, and
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 improper position which have already been ex- 
 plained. I do not trouble the reader with the cal- 
 culations: if I assert an untruth, I shall hardly 
 escape contradiction.* 
 
 There is another inaccuracy, which though of less 
 consequence, ought not to escape notice. One 
 would naturally suppose when Mr. Maskelyne found 
 the Watch went at this rate of gaining on mean 
 time, he would have been very exact in his time of 
 comparing it with his Clock; but on the contrary 
 we find he was so irregular as to vary his compari- 
 sons on succeeding days from half an hour to four 
 hours and forty-eight minutes, and this not for a 
 time or two, but for one third of the whole time he 
 had it.f 
 
 * In his answer to Mr. Mudge, Dr. Maskelyne fancied he 
 had an avenue of escape, by appealing to the commonplace 
 resort, that it is impossible to please everybody; and alleging 
 that Harrison and Mudge did not agree on the point. But his 
 antagonist clearly shows him inconsistent in his efforts. He 
 had thought a rate deduced from nine days going, and applied 
 to a trial of six weeks quite insufficient; and yet he afterwards 
 found that a rate, taken from one month and applied to six was 
 proper enough; forgetting that one month bears a less propor- 
 tion to six, than nine days do to six weeks. 
 
 t The contrast between this inattention in a person whose 
 accustomed habits, as they were to be presumed, conduced to 
 precision on such a point, and the punctuality of the King at 
 his private observatory, is too remarkable, and withal too im- 
 portant to be passed over ; for though we do not say that Dr. 
 Maskelyne's neglect contributed to the exactness which 
 William Harrison noticed; because it would have been seen
 
 11'2 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne having shewn from the result of 
 his calculation (which I have here proved to be 
 false) that the Watch is not to be depended upon 
 to determine the Longitude in a voyage of six weeks, 
 then says, * these considerations are sufficient to ex- 
 * plain the motives which might have actuated Mr. 
 'Harrison, as a man of prudence, in desiring to 
 *send his Watch two voyages to the West Indies, 
 
 independent of any such circumstance; yet to the resentment 
 which his Majesty felt in behalf of the oppressed individual, 
 thus complaining, not a little of the determined opposition he 
 gave to the proceedings of the Board of Longitude is to be 
 attributed. One obvious reason is, either that the majority 
 who authorized the publication of a trial conducted with so little 
 regard to regularity, notwithstanding it was intended to set the 
 public right, had none of them seen it ; or, which would be 
 more incredible, although undoubted, that the same majority, 
 almost wholly composed of Graduates, insisted on the last 
 made Timekeeper being tried at < -reenwich and nowhere, else: 
 an ultimatum which led to that total failure of the respect shown 
 by all ranks towards the Crown ; but which these Ecclesiastics 
 were grossly deficient in on the date recorded. Sucli we 
 venture to conclude will be the sentiments of the Gentlemen of 
 Oxford and Cambridge, now that the views and interests then 
 predominant no longer agitate so many minds, and warp the 
 better resolves of the " self approving hour." They may re- 
 collect those fine lines of Waller; often but too applicable to 
 the deformity and party spirit of the transactions in which their 
 predecessors were engaged above sixty years ago. 
 
 Our passions gone, and reason on her throne, 
 Amaz'd we view the mischiefs we have done ; 
 After a tempest, when the winds are laid, 
 The calm sea wonders at the wrecks it made.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 113 
 
 'upon his idea that he should be entitled to the 
 'large rewards prescribed in the Act of the 12th of 
 ' Queen Anne, in case his Watch kept time within 
 'the limits there mentioned, whether the method 
 'itself was or could be rendered generally useful and 
 'practicable, or not;'* this insinuation (published 
 
 * It was well observed by Lord Chesterfield, that " an in- 
 jury is not to be measured by the notions of him that gives, 
 but of him that receives it."f And never was this axiom better 
 illustrated than by the prudence, as he calls it, with which 
 Dr. Maskelyne attempts to saddle his antagonist, as if design- 
 ing that for a compliment, which in the construction of things 
 where it was addressed, was synonymous with low cunning and 
 dissimulation of purpose. If the Doctor was sincere in his 
 view of the case, he has given us a feature in his own portrait 
 enough to have put on their guard either public or private men 
 having transactions with him; for it is perfectly consonant to 
 what is looked for in the disreputable character called a man 
 of the world, with which every large town is plentifully 
 sprinkled. The spirit of such men is directly opposed to that 
 of Christianity; insomuch that they have given occasion for 
 more volumes of sermons than any other description of offenders 
 deficient in good works. The man of the world will take any 
 fair advantage of you ; by which he means such as will not 
 absolutely compromise his (qualified) reputation for probity, 
 however mean or unprincipled the motive may be, if that is 
 locked up in his own breast. The Astronomer Royal argues 
 as if he really had no apprehension of the disingenuous, crafty, 
 and indefensible conduct he was imputing to his antagonist. 
 
 t The Author had somewhere read that the sentiment was borrowed 
 from an antient, but on enquiring of three gentlemen of learning, the first 
 thought it was in the Iliad, but had forgotten the passage ; the second 
 believed it would be found in Cicero ; and the third in Seneca. As it is 
 an idea which persons of every age and country may concur in, there is 
 no occasion to make his Lordship a plagiarist in adducing it.
 
 114 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 under the authority of the lloard of Longitude) 
 that I had contrived a trial which I knew the Watch 
 
 He calls it prudence in John Harrison, to have, as he be- 
 lieves, contrived a machine which he knew would keep time 
 within the nearest limits of the Act in a first, or second voy- 
 age, but not in a third or fourth; and falling into the everlasting 
 error of selfish men, he measures the Claimant by his own 
 scale, although nothing could be more abhorrent to him than 
 the villainous scheme (for so he calls it) which he was so 
 strangely charged with. Particulars have been given under 
 their dates in the Work, shewing that our Mechanician had 
 something chivalrous aud romantic in his cast of mind; he 
 would of course require his honesty of purpose to be as much 
 above suspicion as Caesar did his wife. This Dr. Maskelyne 
 might not know, but several of the Mathematicians who au- 
 thorized the publication of so cruel an insult to this worthy 
 man had had ample opportutiities of becoming acquainted with 
 the cast of his character and in them (as we believe (ieorge 
 3rd would have said) it was unpardonable to sanction such 
 treatment. 
 
 Before Dr. Maskelyne favoured the world with his own 
 scale of rectitude for candidates for national premiums, and 
 that of the Lunar party inclusively, it would have become him 
 to have made some enquiry on the subject ; which, had he been 
 willing to leant, would have shown him the calumny he was 
 fabricating. For the Invention was in such a state tin-.iti/ 
 years before the fourth Timekeeper was shipped for Jamaica, 
 as to have fully enabled the candidate to compass we will say, 
 if not the largest reward, nor even the next in degree, being 
 15,000, yet, bating unforseen casualities, to have insured 
 himself the minor one of 10,000; which being gained, would 
 enable him to prosecute his experiments under less constraint 
 and difficulties; till by subsequent improvements, having come 
 within the nearest limits allowed by law, he could carry off 
 the other 10,000. When it is considered that in the course
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 115 
 
 would fulfil, whilst I was conscious that it would 
 not answer the general purpose of the Act of Queen 
 Anne, and consequently that I had formed a vil- 
 
 of two decennaries how often the scene changes in human 
 affairs; how want of health, some interminable lawsuit, and 
 sundry vexations, might have frustrated the whole design, this 
 was plainly the track which calculating prudence would have 
 marked out for him; but it was incompatible with the high 
 spirit of our Claimant ; he would have thought it neither doing 
 justice to the public nor himself, to solve the problem in this 
 piecemeal way. He always believed he could come considera- 
 bly within half a degree, or thirty miles (which the event veri- 
 fied) and to have lowered that hope would have deprived him 
 of a powerful incentive to his labour. The same sterling 
 honesty, but directly opposed to the prudential maxim 
 
 what's the value of a thing 
 
 But so much money as 'twill bring ? 
 
 is conspicuous in his romantic offer to the Board, 26th Febru- 
 ary, 1763, to concur with them in procuring an Act of Par- 
 liament to alter the mode of trial, for, says he, " many may be 
 thought on, that will do more justice to the Timekeeper than 
 that prescribed by the 12th of Queen Anne."f This was cer- 
 tainly true, but if a trial by sea, of longer duration was con- 
 templated, it is evident that as the risks on that element would 
 have been greater in proportion, so nothing could be more con- 
 trary to the prudence with which Dr. Maskelyne compliments 
 him, whether sincerely, or maliciously, we say not, but he 
 had no right to impute motives to this original Genius, which 
 he might have found, if he ivas willing to know it, were quite 
 foreign to his character. 
 
 t It is singular enough ; but he was answered, ' that it was next to 
 ' impossible to procure an Act of Parliament to be altered, though it were 
 ' for the public good,' And this came from those persons, who were sub- 
 sequently instructed by Lord Morton, that nothing was easier than such 
 a feat, when a public and a severe private injury resulted.
 
 116 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 lainous scheme to rob the public of the reward with- 
 out really and effectually performing the conditions, 
 strikes me as a charge of so atrocious a nature, that 
 I think myself not only justified in publishing to 
 the world what has been done with respect to trials 
 of the merit of my Invention, but even indispensa- 
 bly obliged so to do. I well know what I hazard 
 thereby, and if the rest of my reward cannot be 
 obtained on principles of national faith and public 
 spirit, I am contented to forego it, but I will not 
 descend into the grave loaded with that dishonour 
 which my enemies, availing themselves of their 
 rank or offices, have, in various ways, attempted 
 to throw upon me. 
 
 In the first place I must remark, that the trial 
 referred to was not fixed by me, but by an Act of 
 Parliament passed so long ago as the year 1714, 
 which (after vesting certain discretionary powers 
 in Commissioners to judge what methods are likely 
 to prove practicable, and authori/ing them to issue 
 smaller sums of money) goes on to fix the last grand 
 test of the merit of any such Invention, and enacts 
 'that when a ship, under the appointment of the 
 'said Commissioners, shall thereby actually sail 
 ' from Great Britain to the West Indies without 
 'losing her Longitude beyond certain limits, the 
 'Inventor shall be entitled to certain rewards/ 
 Having from the year J726, employed myself in 
 adapting those principles which I had at that time 
 executed in a pendulum Clock, to an instrument
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 117 
 
 or Timekeeper so constructed as to endure the mo- 
 tion of a ship at sea, and having made a voyage to 
 Lisbon and done sundry other things during a course 
 of years, mostly under the direction of the Com- 
 missioners of Longitude, by way of preparatory 
 experiments, I thought the Invention sufficiently 
 perfect about the latter end of the year 1760, to go 
 upon the ultimate trial, which I accordingly applied 
 for. My Son, after being sent to Portsmouth with 
 the third Timekeeper (the fourth or Watch being 
 to be sent to him) was kept there five months, wait- 
 ing for orders;* which having by returning to 
 London at length obtained, he went to Jamaica in 
 the Deptford Man of War, and returned in the 
 Merlin Sloop of War, having fulfilled every in- 
 struction of the Commissioners. It remained to 
 compute from the astronomical observations made 
 at Portsmouth and Jamaica, whether the Watch 
 had or had not kept the Longitude within the pre- 
 scribed limits; and as my title to 20,000 was to 
 be determined thereby, I thought it but reasonable 
 that I should name some person to check the com- 
 putations, which was refused.^ The Commis- 
 
 * An outline of this part of the Transactions was given in 
 the Work, unavoidably showing how strangely the great Lord 
 Anson had fallen off from that consistency of character so 
 much admired in his circumnavigation. 
 
 f This refusal, though of the utmost consequence, as all 
 the subsequent proceedings may be said to hinge on it, will 
 not be found on the minutes of the Board. The Mathemati- 
 cians nominated were all strangers to the Candidate, who
 
 I IN APPENDIX. NO. J. 
 
 sioners appointed three Gentlemen tor that purpose, 
 and on receiving- their report were pleased to declare 
 that the Watch had not kept its Longitude within 
 the above-mentioned limits.* Thoroughly con- 
 thence could not judge of their fitness for the office they ac- 
 cepted, and he had no confidence in the judgment of the 
 Astronomer Royal, whose personal friends they were: but we 
 presume not disinterestedly in this afi'air: for though their re- 
 muneration does not appear on the minutes, yet that they had 
 such may be inferred from a particular of a subsequent date, 
 Dr. Bevis and Mr. Witchell, (Master of the Academy at 
 Portsmouth) two of the Computers employed after the trial to 
 Baibadoes, having received 50 each for their trouble. 
 
 * A note appended says: < It may not be amiss to take notice 
 'here of an objection that was raised by two of the Commis- 
 ' sioners, both famous for their knowledge in Astronomy; viz: 
 'that the observations of equal altitudes made at Portsmouth, 
 'could not be depended on, because the equal altitude instru- 
 'ment had been removed from the place of observation in the 
 'morning, to another place to make the afternoon observations; 
 'from which it is plain that these great Astronomers did not 
 ' understand either the principles or use of one of the most sim- 
 'ple instruments in Astronomy.' 
 
 These Commissioners were not remarkable for their scientific 
 knowledge, though our Mechanic diverts himself with their 
 supposed fame. They were Nathaniel Blisse, Master of Arts, 
 Astronomer Koyal, who had been Professor of Astronomy, 
 
 likewise of Geometry, at Oxford; and the Rev. Shepherd, 
 
 Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, at 
 Cambridge. The adjusting of the instrument, wherever it was 
 set, depended on a level attached to it: and rinding their ob- 
 jections by no means tenable, they professed themselves satis- 
 fied. But the incident argues practical astronomy to have 
 been at a very low ebb in both our Universities in that day.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 119 
 
 vinced of the contrary (for I had the same materials 
 they had to calculate from) I required a copy of the 
 computations which ivas also refused me; nor could 
 I ever obtain a sight* of them either officially or 
 
 Had Dr. Knox stumbled on this singular deficiency, he might 
 have applied it to the degrading view he has given of those 
 national establishments. 
 
 * He and his son were not literally refused a sight of these 
 computations (on which the payment of 20,000 depended) 
 but it was allowed under circumstances so unavailing, and even 
 ridiculous, that it is surprising any set of mathematicians, or 
 men of business, could ever think of it. August 17th, 1762, 
 'Mr. Ibbetson, the Secretary, came to them in the outer room 
 ' with some papers in his hand, and said to Mr. Harrison, 
 ' [senior] I am ordered by the Board to let you look at these 
 'papers; they are the computations and opinions of Mr. 
 'Howe, Mr. Roper, and Mr. Morris, and the Board desires 
 'that you will look at them. John Harrison asked Mr. Ibbet- 
 'son, if the Board meant he was to take and look them care- 
 ' fully over, or did they mean that they were then to look at 
 them ? Mr. Ibbetson said, he was ordered to let them look 
 'at them, and to take them back again. To which Messrs. 
 'Harrison both replied It was to little purpose to look at pa- 
 'pers which seemed to be so long, and of so much consequence 
 'to them; therefore they both hoped that the Board would 
 'please either to give them more time to look them over, or 
 'oblige them with copies. Mr. Ibbetson went back with the 
 'papers.' 
 
 Were it not that to look at, or look over, and to examine, 
 as regards arithmetical calculations, is synonymonswith scien- 
 tific men and those of business in every class, the strange 
 scene above, in which the Father and Son were tantalized with 
 the sight of papers of the greatest consequence to their interest, 
 which yet it was denied them to understand, might disprove
 
 1-20 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 through private favour, until three years afterwards, 
 when they were ordered to be laid before the House 
 of Commons; and it then appeared that two of the 
 three computations were absolutely inconclusive, 
 
 the notion. The transient view and measured glance, by which 
 they were required to profit, if they could, to those well ac- 
 quainted with Addison's pages, may recal the story of the 
 Gentleman who, from a habit of turning over books with great 
 expedition, had "by frequent consultations with an ingenious 
 joiner," contrived a circular machine, on which a number of 
 them were placed, in such a manner, that "in the most rapid 
 whirl he could catch a sentence out of each." The contributor 
 of this humourous extravagance could never have foreseen that 
 it would one day be realized, to a certain extent, in an affair 
 of magnitude ; and that too by certain literati summoned from 
 the Professor's chair, and, by courtesy, supposed replete with 
 learned lore, who yet have left their names to be preserved by 
 this brand of ignorance, if they were unknown beyond their 
 college rolls. It becomes difficult to contemplate this proceed- 
 ing without a suspicion that their own superficial inspection 
 of these papers led to such indefensible trifling: they forgot, at 
 the moment, that the same indolence was not to be expected 
 from a consistent man, who had so great an interest in the 
 computations. Poetry, romances, and political intelligence, 
 seem best adapted for such an evanescent perusal, because the 
 imagination of the reader often supplies a sentence, by antici- 
 pation, and sometimes a paragraph ; but metaphysics, didactic 
 works, and, above all, mathematical corollaries (computations 
 inclusively) call for a deliberate attention, very different from 
 that expected by the scientific Professors on this occasion ; 
 who, we conjecture, were enamoured with Euclid's Elements 
 as well as Parson Barnabas was with Sermons which he 
 loved (says Fielding) as much as grocers do figs. And what 
 will Mr. Croker, or Mr. Barrow, sav to a function fitter for
 
 NO. 1 APPENDIX. 
 
 proving 1 nothing, and the third decided in my fa- 
 vour.* Further proof of the Watch having succeed- 
 
 a Merry Andrew, or some boy clever at bob cherry, than for 
 a Secretary of the Admiralty, to wit. The parties concerned 
 in this awkward cross purpose, certainly exposed themselves 
 to the reprehension of being told that debtor and creditor ac- 
 compts, regular entries and balance sheets, are no more kept 
 back in science than in trade, except in smuggling transactions, 
 fraudulent bankruptcies and affairs of similar repute. 
 
 * The current reason assigned for the non-payment of the 
 reward after the trial to Jamaica, which had proved so suc- 
 cessful, was that the Longitude of that Island was not suffi- 
 ciently known. This was not disavowed at head quarters,f 
 although, if admitted, it compromised the integrity of those 
 who directed proceedings with a knowledge of that uncertainty, 
 and yet construed it as a nullity of his claim. But the Lon- 
 gitude of Jamaica had been correctly determined by a transit 
 of Mercury, on October 25th, 1743, given in the Philosophi- 
 cal Transactions ; which having been communicated to Lord 
 Anson, was laid before the ('mathematical) Commissioners 
 above a month previous to the trial : but by them appears to 
 have been disregarded ; a reason for which flighty tokens the 
 Candidate's Journal indirectly discloses, viz. that the paper 
 alluded to, on the transit, was by Mr. James Short, F. R. S. 
 and then (1761) a member of the Council, who, from certain 
 
 t The refusal of a check on the computations, and the doubts respecting 
 the Longitude of Jamaica, were not the only resources of the Lunar 
 party, for Dr. Maskelyne, in his answer to the younger Mudge, takes 
 occasion to say, that the reason of the trial to Jamaica being unsatisfac- 
 tory, was that the Candidate had not given in a rate of going for the 
 Timekeeper. But upon turning to the Instructions for the Voyage, it is 
 found they are wholly silent on this point leaving a very dishonourable 
 inference : for if the previous rate of going was indispensably necessary 
 to the claim, it is incredible that it was omitted in the Instructions by 
 accident, or if it were, the injury in making him responsible for the con- 
 sequences of such omission can never be got rid of.
 
 1:22 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 ed in this voyage may be found in the Journals of 
 the House of Commons, Vol. XXIX. page 546, in 
 
 items which we omit (in this abridgment) w.is personally un- 
 acceptable to the Lunar paity. But the collision leaves no 
 more respect for what the Professors kept out of sight, than 
 we are wont to have for the conferences of the whispering 
 Kinus of Brentford. We could not, however, have anticipa- 
 ted such a scene of shifting and tergiversation as tlio following, 
 on August 9th, 1703: before the voyage to liurbadoes. 
 ' \\ illiam Harrison found that Mr. Blisse had proposed the 
 'trial should not be to Jamaica, but to some other Island. 
 Hi then desired, if the Board pleased, it might be to 
 'Antigua: to which Mr. Blisse made answer, " No Sir, the 
 ' Longitude of Antigua is also known." By this Mr. Harrison 
 'found that he was not to go to Jamaica because the Longitude 
 was known: and therefore said to Mr. Blisse " Pray how 
 'long has the Longitude of Jamaica been known ?" to which 
 ' Mr. Blisse answered " a long time." William Harrison 
 'then said; " my fate is very hard; that I must not go to a 
 'place, because you say the Longitude of it is known; whereas 
 ' a little time ago you would not give me the reward because, 
 'you said, the Longitude of that place was not known." It 
 was at last agreed that he should go to Barbadoes.'* 
 
 It would be doing injustice to the rest of the Board, to sup- 
 pose they could deliberately sanction such gross prevarication 
 and imbecile unfitness for what he appeared to direct; but it 
 was evidently their duty to have interfered, if they were not 
 parties to the misconduct of their interlocutor Nathaniel 
 Blisse, A. M. Astronomer Royal who seems to have been a 
 weak man, though he had filled the Sidereal chair, and also 
 that of Geometry, at Oxford. So that the Journal quoted 
 from unintentionally aids the strictures of Dr. Knox, who, had 
 
 * From the Minutes of the Board, it may be inferred that this Island 
 was finally decided on to accommodate Dr. M askelyne, who objected to 
 the others on account of his health.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 
 
 the evidence of George Lewis Scott, Esq. and Mr. 
 James Short.* 
 
 he lighted on this ornament to the University, might have 
 mixed more wormwood with his unpalatable account of what 
 was passing in those foundations on Cam and Isis. 
 
 * Mr. Short was the excellent friend who assisted him in 
 embodying these details ; for though he could express himself 
 with clearness by word of mouth, as the Gentlemen who re- 
 ceived the explanation of the Invention found ; yet (which is a 
 very rare case) his manner, when he took up a pen was alto- 
 gether peculiar and uncouth. This he could be shown, till 
 his faculties were clouded by age, and availed himself of the 
 assistance of his friends to remedy. 
 
 We may digress here, to observe how that modesty for 
 which John Harrison was conspicuous in his bright days had 
 forsaken him when, in 1775, at the age of eighty-two, he 
 published his pamphlet entitled, "A DESCRIPTION CONCERN- 
 ING SUCH MECHANISM AS WILL AFFORD A NICE, OR 
 
 TRUE, MENSURATION OF TIME:" which also refers to the 
 attempts for finding the Longitude by the Moon, and to a Scale 
 of Music of his invention. f He would accept of no assistance 
 in revising this work, which is so encumbered by his singular 
 and undefinable manner of expressing himself in writing, as to 
 be unintelligible to the general reader without a translation : 
 and although it has valuable hints for those who are thorough 
 
 t Voltaire observes of Newton (speaking of his chronology) that he 
 was of a turn to carry improvement into whatever engaged his full atten- 
 tion a remark which may be extended to our Mechanician. Precarious 
 as is the mode of measuring a ship's way by the Log, he thought they did 
 not make the most of it. His voyage to Lisbon (with the first Timekeeper) 
 having brought him practically acquainted with the subject, he sketched 
 an improvement, and drew up an account of it, the title of which the 
 Author once saw ; and, according to his recollection, it was, "A descrip- 
 tion of two Pallets, to be introduced in the middle of a great Log." But 
 neither the theory, nor the model, if it was executed, can now be found.
 
 124 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 The reader will easily believe I did not i'eel per- 
 fectly easy under this treatment of an Invention to 
 the perfecting of which (encouraged by the long 
 continued patronage of a Graham, a Halley, a 
 Folkes, &c. &c. learned friends to society, and 
 public good, whose minds were too enlarged, and 
 spirits too liberal to admit that little jealousy of in- 
 ferior artists, which since their death I have been 
 exposed to) I gloried in sacrificing every prospect 
 of advantage from other pursuits, and had willingly 
 submitted to lead a life of labour and dependence. 
 However it was too late to retreat; and I had only 
 one means of success left, which was to follow the 
 Commissioners in their own way. Accordingly 
 after many difficulties (with a relation of which 1 
 will not tire the reader,* as it is by no means my 
 
 masters of the subject, it may be set down altogether as a 
 memento mori. 
 
 Yet that native sincerity and openness which exposed him 
 to be maltreated by his enemies at the Board of Longitude 
 (who were his judges without appeal, except to Parliament; 
 is observable in this tract. After all his labours, and a success 
 so much within the limits prescribed by the enactment of 
 Queen Anne, he was dissatisfied that the compensation for 
 heat and cold, in the Timekeeper, was not in the balance itself: 
 an acknowledgment of a defect, which drew from the writer of 
 an article, we think in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, the 
 praise, that " he was candour itself." 
 
 * Y i tin details both of this and of subsequent passages in 
 his singular history would have been sufficiently amusing, and 
 not a little instructive ; for he had fully experienced the hos- 
 tility of those Commissioners, of learned designations, who,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 125 
 
 intention to meddle with any subjects of complaint, 
 except such as are material to the forming a right 
 judgment of the trials made and proposed) a second 
 voyage to the West Indies was agreed to in the 
 latter end of the year 1762, which agreement was 
 
 like that opprobrium of history, Hanno the Carthaginian, had 
 more respect for their own opinions than the good of their 
 country; who were openly opposed to the success of the 
 Mechanics; and who refused him to name a check on the com- 
 putations, after the first voyage, although the commonest sense 
 of equity called for it: so that Goldsmith's stricture on Pope's 
 sentiment 
 
 An honest man's the noblest work of God, 
 might have been successfully refuted here;* for they were 
 not honest pothouse cobblers, or carters, who paid so little 
 regard to meum and tuum, but literary men, in holy orders^ 
 whose private passions and propensities were so self-ended, 
 that many a man in the lowest grade of society might have 
 been found fit to be deemed a nobler work of God, according 
 to the Poet's standard. But never was genius seen contending 
 with despotic power engrafted on ignorance (an ignorance of 
 mechanics certainly) more remarkably than in the consummate 
 effrontery of James Earl of Morton, and its consequences. 
 A singular retribution may be thought to have overtaken him, 
 by the revolting particulars brought to light above sixty years 
 after his sands were run out, which were the principal source 
 of these MEMOIRS. It is enough to teach the proudest of the 
 proud more circumspection, lest at any time they totally frus- 
 trate the homage they covet from the mouths of men, especially 
 
 * It is contended, in the Vicar of Wakefield, that an ignorant peasant, 
 however honest, cannot be deemed so noble a work of God as a Newton. 
 Without interfering with the argument, may it not be said, that the 
 instance of Newton is neutralized by that of Bacon, 
 
 The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind?
 
 U'PENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 afterwards well nig-h overset, by the Commissioners 
 insisting- on such astronomical observations being- 
 previously made, as were next to impracticable in 
 
 if they desire to be on good terras with posterity, the common 
 wish of mankind. This Nobleman, insignificant as he was, 
 if measured by his understanding, though the Royal Society 
 were ostensibly of a different opinion, might have slept undis- 
 turbed with his chivalrous forefathers, had it not been incum- 
 bent on the Author, in tracing THOSE TRANSACTIONS WHICH 
 
 FINALLY RESULTED IN THE INTERFERENCE OF GEORGE 
 
 III. to drag his mental remains into the noontide glare. If 
 their exhumation is offensive, his own neglect and want of 
 principle, or of humanity, or of both, is the reply. Neither 
 this Douglas, nor his supporters, most of whom were of the 
 sacred profession, ever thought of the wholesome counsel they 
 might have derived from a phrase of comprehensive meaning in 
 the Canonical Book, entitled emphatically, the Preacher, 
 which the Adventures of John Harrison remarkably illustrate. 
 Had our knowledge of the proceedings of the Commissioners 
 of Longitude depended on their official minutes, it might never 
 have transpired that they delegated their authority in fact, 
 though not in form, to their Colleague; who told them of the 
 contumacy of the Candidate under the separate Commission ; 
 his own total want of common sense in that aft'air being out of 
 the question. Neither could it have become like ''truth to the 
 touch" that the real source of the Act to amend, explain and 
 alter the 12th of Queen Anne was not in the trumpery pretences 
 adduced for the same, but because the enchafed northern 
 blood of the Thane could not brook his defeat two years before. 
 All this might have passed off plausibly enough, had not the 
 parties implicated set no store by the pithy suggestion " a bird 
 in the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings 
 shall tell the matter."* 
 
 * Ecclesiastes, Chapter x. verse 20.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 127 
 
 this climate, and could be put into the instructions 
 for no other reason that I could conceive, but to 
 throw insuperable difficulties in my way, as they 
 were not at all material to the determination of the 
 matter in question. However the Commissioners 
 at length gave up this point, on my opinion of the 
 impracticability being confirmed by that of an 
 Officer of the Navy distinguished for his abilities 
 and skill in matters of Astronomy.* To take away 
 
 * This was Captain (afterwards Admiral) Campbell. As 
 often as disputes occurred between the younger Harrison and 
 the University Gentlemen, on points connected with the ob- 
 servations to be taken, this Officer was called in, and his 
 decision was always unfortunate for the Professors of abstract 
 sciences, as our Candidate called them: taking- the liberty to 
 observe that, as such, they were not proper judges of the 
 question before them. As Captain Campbell makes his ap- 
 pearance without delay on these occasions, he may be con- 
 cluded to have been in waiting by desire of the Admirals, who 
 were unequal to contending with the palaver of their learned 
 colleagues: but they could not have much inducement to send 
 their sons to either of our staple emporiums of science, when 
 they saw that two plain men, like John Harrison and his Son, 
 knew more to the purpose than Masters and Doctors of such 
 sounding designations: but waiving this: the marvellous igno- 
 rance which these graduates showed of the commonest sea 
 affairs, connected with the examination of the Timekeeper was 
 well adapted to promote mirth among sailors of every grade. 
 August J)th, 1763. ' Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Hornsby then 
 'desired that Mr. Harrison should take his departure from 
 ' Greenwich, and not from Portsmouth. William Harrison 
 ' answered, he had no objection to this ; if they would please 
 ' to allow for the length of time in going round, for that was
 
 128 MM'KNDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 all possibility (as I thought) of this voyage being 
 rendered fruitless like the last, I then desired to 
 have inserted at the end of the instructions some 
 few words to this purpose, "that provided the ex- 
 
 sometimes longer than a voyage to the West Indies: adding 
 4 that ships always took their departure from the last land 
 'they saw, which never could be Greenwich. At length the 
 4 Board determined that the departure should be from Ports- 
 4 mouth.' 
 
 It thus appears that these gownsmen did not know what 
 almost any cabin boy could have told them of; and yet from 
 the determination having been come to at length it may be in- 
 ferred they disputed the point to save their honour and no 
 doubt, to make fun for the Admirals, who must have thought 
 these learned lubbers curiosities in their kind, but would have 
 looked doubtfully, had they been proposed to them for school- 
 masters of their respective ships. But, passing this by, and 
 considering that logic is professionally cultivated among them, 
 or is supposed to be so, it could not be expected they would 
 make no better figure in it, as Commissioners of Longitude, 
 than their bed-maker at college would have done. 4th August, 
 1763. ' Some time after, Mr. [William] Harrison was asked 
 ' which of the instruments be intended to take on this trial ? 
 4 He answered the small one, commonly called a Watch [the 
 ' same that had been taken to Jamaica] as that was now by 
 far the most perfect. Professor Blisse said, that the third, 
 
 * or last large machine, should also go. Mr. Harrison said, 
 ' he could not see the least reason why it should go, as he 
 4 should not abide by it, for he knew it was not so perfect as 
 the Watch; and that the large ones, had done their duty, by 
 ' opening a principle upon which the small one was made ; 
 4 which might not have been found, could his Father have begun 
 4 a small one at first. To this the Astronomer Royal [Professor 
 ' Blisse] made answer, Sir, the instruments are all the public's,
 
 NO. 1 APPENDIX. 129 
 
 "periment answered, the Commissioners present 
 "were of opinion I should without further trouble 
 "receive my reward;" but my Son attending the 
 Board with this proposition was told by Lord Sand- 
 wich at that time president, that it would be mere 
 tautology, for that their giving instructions implied 
 the same thing, and that if the Watch kept its time 
 within the limits of the Act there could be no doubt 
 of my being entitled to and receiving the reward, 
 and nobody could take it from me.* Upon the faith 
 
 'and, if we insist upon it, which ever we please must go. 
 ' Mr. Harrison, said, if that is the case, you may send the 
 'first, which is by far the most imperfect: but certainly I am 
 'not to abide by such determination. But Professor Blisse, 
 ' Dr. Hornsby and Dr. Shepherd, insisted upon it, that they 
 'had a right to send which they pleased. And then Mr. Har- 
 'rison said, that with submission to this honourable Board, 
 ' he did not think they had any such right, for it was he that 
 'was to say which instrument would be most proper. They 
 'were to be judges to what degree of exactness it carne: so 
 ' that, if he was to take an old shoe ; and by their orders to 
 'go with it; and at his return it should have been found to 
 'answer, that certainly would be fulfilling the Act. Upon 
 'this it was agreed that the Watch only should go.' The 
 Mechanic will be allowed to have been the better manufacturer 
 in the argument here ; his stuff is of a more durable texture 
 than that of the logicians by trade, although, like Mr. Shandy, 
 senior, " he did not know the names of his tools." 
 
 * The Earl of Sandwich did not deny the fact, but with an 
 inconsistency savouring more of the Jack-a-dandy than the 
 Jack Tar or a good seaman, which he desired to be thought, 
 he was offended at being reminded of it. With a caprice too, 
 which we hope is uncommon among the nobility, from being 
 
 k
 
 130 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 of this, my Son went the voyage to Barbadoes, in 
 which the Watch kept its time "considerably within 
 the nearest limits of the Act of Queen Anne," as 
 certified, even by the Commissioners themselves. 
 
 On the success of this trial being known, and 
 after having employed near forty years of my life 
 on the faith of an Act.of Parliament, was a doctrine 
 broached to nu- (as I solemnly declare for the first 
 lime)* that the Commissioners were invested with 
 
 favourable towards the Candidate, he became, from that time, 
 his decided enemy. 
 
 George 3rd coalesced with this Xobleman for political pur- 
 poses, but without entertaining a personal esteem for him. 
 When his unhappy malady had removed all disguise, his at- 
 tendants related that he would talk to himself about Lord 
 Sandwich, under the appellation of Jemmy Twitcher. This 
 \\.i> a nickname he had not by having affixed it to a political 
 pamphlet, of which he was unluckily discovered to be the 
 author: and therefore could not complain when his enemies 
 used it in derision. 
 
 * Neither would it have been broached at that time, nor at 
 any subsequent period, had not the Karl of Morton taken his 
 seat among them. The unpardonable misconduct of the Com- 
 missioners in giving credence, without the least examination 
 or enquiry, to the gross misstatements of that Nobleman, in a 
 case on which 17,500 depended, was commented on in its 
 place; and seldom has Lord Chesterfield's favourite position, 
 of the discrepancy between the real and the ostensible motives 
 of public men, been better illustrated than by the deformity of 
 this whole transaction; for the pretended doubts and difficulties, 
 which were acted on even in opposition to the opinion of the 
 law authorities, all resolve themselves into an affront given to 
 the proud Thane two years before, and that too by not com- 
 plying with impossibilities !
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 131 
 
 a discretionary power of ordering other trials and 
 the fulfilling- of other conditions than those specially 
 annexed by Act of Parliament to the reward;* an 
 exposition of the law, which t ever did and ever 
 shall (until it is supported by legal authority) totally 
 reject and refuse obedience to; for I do maintain, 
 that before passing the last Act of Parliament I had 
 as full and perfect a right to the reward of 20,000 
 as any freeholder in Britain has to his estate; and 
 I never would have desired nor ever will desire any 
 better satisfaction than a judicial determination of 
 that point; which however it was very soon thought 
 
 * In a note he asks, " If this interpretation of the Act was 
 true, and the Commissioners had a general discretionary 
 power, where was the reason or use of specifying any trial at 
 all in the original Act?" 
 
 There would have been no occasion to ask a question in- 
 volving a paradox, had the real state of these concerns, which 
 the public never had the slightest knowledge of, been brought 
 forward. The Commissioners, when they authorized their 
 colleague, Lord Morton, to supersede the 12th of Queen Anne, 
 after, and not before the success of the Timekeeper, by procuring 
 an Act to embody his own ideas, which included the ruin of 
 the Claimant, as far as he could effect it, were as grossly 
 deficient in common care as if they had decided the question 
 by a toss up of heads or tails. It has been shown that they 
 never enquired into the real state of affairs under the separate 
 Commission, where the vengeful misgivings of this philosopher 
 by experiment originated, and from this novel and important 
 item remaining unknown, a false view of the case has always 
 been unintentionally given by those who have treated of the 
 transactions between the Claimant and the Board of Longitude, 
 after the return from Barbadoes.
 
 132 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 proper to preclude me from, by a new law, passed 
 at the instance of the Commissioners of Longitude, 
 placing 1 me too certainly under the discretion of the 
 Commissioners* and totally changing- the terms on 
 which the reward was to be given me; enacting 
 that 1 should have half of it when 1 had disclosed 
 the principles ;md construction of the machine, and 
 assigned over for the use of the public the last made 
 Timekeeper, together with the three others which 
 were not so perfect as the last ; and the other half 
 when I should have made more Watches, without 
 determining how many, and proved them to the 
 satisfaction of the Commissioners, wit/tout defining 
 the mode of //-la/.f 
 
 1 frankly confess that from thenceforward I con- 
 sidered the second moiety of the reward as lost for 
 ever. The first moiety I obtained, though it was 
 with great difficulty, as the Act required me to ex- 
 
 * Although he well knew the origin of the Act to amend, 
 explain, &c. which pointed at the Earl of Morton; yet he 
 thought himself constrained to advert to the Commissioners in 
 general terms only. 
 
 t This uncertainty, both in the mode of trial, and the degree 
 of exactness required, was suitable to the franier of the Act, 
 which Lord Morton called his own. But if the rest of the 
 Commissioners were not become perfect cyphers, they should 
 have told him he was contravening his professed purpose, to 
 aiiifiid the 12th of Queen Anne, in which both those points 
 were distinctly settled : that his Lordship ought to know the 
 total want of precision, which he was substituting, proved 
 only his incapacity for intermeddling in such concerns.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 133 
 
 plain my invention upon oath, and the Commis- 
 sioners were pleased to put into that oath, words of 
 an indeterminate and unlimited meaning, and re- 
 fused to explain them, or even permit me or my 
 Son to ask what was meant by them.* We at 
 
 * If the Admirals are passed by, because they are so much 
 accustomed to deal with people who do not always appreciate 
 the sanctity of an oath; yet the same indulgence can noways 
 be extended to the Clergymen at the Board, whose professional 
 duty it was, not to suffer two men to take an oath which they 
 openly declared they did not understand. A passage in the 
 Journal bears on this statement. ' William Harrison having 
 'read it, said, there are two words in this oath Lord Morton 
 'interrupted him, and said, stop, stop, stop, Sir, you were 
 ' not desired to pull it to pieces ; you were only desired to look 
 ' at it, and to tell us whether, or not, you will take that oath, 
 'and therefore you have no business to say any thing about it 
 ' only to answer to the question asked you ; that is, will you 
 'or will you not? and your answer is only to be, Yea, or No.' 
 
 We read in Roman story of a Commander whose personal 
 enemies after a successful campaign, put him to his oath, to 
 find whether he had not embezzled a portion of the spoils 
 captured from the foe ; and he confessed he had reserved to 
 himself a small wooden oil vessel for making libations to the 
 Gods ! An awkward discovery surely ; yet the process which 
 showed he did not want whitewashing was legitimate enough. 
 But an oath does not make that clearer which cannot be un- 
 derstood without it,f unless to such clouded faculties as his 
 Lordship's, who directed 'That he [the Inventor] shall go 
 ' regularly through the explanation of the whole machine ; and 
 
 t In questions involving principles in mechanics, it may happen, an 
 intelligent man can swear no more than to the best of his belief; and his 
 belief this year, in consequence of repeated experiments, may not be 
 the same the following.
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 length agreed to take it (finding we should never 
 get any thing- if \ve did not, such was now the 
 
 'if in this process there shall happen to be any thins which 
 'the Gentlemen do not understand, then Mr. Harrison shall 
 'be put upon his oath, and explain the same upon oath, and 
 'that shall be satisfactory.' You find subjoined, that 'the 
 ' Gentlemen shall have liberty at all times to ask what questions 
 'they think proper; and if they think it necessary, Mr. Harri- 
 'son shall answer the same upon oath.' 
 
 It savours of Jack Pudding's jokes, if a description, not 
 sufficiently clear, could be rendered so by being subjected to 
 an oath. But we must observe that the one required from the 
 Claimant previous to the explanation, and which he objected 
 to, for being improperly worded [by Lord Morton] was far 
 from being the only obstacle to the proceedings ; for when the 
 method of disclosing the Invention came under discussion, the 
 Commissioners (if it be not a solecism to speak in the plural) 
 required that exclusive of the drawings, with the written de- 
 scriptions annexed, which were given up, and also, of those 
 verbal expositions which would be wanted when the Time- 
 keeper was to be taken to peices, there should be " experimental 
 exhibitions" for the satisfaction of the Gentlemen selected to 
 attend. And to this our Mechanician objected, unless they 
 would give him some distinct idea of the experiments that 
 would be wanted. Which jivas refused, as they said, they 
 would not be confined; but they afterwards named " the tem- 
 pering of his springs." When ttys was mentioned, of which 
 it is fair to conclude none knew the drift, except John Harrison 
 and his rival, he evinced so pointed a repugnance, as may be 
 readily admitted to have made him appear unreasonable and 
 awkward to treat with, by those who had no clew to the irri- 
 tated feelings he betrayed at the time, although he was a good- 
 natured man. Had the Gentlemen of the Board looked round 
 them a little, instead of submitting to be led in a string, like 
 the Siinkin family, in the frontispeice to the New Bath Guide,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 135 
 
 power of the Commissioners) and they declared 
 that themselves and the Gentlemen appointed by 
 
 they would have found that the Act (he called very properly 
 his own) to amend, explain and alter the original enactment, 
 was as far as possible copied from those resolutions he brought 
 with him ready cut and dry to the meetings of the separate 
 Commission, without troubling himself about any difference of 
 opinion on the subject (as there could be none in his construc- 
 tion of things.) The 4th of them, which his Lordship, who, 
 like the talkative Barber of Bagdad (we remember from our 
 horn books) having all the arts and sciences at his finger ends, 
 never consulted a Watchmaker about, ran thus ' That Mr. 
 ' Harrison do explain the method by which he tempers his 
 'metals, particularly his springs, or worms, and show the 
 ' experiment of tempering a number of them at once in presence 
 'of the said Commissioners, or a major part of them.' 
 
 This was assuming the Claimant to have been accustomed to 
 temper a number of his springs or worms at once, which it 
 would have much become the p. R. s. first to have ascertained 
 the correctness of, and still more to have pointed out at whose 
 expense a number of them were to be manufactured for the 
 experiments he projected. On the Claimant's being informed 
 of the test that would probably be required, he immediately 
 recollected the source of this ignorant trifling, as he thought it, 
 the description of the process being clear to the commonest 
 capacity. These experiments by a natural retrospect likewise 
 recalled the irksome memento of that abortive Commission 
 which the everlasting intermeddler who now presided at the 
 Board of Longitude, had been the sole cause of entirely frus- 
 trating. After every arrangement was in danger of being 
 overset : after compromised objections, and that et caetera of 
 what you will ; when the real cause of dispute is different 
 from what appears on the surface ; who would imagine that 
 when the Invention came to be closely scrutinized, not a single 
 experiment was called for, nor even contemplated ! neither was
 
 13U Al'l'KNDlX. NO. 1. 
 
 tin in to uhom we were to explain it, would be 
 upon honour not to disclose it, that I mig-ht have 
 
 an oath administered or wasted ! ! The cause was simply that 
 the Gentlemen who received the explanation understood the 
 subject ; while the philosophical fribble, who so oddly con- 
 trolled his colleagues, knew nothing to the purpose. 
 
 This Nobleman's bad judgment, his propensity to multiply 
 oaths, in cases where they were either superfluous, or mis- 
 placed, might have been palliated, had he tried to introduce 
 the practice of his own country in administering them : but not 
 an item on this point (the only one in which he could have been 
 of any use) is discoverable. Jonas Hanway, in his "Defects 
 of Police," complains much of the careless and irreverent 
 manner in which they are tendered and taken in judicial pro- 
 ceedings on this side the Tweed, recommending the practice 
 ot 'the Scotch courts as a corrective. In England, a person 
 taking an oath, does not ocularly know (without inspection) 
 that he swears on the New Testament; for any other book, 
 much resembling it may be substituted. Consonant to which, 
 in the farce of the Komp, the puppy who is the hero of the 
 piece, boasts how he had imposed on his Cousin, by having 
 made use of Robinson Crusoe, instead of the Gospels, when 
 he pledged his faith to her. In Scotland, an examinant laying 
 his left hand on the open book, holds up his ri^ht, while he 
 makes this solemn appeal. 
 
 Having adverted to the irritated feelings of our Mechanician 
 under the singular provocation to which he was exposed, we 
 can adduce as an instance of his urbane spirit and good temper, 
 under casualities that seldom fail to attest the irritability of 
 most people. A school-boy had one day strolled into the 
 workroom and study with a half eaten apple in his hand, the 
 acid property of which some how or other occasioned a spot of 
 rust to be found next day on the balance of the (last made) 
 Timekeeper; which if it had not been observed might have 
 proved of serious consequence. The good-natured old man
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 
 
 an opportunity of obtaining; the reward promised 
 by foreign powers; however, in less than a month 
 
 gave the offender a proper caution to prevent the recurrence of 
 such an accident ; but knowing his unconsciousness of the 
 mischief, he could not find in his heart to muster a frown for 
 such a delinquent. Hence, when at a Board, held 30th May, 
 1765, to settle the mode of disclosing the Invention, on 
 " experimental exhibitions" being proposed to him, and par- 
 ticularly the tempering of his springs, he exclaimed "he 
 "would not consent to such a proceeding, while he had a drop 
 " of English blood in his body." It did not arise from want of 
 temper in this man of genius, but his native sincerity, and his 
 sovereign contempt for the affectation and love of display in 
 which he knew these teazing difficulties originated. 
 
 The reader may be further gratified to learn that John Har- 
 rison had none of those eccentricities,* often injurious to them- 
 selves, as well as annoying or offensive to others that are 
 frequently noticed in men of uncommon genius. The following 
 official letter from the first Lord of the Admiralty, in 1736, 
 bespeaks attention. The answer of Captain Proctor, bears 
 testimony to the respect and good-will which the Officers of 
 the ship conceived both for the enterprize, and the Candidate's 
 deportment among them. 
 
 From Sir Charles Wager to Captain Procter. 
 
 Admiralty Office, 14th May, 1736. 
 Sir, 
 
 The Instrument which is put on board your ship has been 
 approved by all the Mathematicians in town that have seen it 
 
 * It was said in the Quarterly Review, it is not that men of genius 
 have more peculiarities than other people, but results from their celebrity 
 drawing more observation on them. Yet Shenstone seems to have thought 
 differently on the subject ; for he remarks that " an acquaintance with 
 men of genius is rather reputable than satisfactory; genius is commonly 
 attended with strong passions, and passion makes people humourists."
 
 138 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 an account of it appeared in the public newspapers, 
 signed by the Rev. Mr. Lucllam, one of the six 
 
 (and few have not) to be the best that has been made for mea- 
 suring time; how it will succeed at sea, yon will partly be a 
 judge; I have written to Sir John N orris, to desire him to 
 send home the Instrument, and the Maker of it (who I think 
 yon have \\ ith you) by the first ship that comes. Perhaps 
 Admiral Balchcn may bring it, or a ship that comes to Chat- 
 ham, if any do so, may be better. The Man is said by those 
 who know him best, to be a very ingenious and sober Man, 
 mid capable of finding out something more than he has already, 
 it IK can find encouragement. I desire therefore, that you 
 will see the Man be used civilly, and that you will be as kind 
 to him as you can. I am, Sir, &c. 
 
 Captain Proctor's answer. 
 
 Uight Honourable Sir, 
 
 I am very much honoured with yours of the 14th, in 
 relation to the Instrument I carried out, and its Maker; the 
 Instrument is placed in my cabin, for giving the man all the 
 advantage that is possible for making his observations, and 1 
 find him to be a very sober, a very industrious, and withal, 
 a very modest man, so that my good wishes cannot but attend 
 him. But the difficulty of measuring time truly, where so 
 many unequal shocks and motions stand in opposition to it, 
 gives me concern for the honest man, and makes me fear he 
 has attempted impossibilities. But Sir, I will do him all the 
 good, and give him all the help that is in my power: and ac- 
 quaint him with your concern for his success, and your care 
 that he shall be well treated : and be proud in every thing to 
 show myself, Sir, &c.* 
 
 Centurion, at Spithead, 
 May nth, 1730. 
 
 * In the pamphlet quoted, a certificate follows, by Mr. Roger Wills, 
 Master of the Orxford Man of War, dated in June the following year,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 139 
 
 Gentlemen named by the Commissioners to receive 
 the discovery, and therefore, I make no doubt, by 
 leave of the Board.* Nor did they stop here, for 
 
 We might remark on the sentiments of these distinguished 
 Officers, for the surprising contrast they evince to the treatment 
 the Candidate afterwards experienced from certain other quar- 
 ters. That propriety of demeanour, which wrought in his 
 favour, was not constrained, for under other times and circum- 
 stances, he might have reminded the observer of Dr. Johnson's 
 remark on his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was "the 
 most invulnerable man he knew." By which he meant one, 
 with whom, if you should quarrel, you would find it difficult 
 to abuse ; because there was nothing in his character to give 
 scope to your flippancy. The peculiarities of John Harrison 
 were so few, and so trifling, that the Doctor might have ex- 
 tended the complimentary critique to him, had he been of his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 * The passage in reference, copied from the Journal of John 
 and William Harrison, under date, May 25th, 1765, is, 
 ' The Gentlemen are to be upon oath not to divulge the Inven- 
 ' tion to any one till they shall have leave from the Board of 
 ' Longitude; and the Commissioners are also to be upon their 
 'honour not to tell it till they have given Mr. Harrison an op- 
 4 portunity to make what he can of other Powers.' 
 
 On the Minutes of the Board, about the same date, we find 
 " that the Gentlemen who attend be enjoined not to make 
 " any discovery of the principles of the Watch to any but the 
 " Board, without leave of the Commissioners." This was well 
 enough, but the difference between the intention and the per- 
 
 who states, that when they made the land, on their return to England 
 from Lisbon, by his reckoning and those on board, it would have been 
 the Start: but before they knew what land it was, Mr. Harrison told 
 them, by his Machine, it was the Lizard; which proved to be correct, 
 thus showing the ship near a degree and a half more to the West than 
 they had supposed.
 
 140 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 they have since published all my drawings without 
 giving me the last moiety of the reward, or even 
 
 formance of any thing is often very remote ; and it is but justice 
 to Mr. Ludlam to observe, that it made no difference whether 
 the injunction to secrecy was to be upon oath, or upon honour, 
 for it never reached the parties who received the explanation : 
 not at least, Mr. Mudge, one of the watchmakers that attended : 
 who being sent for, and interrogated at a Board, March 14th, 
 1767, the following odd cross purpose came out, 
 
 'Question. Did you think yourself at liberty after receiving 
 'the said explanation to communicate the same? 
 
 'Answer. I thought it my duty to do it, and that it was the 
 * intention of the Board I should do so. 
 
 'Question. To what number of English workmen did you 
 'communicate it? 
 
 ' Answer. To ten or twelve 1 believe, and to several Gen- 
 1 tli UK n curious in mechanics besides.* 
 
 The cause of this singular blunder would probably be found 
 in the gross impropriety of the Commissioners having left the 
 management of this public concern to so incompetent a busy 
 body as the Earl of Morton, who either was too much engrossed 
 by his own importance, and love of display, to remember what 
 he should have communicated to the (ientlemen who attended 
 in Red Lion Square, or designedly left them ignorant of it ; 
 for to judge by the general tenor of his conduct, and the words 
 " Harrison will get all the money," which more than once 
 escaped this inimitable petit maitre of philosophers, he neither 
 wanted the Claimant to profit by the powers abroad, nor those 
 at home. A circumstance coinciding with the belief that this 
 discrepancy might be traced to the Manayer is that, it was not 
 
 * It is much to be regretted that, in another part of this examination, 
 Mr. Mudge does not speak with approval of the labours of his successful 
 predecessor ; especially as the Continuators of Dr. Rees point out different 
 coincidences between his improvements, and those of John Harrison, 
 too great to be accidental.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 141 
 
 paying me and my Son for our time at the rate of 
 common mechanics ;* a discouragement to the im- 
 
 convenient to him to be present, on April llth, when the aftair 
 was to be enquired into, although there was a full attendance 
 on that day, there being fourteen Commissioners at the Board. 
 The occasion which led to Mr. Mudge being sent for as 
 above, was that the French Government being attentive to the 
 subject but not aware that they had only to wait perhaps a few 
 months for the publication of the principles and construction of 
 the Timekeeper, sent over M. Berthoud, the best watchmaker 
 in Paris, to purchase the secret, if he could, of the Inventor; 
 but who, as the Gentlemen who had received the explanation 
 were by the agreement strictly enjoined to secrecy, would not 
 attend to the proposal, unless in an open and undisguised 
 manner. Afterwards hearing that Mr. Mudge had explained 
 the particulars as well as he could to this foreigner, he addressed 
 two letters on the subject to Sir Charles Saunders (then at the 
 head of the Admiralty) by whom they were transmitted to the 
 Commissioners. The minutes of the Board furnish no informa- 
 tion as to the result of this enquiry ; what is stated is very 
 brief, and they pass on to other matters ; which leaves it to be 
 inferred that the Lunar party, who identified their interests 
 with those of the Manager contrived to quash further proceed- 
 ings ; and the Journal of the Adventurer having been discon- 
 tinued after the delivering up of the three machines ; the letters 
 to Sir Charles, and other particulars which might have been 
 preserved in it are wanting. We may yet be allowed to 
 remark, that what is known leaves no trace of the calculating 
 prudence for which Dr. Maskelyne complimented the Inventor 
 of the Timekeeper, whether sincerely or with an ironical pur- 
 port, we decline to decide. 
 
 * From the Commissioners being spoken of in the plural of 
 course, the real state of the business is often kept out of sight. 
 Had the Board come under the management of some person 
 of superior abilities, it would have been consonant to what is
 
 142 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 provemcnt of arts and sciences, and an instance of 
 sucli cnu'lty and injustice as I believe never existed 
 in a learned and civili/.cd nation before. 
 
 very common in corporations, or at meetings like this. But 
 here the Cromwell, or Protector, who by sufferance, trod on 
 the necks of these ruin ft Commissioners was only a consequen- 
 tial pretender, conspicuous for his affectation, and of such 
 inordinate self-conceit, that no man could differ in opinion with 
 him whom he was not disposed to think non compos. He was 
 the cause that many of the advantages which might have been 
 derived from the distinguished genius and prolonged life of 
 John Harrison were lost to the world.* After the discovery 
 of the Longitude, the great desideratum was to simplify the 
 construction and reduce the expense of the Timekeepers, which 
 it was obvious he was best qualified to accomplish, if not the 
 only person that could undertake it. Yet the Commissioners, 
 wilfully blinded to this consideration, gave a carte blanche to 
 their colleague, who from enmity engrafted on ignorance t 
 compelled the Claimant to waste his valuable time in copying 
 his own work (if he could do that without seeing it, or having 
 the drawings it was made from.) The Board employed Mr. 
 Kendal for the object spoken of; which he undertook very 
 
 * We learn from his pamphlet on Mechanism and Music, that it had 
 been his intention to have presented a clock or regulator of his construction 
 to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich ; but the treatment he received 
 from the Commissioners of Longitude frustrated this public benefit, as we 
 may estimate it: their conduct, he says "made him hate to make one 
 wheel turn another." He left such a clock unfinished, which, had he 
 proceeded with, he expected to have brought to the surprising accuracy of 
 not erring more than a second in one hundred days. In connexion with 
 this subject, it appears, that the correctness he looked to from his Time- 
 keepers for the Longitude was a second in a fortnight, which the one 
 tried at Richmond was something within, the error being 4J seconds in 
 ten weeks. If they were manufactured, as it could not be expected that 
 all should be equally accurate, he would allow four seconds in a fortnight 
 for their deficiency, but not beyond that.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 143 
 
 I have already had occasion to mention, that at 
 the time 1 received the certificate for the first moiety 
 of the reward, the Watch was Delivered up ; it re- 
 mained six months locked up at the Admiralty, 
 and was then removed to Greenwich, to be the 
 subject of those experiments concerning which I 
 now trouble the public.* The other three machines, 
 
 reluctantly, as appears on their minutes. He was an excellent 
 workman, but not gifted with inventive powers : so that the 
 Manager of the concern persisting in employing him, instead 
 of the proper person, cannot be too much reprobated. The 
 meanness charged on the Commissioners in the paragraph, was 
 not applicable to them as a body in pecuniary concessions, but 
 arose from the sordid spirit of the northern Aristocrat, who 
 either from education or habit, as different instances in these 
 transactions show, would always appropriate the labour of 
 others without any recompence if he could : and when on an 
 occasion described, he advised the Candidate to borrow all 
 the money he could, he did not offer to lend him a shilling. 
 
 * Although no manner of precaution was observed in the 
 removal of these curious, if not highly valuable Machines, 
 which the Manager ever and anon designated as public property 
 (vide his own Act) yet the minutes of a Board, 2nd May, 
 1^67, lay down a plan altogether elaborate, and in which the 
 Hospital barge is introduced for the removal of a box about ten 
 inches square, and six or seven deep, with a handle on each 
 side, when it was to be conveyed from Flamstead Hill to Mr. 
 Kendal's house in Furnival's Inn Court, to be subjected to no 
 experiment but that of being taken to pieces immediately. This 
 over-acted part contrasts so clumsily with the total want of the 
 commonest care when the Machines (mentioned in the next 
 line) were taken possession of, that whoever is no novice in 
 such matters will not read it as the contriver of the business 
 (we believe Lord Morton) designed he should. The parade of
 
 141 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 were (by order of the Commissioners) soon after 
 demanded of me by Mr. MaskcK nr. OIK of tlirin 
 
 the most scrupulous attention to the transit of the Timekeeper, 
 after, and not before it had been subjected to experiments tltat 
 were to counteract the complete satisfaction it had given to 
 the seamen, becomes by this posterior arrangement nauseous 
 to those who are sufficiently conversant with books and with 
 men to be on their guard against such commonplace expedients. 
 The details, "the pomp and circumstance" of the removal of 
 the small box, with the Timekeeper, which the Inventor used 
 to carry on his lap in a coach, can never palliate tin; gross 
 ignorance of mechanics, or the refined malice, displayed in 
 the transfer of the three machines. Instead of calling in one 
 or more experienced clockmakers, the Astronomer Koyal > nt 
 for a blacksmith ; with whose assistance, and while they were 
 carrying it between them, he stupidly let fall, and extremely 
 injured that machine, the one which by order of Sir Charles 
 Wager, had been sent (successfully) to Lisbon. This contact 
 between the floor, or the stairs, and our Mechanic's first-made 
 Timekeeper, if it could not be resembled to the cra>li ot St. 
 Paul's, when Sir Christopher plied his battering ram, yet 
 amounted to the wreck of the Doctor's reputation for mechanio : 
 which he understood no better than Sir llobert Walpole did 
 polite gallantry. And what can be thought of their care of 
 tliis public property, as the Commissioners (in subservi -IK y 
 to their Manager) always affected to call it ? Had they been 
 openly upbraided with not being trust-worthy on the occasion, 
 it does not appear how they could have repelled the accusation ; 
 their colleague (who, no doubt, continued to pester them with 
 bis knowledge of chronometry) never having been called on to 
 make good the damage out of his own pocket; neither was 
 there any motion, as far as the writer knows, to be aiding to 
 so inilispcnsuble an obligation out of their own private funds. 
 The principal in this public injury, who, when he reached 
 Flamstead Hill, might have exclaimed, with Old Chaos,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 145 
 
 which had been going more than thirty years, was 
 broke to pieces under his careful and ingenious 
 management, before it got out of my house;* and 
 
 "havoc, and spoil and ruin are my gain !" well knowing the 
 good men and true he could depend on, would have indulged a 
 Sardonic sneer at the expense of some worthy simpleton, who 
 might have told him the Board of Longitude would make him 
 answerable for the consequences. We must subjoin here, as 
 a necessary justice to the Manager, that he does not appear to 
 have contemplated the destructive consequences of employing 
 the Astronomer Royal to superintend the removal of the three 
 Machines; for at the Board, April 26th, 1766, where it was 
 ordered that the successful Timekeeper should be tried at 
 Greenwich ; it is further directed 'That the three other Time- 
 ' keepers, the property of the public, which are now in Mr. 
 'Harrison's custody, be demanded, and sent to the Observa- 
 'tory, that their rates of going may be compared with the 
 'regulator at the same time with the Watch. 
 
 * In 1749, our Mechanician, on the recommendation of that 
 eminent philosopher, Sir Hans Sloane, was honoured with 
 the medal of the Royal Society, for the ingenuity displayed 
 in these machines. The discourse of Sir Martin Folkes on 
 that occasion is given in the Appendix of the original Work. 
 (The Society were further desirous of choosing him of their 
 body; an honour which he declined in favour of his Son.) 
 "These curious progressive specimens of genius" (as is seen) 
 were partially destroyed by Dr. Maskelyne, under circum- 
 stances which need not be repeated, and are only adverted to 
 here, because we would ask did the ignorant or the malicious 
 author of this public injury (which either he was) take his seat 
 unquestioned at the next meetings of the Society? for, if so, 
 the consistency of the Noblemen and Gentlemen who had thus 
 testified their sense of the Inventor's mei it, cannot be much 
 commended.
 
 14(5 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 the other two were so far abused in the carriage by 
 land to Greenwich,* as to be rendered quite incor- 
 
 * The regular course would have been to have placed them 
 on what, in London, is called a chairman's horse ; by which 
 being conveyed to the waterside and embarked for Greenwich, 
 on their arrival there, the former mode of transit should have 
 been resorted to. But these precautions, although no more 
 than what common care pointed out, the consummate self- 
 sufficiency of the Astronomer Royal, disregarded. To judge 
 from the injury these I inn keepers received, for neither of the 
 two smaller ones could be put in motion at Flamstead Hill, 
 exclusive of the large one so grievously marred by a perfect 
 master of mechanics (who possibly had but one method with all 
 subjects, like Sangrado with his patients) they must have been 
 placed on a cart without springs, to be jolted over an execrable 
 London pavement, such as it was in that day, and on to their 
 destination. 
 
 Nature having imbued John Harrison with as much sensi- 
 bility as commonly accompanies genius, it cannot be difficult 
 to form an idea of the effect, not only at parting with these 
 memorials of a life of good works, in a double sense, but of 
 being severed from them for ever under circumstances so ruinous 
 to the persevering labour of many years. The apathy shown 
 to the feelings of a man of so much private worth, as well as 
 public distinction, partook of those operations in anatomy, in 
 which a passive subject of the brute creation is exposed to the 
 razor, or the actual cautery, of some zealous enquirer into the 
 nervous system, some disputant concerning the seat of the 
 sensorium, and whether the heart, or the brain, is most liable 
 to be affected under experiments of his devising. It would 
 have mitigated the privation, had they been left at Flamstead 
 liill in apparent order and security; but this consolation the 
 custody to which they were consigned, alas! forbade. This 
 public property was in the first floor at Red Lion Square, and 
 from the second, where was his study and workroom, the
 
 NO. 1 APPENDIX. 147 
 
 rect, and as far as I can learn, incapable of being 1 
 
 master spirit that till then had presided over these works, col- 
 lectively and in detail, heard the crash occasioned by the ex- 
 cusable ignorance of the smith, and the pertinacious self-opinion 
 of the astronomer. If we imagine him present at this " con- 
 fusion worse confounded," and that instead of leaving the 
 room from anguish, he had, in a paroxysm of resentment, 
 broken a cudgel over the head of this consummate Vandal 
 that the usual legal resort had followed, &c. : it is not likely 
 any jury, if the defendant's counsel understood his brief, 
 would have adjudged more than one shilling, or, to mark 
 their contempt, not more than one farthing damages to this 
 deputy of a public trust; who, according to the witnessed 
 statement, professed a perfect knowledge of all matters in hand, 
 and began with asking what he was to do ! And who 
 commiserates not the veteran genius, who had achieved what 
 till then was thought impossible ; when from the upper window 
 he saw these proofs of his inventive faculties carried off like 
 common furniture ? the whip cracks ; the wheels " grate harsh 
 thunder" and " the iron entered into his soul." 
 
 Mr. Burke could not have been aware of the circumstances 
 attending the extraordinary transfer described, when (as was 
 shown in its place) he warmly espoused the cause of the aged 
 Claimant, and deprecated the treatment he had received ; or 
 the double-refined and unnecessary cruelty exhibited on the 
 above transmission, under a public plea, which the conduct of 
 the responsible parties thus outraged, would have shown him 
 touching spontaneously those chords which chime in unison 
 with the finer feelings of our common nature 
 
 While wond'ring senates hung upon his tongue. 
 
 Neither did that Gentleman know the strange incongruity 
 of one class of candidates becoming judges of the merits of 
 another, or he would have pointed out, in his forcible language, 
 with apposite illustrations, its tendency to such results. Leaving 
 the reverend Astronomers (Maskelyne and Long) to renew
 
 148 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 repaired without having some essential parts made 
 
 their defensive arguments, like the water in the tub of the 
 Danaides, or to invoke sublunar mountains to cover them from 
 the odium their conduct would excite. 
 
 The first in order of the three machines, and the one which, 
 from the gross mismanagement described, was actually let fall 
 in the removal ; was that which by direction of Sir Charles 
 Wager had, in 1736, been sent to Lisbon. On its return from 
 whence, though almost on a meridian, it corrected the reckoning 
 of the Orford near a degree and a half. It had not been pre- 
 judiced by the rolling of the ship in the bay of Biscay, but 
 experienced a different fate when demanded by the Board of 
 Longitude. And now what said the trustees of this public 
 property? who met on the 24th of May,* fully prepared for the 
 Rev. Nevil Maskelyne's report of the transactions of the prece- 
 ding day, and indeed without any other business apparently, 
 excepting to order the notes of the Astronomer Royal [he being 
 to skilled in mechanics, to wit] to be printed along with those of 
 the Gentlemen who had attended the disclosure of the Invention, 
 and given in an appendix to the plates, with the drawings and 
 explanations theieof. If the reader is impatient to know what 
 circumlocutory process, or opaque varnish, or methodicial ar- 
 rangement of syllogisms, tropes and figures, cut and dry from 
 Alma Mater, was employed to mystify those Commissioners 
 whose wits were not in the Moon, he will be wholly disap- 
 pointed; for the Manager and his deputy through whose affec- 
 tation, ill concealing their ignorance, so much injury was done 
 to these curious machines, with one exception, before men- 
 tioned, knew too well the men of straw they had to deal with, 
 whose duty it certainly was to have been certified of the safety 
 of this public property (always so called) but who slept on 
 their uatch, instead of seizing the helm, and kicking down 
 the hatchway ladder, head or heels foremost, these mechanical 
 
 * At this Board the letter dictated by Sir John Cust was delivered in, 
 which it took five months to answer in as many linos. [See the Preface.] 

 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 149 
 
 anew :* thus perished the first essays of this long- 
 wished for Invention !| 
 
 impostors. In place of the long report of the transfer, and 
 
 * The Commissioners would no doubt, like any other public 
 men, have taken umbrage, at the charge of gross incapacity in 
 the management of their trust; but the vindication of George 
 3rd has led to the discovery, that a philosopher, by experiment , 
 who, unlike Irax the voluptuary, in Zadig, would not have 
 been weary of hearing his own praises, and whose powers of 
 persuasion must have been contemptible, dictated to his col- 
 leagues like some Tribune, armed with the veto, to a knot of 
 striplings, er^ they had assumed the toga virilis in old Rome. 
 How could those men look to the approbation of posterity, 
 or suppose the juggle would not one day transpire, and show 
 the springs and movements behind the curtain (of their official 
 reports) not much to the honour of a trust which so palpably 
 sacrificed the public advantage to the sinister purposes of the 
 Earl of Morton; who when he brought in his bill, knew well 
 (or, if he did not, it was his duty to enquire) that the Claimant 
 was in the habit of resorting to his former works, in prosecuting 
 his new ones. So that if he was not actuated by undisguised 
 revenge (for his never to be forgotten, or forgiven, repulse 
 under the 2nd George 3rd) if he had bona fidoe consulted the 
 best interests of the country and of science, the obvious course 
 was to have left these machines in the care of the Inventor 
 during his life, taking security for their being delivered up 
 afterwards; in perfect order (the act of God excepted.) Had 
 they remained in Red Lion Square, with the advantage of 
 such a Ciceroni, they would have been a treat to scientific 
 men at home, and to intelligent foreigners not a few. But at 
 Greenwich, in their injured state, they were a memento of 
 dishonour to the parties concerned in claiming and removing 
 them, which will not want magnifying to posterity. 
 
 f The injury to these curious machines was not only never
 
 150 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Unwilling however that the public should lose 
 the benefit of the discovery, or the chance of further 
 
 still longer exculpation of the disasters on the 2:3rd, not a u ord 
 of either will be found on the minutes; this suppression having; 
 it seems been resorted to as the preferable course, bv the two 
 principals implicated in this disgraceful affair : with whom 
 Professor Long would have shared the reproach had the par- 
 ticulars been then known. Dr. Maskelyne, who, in his wilting 
 (as far as the Author knows) took care to preserve a religions 
 silence on this subject; as he has also done on the oiiinal 
 quarrel at Barbadoes, which he forgot it furnished a siiif- 
 able comment on, was never required to repair the serious 
 injury to these machines out of his own pocket, under the 
 inspection of the Inventor, as he should and would have been, 
 had not the spirit of party superseded that of equity, in this 
 
 resented by the Commissioners of Longitude, by whom they 
 had been claimed, and in whose trust they were, but t'roiu a 
 circumstance stated by the continuators of Dr. [tees, the mis- 
 conduct in their removal was aggravated in no ordinary decree 
 by the bungling expedient resorted to to conceal it; which also 
 prevented the public from benefiting by these specimens of 
 progressive advances to the great object sought. 'On an ap- 
 ' plication by our Draughtsman to the Astronomer Royal to 
 1 inspect the interior parts of one of the machines, by the maker 
 'in question [Harrison] placed at the Observatory, In was 
 'informed that permission to undo any of the covers, or other 
 parts of the mechanism, could not be granted.' This \\a- in 
 direct contravention of what is expressly stated, and repeated 
 on the minutes, when they reserved a claim to them, which 
 was "for the nse oj the public" and if this catches the notice 
 of Mr. Croker, under whose special cognizance the proceedings 
 of the Commission of Longitude were latterly, we hope he will 
 take measures to rectify this shameful repulse of scientific 
 enquirers.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 151 
 
 improvement, I applied, by repeated letters, to the 
 Board,* praying that the Watch might be lent to 
 
 Commission, as it is liable to do in others, which thence get 
 the name of jobs. The job here was not lucrative, but it ad- 
 ministered to the self-consequence of two men who had an 
 inordinate appetite for such marmalade ; to improve the sac- 
 charine of which, the whole conduct of the Manager shows, 
 that had John Harrison been made responsible for the safe 
 removal of this public property, (which he would have been 
 glad to have been) and had any thing happened ; not " the 
 act of God, or the King's enemies;" he would have been 
 required to make good the damage, at his own expense, 
 to the uttermost farthing ! His oppressor, like Shylock, would 
 have " found it in the bond ;" but he did not find in the Act 
 of Parliament he called his own, that he was to grant him any 
 facilities, including the use of these machines "it was not in 
 the bond." Such was the unequal proportion of good and 
 evil weighed out to his rival by the northern lubber, whom 
 these gallant Admirals suffered to pipe all hands in chase, 
 and steer them to run down, if he could, the renowned genius 
 whose bark with some splicing and caulking from George 3rd, 
 rides on the ocean of time with a light at her mast head , that 
 scatters its rays afar over Europe, reflected to Australia. 
 
 * If it be alleged that the Plates, when published, would 
 have been expected to give him sufficient advantages, and 
 that he ought himself to have evinced their utility in the first 
 instance, especially as Mr. Mudge had said he could make the 
 Timekeepers from them ; it will yet be conceded that to him 
 they could not be equivalent to his own Drawings, with which 
 he had not been allowed to compare the engravings ; and as he 
 had no reliance on the abilities of Dr. Maskelyne for such a 
 purpose, to whom the superintendence of transferring these 
 outlines to the Plates had been very improperly confided, the 
 benefit accruing was trifling, when compared with that of having 
 the different detached parts of the Timekeeper to show to the
 
 O'PENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 ne (offering security for it if required) for the sake 
 of employing other workmen to make the different 
 parts by model, with quicker dispatch,* and in order 
 
 workmen he employed. The Commissioners, or, as we should 
 say, their Manager, directed that as soon as finished, a set of 
 the impressions should be forwarded to Mr. Kendal (a courtesy 
 which was not extended to John Harrison, although, as above 
 said, his drawings were taken from him) but whencesoever it 
 arose, the plates are not mentioned in Mr. Kendal's subsequent 
 transactions with the Board, referring to his contract. 
 
 * An ignorance of chronometry, which it may be supposed 
 they knew little better than Lord Morton, to whom it had 
 served for display and a parade of his accomplishments, seems 
 the only plea that can be wedged in by their advocates, if such 
 avow themselves, but it will not soften the harshness of a par- 
 ticular which being level to every apprehension will enable the 
 reader to judge better of the treatment he received. When 
 the Lunar party (for it would be a misnomer to say, the Com- 
 missioners) were informed that the last made Timekeeper would 
 soon be ready for a trial, they proposed to John Harrison, at 
 a Board, November 28th, 1771, that it should go in one of 
 the sloops, the Resolution and Discovery, then fitting out for 
 the South Sea, "if he thought proper," though they knew he 
 was at the age of seventy-eight, and the voyage might occupy 
 above three years, with a liability to casualties proportionably 
 extended. That under such circumstances a trial of three or 
 four years duration should be substituted for that of half a 
 dozen weeks, on the faith of which he had set to work, forty- 
 five years before, shows the assurance of these honourable 
 men (as no doubt they thought themselves) to have been above 
 par. To allege they were authorized so to do under Lord 
 Morton's Act, only aggravates so sinister a conduct : for many 
 people would say that those Commissioners who lent them- 
 selves, without enquiry, to abet the personal animosity of that
 
 NO. I. APPENDIX. 153 
 
 to determine by experiments, whether some expen- 
 sive parts of the machinery might not be abridged 
 or totally left out.* Still have my requests been 
 
 vain and obstinate philosopher by experiment, deserved to live 
 on bread and water three or four years. 
 
 * He told them distinctly, that having the Timekeeper by 
 him six or eight months, would save him the labour of one 
 year in three. The refusal therefore, when his age is considered 
 (seventy-three) had a brutality in it which the wit of man 
 cannot extenuate; aggravated, if possible, by excluding from 
 their minutes his repeated applications on this most important 
 subject. Thus the ostrich, a simple bird, is said, by hiding 
 its head, to iipagiue its whole body is concealed.* The con- 
 cealment being now done away, leaves an insurmountable 
 memento of reproach to posterity ; principally pointed at 
 James, Earl of Morton, p. R. s. the origin of which has been 
 shown. 
 
 Yet great as the injury was to the individual, it became im- 
 measurably augmented to the public, and was indeed defeating 
 in express terms, the special purposes of their institution, when 
 we learn he wanted "to determine by experiments whether some 
 expensive parts of the machinery might not be abridged, or totally 
 left out" As he was the only person properly qualified to 
 accomplish an object which the general interest loudly called 
 for, it becomes impossible to acquit the majority at the Board 
 either of gross incapacity, or palpable dishonesty. The prin- 
 cipal clew to the intrigues this affair is so strongly tainted with 
 may be found in the conduct of the Earl of Morton, who if he 
 was not born, like the Caliph Omar, for the general obstruction 
 of science, yet either from a total want of judgment, or the 
 northern sentiment "none shall provoke me,"f did everything 
 
 * There is reason to believe that during Lord Morton's administration 
 the minutes of their meetings were often revised, if not essentially fabri- 
 cated at his Lordship's residence in Brook-street. 
 
 t By the way, how do the Scotch divines, and the educated part of the
 
 154 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 refused, and of late they have alleged that they 
 cannot keep their engagements with Mr. Kendall 
 if they were to lend me the Watch.* What those 
 
 in his power to render useless the labours of this indefatigable 
 man. He had secured the whole management of this public 
 concern (so called) although, as we have said, he pretended 
 to have himself discovered one of the principles employed in 
 the construction of the Timekeeper, by virtue of which he 
 claimed some degree of equality with the Inventor; but un- 
 luckily John Harrison, who had all the pride of spirit, in a 
 certain sense, which often accompanies genius, could not be 
 brought to compliment this liirminyham philosopher on his 
 merit, in any view. 
 
 * Had he so chosen, he could have stated more distinctly 
 the ill treatment he had experienced, as well as the magnitude 
 of the injury to the public. The Timekeeper was first locked 
 up six months at the Admiralty, as if by the advice of John 
 Gilpin,f being what might have been expected from his credi- 
 
 I.iity, reconcile this spitfire impulse, with a leading tenet of the Chris, 
 tian religion, which enjoins to love your enemies, and to bless them 
 that curse you? A difficulty of the same kind, though not so cogent, 
 applies to the motto of the Garter, in England ; for the genuine Christian 
 is forbidden to wish evil to any one. We should like to know how the 
 Chancellor of the Order (the Bishop of Winchester) deals with it. 
 
 t In his pamphlet on Mechanism, some years after, John Harrison has 
 a note on this subject, in a caustic manner, part of which we insert 
 "they took great care about my Watch, for they locked it up in a closet 
 "at the Admiralty, because it had performed two voyages so well ; and 
 "so they would keep it as a piece of treasure, for fear any body else 
 "should ever be able to make such another; a fair sign indeed, that they 
 " did not understand it." In other passages he is found complaining into 
 what ignorant hands he had got. The Commissioners certainly did not 
 understand the subject much, and least of all their Manager, whose plebeian 
 cast of mind (notwithstanding his hereditary honours) rendered him in- 
 capable of adopting any course advantageous for the public so it was, 
 they uniformly treated this man of genius as if he had no design but to 
 impose on them ; which his spirit could not brook.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 155 
 
 engagements are may be seen below.* The new 
 Act, as I have already observed, did not determine 
 
 table sagacity. Ten months more were wasted on a trial which 
 nobody called for, except those interested in the failure of the 
 experiment. It was besides directly contrary to the public 
 sentiment, for at a date somewhat later, a meeting of bankers, 
 merchants, ship-owners, &c. was convened in the city, to 
 petition Parliament against the neglect and hindrance of the 
 Commissioners on this subjectjf whose Manager, thus com- 
 pelled, affected some exertion, but it was so ill directed that 
 it only showed his incompetency for any such purpose, though 
 it did not lessen his presumption. Will any person in these days> 
 say otherwise than that the common sense of the question 
 plainly pointed out no time should be lost in adopting such 
 measures as were best calculated to bring the Invention into 
 use; yet the opinion of the only man equal to that absorbing 
 desideratum was uniformly rejected by Lord Morton; and 
 when the importance of the circumstances is considered, it 
 shows very remarkably how the vanity and weakness, or the 
 revenge of an individual of rank, can frustrate without any 
 enquiry, a national concern such as this was. To have ad- 
 mitted that John Harrison understood best what was necessary 
 for giving those finishing touches to his own Invention, would 
 have implied that his Lordship did not understand the subject 
 better than any mathematician or mechanic round the Wrekin : 
 although his notions do not appear to have been of more value 
 than Cardinal Richlieu's criticism on the Cid of Corneille. 
 
 * Those engagements we pass by here, but the following 
 passage is of the greatest consequence, by its bearing on these 
 nefarious proceedings. ' My Timekeeper is now in his (Mr. 
 
 t What would have been said at this meeting, had it being known that 
 the opinion of the only man that understood the best means to bring the 
 Timekeepers into use was rejected ; and that the business could not be in 
 more improper hands than those of Lord Morton and the Lunar junta, 
 who denied the Inventor every facility that could be named.
 
 156 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 how many more Watches were to be made before I 
 should receive the other moiety of the reward: it 
 was seven months before I could get them to fix 
 how many, and then they would neither agree to 
 any mode of trial proposed by me, nor propose any 
 themselves till eleven months after that, viz. not 
 till the llth day of April last, when (an enquiry 
 having been set on foot in the House of Commons) 
 they were pleased to propose, that instead of the 
 length of a West India voyage, which is about six 
 weeks, the Watches should be placed with their 
 very good friend and well-wisher Mr. Maskelyne, 
 
 'Kendal's) possession, though he is not yet ready to make use 
 'of it; there are some parts in the making of which the model 
 'can be of little or no use to him; I only desired it for six or 
 'eight months, and am confident he can have no occasion for 
 'it before that time is expired : however 1 have offered to have 
 it forthcoming whenever Mr. Kendal declares that he wants 
 'it, therefore I apprehend their engagements with Mr. Kendal 
 'afford no solid reason for the Commissioners to refuse lending 
 it to me.' Certainly not, and with the exception of their 
 Manager, whose effrontery was equal to any thing, if they 
 pretended to give grave reasons for a conduct so revolting to- 
 wards a man of seventy-four, it is difficult to conceive how two 
 Commissioners could look each other in the face, without red- 
 dening with shame. In the concatenation of events, yet, they 
 were preparing the way for the final refuge which the Claimant 
 found with his Sovereign, who reprobated in unqualified terms 
 the treatment he had received ; as did moreover those eminent 
 statesmen, Sir George Saville and Mr. Burke, which makes 
 it unnecessary the present Writer should apologize for the se- 
 verity with which he feels constrained to visit the memory of 
 the parties principally concerned in this odious oppression.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 157 
 
 for ten months, and then be sent for two months on 
 board a ship in the Downs; and all this I am re- 
 quired to submit to, without the least shadow of 
 assurance on their part, that they will be satisfied 
 with this trial, let it answer ever so well, or that I 
 shall thereby be brought at all the nearer receiving 
 what is due to me, although (independent of 
 making the Watches) it must necessarily employ 
 one whole year of mine or my Son's time, in super- 
 intending an examination, which, after all, can 
 only prove that I, who have made one machine, 
 can make another like it; and the point of general 
 practicability, about which so much stir is affected 
 to be made, would not be one jot advanced beyond 
 what it is at present. 
 
 I cannot help begging the reader will here allow 
 me to add a remark or two upon the general prac- 
 ticability of my Invention, as that is now said to be 
 the only thing that was in dispute between the 
 Commissioners and me, and that they only wanted 
 to be satisfied as to this point. In order to clear it 
 up then, I will submit to the public to determine 
 whether the general use and practicability of my 
 Invention can, in the nature of things, be attacked, 
 unless under one of these three following heads: 
 
 1. That a Timekeeper, however perfect, is an 
 insufficient means of ascertaining the Longitude at 
 sea.* 
 
 * This was the uniform assumption of that party at the Board 
 of Longitude who were not periodically, like Endymion,
 
 158 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 2. That such information has not been given as 
 will enable other workmen to make other Time- 
 attracted by the phases of the Moon, but always finding reasons 
 for preferring lunations to chronometry, which the immortal 
 founder of their philosophy disapproved. It is indeed an ex- 
 traordinary fact (rendered so by the conduct of his professed 
 followers) that Sir Izaac, when examined at the bar of the 
 House of Commons, placed an exact Timekeeper at the head 
 of his list of the expedients by which the desired object would 
 most probably be accomplished: but, he observes, "by reason 
 " of the motion of a ship, the variations of heat and cold, wet 
 " and dry, and the difference of gravity, such a watch had not 
 " been made." It may be alleged that Professor Mayer's 
 Tables were not known then, but they were at the time in 
 reference, yet neither that scientific Officer, Captain Campbell, 
 nor Dr. Maskelyne himself could show any thing conclusive 
 for the safety of ships. Granting, we will say, that the inge- 
 nious Professor's Tables enabled the observer to overcome all 
 c'ifficulties for the time being, except in cloudy nights and an 
 unsteady ship, yet as they could avail nothing towards setting 
 aside the physical impossibilities arising from the Moon being 
 accessible only during so limited a portion of her orbit (a con- 
 sideration which Dr. Maskelyne, with invincible pertinacity 
 affected to overlook all his life) we are fully justified in as- 
 suming that Sir Izaac, like Dr. Halley and Admiral Campbell, 
 would never have been found appreciating this method higher 
 than its practical merits deserved. We repeat, therefore, and 
 (bating small powers) we would have repeated with a loud 
 voice to the Lunar mathematicians at the Board of Longitude, 
 that they were diametrically opposed to the opinion of their 
 founder, in a question on which no considerate person could 
 be silent, for it involved the safety of thousands of lives and 
 millions of property. 
 
 Had this discrepancy been confined to speculative dogmas, 
 it might not have been worth bestowing paper and ink on,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 159 
 
 keepers of equal goodness with that which is certified 
 to have kept the Longitude. 
 
 but the senior Arnold on seeing Mr. Mudge's pamphlet, came 
 forward, and offered to make oath, that Dr. Shepherd had 
 told him, in presence of his Wife, it never was intended that 
 Timekeepers should gain the rewards ; and which is synony- 
 mous with truly illiberal meanness, the elder Mudge was as- 
 sured by Sir John Pringle, then a Commissioner, that when 
 the Act, the 14th George 3rd was drawn up, some of the 
 Professors were for having the Mechanics wholly excluded 
 from benefiting by the pecuniary encouragement it provided ; 
 but the rest of the Board thought this so unreasonable, they 
 would not consent to it. But although their effrontery (in thus 
 contemning Newton) was opposed in the first instance, yet 
 these Collegians, who knew not, or who cared not, for the real 
 wants of the Mariner, were suffered to have it all their own 
 way in the details, which, if they had changed places with the 
 Mechanicians, became a pointed infraction of the golden rule 
 you hear from them so often, to " do unto all as ye would that 
 others should do unto you." It was obvious they carried their 
 plan in fact, though not in form,* for the sundry long trials 
 required for two Watches were incompatible with the casualties 
 incident to human affairs, and especially those of the sea. 
 Supposing however the first of them, of a year at Flamstead 
 
 * Mr. Mudge was a candidate under this Act, but he began his first 
 Timekeeper three years before the passing of the bill, which thence had 
 the effect of an ex poste facto law to him, and (according to his Son) had 
 he known the prescribed conditions of it, and their uncertain bearing, he 
 never would have been concerned with so sinister a blow at the Mechanics.. 
 
 The rewards of 10,000 and of 15,000, according to the degree of ac- 
 curacy specified in Queen Anne's Act, having continued unapplied, though 
 the larger premium, (in 1771) had been one half paid, and the other in 
 abeyance, Mr. Mudge and his friends (mistakenly we apprehend) not 
 conceiving that the two former rewards merged in the latter, he became 
 a candidate for them, till the 14th George 3rd having wholly superseded 
 the original enactment of 1714 left him in an awkward situation.
 
 160 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Or 3. That they will come to so enormous a price 
 as to be out of the reach of purchase. 
 
 Hill, and afterwards twice round Great Britain, in contrary 
 directions, to have been successfully completed ; yet still the 
 Candidate could never know if he was near achieving the re- 
 ward : for the clause referred to was continued in these words 
 "and in such other voyages to different climates as the said 
 Commissioners shall think tit to direct and appoint." We will 
 suppose then the two Timekeepers returned from different cli- 
 mates in the four divisions of the globe, including Australia ; 
 to which trials three or four years may be reasonably allotted 
 that they have both passed uninjured through the casualties 
 they were exposed to, and, which is most important, had both 
 proved correct within the terms of the Act: then comes the 
 fag end of this business, which is another yeaj's trial at Flam- 
 stead Hill: this likewise (begging the question) we will sup- 
 pose is successful. Yet after such an expenditure of time and 
 patience, if the Mathematicians at the Board, not having one 
 Mechanic's agent to oppose them (while the Admirals kept to 
 windward, instead of bearing down) choose to profess them- 
 selves not satisfied, they could order a repetition of the whole 
 experiments. So that they might have adopted, towards the 
 opposing class, the language of Belial "in like gamesome 
 mood:" 
 
 the terms we sent were terms of weight, 
 
 Of hard contents, and full of force, urg'd home. 
 The expression, to throw cold water on any scheme, implying, 
 to damp and discourage it effectually, never was better under- 
 stood than by these pretenders to fathom the profound ; but 
 while they were indulging their spleen, under patriotic pretences 
 no more entitled to credence than the assumptions of Clodius, 
 they left any dispassionate observer to infer, that learning is 
 neither a stimulant to virtue, nor synonymous with common 
 prudence for there could be none in the nefarious uncertainty, 
 which Lord Morton, years before, hung in tcrrorem over a
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 1(51 
 
 From the benefit of the first objection (even if it 
 was founded in truth, which I utterly deny) the 
 
 genius who refused to homage his superior knowledge of me- 
 chanics,* which is thus seen transmitted by the Lunar party, 
 like a heirloom, from one Board of Longitude to another; and 
 well might Dr. Maskelyne (deficient in self-command as he 
 was) let slip the splenetic vaunt, that " they had given the 
 Mechanics a bone to pick that would crack their teeth." A 
 bravado, or rather, a sneer, which though he replied in form 
 to the younger Mudge, he did not venture to deny, except in 
 general and evasive terms: leaving it to be inferred, that 
 neither political nor sectarian party spirit are exceeded in ma- 
 levolence by what may find its w?v into the haunts of science. 
 Who would expect, after which, to find, on the above reply, 
 this humiliating exposure of himself (though not designedly so.) 
 ' I had a hand as one of the Committee of the Board, who 
 'drew up the sketch of particulars, &c., imposing this painful 
 ' task on myself and my successors in office in the reasons for 
 ' which I heartily concun-ed, because they were to render the 
 ' trial more accurate and authentic than it would be, if con- 
 ' ducted by any private person.' Admitting which position, 
 still it has nothing to do with the uncertain number and nature 
 of the voyages to different climates a system of entanglement 
 and hopeless confusion, which the brotherhood of Ignatius 
 Loyola's foundation could have profited by, but which was 
 wholly adverse to the straightforward course of Englishmen : 
 for when any public bodies, the Society of Arts, for instance, 
 advertise premiums for discoveries, or improvements they are 
 cognizant of, they invariably announce the conditions as dis- 
 tinctly as possible; avoiding any thing like such a source of 
 disputes and complaints as these Lunar craftsmen devised. 
 But the Astronomer Royal overlooking or despising considera- 
 tions, for his contempt of which, we opine Newton would have 
 sent him and his brethren to Coventry forthwith, is not ashamed 
 * Sec No. 5. 
 
 M
 
 16*2 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Commissioners have surely precluded both them- 
 selves and the nation, as with respect to me, by 
 
 to avow he had a hand in framing a clause, which immediately 
 reminds us of what occurred at Barbadoes, A.C. 
 
 Another clause, of some magnitude, in this Act, he passes 
 by: but we cannot wander out of the record in believing he had 
 a hand, and an active hand too, in fabricating it: and more- 
 over that he heartily concurred in this Lunar deviation; by 
 which two-thirds were necessary to constitute a majority at 
 the Board, instead of the larger half, as usual. \Ve will not 
 enquire after the special reasons methodically adduced for this 
 proceeding, after they " had given tlic Mechanics such a bom t<> 
 pick;" for no brawling demagogue could more flippantly ad- 
 vance patriotic motives to hoodwink his sinister purpose and 
 selfish ends, than these " men of theory" whose assurance 
 must have been above par, if, with allusion to Tully's well- 
 known r- murk on augurs, they "could look one another in 
 the face without changing countenance." The junior Mudgc 
 asserts, uncontradicted, that the real motive, and bona (idee 
 intent was, that if they mustered their forces, they could al- 
 ways prevent the rest of the Board from carrying any measure 
 contrary to their interest. 
 
 \Ve have passed by a very obvious question, which occurs 
 at the mention of this Act and its purposes. Had not the 
 Longitude been discovered in 17<6, or, properly speaking, 
 three years before; then what occasion for this new enactment 
 and its provisions ? It is shown in the preceding pases, that 
 no sooner was the fact admitted (for the Lunar junta could not 
 dispute it, as they had before done, by refusing the Candidate 
 a check on the computations) but in consequence of the aggra- 
 vated misstateinents of the Earl of Morton, in asserting the 
 contumacy of the Candidate, under the resolutions of a majority 
 at the separate Commission, the authenticity of which majority 
 was never enquired into, our Adventurer was delivered up to 
 the personal revenge of the proud Peer, who did every thini;
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 
 
 their repeated orders and instructions, and after 
 leading- me on for near half a century, to employ 
 my whole time and make long 1 voyages for perfecting 
 the Invention, they can never be permitted now to 
 come and say the Invention itself is good for nothing-. 
 Should any one however continue to propagate such 
 an opinion, I beg leave, in contradiction to it, to 
 offer that of Sir Isaac Newton, and that of Martin 
 Folkes, Dr. Halley, Dr. Smith, Mr. Graham, and 
 eight other persons of great eminence, both publicly 
 given to the House of Commons and to be found in 
 
 in his power to suppress the Invention ; in which ignoble pur- 
 pose he was too well supported by the party that clashed with 
 the Mechanics, who, as is seen, uniformly rejected the opinion 
 of the only man that understood the subject, and employed a 
 person who, though an excellent workman, had not inventive 
 powers, and did not affect them. These premises produced 
 suitable consequences ; and finding the Timekeepers were not 
 come into use, they conceived there was a good opening to 
 advertise (by Act of Parliament) rewards for improvements in 
 the Lunar scheme, and for discoveries of the Longitude by it. 
 How they learned so much assurance from Alma Mater, we 
 know not, but as has been shown, they would have excluded 
 the Mechanics altogether from competiting with them, had not 
 the Admirals and the Civilians refused to concur in so sinister 
 a purpose. It should not be omitted that they were killing 
 two birds with one stone by this device ; they were taking their 
 revenge for having been publicly defeated only the year before, 
 by the humane perseverance of George 3rd in befriending their 
 injured opponent: and there is nothing irregular in the suppo- 
 sition, that it was designed all who heard of this fresh appli- 
 cation to Parliament, should infer his Majesty had exerted 
 himself in an useless cause.
 
 164 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 the Journals, viz. Sir Isaac's in Vol. XVII. page 
 677, and the others in Vol. XXIX. page 547. 
 
 The second objection is flatly contradicted by 
 evidence lately before the House of Commons, by 
 which it appears that the description and original 
 drawings from which the Watch was made, as 
 given in by me upon oath, are printed and pub- 
 lished; and that Mr. Mudge (the only one of the 
 Watchmakers to whom the discovery was made, 
 who has been examined by the House of Commons) 
 declared he could make these watches as well as I 
 can. Moreover I am ready, on condition of re- 
 ceiving the remainder of what is due to me, upon 
 oath to give all manner of future information and 
 instruction in my power; and I hope it could never 
 enter into any man's idea of general practicability, 
 that I should actually teach every indifferent work- 
 man in the nation, and furnish each of them with 
 a set of tools for the trial of his ability, at my own 
 expense,* before I could be entitled to the reward. 
 
 * He might here have mentioned some of the impracticable 
 extravagancies of Lord Morton, under the separate Commis- 
 sion, in 1763, his non-compliance with which appears to have 
 subjected him to the inexhaustible enmity of the Northern 
 Peer. The particulars, which are given more fully in thr 
 original work, lead to the strange discovery that there was not 
 the least foundation for the majority his Lordship asserted to 
 have had at that Commission; the refusal to comply with the 
 resolutions of which, by the Candidate, became the ground- 
 work of the bill to amend, explain and alter the original Act. 
 This extraordinary circumstance, which the public never knew
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 165 
 
 With regard to the third objection, no estimate 
 of the future expense can (from the nature of the 
 subject) be grounded upon any authority better than 
 that of opinion. The price of common Watches, 
 where each part is made by a different workman, 
 bears no proportion to what must necessarily be 
 charged by any man who was to make the whole 
 with his own hands: the same reduction will natu- 
 rally take place when a number of workmen are 
 instructed to make the different parts of these. My 
 opinion is, that they might in a very few years be 
 afforded for about 100 a piece,* and if a reduction 
 
 an item of, is easily traced in the Journal of the two Harrisons, 
 and wants no voucher; for when the Claimant would have 
 conformed to the new Act the best he could, every delay and 
 obstruction that ignorance or hatred could devise was thrown 
 in his way. 
 
 * It appears that so far back as 1755 (above six years before 
 the Timekeeper was sent to sea) he had given the fullest con- 
 sideration to the means of effecting a modification of the suc- 
 cessful Watch (as it afterwards proved) for to have discovered 
 the Longitude, unless the machine was brought within a rea- 
 sonable price, would have left the business but half done, in 
 his estimation, The minutes of a Board, June 19th, in that 
 year, vindicate his solicitude on this most interesting point. 
 They inform us ' that his third machine is now nearly perfected, 
 ' save only in what further relates to its adjusting, which he 
 'hopes may be completed by next spring (the appointed time) 
 'and proposing, if he can be enabled so to do, to make two 
 ' Watches ; one of such a size as may be worn in the pocket, 
 ' and the other bigger, while his machine is adjusting; having 
 ' good reason to think, from the performance of one already 
 'executed according to his direction (though not brought to
 
 1(>1> tl'l'KNDlX. NO. 1. 
 
 ot'tlu marhnuTN can be effected (which I amstronol\ 
 inclint'd to tliink is the cast-, hut have not had an 
 
 perfection) that such small machines may be rendered capable 
 
 of being of great service with respect to tin- Longitude at sea : 
 'and ID ay, after bsiag brought to perfection, be purchased at 
 'a much cheaper rate than his superior machines, and therefore 
 
 pray in-; the same may be taken into consideration.' 
 
 The smaller \Vatch inti-nd'd for the pocket, and the original 
 of the chronometers used for finding the Longitude at this day, 
 is now in the Author's possession. It was made under the 
 Inventor's inspection by a clever workman, whom b* allowed 
 to put his name on it, \\/.. John .letlerys, which isiv|n.it.d 
 on the cap, with the addition of the date, and this hi iu^ !7->:>. 
 shows it to have been constructed two years prior to its beinii 
 brought forward. It was always John Harrison's pocket 
 watch, except when Admiral Campbell borrowed it, to find 
 his Longitude by. for which it answer.-d nearly as well as the 
 larger but more expensive Timekeepers. In the context of the 
 minutes quoted, he was ordered an advance of money to com- 
 plete these works: but after the discover? of the Longitude, 
 all his future plans for bringing the means of it into general 
 use wen- frustrated; and it becomes a blot never to be erased 
 from the escutcheons of those Commissioners who, on the !Mh 
 February, 17<">, delivered over this enterprising genius (meta- 
 phorically) in chains, to his disiiiacetiil opponent, the P.R. S. 
 to be dealt with in the best way that low revenge and a palpa- 
 ble ignorance of chionomefry could coiitri\e. 
 
 The conduct of the Commissioners <>u the date referred to, 
 when its most injurious consequences to their country, and 
 indeed to all commercial nations is considered, would have 
 exposed them to the unqualified reprobation of posterity, had 
 it not been unknown to this day; that how many lives were 
 sacrificed we cannot say, nor what an a^ie^ate of property 
 continued to be annually lost, for no reason but that this most 
 iiiut nious man. who. if left unfettered to adopt the lust i \|>
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 1<>7 
 
 opportunity of proving 1 by experiment for want of 
 my models) the expense may be reduced to about 
 70 or 80.* 
 
 clients for bringing his Invention into use, would have given 
 no occasion for the meeting of bankers and merchants and 
 shipowners, to complain that nothing had been done, was 
 placed under the imperative control of an ignoramus, we would 
 say, though we are not wanting in respect for the Royal 
 Society. He had given irrefragable proofs of being deficient 
 in common sense, by having required the Candidate to make 
 bricks without straw, in figurative language, or in plain truth, 
 to employ workmen without having wherewithal to pay them : 
 taking duo caution, albeit, not to advance him a bodle out of 
 his own pocket. 
 
 'ilii Claimant, as is seen above, gives it as his opinion that 
 
 * It might have been supposed, that on reading this (if the 
 supposition is conceded) the Commissioners would have become 
 sensible of the ignorant presumption of the P. R. s. who was 
 leading them a course the most opposite that could be conceived 
 to the public interest; for it neutralized the great abilities of 
 John Harrison, and rendered them useless for a purpose by 
 far the most important to which they could be directed. They 
 should have procured a strait waistcoat for thoir Manager, if 
 there was no other way to deal with him ; and lost no time in 
 getting his own bill (as he called it) repealed, if that was 
 necessary. The same promptitude (unless they were wholly 
 indifferent to the contempt of posterity, should have been shown 
 in restoring to him the advantage (for it was the advantage of 
 the country too) of .frequently inspecting his former models in 
 prosecuting his new works, which they had been purposely in- 
 formed was his custom, and which none but a consummate 
 blockhead would have deprived him of: for so would Swift 
 have written, and so we believe George :Jrd said, judging from 
 his resentment at the general tenor of their conduct.
 
 Hi ni\ MI. i 
 
 l>\ this tinu 1 think the reader may naturally 
 Am, how can all the*' tilings be? What can 
 
 "in a very few years" his Timekeepers might be afforded tor 
 100.* But it further appears, from his pamphlet on mechanism, 
 that if those like the one which gained the reward, which was 
 about five inches in diameter, had been attended with too much 
 delay in the work, or were from different causes too expensive 
 for general use, he had other resources for the public advantage. 
 II > arguing on the palpable inferiority of the Lunar method 
 (notwithstanding which, the Priests, as he calls the ProtYssor*. 
 wanted to get the reward) and thus continues; ' I am sure, 
 
 from my last improvement, that by or from the performance 
 ' of a Watch of sued a size as may be bore with in the pocket 
 
 (but I should not advise for it always to be kept there)t the 
 ' Longitude may be had, and that to a much greater certainty 
 
 or exactness, as well as with more ease and frequency, than 
 
 it u ill. or can be by the Moon.' 
 
 x that, allowing for subordinate contrivances between the 
 one and the other watchmaker, the principles and the practice 
 of John Harrison in chronometry are at present the main de- 
 pendance of the manner for finding his Longitude, and pro- 
 bably will continue so through many ages. How and whence 
 then arises the surprising incongruity that (nrt] \ us after his 
 death) no public monument exists, devoted to the memory of 
 the scientific Client: patronized by George 3rd ? Is the 
 
 He was the only person fitted to overcome these difficulties ; as may 
 be inferred frum the feet, that when Mr. Madge, junior, previously to 
 his father's death, attempted to establish a manufactory of Time keepers, 
 at the price of one hundred and fifty guineas, the concern proved a losing 
 
 is not unlikely the hint was taken from this passage for chronome- 
 ters, of a sue for the pocket, to be frequently mounted in a box made on 
 purpose, as now the practice. 
 
 The remains of John Harrison were consigned to a vault on the south 
 side of Hampsteail Church ; but a difference of opinion arising between 
 hit Son and Daughter, on the subject of a monument, the place remained
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 169 
 
 induce a number of noblemen, statesmen and offi- 
 cers of the first rank and most unblemished charae- 
 
 reverend Gentleman, at the head of the Chapter in Westminster, 
 so immersed in metaphysics that he cannot rise to the surface 
 and breathe a freer element ? Though not possessing a thou- 
 sandth part of Dr. Ireland's erudite acquisitions ,the Autho r 
 is well disposed to buckle on the armour of a cockney, and 
 to break a figurative lance with him on the position, that no 
 superior poet, moralist, or musician, like Dryden, Addison, 
 and Handel, for instance, ever did, or ever could, confer an 
 obligation on the whole civilized world like the discovery of 
 the Longitude. How comes the order of affairs to be reversed 
 then, in the case of the distinguished Genius who reached the 
 goal in a race of so much competition ?* Is the tympanum of 
 
 unnoticed for several years. After the death of his sister, William Har- 
 rison erected a tomb from a regular design, in the prevailing style, with 
 an inscription indicative of his respect for his Father's genius, but the 
 taste of which cannot be commended, as it may be said to smell of the oil 
 in a sense different from that applied to the compositions of Demosthenes. 
 The celebrity of the first man that found the Longitude might have been 
 estimated here, for, although it was many years after he had departed 
 this sublunary scene, the news of the monument and of the epitaph soon 
 travelled repeatedly through an alphabetical nomenclature, and parties 
 were formed in great Augusta (as the poets called London) for a walk to 
 Hampstead, to view this sepulchre and the record of its occupant not in- 
 deed so numerous as the pilgrims of Thomas a'Becket, but yet sufficiently 
 so to show the contrast between the ignorant, or the learned inattention 
 (which must we call it?) and this plain manifestation of the public senti- 
 ment; for the Sexton told a stranger who was making enquiries, "he was 
 sure not fewer than ten thousand people had visited the place within two 
 or three months after the masons had left it." 
 
 * Several men of genius from time to time attempted the solution of this 
 memorable problem of the Longitude, by horological mechanics; among 
 whom we find Monsr. Hygens; Hutchinson, the theologian (known 
 otherwise by the extravagance of his opinions;) Thevenot the traveller 
 ami librarian to the King of France ; whose machine was further intended 
 to show the declination of the needle. In 1723, Henry Sully, an inge- 
 nious young watchmaker in London, bid fair to succeed, but fell a martyr
 
 170 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 ters; what can induce the President of the Royal 
 Society, and the Professors of the Universities (to 
 each of whom his Majesty has been most graciously 
 pleased to order payment of 15* per day for every 
 
 the learned Gentleman and his Associates (in the Chapter of 
 accidents) impervious to a sonorous blast from the Goddess 
 whose foot (in the magnificent thought of Virgil) rests on earth, 
 while her head pervades the heavens! or is it indispensable 
 that the approach to procure an adequate monumental site 
 should be made like that of Jupiter to Danae in a golden 
 shower ? Were a proper situation assigned for such a testi- 
 monial, in either of those national mausoleums, St. Peter's 
 Abbey, and St. Paul's Cathedral, we dare say, there is no 
 person concerned in horological mechanics not a clock or 
 watchmaker in these dominions, nor probably in Europe, but 
 would subscribe according to his ability as a token of respect 
 to "the father of modern chronometry." 
 
 * This will be understood of each Board to which they were 
 summoned : not each day they were from home, either going, 
 or returning. The liberality of this provision was commendable, 
 but the policy of it may much be questioned; for we should 
 observe that the Professors from Cam and Isis were supposed 
 to have been long influenced by an idea, that, the reward once 
 paid, their services would be no longer required no trifling 
 consideration withal: for, if they were not bad economists, they 
 could pocket a few guineas by this jaunt to town; visit their 
 clerical and lay friends inclusively ; perambulate the reposi- 
 
 to his exertions. Along with these distinguished aspirants, a host of ill- 
 informed projectors appeared (including, till now unknown, a certain 
 northern Peer) insomuch that till John Harrison established the fact, the 
 discovery of the Longitude became a by word to denote any thing much 
 desired, but impracticable of attainment. Hogarth has not forgotten to 
 introduce it in the lunatic scene of the Rake's Progress ; and the Rambler 
 in his dream of the Garden of Hope, finishes a period with this current 
 allusion.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 171 
 
 Board of Longitude they attend) and what can in- 
 duce the Astronomer Royal, thus to discourage an 
 invention which they are specially constituted to 
 improve, protect, and support? I might answer 
 with Mr. Maskelyne, "that is none of my business 
 to account for." The facts are so, and this public 
 relation of them is extorted from me, by a conviction 
 that no other way is left me to obtain justice, or so 
 likely to prevent the Invention from perishing. 
 However, if it is expected of me, like Mr. Maske- 
 lyne, to deliver an opinion on this point, I shall 
 declare what I believe very sincerely, that by far 
 the greater part of the Commissioners are perfectly 
 innocent of the treatment I have met with: most 
 of them are Commissioners by virtue of great em- 
 ployments which engage their time and attention : 
 a Board so constituted is continually changing: 
 and this being a matter of science which to many 
 may seem rather abstruse, it was very naturally left 
 to the management of a few of those members who 
 stand in the most immediate relation to science, 
 and whose opinions, upon a business of this nature, 
 the rest of the Board had too much modesty to call 
 
 tories of arts and science, see Garrick and other wonderments ; 
 from whence a summons now and then to attend this Com- 
 mission was not likely to be overlooked among the advantages 
 of a mathematical chair : and public motives for rendering the 
 troubles of one of those homines centenarii who do honour to 
 their age and country indefinitive and endless would never be 
 wanting among men who evinced the selfish spirit shown in 
 these MEMOIRS.
 
 172 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 in question.* How well they have merited that 
 degree of confidence is left to the impartial world 
 to determine. 
 
 To return again to Mr. Maskelyne's account : 
 he, as I think has been already shown, having said 
 and done every thing in his power to the dishonour 
 and discouragement of my Invention, scruples not 
 to sum up his opinion of it in the following terms: 
 
 'That Mr. Harrison's Watch cannot be depended 
 'upon to keep the Longitude within a degree, in a 
 'West India voyage for six weeks, nor to keep the 
 'Longitude within half a degree for more than a 
 'fortnight,f and then it must be kept in a place 
 
 * Not always so, for in the discussions which took place 
 between them and the younger Harrison, the Professors gave 
 much cause to doubt their proficiency as practical astronomers: 
 and it has been shown itwas usual to call in Captain Campbell 
 to decide disputed points. The opinion of that Officer, it is 
 remarkable, was always in favour of the Mechanic. If they 
 ventured, on their return to College, to relate how they were 
 discomfited by this nautical Umpire, it is likely it would pro- 
 duce some scenes which a Sterne, or a Moliere, was wanting 
 to preserve. 
 
 t That Dr. Maskelyne should have suffered this assertion to 
 escape him, and yet without adverting in a note, or otherwise, 
 to the tangible logic, that in two voyages (or four) the Time- 
 keeper had bona fidoe performed with an accuracy directly at 
 variance with such a declaration may well occasion it to be 
 asked, why philosophers must think it necessary to despise the 
 hearty contempt of the vulgar; when, as it may happen, and 
 as it does happen here ; any sailor who had belonged to the 
 Deptford, the Merlin, or the Tartar, though he could neither 
 read nor write, and although his reasoning was confined to the
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 173 
 
 'where the Thermometer is always some degrees 
 'above freezing: that, in case the cold amounts to 
 
 adage, which says, the proof of the pudding is in the eating of 
 it, would have been more approved by Bacon and Locke, 
 above all by Newton, than the mathematical triflers who had 
 the assurance to sanction this miserable proof of the superiority 
 of the Lunar method, which in effect is the sum and drift of the 
 whole purpose. We may add that in England, where a wager 
 so frequently settles a dispute, the Gentlemen of the Jockey 
 Club would immediately have taken three, four, or five to one, 
 on the result of as many trials of the machine, under the care 
 of some competent person, not a zealous bigot to the Lunar 
 process, as was the case in the trial commented on, Not long 
 after the present affair, Dr. Maskelyne published a very large 
 quarto of "Tables of Refraction and Parallax," highly credit- 
 able to his industry and professional researches, but equally a 
 proof of his infatuation, in expecting masters of merchantmen, 
 as well as the gentlemen of the navy, to conform to such com- 
 plicated rules for finding the situation of their ship. Yet he 
 says that " Lunar observations are now happily understood and 
 "practised, with the help of the Nautical Almanac, both in 
 "the Navy and the Merchants service." That there is here 
 and there a mercantile Captain accomplished enough to con- 
 form to these purposes,* is true, but they form an exception 
 
 * One of these (Captain William Collinson, the younger) stated to the 
 Author, that with all possible care, and under the most favourable cir- 
 cumstances, he could not avoid an error equal to thirty miles. It would 
 be a great mistake to imagine they prefer Lunations to a Timekeeper. 
 On the contrary their opinion, in coincidence with that of his lamented 
 friend, the reverend John Barnes Emmett (one of the best astronomers 
 we had) is that the proper use of observations, when they can be had, is 
 for the correction of any casual irregularity in the chronometers on board 
 their ship : but as this would have been assigning them only a secondary 
 place, in utility, Dr. Maskelyne would sooner have parted with his 
 dexter hand than affixed his signature to such a heterodox article of 
 mechanical belief.
 
 174 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 ' freezing, the Watch cannot be depended upon to 
 'keep the Longitude within half a degree for more 
 
 to the aggregate of those commanders, among whom there are 
 deficiencies so great, that at Hull, one of the four great sea- 
 ports of the kingdom, the Author is well assured there are 
 Masters who do not know how to calculate their Longitude by 
 the chronometer, as simple as it is, but adhere to the exploded 
 practice by the log; with the addition of the alliterative maxim, 
 "lead, latitude and look out." Those people, who after rise 
 from before the mast, if they acquire a character for sobriety 
 and diligence, are seldom troubled with the enquiries of the 
 shipowner, concerning their ability to discuss the Astronomical 
 Ephemeris, much less to know their acquaintance with the 
 ponderous volume of tables (just spoken of.) Even when they 
 are qualified to avail themselves of the Astronomer's vigils in 
 their behalf, they know what the occupant of Flamstead Hill, 
 with invincible pertinacity, affected to conceal from himself, 
 that a clouded sky, or an unsteady vessel, may serve only to 
 illustrate the precariousness of every thing on earth, or in "the 
 great sea-deeps." Waiving this, however, we remember the 
 opinion of an experienced naval Officer; which was that the 
 Tables might be of some use in long voyages, but not in short 
 ones, because the voyage would be finished before the obser- 
 vations would. 
 
 In the preface of his reply to Mr. Mudge, the Doctor 
 warmly attacks a certain German, Professor Zach, for what .' 
 for sacrificing Astronomy to Timekeepers ! -Thus it is, the 
 learned and the ignorant equally illustrate the observation, how 
 much easier it is to detect the mote in your neighbour's eye 
 than to feel the beam in your own. For what was the main 
 drift of the trial concerted between the Sardonic confederates 
 (Lord Morton and himself) but to sacrifice Timekeepers to 
 Astronomy? and that too in contravention of the notorious 
 fact, that the Astronomers had been completely beaten at sea. 
 To decide that the Mechanics were entitled to a secondary and
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 175 
 
 'than a few days, and perhaps not so long, if the 
 'cold be very intense: nevertheless, that it is a 
 'useful and valuable Invention, and in conjunction 
 'with the observations of the distance of the Moon 
 ' from the Sun and fixed stars, may be of corisider- 
 'able advantage to navigation.* 
 
 subordinate place only, after such unanswerable evidence that 
 they had a right to the first distinction, directly tended to make 
 the authority of the Board (and his own) no more respected 
 among seafaring men than the j udgment of a mountebank would 
 be. And this " sacrifice of Timekeepers to Astronomy" would 
 not unsettle the belief of those who value an ounce of ex- 
 perience more than a hundredweight of hypothetical demon- 
 strations. 
 
 * At every turn men are met with who remind us of the old 
 notion of a town about to be beseiged ; when it was consulted 
 how to fortify it; and the mason, the carpenter and the currier 
 advised each as best suited his interest. Perhaps this common 
 place has seldom been better illustrated than by the pertinacity 
 with which the Astronomer Royal gives his own craft the pre- 
 ference. How he could impliedly assume as if he actually did 
 not know, that in the outrun to Jamaica the error of the Watch 
 was little more than a mile; while in his own pamphlet, 
 "The British Mariner's Guide," he does not undertake for 
 the Longitude nearer than sixty miles. How, after such tan- 
 gible evidence, he could, on the strength of the present sur- 
 reptitious trial (which is preceded by no certificate that the 
 Watch was properly prepared) come to the conclusion seen 
 here, suggests no better answer than that, instead of being 
 authorized by the Board of Longitude ( and of Latitude) to pub- 
 lish his proceedings, that Board if it had not totally swerved 
 from its purposes, might have been justified in reporting him a 
 fit subject for a writ de lunatico enquirendo: for it is, in effect, 
 a new version of Lord Peter's assertion, in Swift's tale when
 
 176 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Having sufficiently refuted the first part of the 
 opinion already, it only remains for me to make 
 such remarks on the Lunar method of finding 1 the 
 Longitude, as this coupling of my Invention with 
 it seems to call upon me for. 
 
 It is with reluctance that I follow Mr. Maskelyne 
 into a subject in which I may seem, like him, to 
 be actuated by a selfish preference to my own 
 scheme; however, as I shall give my reasons for 
 what I advance, I will not hesitate to submit them 
 
 he swears that the crust is good mutton. It reminds us, how- 
 ever, of a Colossus of ambition, "damn'd to everlasting fame'' 
 who, after all his plans were overthrown on the memorable field 
 of Waterloo, more decisively than those of Charles XII. at 
 Pultowa, had the weakness to demonstrate on paper, illus- 
 trating it with a diagram of six V's I A A \\ I ^at by all the rules 
 of the art of war he ought to have had the victory; and, as if 
 emulating the Astronomer, he would needs try to demolish the 
 reputation of his rival, to plant his own statue on the ruins! 
 The affair between Mr. Mudge, junior, and the Astronomer 
 Royal, gave occasion for a curious and important illustration 
 of the superiority of mechanism being appealed to, by the 
 former. Admiral Campbell was on his return from Newfound- 
 land, with a fleet of men of war; and, having a Timekeeper 
 by Mudge with him, carried a press of sail in the night as they 
 were approaching the Scilly Rocks to the great dismay of the 
 other Commanders, who, their reckonings being up, were in 
 dread every moment of the fate of Sir Cloudesly Shovel. It 
 is almost superfluous to add that this Officer, who, we learn 
 from Dr. Maskelyne was a skilful astronomer, would certainly 
 never have thought of placing the same dependance on the best 
 Lunar observation he could get : if the Moon was not then in 
 her zenith at the antipodes.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 177 
 
 to the public. I beg to be understood as a warm 
 and declared friend to that and every other mode 
 which can be devised of ascertaining the Longitude 
 at sea, so long as they keep within the bounds of 
 reason and probability. Here are now two methods 
 before the public; would to God there were two 
 hundred ! The importance of the object would 
 warrant public encouragement to them all; but, 
 called upon to say something on the subject, I think 
 it incumbent upon me to point out those limits 
 beyond which its utility cannot, from the nature of 
 the thing, be extended. 
 
 The method of finding the Longitude by the 
 Moon, in which Mr. Maskelyne is in a pecuniary 
 way interested,* is this. If the apparent distance 
 
 * So he was, by his own account, when at Barbadoes ; 
 where a curious scene occurs (given in the Preface) which ex- 
 plains the tendency of the examination thus commented on, if 
 we have recourse to a dry Spanish proverb, quoted in Croxall's 
 JEsop; viz. " The man who has injured you, will never forgive 
 you."f He certainly left himself too open to the charge of in- 
 gratitude (the sin by which the Angels fell) for had William 
 Harrison, supported by Sir John Lindsay, exerted his right 
 to exclude him from taking observations that were to determine 
 the correctness of the Timekeeper, he would not only have 
 lost the handsome recompense he was to have for the voyage 
 (300 besides his expenses) but his future prospects for 
 achieving either the Longitude or lawn sleeves, would have 
 been extremely prejudiced. 
 
 t In a quarrel between two Ladies (Mrs. Fitzherbert and Miss Paget) 
 well known at the west end of the town, in their day, and the former of
 
 178 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 between the Sun and Moon, or between the Moon 
 and some fixed star, at any certain part of the globe, 
 was for every hour of the year known ; and if a 
 navigator, when at sea, could also, by observations, 
 ascertain what is the apparent distance, at the place 
 where he is, between the Sun and Moon, or between 
 the Moon and a star, and likewise their respective 
 altitudes ; and if he could also, at the same moment, 
 ascertain the time of the day, either by an imme- 
 diate observation of the Sun, or by a watch which 
 would keep time pretty exactly from the last solar 
 observation ; these matters of fact being given, the 
 difference of Longitude may from thence be calcu- 
 lated. I admit the principle to be absolutely true 
 in theory. The Lunar tables for which the rewards 
 have been given, are calculated to show the distance 
 between the Sun and Moon, or Moon and stars, at 
 Greenwich ; I admit the practicability of making 
 such tables ; but with regard to the other requisites, 
 I beg leave to observe that, for six days in every 
 month, the Moon is too near the Sun for observing, 
 consequently, during those days, the method falls 
 totally to the ground ; that for about other thirteen 
 days in every month, the Sun and Moon are at too 
 great a distance for observing them at the same 
 time, or are not at the same time visible ; therefore, 
 
 whom had much injured the other by unfounded jealousy "she felt that 
 " she had wronged her, cruelly wronged her, yet consistently with that 
 " most singular trait in the human character, she could not, as the injurer, 
 " be brouzht to forgive her friend, whereas the forgiveness lay entirely 
 "on the part of the latter."
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 
 
 during those thirteen days,* we must depend upon 
 observations of the Moon and stars, and upon a 
 
 * The Author is induced to remark here, that in such of Dr. 
 Maskelyne's works as he has seen, that distinguished Astrono- 
 mer invariably argues as if he concealed from himself that the 
 laws of nature interpose insurmountable obstacles to the Mari- 
 ner two-thirds of his time, that would avail himself of the 
 Moon, with the assistance of the tables, compiled for his use. 
 Even under other circumstances, the agitation of the ship, or 
 a succession of cloudy nights, may disappoint the most enthu- 
 siastic ardour after the object sought. A common answer 
 resulting from which untoward combination, when the Gentle- 
 men of the Navy are questioned on the subject, is, that "the 
 Moon may be depended on nine days out of the twenty-eight, 
 if the weather is clear and the ship steady" reservations which 
 amount almost to a nullity. How could it be supposed that 
 so ordinary a case as that of a ship taking her departure from 
 Portsmouth for Madeira, when the Moon is at the full, and 
 expecting to arrive in a fortnight, would be overlooked by any 
 dispassionate enquirer, even admitting that we are all of us 
 disposed to exalt in estimation what has engrossed much of 
 our time and more of our labour, like the man on whom 
 Alexander of Macedon bestowed a basket of peas, because he 
 could throw them from a distance through the eye of a bodkin, 
 or some such implement, without missing ; and who no doubt 
 thought his method could not be too much prized on account of 
 its difficulty. Yet in 1818, Mr. Croker, who had not the 
 same professional bias as Dr. Maskelyne and Co., is found 
 volunteering on the same side of the question. After adverting 
 to " a Frenchman, of the name of Meran, in the time of Lewis 
 XIII. having first hit on the idea of Lunar observations" thus 
 applied ; and the failure of this method, for want of the tables 
 which were afterwards invented, he continues " that though 
 it was originally thrown aside, as not likely to lead to a success- 
 ful result, it was now relied on with the greatest confidence."
 
 180 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 Watch to keep time, from the last solar observation 
 with sufficient exactness, which common Watches 
 
 But unluckily the learned Secretary's illustrations are inversely 
 us hi.- argument, for when he would show from the log-books 
 of the Navy, thiee of which hecites, the extraordinary accuracy 
 now attained in finding the Longitude, which in one ship (the 
 Bucephalus) was actually withoutatraction; instead of adducing 
 his instances from what he calls, and which he repeats is the 
 surest method, they are all drawn from chronometry. So that 
 the honourable Gentleman, by his previous decision, maybe 
 said to have discharged a bullet at flu- Mechanics, so inexpe- 
 rieiict'dly levelled at their metallic defences, that in its rebound 
 it knocks him down head over heels : and possibly furnished 
 -nun t nil n.iiiimi nt, ami a few ironical potations to his health, 
 at the houses of call in C'leikenwell. 
 
 AJr. Croker bring himself, we conclude, no ordinary mathe- 
 matician, will excuse us, if we bring him forward, like the 
 ^i urn- just mentioned, but with more science, calculating his 
 distance from the bodkin secundum artem, and his throw in the 
 true parabola of a curve, instead of stepping up, and passing 
 the [WA through it at once, for there could be no difficulty in 
 that, '('his inartificial method was however, we can inform 
 him, ereatly preferred by George 3rd to the countervailing 
 difficulties so often attending the Lunar process. And ex- 
 clusive of the singular quotation from the log-books, there is a 
 test by which this merely mechanical practice, as Mr. Croker 
 designates it (according to the reporters) may be pitted against 
 the scientific method, by him regarded as the most certain, and 
 i v. ii indirectly deemed suitable for the gentlemen on the quarter 
 deck, while the other expedient might with propriety be con- 
 signed to the warrant officers forward. The Author knows 
 more than one mercantile Captain whose confidence in his 
 chronometer induces him to forego the precarious mode of 
 reckoning by the log, which is now regarded as a farce in the 
 Navy, hut were it proposed to any sailor worth hi> >alt to i. l\
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 181 
 
 cannot be depended upon to do ; well therefore 
 might Mr. Maskelyne admit that my Invention 
 would become of considerable value, even if taken 
 in aid of the Lunar tables. I leave the reader to 
 judge of the practicability of making- these observa- 
 tions from what follows : 
 
 To ascertain the Longitude by the Moon and a 
 star, requires a distinct horizon to be seen in the 
 night, which is next to impossible, and if you have 
 not an horizon, the altitude of neither Moon nor 
 star can be taken : it also requires (and this perhaps 
 when a ship is in a high sea) the distance of the 
 Moon and star, in order to come at which, the 
 imao-e of one of them must be reflected through a 
 
 ~ ~ 
 
 silvered glass, and the other seen through an nn- 
 silvered part of the same glass ; and they must be 
 brought into conjunction in the line that connects 
 the silvered and unsilvered parts, and this to an 
 exactness only true in theory, for an error of a 
 minute of a degree committed in this observation, 
 will mislead the mariner half a degree in his Lon- 
 gitude ; now I call upon any Astronomers of repu- 
 tation publicly to declare, that they have, even at 
 
 solely and unreservedly on Lunar observations for the safety of 
 his ship, would not the propounder of so hopeful a plan have 
 reason to recollect a couplet (in the tale about a Squire swal- 
 lowing a Cobbler) with which many of us were familiar in by- 
 gone days: viz. 
 
 The Doctor having heard the case, 
 
 Burst into laughter in his face.
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 land, and with the best instruments Europe affords, 
 been able to make this observation of the Moon and 
 a star with any thing like the precision required to 
 determine the Longitude within the limits required 
 by the Act of the 12th of Queen Anne ; 1 know it 
 cannot be done. Nay I further call upon any such 
 Astronomers to declare, whether even in observations 
 of the distance between the Sun and Moon, two of 
 them observing together have generally speaking 
 agreed in this observation within a minute of a 
 degree: I know that in general the difference be- 
 tween the best observers even at land will be more, 
 and as a farther proof of this assertion, I refer the 
 reader to the note below :* and if these matters of 
 
 * In the fifth volume of M. de la Caille's Ephemerides, 
 p. 31, he says, 'that any person would be in the wrong to 
 suppose that the Longitude at sea can be determined by the 
 ' Moon, to a less error than two degrees, let the method which 
 is employed be never so perfect, let the instruments, of the 
 sort now in use, be never so excellent, and let the observer 
 'be the most able and accomplished. For if we examine, 
 'without prejudice, all the circumstances which enter into the 
 'calculation and into the observation of a Longitude at sea, 
 'we shall be easily convinced, that it would be ridiculous to 
 'maintain, that the sum of the inevitable errors should not 
 amount to five minutes of a degree, that is, to two degrees 
 'and a half of Longitude.' N.B. M. de la Caille published 
 this in the year 1755, and is universally allowed to have been 
 an excellent observer, and made several voyages by sea, where 
 he made trials of this method by the Moon. 
 
 Dr. Halley and Dr. Bevis (as appeared to the honourable 
 House of Commons upon an examination of the latter) did,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 183 
 
 fact are still doubted, I shall beg leave to call upon 
 Mr. Maskelyne and Mr. Green to declare how near 
 they, with Admiral Tyrrel agreed in determining 
 the Longitude by the Sun and Moon in their voy- 
 age to Barbadoes ; and also whether during that 
 voyage they ever did determine their Longitude by 
 the Moon and stars. I know they did not, for they 
 found the observation too difficult, and indeed it is 
 only true in theory.* 
 
 with an excellent Hadley's quadrant, rectified by Mr. Hadley 
 himself, and in his presence, attempt to take the angular dis- 
 tance of the Moon from Aldebaran, a star of the first magni- 
 tude ; but with such bad success (some of the observations 
 removing Greenwich from itself almost as far as Paris) that 
 Dr. H alley seemed to be out of hope of obtaining the Longitude 
 by this method. Pamphlet. [To the Appendix No. 4.] 
 
 * And (he might have added) troublesome enough in prac- 
 tice, for to many Officers it would be insupportably so ; as the 
 reader may judge from the statement herewith, which, taking 
 "The British Mariner's Guide" for a fair criterion, but not 
 having the Pamphlet by us, we insert from the Monthly 
 Review; and it may be regarded as a curiosity, for its contrast 
 with the facility found in resorting to the Timekeeper. 'In the 
 'method here proposed, four observations are requisite to de- 
 'termine the Longitude. The first is an altitude of the sun, or 
 'some bright star, for regulating a watch, by which the other 
 'observations are to be made. The second is the distance of 
 'the moon's enlightened limb from the sun or star. The third 
 ' and fourth observations are, the altitudes of the moon and the 
 'sun, or the star, from which the moon's distance is observed ; 
 'to be taken by two observers assisting the person who takes 
 'the distance of the moon from the sun, or star, at the very 
 'instant, or, at the utmost, within a minute of the time he gives
 
 184 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 From the foregoing premises I infer, 
 
 1st. That during six days in every month, no 
 
 notice that he has completed his observation. At the same 
 'instant, or, at the utmost, within a quarter of a minute, and 
 before the observers attempt to read off the degrees and 
 'minutes from their quadrants, somebody must note the hour, 
 'minute, and quarter of a minute, of the watch regulated as 
 4 above-mentioned." 
 
 This scientific melo-drama would require a rehearsal, like 
 those on other boards: but granting that the Officers of the 
 Navy, from a first to a fourth or fifth rate, might be found at 
 quarters, according to this discipline, and that the mates of 
 some East Indiaman mustered as clever a display as could be 
 wished, yet the security promised is not nearer than twenty 
 leagues from land. Now, the identical Timekeeper, which 
 the Inventor's antagonist thus depreciates wit limit /mull/ring a 
 certificate, that it teas in a Jit state for the scrutiny intended, 
 had, in the voyage out, foretold the ship's approach to the 
 several Islands in her track, including Barbadoes, with all 
 the precision the seamen could desire. While Dr. SMaskelyne 
 by the method opposed to mechanism, with Admiral Tyrrell 
 and his Officers to assist him, foretold nothing to the purpose. 
 So that, under such circumstances, to affect to stand on higher 
 ground, as the Astronomer Royal actually does, and to allow 
 only that Watches may be useful as an auxiliary to the method 
 be practises; a concession which is thus demonstrated to be a 
 contradiction in terms, could only excite the mirth of a Jack-tar; 
 with whatever gravity it might be heard by the learned gowns- 
 men in an Oxford, or a Cambridge, common room. Altogether 
 a condescension so untoward becomes the bitterest irony on 
 the Lunar recreant, the proofs of whose superiority never were 
 forthcoming; it leans too much to "erring reason's spite" and 
 anon recals the Doctor's exposure (through his own indiscretion) 
 to Sir John Lindsay and other respectable Gentlemen at Bar- 
 badoes; which he leaves to be inferred, rankled at the core of
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 185 
 
 observations can be made by this method to ascer- 
 tain the Longitude at sea. 
 
 his material substance, and infused more gall into his ink than 
 the maker intended. It cannot be too much condemned, that 
 while the proofs are inaccessible (unless Mr. Croker has seen 
 them somewhere) Dr. Maskelyne arrogates a superiority for his 
 adopted method without evidence, and presuming, as the vulgar 
 often do, that mere assertion will be satisfactory in his own 
 cause. 
 
 Without disparaging this Gentleman's professional eminence, 
 he certainly injured himself by a proceeding that inverts the 
 order of things. And, unless the authority for publishing the 
 trial was the sole act of Lord Morton, whose reasons were no 
 more worth searching for than "two grains of wheat in a bushel 
 of chaff," what can be thought of the Commissioners from 
 Oxford and Cambridge? persons whom politeness supposes 
 qualified to fathom the profund of science, as well as of the 
 Bathos, not one of whom came forward to vindicate his sanc- 
 tion of the superiority assumed by his colleague over horological 
 Mechanics; supported, as it was, by what? by a total failure 
 of the attestations indispensably necessary to give it any weight. 
 - Several years ago it was becoming common for the burglars 
 in London, to set fire to some dwellinghouse or compting- 
 house, for an opportunity of plundering in the confusion. When 
 detected, their examination before the magistrates led to the 
 remark, that there were wretches, who, for the sake of some 
 booty worth a few guineas, would not scruple to involve a whole 
 neighbourhood in total ruin, including the loss of lives. We 
 shudder with horror at such an account: but it behooves to 
 recollect that philosophers infatuated with a favourite theory, 
 of extreme uncertainty in practice, are in danger of leading us 
 to a similar result. So it was, and the why and wherefore 
 cannot be known till the consummation of all things. Neville 
 Maskelyne, D.D. and Astronomer Royal, uniformly exhorts 
 those concerned in navigating ships to distant climes and
 
 186 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 2ndlv. That during- thirteen other days in each 
 month, it is impracticable to ascertain it by this 
 method with any instruments hitherto contrived, or 
 which the nature of the service to be performed 
 seems to admit of. 
 
 And 3rdly. That during the remaining- eleven 
 days in each month, when the Sun and Moon may, 
 if the weather is clear be observed at the same time, 
 no reliance can safely be placed upon the best in- 
 struments in the hand of the best observer for as- 
 certaining the Longitude within the limits of the 
 Act of Queen Anne ; and consequently, that how 
 valuable soever the Lunar tables may be for cor- 
 recting a long dead reckoning, and thereby telling 
 us ic hereabouts we are, when we are not afraid of 
 falling in with the land, yet even during these 
 eleven days, they do not extend to the security of 
 ships near the shore.* 
 
 hazardous shores, to place their chief dependance on Lunar 
 observations for the safety of themselves and their charge he 
 would not see his advice was incompatible with the established 
 order of the firmament, and the elements: for it often happens, 
 if observations of this description can be got, yet the ship being 
 in no danger of falling in with land, they are available no 
 further than for the correction of casual errors in the watches 
 on board. On the contrary, when the crew apprehend being 
 in soundings, this superior method is most commonly useless; 
 and for ever must remain so, unless the supreme Being were 
 to vouchsafe us to multiply our facilities fourfold, like those 
 of the planet Jupiter; or seven times, like those of Saturn. 
 
 * Although Dr. Maskelyne must have been more willing 
 than able to dispute this cogent exposition of the extreme
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 187 
 
 This method of ascertaining- the Longitude by 
 the Moon has already cost the public the sum of 
 
 precarious ness attending the Lunar method of finding the Lon- 
 gitude at sea (and even at land) which his own ill success so 
 strikingly confirmed ; yet with an infatuation in science bor- 
 dering on that of Johanna Southcot in divinity, and reckless of 
 the castigation he had received herewith, which he enhanced 
 by the climax of affectation, in pretending there was no occasion 
 he should reply to what he could noways controvert; he is found 
 twenty years after (in his reply to the younger Mudge) repeating 
 his decided opinion of the superiority of the Lunar process; 
 but without producing any thing to counterbalance the blunder 
 he had been detected in, of finding the Longitude after, and 
 not before the ship's crew saw land. He does not indeed show 
 the misplaced condescension with which he had before allowed 
 that Timekeepers might be useful as auxiliaries to Luna: but 
 waiving this: the trial, which brought out the reply of John 
 Harrison, appearing to have been concerted between Lord 
 Morton and the Astronomer Royal, leads with other points, 
 to the inference that he was more associated with a philosopher 
 so deficient in common sense than any other of the Commis- 
 sioners: and as he introduced matters in the appendix of his 
 answer to Mudge, which had no more to do with his subject 
 than would a dissertation on the Runic alphabet, those who 
 would desire to see Dr. Maskelyne exculpated from participa- 
 ting in the vengeful predilections of the anomalous character, 
 brought forward ; which were carried to the extent of refusing 
 the aged Claimant all manner of facilities for prosecuting his 
 labours; greatly to the injury of the public, as well as the in- 
 dividual; will be disposed to think that prudence especially 
 called on him, both in behalf of himself and his mathematical 
 colleagues, to have found room in that appendix, or in some 
 other of his writings, for an explanation extremely wanted, to 
 relieve them, if it was feasible, from so strong a brand, as that 
 of fellowship or their being aiding and abetting in the vindictive
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 6,600 at least, and yet no proper experiment has 
 been made of it.* 
 
 inhumanity exposed. 
 
 The improvidence of the parties thus implicated, if they 
 looked to the respect of posterity, as public men commonly do, 
 may be remarked. Since after excluding from their official 
 minutes what would not bear enquiry, like the tautological 
 assurance of Lord Sandwich (but withal forgetting those of the 
 *28th November) knowing nothing of the Journal, kept by the 
 sufferer; and imagining that the small pamphlet, reprinted 
 herewith, which their united talents were unequal to enter a 
 caveat against, would be soon forgotten, they had no idea 
 that the deformity of their conduct towards the Candidate, and 
 their disgraceful demeanour to their Sovereign, would some 
 day, many years after (as it happens) be given to the world in 
 these MEMOIRS illustrative of the character of George 3rd. 
 
 * It was a source of frequent anguish to the Claimant, that 
 while he had to fight his way unceasingly against an opposition 
 ever resorting to the state pretext, that they were careful of the 
 public money, he knew and saw that no regard was paid to 
 that consideration, if pecuniary aid was wanted for a scheme 
 which, while the laws of nature remain the same, can never be 
 available beyond a scanty portion of each month. That igno- 
 rance of the marine, conspicuous in the other gownsmen from 
 Cam and Isis, could not be alleged in behalf of the Astronomer 
 Royal, who had twice crossed the line, yet when Mr. Mudge 
 wrote, about two decennaries after the date of this pamphlet, 
 he informs us that 25,000 (and all the patronage connected 
 with it) had passed through the hands of Dr. Maskelyne for a 
 purpose (we add) of such equivocal advantage to the seaman, 
 that it is never regarded, if he expects to fall in with land. 
 
 Dr. Maskelyne thinking his honour impeached, and that it 
 behooved him to show he had clean hands, informed his antago- 
 nist, in his answer, that he is not a candidate for any of the 
 premiums connected with the Lunar discovery of the Longitude,
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 189 
 
 I shall not presume to make any reflections on 
 the different treatment the two Inventions have met 
 
 or for the supervision of the Nautical Almanac: that he regu- 
 larly produces his vouchers for the specific appropriation of 
 what he receives and certainly the Author would not cast a 
 shadow of doubt on the correctness of the learned Gentleman's 
 assumption. But withal, he cannot forego his amazement at 
 the assurance it involves, as exemplified in the words "I have 
 never shown any inclination, to become a candidate for any of 
 these rewards." That the Astronomer Royal in maturer years 
 having married a lady of fortune, who enlarged his family by 
 an only daughter that having preferment in the church, and 
 being altogether at his ease in a pecuniary view, could make a 
 merit of discarding all mercenary schemes, and yet without 
 once alluding to his inordinate and interested ambition at a 
 former period of life : of which, exclusive of his embarking for 
 St. Helena and for Barbadoes, an extraordinary proof is pre- 
 served, in the curious scene at the latter Island, which was so 
 near toppling down his ladder of preferment, is enough to pre- 
 clude any further comment on such a strange vagary. Had he 
 been involved in totally different concerns, some colour might 
 have been given to the tabula raza which his mind had become 
 on this Subject; but with a daily, and hourly recurrence to the 
 same ideas, who will exonerate him from as rank an affectation 
 as ever disgraced a man of science ? That notwithstanding the 
 oblivious assertion, so consummately advanced, Dr. Maskelyne 
 had not forgotten his loquacious and extravagant indiscretion 
 at Barbadoes, where, like Ixion, he had grasped a cloud in- 
 stead of the reward worth a goddess, were there not better 
 evidence, might have been inferred from the awkward extreme 
 and needless reserve he was noted for, on occasions when to 
 withhold the information he could give, had a silly appearance, 
 and might be construed as a want of common politeness. Thus, 
 in an article of the Encyclopaedia, some discrepancy is noticed 
 between the statements of the Doctors, Mackay and Hutton;
 
 190 APPENDIX. NO. 1. 
 
 with, nor will I take up more of the reader's time 
 by a detail of the very earnest attention paid by the 
 French Government to this object.* If our rivals 
 in Commerce and Arts should rob us of the honour 
 as well as the first advantages of the discovery, I 
 hope it will be admitted that the fault is not mine : 
 and I likewise flatter myself that I have now fur- 
 nished sufficient materials for the justification of my 
 
 the writer then continues to reconcile which accounts, "we 
 "applied to Dr. Maskelyne for authentic information ; but, 
 "with his usual reserve, the Doctor declined giving us any in- 
 " formation on the subject." 
 
 * The circumstance of the French Government under Lewis 
 XVI., havingsentover.au eminent watchmaker in their employ 
 to purchase the secret of the Timekeeper, was stated at page 
 141. M . Berthoud, who is alluded to, was latterly a mem- 
 ber of the Parisian Board of Longitude, and it suggests that 
 our neighbours seem to have been desirous to profit by a pro- 
 ceeding so sinister and defective, as that of making one class 
 of candidates for arriving at the Longitude, exclusive judges of 
 the merits of another, more likely in the opinion of the great 
 Newton to accomplish that object; yet they had no representa- 
 tive or advocate to look after their interests. This defect, al- 
 though so obvious, and exciting the attention of foreigners, 
 Mr. Croker unaccountably transferred to the new Board, when, 
 in 1818, he remodelled the Commission; for the scientific 
 members were all of them Astronomers and Mathematicians 
 without an associate of eminence in the theory and practice of 
 chronometry. It may be said there would be a jealousy among 
 men in that line of pursuit; but the rivalry in all professions is 
 essentially different from that esprit du corps which incites them 
 to join against the common enemy: and from which John 
 Harrison so often drank the cup of bitterness.
 
 NO. 1. APPENDIX. 191 
 
 Friends, and for shewing- that the cause which they 
 from public spirited motives had the goodness to 
 espouse, was not unworthy of their patronage. 
 
 JOHN HARRISON. 
 
 Red- Lion- Square, 
 June 23, 1767. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 A LETTER TO DR. DEMAINBURY. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Finding it impossible to obtain justice from the Board of 
 Longitude, and therefore vain to hold any further intercourse 
 with it, I am emboldened to make this last effort for preserving 
 the benefit of my Father's Invention to this country; requesting 
 a few minutes of your attention; and if 1 durst flatter myself 
 that you could with propriety lay my case before His Majesty, 
 I should have no doubt but the nation would be relieved from 
 the imputation of violated faith, and that an Invention so im- 
 portant to science, to commerce and to naval greatness, would 
 still find a Protector. 
 
 Impelled by the irresistible bent of his genius, my Father 
 (in a remote part of the country, and under circumstances most 
 unfavourable) had for many years devoted himself to the im- 
 provement of clock-work, before he even knew of the existence 
 of a reward for discovering the Longitude ; and so long ago as
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 2. 
 
 the year 1726, he had invented and executed the gridiron pen- 
 dulum, and made a regulator which has gone from that time to 
 this without ever erring more than a second in a month. For 
 pretty near the last half century, his life has been solely spent 
 in adapting the principles of his clock to the motion of a ship, 
 upon the faith of the Act of Queen Anne: and from the time 
 I became capable of doing any thing, to the age of forty-three 
 years, I have been wholly employed in the same manner. 
 
 Till about the year 1701, we had no difficulties to encounter 
 besides those which nature threw in our way; for until the 
 Invention was brought to maturity, we were happy in the uni- 
 form countenance and protection of the Board of Longitude; 
 but no sooner was it evident that we had succeeded, than by a 
 strange fatality that Board turned against us, and has ever since 
 acted, as if it had been instituted for the express purpose of 
 preventing our Invention from being made useful to mankind.* 
 
 In 1761, we demanded and obtained the ultimate trial, pre- 
 scribed by the Act of Queen Anne, viz : a voyage to the West 
 Indies. By appointment of the Commissioners of Longitude, 
 I went to Jamaica with the Watch, which kept its Longitude 
 considerably within the nearest limits prescribed by that Act. 
 However when the Commissioners were called upon to certify 
 the fact, they were pleased to declare the contrary. We de- 
 sired copies of those calculations made by their order, upon 
 
 ..ich their decision was founded; which were refused; nor 
 were we ever able to come at the calculations, either by official 
 applications or private favour, till several years afterwards, 
 when they were ordered to be laid before the House of Com- 
 mons; and it then appeared, two of them were absolutely in- 
 conclusive, proving neither one thing nor another, and that the 
 third decided in our favour. 
 
 In the mean while we had consented, for the sake of re- 
 
 * The necessity of generalizing his statement, precluded the insertion 
 of what we find in his pamphlet, that " far the greater part of the Com- 
 missioners" (meaning the Admirals and the Civilians, except Lord Morton) 
 "were perfectly innocent of the treatment he had met with."
 
 NO. 2. APPENDIX. 193 
 
 moving every possible -scruple, to trust our title to the reward, 
 to the success of a second voyage,* which I accordingly made 
 to Barbadoes, in the year 1764, under the appointment of the 
 Commissioners ; but, seeing the cavils which were raised 
 against the former voyage, I requested that a paragraph might 
 be added to rny instructions, to the effect, that those instructions 
 being fulfilled, we were without further difficulty to receive our 
 reward. Lord Sandwich, who presided at that Board, replied, 
 that it would be mere tautology, for the very giving of the in- 
 structions purported the same thing. The performance of the 
 Watch was such, that the Commissioners were forced to certify 
 that it had kept the Longitude within a third part of the nearest 
 limits required by the Act of Queen Anne, viz : within ten 
 miles : but instead of issuing the reward, which they were then 
 by law compellable to do,f they applied to Parliament, and 
 obtained an Act taking away our right acquired by forty years 
 labour under the old law, acquiesced in during that time by 
 numberless acts of their own Board, and subjecting us to new 
 conditions, undefined and discretionary . We were at that 
 
 * Here he steps over the separate Commission, the sequel of which had 
 so much share in his future troubles, by the unintentional affront given to 
 that weak but irritable northern peer, the Earl of Morton. 
 
 t With that knowledge, it becomes in a manner impossible to divest the 
 refusal of the reward, of the meanest private and personal motives. The 
 case of John Harrison besides, becomes remarkably illustrative of Lord 
 Chesterfield's favourite position that the ostensible purposes of public 
 men are seldom consistent with their real drift. 
 
 t This discouraging, or we should say, this disheartening uncertainty, 
 was transferred by Lord Morton to his own bill from the sixth of those 
 abortive resolutions, under the 2nd George 3rd, which were likewise his 
 own, and ordered that when the explanatory Watches (as they might have 
 been called) were finished, "they shall be tried in such manner as the 
 Commissioners shall judge proper." As this latitude of interpretation per- 
 fectly assimilated with the views of the Lunar junta (who, by the subse- 
 quent acknowledgment of Dr. Shepherd, never intended that the Me- 
 chanics should benefit by the 14th George 3rd) it was embodied by them 
 in the clause we have quoted from. But does not the illiberal conduct of 
 these scientific tilters, show them vulnerable in their own armour: since, 
 
 O
 
 194 APPENDIX. NO. 2. 
 
 time ignorant of the nature of Parliamentary applications, with- 
 out money, and with few friends, browbeaten by one set of 
 men, betrayed by another, and so lost the opportunity of peti- 
 tioning each branch of the Legislature against the passing of so 
 injurious a law. 
 
 After much difficulty respecting the discovery of the princi- 
 ples and construction of the Watch, we at length obtained 
 7,500, being the remainder of the first half of our reward, 
 (the other '2,500 havinsr being advanced to us, and actually 
 spent in making the experiments and trials :*) after which the 
 
 exclusive of a deficient headpiece here and there (according to Dr. Knox) 
 " These Professors of abstract sciences" showed that the philosophy of 
 human nature was a branch of metaphysics, in which John Harrison, 
 unlearned as he was, far excelled the Gownsmen, when he said, in a 
 letter to the Board, May 24th, 1766, "I am ready to execute your com- 
 mands ; but no man chuses to begin a journey, or to enter upon any piece 
 of work, without sume view where it shall end." 
 
 * This may much surprise Mr. Croker, whose want of experience on 
 the subject, when, in 1818, he introduced his bill for consolidating the 
 several Acts of Parliament connected with the Longitude, led him to ad- 
 vert to " Mr. Harrison having being so fortunate as to receive 4,000 
 more than the Act of Queen Anne contemplated ;" which he, mistakenly^ 
 imputes to the confusion among the several Acts of Parliament relating to 
 the Longitude (but of this anon.) Either for want of leisure, or from re- 
 lying on the report of a clerk, he includes in this sum what was advanced 
 as an outfit to the younger Harrison for the two voyages; which as the 
 Astronomers employed were considered in the same way, could not be 
 fairly reckoned as any part of the reward. Another advance was to in- 
 demnify the Candidate for his expenses in procuring the Act under which 
 the separate Commission had sat. These ought in all reason to have been 
 defrayed by Lord Morton, who was the sole cause of rendering that mea- 
 sure entirely useless. But, so it is, Mr. Croker will find this expense 
 included in that of the outfit for the Barbadoes voyage, 9th August, 1763 . 
 which with that for the former trial, extends these items to 550 ; and 
 this reduces the overplus, he states, by that sum, which leaves 3,450. 
 Supposing the reward to have been paid after the return from Jamaica ; 
 as it would have been in the general belief, had not the Lunar party , 
 when his success threatened to clap an extinguisher on their expectations, 
 resorted to the daring injustice of refusing him a check on the computa- 
 tions. Now if tho interest of one moiety of the reward, taken at 3} per
 
 NO. 2. APPENDIX. 195 
 
 Commissioners thought proper to take all the Machines, hi- 
 therto made, out of our hands, to lock them up at Greenwich,* 
 
 cent., is reckoned for ten years ; and that of the other for two ; no such 
 good luck can be deduced, for the money thus lost, amounts, with a few 
 pounds extra, to the sum just named. 
 
 Mr. Kendal informs the Commissioners (llth April, 1766) that he has 
 set aside his private business for two years, to be better enabled to com- 
 plete his engagements with them : but there is nowhere any trace of a 
 comparison in this important particular, between the case of the contractor 
 and that of John Harrison who had impliedly covenanted with the Legis- 
 lature, that if he conformed to certain conditions, as they were universally 
 understood, he should receive the premium stipulated by the contract. 
 To which end, he certainly set aside his private business, not for two 
 years only, but for an indefinite period, which was extended through his 
 life, after he had given up his mind to the absorbing question of the Lon- 
 gitude : which being premised, it is but fair to enquire what his earnings 
 might have been (certainly with more comfort to such a quiet man as he 
 was) if instead of pursuing the ignis fatuus into which the enmity and 
 meanness of opponents possessing a power without appeal (except to Par- 
 liament) had converted the solution of this problem, he had taken up and 
 prosecuted with his habitual industry the trade of constructing clocks for 
 mathematical purposes. The superior reputation, and the consequent 
 high price of his works, both here and on the continent, justify us in al- 
 lowing him forty-four years, communibus annis, 600 of the currency then ; 
 but to be on the safe side, we will say 500. His Son is stated to have 
 
 * The injury to the three Machines, and the gross misconduct of those 
 who compromised their duty by not enquiring into it, though they had 
 been claimed as public property, are passed by, but the omission could 
 not fail to be supplied by his Majesty's recollection ; for at those few times 
 when he accompanied parties of the Royal Family to Greenwich, he must 
 have seen these first Timekeepers in their deranged state ; and the fact of 
 their having been removed in a jolting carriage, instead of being carried 
 by a chairman's horse, and on the water, which the Astronomer Royal 
 could not evade, though he might suppress that of having employed a 
 blacksmith as his assistant, would leave a hiatus which the King, who 
 understood the subject, would not be at a loss to fill up. When he was 
 first shown these " curious progressive specimens of genius," it must have 
 been both novel and contemptible to hear the occupant of Flamstead Hill 
 trying to parry the questions that would occur to make the worse appear 
 the better reason, and to mystify the Inventor's illustrious Patron, if he 
 could.
 
 190 APPENDIX. NO. 2. 
 
 and to refuse us the use of the last made one, to serve as a 
 model for the different parts to be made by other workmen. 
 
 assisted him twenty-five years, but we will say twenty; and if we give 
 him half as much as his Father, which, under so able an instructor, he 
 could scarcely fail to earn, the calculation from these data results in 
 27,000. This excess of 3,000 above the 24 stated to have been received, 
 we will deduct for bad debts, or any casualty Mr. Croker may object 
 (though we can think of none like those which were so near sending 
 William Harrison, with the Timekeeper, to the bottom in the Merlin.) 
 Now we assert that whoever knew John Harrison, would immediately 
 have said, that no consideration on earth could have tempted him to arrive 
 at the same point of recompense through those hateful scenes in which he 
 had to contend with such objectionable characters as any man becomes 
 who is not ashamed to sit in judgment on his own cause an oppression 
 from which this worthy citizen, as well as scientific and enterprising 
 genius, was finally relieved only by the interference of George 3rd. 
 
 Had Mr. Croker lighted on the Journal often referred to, and seen a 
 passage in it, we may reckon sure, that his notion of the profitable specu- 
 lation of the Candidate and his Son, would have been altered much for 
 the worse. Nay the reward doubled, tripled, and quadrupled, would 
 have left him no desire to share a modicum of such good fortune. 
 
 1 When Mr. Harrison went on board the Merlin, Captain Bourke, who 
 ' commanded her, advised him to place the Timekeeper on the counter, or 
 'after-part of the ship, in the cabin; his reason for this, was, that if they 
 ' should fall in with a hard gale of wind, that, he said, would be the like- 
 ' liest place in the ship to be dry. After they had been at sea about three 
 'weeks, they fell in with a hard gale of wind; and the ship sprung a 
 ' leak. The wind continued to blow exceedingly hard, with little inter- 
 ' ruption, for upwards of three weeks ; during which time it was with the 
 ' greatest difficulty that Mr. Harrison was able at some times to keep the 
 'salt water out of the box which contained the Timekeeper; for it blew 
 ' so hard that they were forced to lay to for the most part ; and the ship at 
 'those times would receive such violent shocks by the breaking of the 
 ' waves against her quarter, that the Timekeeper received almost as vio- 
 ' lent blows as if it had been thrown in its box from one side of the cabin 
 ' to the other : and by these violent shocks of the waves the water would 
 'spurn [spume] through every joint in the ship. And in order to keep it 
 'out of the box in \\liich the Timekeeper was, Mr. Harrison had no other 
 ' method but to keep a blanket about it ; and when it had imbibed so much 
 ' water, that he could with his hand squeeze it out, he then took that 
 'blanket oil", and placed the box in another. And he had at some times 
 'no other method 1" ^el HIO.M- blanket.^ dry Hgnin, but by cm orini; himself
 
 NO. 2. APPENDIX. 
 
 It took up eighteen months to get the determination of the 
 Commissioners, what number of other Watches they expected 
 to be made, under the new Act. After which time, they told 
 us they would be satisfied with two, and if they were made by 
 other workmen, it would be so much the more agreeable to the 
 spirit of the last Act, which had been grounded upon a doubt 
 whether other people could make them. It has been hitherto 
 impossible to get them to fix any determinate mode of trial with 
 
 ' up in them when he went to sleep : and this with sea-sickness threw him 
 'into a severe fit of illness ; and it was with the greatest difficulty that his 
 ' life was saved but he very well knew, that if he did not keep the water 
 'out of the box, that some would be so cruel as to say, he let it in on pur- 
 'pose, because he knew it would not answer: and others would say, it 
 'was a thing too tender, and too delicate to go to sea: and would no 
 ' consider the hardships of the voyage, nor the cruelty of not having a pro- 
 ' per place prepared to put it in : and that he was sent home in a ship which 
 'with the greatest difficulty they were able to keep above water in the 
 ' weather they met with. Thus after one of the roughest voyages that any 
 ' ship ever had, they on the 2Gth March, arrived at Spithead.' 
 
 He would not have expressed himself thus, on not having a proper 
 place, if he had reflected further, for it was the cruelty of fortune, in this 
 instance. Commodore Forrest, the officer in command, he previously 
 says, " gave him all the assistance in his power" to promote the objects 
 of the voyage. 'He said his orders were to ship him, and Mr. Robison 
 'the Astronomer, [after the observations were completed] in the first man 
 'of war that should sail for England; but that he did not expect there 
 'would be one that would sail till June. This was very bad encourage- 
 'ment for Mr. Harrison, who did not want to stay so long in that country.' 
 Subsequently however, the Authorities at Jamaica having occasion to 
 send a dispatch home without delay ; and the observations being completed, 
 ' the Commodore sent to Mr. Harrison, and informed him, that there would 
 'in two days time be a ship sail for England with an express; and if he 
 'was ready he would ship him on board of it.' He does not say, he ap- 
 plied to the Commodore, or the Captain, for the carpenter to prepare a 
 place for the Timekeeper ; and it could not be supposed those Officers 
 would think of it, but at his suggestion. His being sent home in an old 
 ship, not worth repairing, and condemned after her arrival, which, by 
 its consequences, had he not being providentially of a robust constitution, 
 was so near costing him his life, was yet altogether a casualty, like some 
 of the most important events in the lives of other men.
 
 198 APPENDIX. NO. 2. 
 
 which they will be satisfied. They did indeed propose in 1767, 
 that the new Watches should be tried for ten months, under 
 Mr. Maskelyne's care at Greenwich, and for two months in 
 the Downs, but they refused to specify what degree of exact- 
 ness they expected even during that trial, or whether they ex- 
 pected the Watch should now, for twelve months, not err more 
 than that Act of Queen Anne had allowed for a voyage of five 
 or six weeks : and they also would not promise to abide by the 
 result of such trial.* 
 
 Trusting however to the ultimate justice of our country, and 
 desirous of vindicating our fame, we set about making another 
 Timekeeper, and have prosecuted it more as a study of the 
 different ways in which the operation may be abridged and im- 
 proved, than with a view of getting the Watch completed a few 
 months sooner, or later: and in the success of our researches, 
 we have found some consolation for the injuries heaped upon 
 us. Mr. Kcndal has during the same time, made by order of 
 the Commissioners, an exact copy of our old one; which we 
 have had no opportunity of examining, but are informed, and 
 believe, it is just as good as the original :f and while we were 
 
 * Who is there will not decidedly condemn such conduct, confirmatory 
 as it is of Dr. Shepherd's admission, that it never was intended Time- 
 keepers should gain the reward? which though spoken of the 14th George 
 3rd, was as applicable to Lord Morton's Act: for though by that explana- 
 tory measure, one half of the premium was to be paid on certain conditions 
 (the framer of the bill having no choice, as the public indignation would 
 not have suffered him to withhold it) yet the other half was placed beyond 
 reach in little less than direct terms, by being hedged round with such a 
 tissue of uncertainties. It was only the protection extended to John Har- 
 rison by his Sovereign, that enabled him at length to cut this Gordian 
 knot. The whole conduct of the Lunar party, and of the northern Peer, 
 furnishes an impressive lesson, of the revolting consequences to be expected, 
 when any set of men are entrusted with arbitrary power without any en- 
 quiry into the probable perversion of it to the purposes of clashing in- 
 terests, or of unextinguishable animosity. 
 
 t There is a discrepancy here, but of little consequence. According to 
 the minutes of a Board, 3rd March, 1770, he had seen and expressed his 
 satisfaction at the goodness of Mr. Kendal's work.
 
 NO. 2. APPENDIX. 199 
 
 only waiting for some cold weather to finish some experiments 
 we wanted to make, meaning afterwards to apply once more 
 to the Board for some reasonable trial of Mr. Kendal's and our 
 new one, as the two required by the last Act, we were ap- 
 prized of the intention of the Board, to send Mr. Kendal's upon 
 the expedition with Messrs. Banks and Solander. Upon this 
 occasion, I stated by letter to Lord Sandwich, the general 
 history of what had passed. The impropriety of sending Mr. 
 Kendal's Watch upon that expedition, when our old one would 
 just answer the same purpose, and Mr. Kendal's would, by 
 ascertaining our right, facilitate the bringing of the Invention 
 into general use; -and offering to agree to any mode of trial, 
 by men not already proved partial, which should be definite 
 in its nature, conclusive as to establishing our reward, in case 
 of success, and in any degree near the limits of the original 
 Act, in point of duration and exactness. And I also took the 
 liberty to observe to his Lordship, that the instructing one ex- 
 cellent workman to make the whole with his own hands, was 
 not the way to bring the Invention into general use, and pointed 
 out to him an effectual method for that purpose. This letter 
 was laid before the Board; and I was told, in answer to it, 
 that we must make another Watch before the Commissioners 
 would appoint a trial, for they always understood the two were 
 to be made by us; and, that as to a mode of trial, they had al- 
 ready determined upon one (which is above recited) and saw 
 no reason to alter their opinion. There was no mistaking the 
 intention of the Board when thus explained, and I told them, 
 as the truth is, that we shall never give them any more trouble. 
 After the experience we have had, I humbly conceive that 
 it would be absurd in me, as it is impossible for my Father, 
 who is on the verge of fourscore years of age,* to attempt to 
 
 * The singular inhumanity of exacting more labours from a man near 
 fourscore, would of itself alone, have made an impression on His Majesty 
 highly favourable to the Applicant's case aggravated, as is seen, by the 
 consideration that they previously allowed it would be more in the spirit 
 of the Act to amend and alter, if one of the two Watches was made by
 
 AIMM-iXDIX. NO. '2. 
 
 risk the matter any further through the same channel. If His 
 Majesty would be graciously pleased to sutFer our new-made 
 Watch, to be lodged for a certain time in the Observatory at 
 Richmond, in order to ascertain and manifest its degree of ex- 
 cellence, I should hope that the prejudices of many might 
 thereby be vanquished, and that it would become easy to 
 obtain redress. 
 
 I humbly beg pardon for the liberty t have herein taken, 
 but I conceive it a duty I owe my King and Country, io make 
 this representation: and in acquitting myself thereof, I beg 
 leave to subscribe myself, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient 
 
 and humble servant, 
 
 East-street, WILLIAM HARRISON. 
 
 Jir<l- Lion- Square, 
 Jan. 31f, 1772. 
 
 another hand. In the original work the Author thought himself justified 
 in demanding of the learned Professors, if they did not know, from their 
 classical reminiscences, that old age had no where so honourable an abode 
 as at Sparta ; air.l if they meant it should not have a more disgraceful one 
 than in Britain .' Did the) not know, that impaired sight and an unsteady 
 hand, are among the common and serious disadvantages of age .' Were 
 they so entirely ignorant of chronometry as to overlook such impediments? 
 Certainly the Gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge owe no thanks to their 
 predecesgors, for leaving it to be inferred that the sentiment which honours 
 a virtuous old age did not appear among them, in its essence, though it 
 might be descanted on in the pulpit, which was their trade. It is yet 
 consolatory to add, that the Spartan notions are not extinct among the 
 moderns, as appears by the following remark, which occurred in a party 
 who were ascending Mount Blanc. ' Expecting very much from Simeon, 
 ' I was not disappointed, and felt increasingly convinced, from his conduct, 
 'that respect for superior years is a sure indication of moral health. He 
 ' that venerates not the hoary head with all its little iniirmities, is destitute 
 'of some of the heart's best emotions, and his old age shall be void of 
 'honour. [New Monthly Magazine for May, 1820.] 
 
 It is singular enough, that though the Author of this extract knew 
 nothing about the particulars introduced here, yet it becomes the bitterest 
 on the mathematical Commissioners who abetted the inhumanity of
 
 NO. 3. APPENDIX. 201 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 VOYAGE, IN THE DEPTFORD MAN OF WAR, TO MADEIRA, 
 AND FROM MADEIRA TO JAMAICA ACCURACY OF THE 
 TIMEKEEPER; AND THE RETURN, WITH A VERY TEM- 
 PESTUOUS PASSAGE, IN THE MERLIN SLOOP. 
 
 THE circumstances attending the run from Portsmouth to 
 Madeira, in the first voyage, which appeared in the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, and other periodicals of the time, were very 
 remarkable (and certainly such as could never have been paral- 
 leled, had the Longitude depended on Dr. Maskelyne's superior 
 method.) When the Deptford approached the Latitude of 
 Porto Santo, the crew who were confident in their reckonings, 
 made her considerably to the eastward of that Island, which 
 differed widely from the Longitude shown by the Timekeeper. 
 But the Captain, though he would have laid five to one that 
 the ship was too far run easterly, yet, as if out of courtesy, 
 would not alter his course, Mr. Harrison having declared, 
 that if the wind and weather continued the same, and Porto 
 Santo was accurately laid down in the maps, they must see it 
 the next morning a prediction which was verified at seven 
 o'clock. 
 
 On arriving in Funchal roads, another and forcible illustra- 
 tion of the utility of the Timekeeper occurred : for they fully 
 expected to have found that the Beaver sloop of war ha*d an- 
 chored there a week or two previously : that ship having sailed 
 a fortnight before them, taking out orders to the merchants 
 
 Lord Morton, that a premeditated intention could have devised leaving 
 the inference, that neither learning, nor the Christian ministry, to which 
 they all belonged, could, in their case, supply " some of the heart's best 
 emotions" which nature had denied them to participate in.
 
 '20-2 A PP K N D I \ . NO. 3 . 
 
 there, on account of Governor Lyttleton. It appeared that her 
 officers and crew, being deceived in their reckoning, and ima- 
 gining themselves to the eastward of Madeira, when they were 
 in reality to the westward, lost so much time in correcting the 
 consequences of this mistake, that they did not arrive till three 
 days after the Deptford. 
 
 The want of the original Journal of William Harrison, is 
 happily supplied, in a considerable degree, by an account of 
 the voyage after leaving Madeira, which he sent to his father- 
 in-law, about a week from his arrival at home. It is dated, 
 London, April 10th, 1702. The details will not be thought 
 tedious, by those who interest themselves in this first regular 
 experiment to solve a problem which had so much excited the 
 attention, and exercised the ingenuity of scientific men in the 
 preceding centuries. The beginning and the conclusion of this 
 letter, being wholly of a family nature, are omitted : passing 
 by this, he proceeds I have but little time, and my voy;iu< 
 home has been such a one as tongue cannot utter, nor pen ex- 
 press; therefore it will be but a very imperfect idea that I shall 
 be able to note down; but I thank the Almighty God, that 
 he hath through his infinite goodness given me once more an 
 opportunity to write to you from this place (which some time 
 ago I never expected) and at the same time to crown me with 
 greater success than could any ways be imagined, considering 
 what we have undergone. 
 
 My Wife some time ago sent you a copy of a letter I wrote 
 to her from Madeira, which gave you an account of my voyage 
 to that place, and of the success of the Watch ; so that I shall 
 now only give you the particulars of the voyage from that 
 Island to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to ngland again. 
 
 We sailed from Madeira on the 18th of December, and saw 
 no land till the llth of January; when about half an hour after 
 six in the morning we saw the Island of Deseada. In our 
 voyage from Madeira to this place my reckoning by the Watch 
 was kept a secret; for we found, was it known, that all the 
 reckonings in the ship would be corrected by it, if I made it
 
 NO. ']. APPENDIX. 203 
 
 public. Therefore Captain Digges, Mr. Robison (who was 
 the Gentleman sent along with me) and myself, agreed that 
 nobody should know the account the Watch gave but ourselves, 
 till we should be near making land. On the 10th of January, 
 in the afternoon, I had a very good observation ; and, according 
 to the Watch, and supposing the wind to continue to blow as 
 it then did, we should see the Island of Deseada next morning, 
 about ten o'clock; and the Captain and I agreed that this after- 
 noon (being the 10th) I should tell all the Officers where we 
 were by the Watch, and that I expected to see the land next 
 day. Accordingly I stated so, which very much surprised 
 them; for, according to the nearest of their reckonings they 
 were one hundred and fifty miles further from the Island than I 
 was : but they did not at all dispute my being right, I having 
 already given them an instance of it at Madeira.* Accordingly 
 about half-past six o'clock in the morning of the llth, we saw 
 the land ; which was only about three hours sooner than I ex- 
 pected. The correctness of the Watch amazed them very much. 
 [The Islands of Guadaloupe, Antigua, Montserrat, Rock- 
 dondo, Nevis and St. Christophers, Eustacia and Saba, His- 
 paniola and Albovato, are severally mentioned, with the dates 
 on which they were in sight, but as it was not necessary to 
 appeal to the Timekeeper, we pass on.] On the 18th, about 
 twelve o'clock at noon, we saw the Island of Jamaica, and 
 on the 19th, about five in the afternoon, we came to an anchor 
 at Port Royal. 
 
 On the 20th we went on shore to fix on a proper place to 
 make the observations for trying the correctness of the Watch; 
 but it was the 26th before we got a proper place built up; when 
 we got a good observation, and found that the Watch in all 
 this time (that is, since the last observation at Portsmouth) 
 had erred two minutes and thirty-six seconds, in ten weeks : 
 
 * In a printed account of the voyage, it is stated in addition, that the 
 reckonings of some of the ships in the convoy, differed no less than five 
 degrees from that by the Timekeeper.
 
 % 204 APPENDIX. NO. 3. 
 
 \\hich answered the purpose just as well as if it had been en- 
 tirely correct.* 
 
 On the 27th of January, at five o'clock in the evening, I 
 took the \Vatch on board the Merlin sloop of eighteen guns, 
 Captain Bourke, who was under orders to sail express for 
 England ; and accordingly at five in the morning of the 28th, 
 they weighed and sailed out of the harbour of Port Royal. 
 [Here the writer notes in their order, the Islands of Navasa, 
 Hispaniola, Cuba, Tortuga, Hencago, Achilles's Keys, For- 
 tune and Crooked Island, and continues] In the evening, 
 February 10th, we saw Bird Island; and from that time till 
 the 24th of March we saw no land, nor did we expect to see 
 any, and we then, according to my reckoning by the Watch, 
 made the Lizard within ten miles of what 1 expected. I have 
 already observed to you, that the Watch made an error of two 
 minutes and thirty-six seconds in going to Jamaica; which 
 error I could easily account for, as it is not in so perfect a state 
 as we could make it; but the Commissioners! wanted to know 
 
 * Being writing to a person not much conversant with the subject, he 
 has not mentioned and deducted the rate of going for the time. 
 
 t If we understand, by this word, the predominant party at the Board* 
 which would be'proper enough, their motives for wanting " to know what 
 the Watch would do in its present state," although the young man does 
 not appear to question them, at this time, were not very candid ; for if 
 they desired the trial should succeed to the fullest extent, would they not 
 have advised the Candidate to make his work as perfect as he could. 
 Had the Timekeeper, from some imperfect adjustment, failed to come not 
 only within the least, but the greater limits prescribed, they would have 
 congratulated him on its performance being so nearly within the terms of 
 the Act, and expressed their belief that, but for the circumstance men- 
 tioned, it would have become entitled to 20,000 ; but then they would 
 have sung out, that since it had resulted otherwise, it ^vas out of their pmt-er 
 to offer him more than another trial when he should be prepared for it. 
 
 Now it turns out that, about this time, the reverend Nevil Maskchnr, 
 B. D. afterwards (at Barbadoes) the avowed rival of the Candidate, was 
 making a private voyage to St. i irli n , m a merchant bri^, furnished with 
 Professor Al;.\ci' Tables, wuuh..a i- .-.,. i. u :n t/j6, to :md the 
 Longitude by the Moon a step then unknown to the Harrisons, and 
 which it becomes exceedingly difficult to acquit the mathematical Com-
 
 NO. 3. APPENDIX. 205 
 
 what it would do in its present state. This error was occasioned 
 by the motion of the ship causing the balance of the Watch to 
 vibrate somewhat slower, which would affect its going in pro- 
 portion. It was a part that we had not quite adjusted, as we 
 declared to the Commissioners before I went to Jamaica, so 
 that they as well as ourselves believed it would go somewhat 
 too slow, when at sea : and consequently the more the ship was 
 tossed, the slower it must go, if its going was uniform in other 
 respects. And as we had the most turbulent passage home 
 that was possible; in consequence it went slower than in the 
 voyage out; I supposed that would be about double as much, 
 and accordingly found it so. But to all in the ship it was the 
 greatest miracle that it kept going at all ; for I was obliged to 
 place it in the cabin, quite astern, upon the seat or counter; 
 and when we lay to, which \ye were very often obliged to do, 
 under a balanced mizen, it received such a shock from the 
 breaking of the waves under the counter, that it was just the 
 same as if I had taken the box in my hand and thrown it from 
 one side of the cabin to the other. Had I placed it nearer the 
 midship, it would not have undergone what it did with respect 
 to motion, but then it would have been worse upon another 
 account; for it would have proved impossible for me to have 
 kept the salt water out of it, which was the reason of my pla- 
 cing it where I did. For that, as the Captain told me, was 
 the driest place in the ship; yet it was far from being dry, for 
 sometimes when a sea struck us, the water would spurn [spume] 
 in at every seam , and it was not rare to have two feet of water upon 
 our deck, and six inches in the Captain's cabin. Seven or 
 eight times we sprung a leak, but through God's mercy we as 
 often got it stopped, though sometimes we had a great deal of 
 pumping first, and it was as much as we could do to keep our 
 ship above water. We broke our rudder in a hard gale, but 
 
 missioners of contributing to the expenses of, out of the funds at their dis- 
 posal, unless some unknown scientific character was assisting in this 
 cross-purpose ; for there is no voucher that the young Astronomer's private 
 fortune was likely to encourage him to such an enterprize.
 
 206 APPENDIX. NO. 3. 
 
 it pleased G*d to send us three or four hours of moderate wea- 
 ther to mend it again. And then came on the heaviest gale 
 that ever man on board had seen ; we had nothing to look to, 
 but that every wave, as it came, would carry us to the bottom; 
 but thank God, it was not to be so. We were near six weeks 
 without an inch of dry deck; and half that time never had a 
 topsail set for two hours together; and all that we could do 
 was to lie to under a balanced mizen and reefed mainsail, or 
 to scud under a reefed foresail, our topgallant masts and yards 
 being taken down, and our topmasts lowered, with our topsail 
 yards upon the cap. I could give you a longer history, but 
 time will not permit, as 1 am very busy getting a Committee. 
 [He means a Board of Longitude.] 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 A LETTER FROM LIEUTENANT A. HOWE, ON THE COM- 
 PARATIVE MERITS OF THE LUNAR PROCESS, FOR 
 FINDING THE LONGITUDE, AND THAT BY CHRO- 
 NOMETRY. 
 
 As it occurred to the Author, a fresh water sailor (like Mr. 
 Croker) that improvements in the instruments, and increased 
 facilities in practice, may have made Lunar observations more 
 available than when this pamphlet was published, above sixty 
 years ago ; with a view to be better informed of the present 
 state of these concerns in the Navy, he wrote to an intelligent 
 Officer (Lieutenant Alexander B. Howe) whom he knew to 
 be of great experience. The following extract from the answer 
 of that Gentleman, written in December, 1830 (see page 183)
 
 NO. 4. APPENDIX. 207 
 
 treats the question distinctly, and may be thought to set it at 
 rest: except with those few who can no more be expected to 
 part with a preconceived opinion than an old scholiast would 
 to undervalue the logic of Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 'In reply to your enquiry, I have much pleasure in stating, 
 ' that in the opinion of the most able, scientific and successful 
 'navigators, the invaluable invention of Mr. John Harrison 
 'stands unrivalled by any other mode of ascertaining the Lon- 
 'gitude at sea, and that for the best reasons. In the first place 
 ' there are many men of great science who, from some personal 
 'imperfection, cannot accurately measure the distance between 
 'the moon and the sun, or a star, where a trifling error is of 
 ' great consequence ; when he must of course depend for accu- 
 ' racy on another. You will at once see how far this goes in 
 'comparison; and it is not unusual for the nicest observers to 
 'express their doubts on that point ; and in a fleet, the result 
 'of the observations on board different ships will often vary 
 'from thirty to forty miles, under the most favourable circum- 
 ' stances. Besides it not unfrequently happens in tropical cli- 
 ' mates, that the best practical observer is unwell and cannot 
 'act, when the desired object becomes very uncertain; but not 
 'so with the chronometer, for any person who can take an alti- 
 'tude, can determine the Longitude ; and I have never known 
 'a navigator, who had any opinion worth notice, that has not 
 'expressed his entire confidence in those admirable machines, 
 'and depended on his Lunar observations in proportion to their 
 'approach to the Timepiece, to which he has always looked as 
 'his surest guide. 
 
 'This I am quite sure is not only my opinion, from positive 
 'experience, but that of every Officer in the Navy, who has 
 ' witnessed the amazing accuracy of the chronometer, and the 
 'ease with which it is kept. In a conversation I once had on 
 'the subject, with the then oldest Captain in the East India 
 'service, he expressed his apprehensions that the rising Officers 
 ' in that service would be induced to lay aside their astronomical 
 ' acquirements altogether, as the chronometer rendered naviga-
 
 208 APPENDIX. NO. 4. 
 
 'tion so easy that a woman could take a ship to Calcutta. He 
 'had been fifty years in that service, and largely expatiated on 
 'the improvements in navigating since the introduction of time- 
 ' pieces. This was in 1812, and he spoke from an experience 
 'of thirty years practice with chronometers. 
 
 Some remarks are added, denoting Lieutenant Howe's dis- 
 sent from Mr. Croker's opinion on the points at issue; who he 
 thinks lays more stress on scientific accomplishments, than on 
 the practical utility that outweighs them. 
 
 No. 5. 
 
 A QUOTATION FROM A PERIODICAL. A DIGRESSION, IN 
 BLANK VERSE, ON THE FATE OF SIR CLOUDESLEY 
 SHDVEL, AND SOME REMARKS ON MONUMENTAL 
 HONOURS. 
 
 THERE was a line of demarcation between him and the genius 
 whom he would have demolished, if he could, which he could 
 never approach. Let us hear a contemporary, in some prefa- 
 tory remarks on Cumming's Elements of Clock and Watch- 
 work. ' Many improvements were made both in principles and 
 'practice; towards which the ingenious M. Huygens, Dr. 
 ' Hook, Mr. Tompion, Mr. Graham, and many others greatly 
 ' contributed [here some improvements are enumerated, and it 
 continues] many curious and ingenious engines, tools, and 
 ' instruments, were invented for performing various parts of the 
 ' work with more correctness and expedition; but still numerous 
 ' defects remained both in principles and practice; and defects 
 ever will remain in all human performances.
 
 NO. 6. APPENDIX. 209 
 
 'At length arose Mr. John Harrison, bred to the business 
 4 of a carpenter, in an obscure country village, with no in- 
 ' structions in the art, and without those helps, advantages, 
 * and incitements which arise amongst ingenious artists, from a 
 ' mutual communication of their sentiments. We cannot give 
 " a more just character of Mr. Harrison than one similar to that 
 ' commonly applied to Shakespear, viz. that he was nature's 
 'poet: with great natural abilities, a happy turn of genius, 
 ' indefatigable industry, and inflexible perseverance, this artist 
 ' may justly be called nature's mechanic;* for he has produced 
 ' and completed Timekeepers, both with pendulums and balances, 
 1 that keep time to an amazing degree of exactness, far beyond 
 ' whatever had been done before, or perhaps hoped for.' 
 Monthly Review for July, 1766. 
 
 This high praise of nature's mechanic, be it observed, was 
 conceded in his life-time ten years before the mortal scene 
 closed on him: and it directs attention to the national Mauso- 
 leum of St. Peter's, Westminster, which the current belief 
 supposes appropriated to the remains of men and women of 
 uncommon merit and distinguished fame (with the exception 
 of some few of very high rank:) but we look in vain amongst 
 the statues, the relievos and mural records of this sacred fane, 
 for the genius who first enabled the mariner to explore the 
 trackless deep with a confidence unknown to all preceding 
 ages, and forming an important new aera in navigation, since 
 
 * John Harrison would not have been sensible of the magnitude of this 
 compliment, if it reached him in his seclusion ; for among his harmless 
 peculiarities, was a slight cast of the puritan, derived from the obscure 
 notions of those about him in his youth, which made him, like those peo- 
 ple, regard Shakespear as a very wicked fellow. And even William 
 Harrison, though he mixed with the world, not being of a cast of mind 
 to understand Nature's poet, evinced the same prejudice, as the following 
 untoward incident may show. A Gentleman (of the Society of Friends, 
 named Robinson) having made his Son, a youth of sixteen, who was en- 
 tirely deaf, a present of a handsome edition of Shakespear, the Father 
 sent it back with some resentment; and the books being entrusted to a 
 simple lad, who was intercepted by a prowling sharper, were lost. 
 
 P
 
 210 APPENDIX. NO. 5. 
 
 the invention of the compass. Exclusive of renowned warriors, 
 celebrated statesmen and reverenced divines, or philosophers, 
 as we saunter under the fretted roof, attention is drawn to un- 
 common excellence in poetry in imparting the favours of the 
 Muses. We are far from concurring in the affected notion of 
 Boileau, that a good poet is of no more use than a good player 
 at nine-pins; but if utility is entitled to the preference, it would 
 be very difficult to say, that Pope and Dryden laid the public 
 under greater obligations than a Mechanician, successfully 
 engaged in discovering the Longitude. Dr. Johnson (himself 
 a poet) would have allowed no such thing. The most captiva- 
 ting verses, he would have said, will never prevent a shipwreck : 
 they will neither stifle the cries of the passengers, nor console 
 the merchant for his loss. But, waiving this point, on what 
 principle are that great master of harmony, Handel, that in- 
 imitable son of the sock and buskin, Garrick, and various 
 others who administered to intellectual gratification in the 
 closet, or on the boards, commemorated in this vestibule of 
 fame ; while the far more essential benefits accruing to mankind 
 from the solution of the Longitude, by the first accurate chro- 
 nometer, have not procured for their persevering Inventor an 
 iota of recognition among these clustered columns? nor yet 
 under that dome dedicated to St. Paul ? 
 
 " i'.'en from the tomb the voice of Shovel calls" 
 
 Bless'd be the man, for ever bless'd, the sea mans friend! 
 Whose hand impelled by genius, earlier tim'd, had sav'd 
 Me and my gallant mates from the disastrous havoc 
 Of that awful night ; when neither moon, nor constellation, 
 Lent us foreknowledge, by a cable's length, 
 Of those infernal rocks that shiver'd heart of oak. 
 
 Steering with flowing sheet and foaming cutwater, 
 And jolly hopes of England's looming on the morrow, 
 Our lot was cast; we never more our hammocks sought, 
 But found, alas ! our quarters in a colder cot : 
 All, all, in mortal coil o'ei whelm'd at once, Oh God!
 
 NO. 5. APPENDIX. 211 
 
 Tremendous as the crash of that broadside, 
 When mother Earth to her foundations shaken, 
 And Davy's lockers shall disgorge their dead. 
 
 Apologizing for the soliloquy of "the brave rough English 
 Admiral" (poetry not being in his prospectus) the Author judges 
 that, since the discoveries of the immortal Newton, the four 
 individuals most deserving the gratitude of their countrymen 
 and of all civilized nations, are Edward Jenner, M.D., to 
 whom we are indebted for the vaccine inoculation ; James Watt, 
 who developed the gigantic powers of steam ; Sir Humphry 
 Davy, from whom we have that surpassing invention, the 
 Safety Lamp ; and John Harrison, who preceded the other 
 three, and who brought the mensuration of time, of such prime 
 importance to astronomy and navigation, to a degree of accu- 
 racy unknown before his day, and rather wished than hoped 
 for. Improvements have been made since he led the way, but 
 " he will ever be regarded as the father of modern chronometry," 
 say the continuators of Dr. Rees: who likewise add that, "his 
 services were not overpaid." How and whence then results 
 the anomaly that, no public monument exists of a self-taught 
 genius whom Newton would have placed at his right hand, and 
 from whom the world experienced obligations of such magni- 
 tude ? The merit of Scotland's rural Poet, who wrote chiefly 
 in his native dialect, is acknowledged by his countrymen in a 
 colossal statue ; and nearer home, Major Cartwright, with 
 whose professed object in public life we are not interfering, but 
 who was tried, and convicted of illegally combining with cer- 
 tain other persons to return Sir Charles Wolsey to Parliament, 
 as a legislative attorney for Birmingham, is honoured with the 
 same distinction, of a statue larger than the life (in Burton 
 Crescent;) while we may enquire in vain for "the storied urn, 
 or animated bust" of NATURE'S MECHANIC. 
 
 This paradox is partly met by the consideration that John 
 Harrison differed from all the men of genius who flourished in 
 the last century; they were surrounded, or otherwise in inter- 
 course with an extensive circle of friends and followers, and
 
 212 APPENDIX. NO. 5. 
 
 acquaintance not a few : whereas, though not of an ascetic cast 
 of mind, and rather sociable than otherwise, his pursuits made 
 him so entirely a recluse, that, with two exceptions, and ex- 
 clusive of his family, no person ever saw him but on business 
 in his latter years. Those exceptions were Dr. Heberden, 
 who was his physician, and with whom, being a scientific man, 
 he conversed freely about his plans. The other was George 
 \Vhatlry, esquire, Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, who 
 perhaps called two or three times a year for a stay of half an 
 hour, occupied with common courtesies and enquiries; so that 
 this friendless case contrasts remarkably with that of Dr. 
 I'ahiii^toii, an eminent physician, and father of the College, 
 casually in the Author's way; who, on taking up a newspaper, 
 reads, that the friends of this Gentleman, in the extensive cir- 
 cle of his practice, hud subscribed 1,400 guineas, for a hand- 
 some monument either in the Abbey, or at St. Paul's. The 
 faculty indeed, in the respective departments of medicine, 
 surgery and pharmacy, if they are men of prepossessing address, 
 a bland temper, and earnest solicitude for the relief of their 
 , are peculiarly enabled to bespeak and to retain the 
 of those with whom their profession brings them ac- 
 t|ii;iinted.* But as the name of this physician, however re- 
 spectable, was seldom heard of in the provinces, his reputation 
 being confined to the metropolis (unlike that of Mr. Abernethy 
 and Sir Henry Halford) it would be a solecism to inscribe on 
 his tomb incinnriic tacrae eternam; which, though rather hy- 
 
 * We are luckily helped out in our definition, by stumbling on a contrast 
 between the Physician and the Lawyer. ' The Physician has intercourse 
 ' with affliction, with pain, with death; his voice is naturally attuned to 
 'mildness and gentleness; his step is light and quiet; his face is suscepti- 
 1 ble of a look of sympathy ; he has to do with humanity in its feebleness, 
 ' to listen to the complaints of the suffering, to bear with the moans of the 
 ' distressed ; it is part of his business to be and to look amiable ; who can 
 ' speak unkindly to the dying? A brute of a Doctor must be a brute indeed !' 
 [The professional demeanour of the Lawyer follows; but this not being 
 to the present purpose, \\o omit if: rrfcrrin^ any enquirer to thcOI. 
 ncw>paprr of the 10th August. 1831.]
 
 NO. 5. APPENDIX. 213 
 
 perbolical, nobody would think misplaced on the cenotaph of 
 a Jenner, a Watt, or a Davy. It will not, while our language 
 lasts, be enquired who those men were; but, when the present 
 generation has passed away, will not the fame of Dr. Babington 
 depend more on the monument itself than on his professional 
 merits; including mineralogy, on which he chiefly wrote, but 
 is not much known by those researches? a consideration which 
 makes it difficult to regard him as an unexceptionable candidate 
 for the honours of the British Pantheon* Hence, while the 
 chancels of so many handsome churches as adorn London and 
 its environs would have furnished an adequate site, we doubt 
 the judgment of this Gentleman's friends, known as he was, 
 within the bills of mortality, but not far beyond them, in forcing 
 him into a comparison with the favourites of the Goddess who 
 confers an immortality on earth; and to whom alone admission 
 into those Cathedrals which are become our national mausolea 
 ought to be conceded. Certain unfriendly genii, in the shape 
 of Plutus, have indeed, at the Abbey, often interfered with 
 this legitimate rule, of which a dramatic writer, of such doubt- 
 ful merit, as Congreve, who left 10,000 to the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, covertly for this purpose, is a flagrant instance : 
 but no one will deliberately and of afore-thought defend these 
 mercenary misdoings. 
 
 Meanwhile we should like to know why no subscription for 
 a resort to the sculptor's art " sacred to the eternal memory of" 
 Edward Jenner, M.D., has been circulated since he was 
 consigned to " the vault of the Capulets." Will it be left to the 
 Chinese to homage in this way such a benefactor to mankind? 
 To allege that his name will survive any monument, would be 
 
 * So unequally is posthumous praise dispensed, in this practical form, 
 that the Author (a country resident) learns, through the same channel, 
 a mural tablet, not very conspicuous, at Westminster, records the merits 
 of Sir Humphry Davy THE INVENTOR OF THE SAFETY LAMP! which the 
 Goddess who rectifies reports and conjectures of all kinds, may be said to 
 hold with one hand, while the other supports her trumpet, a blast from 
 which, pervades all climes.
 
 214 APPENDIX. NO. ">- 
 
 overlooking what should not be lost sight of that the merits of 
 such men when recorded on the tablet of the costly tomb, are 
 a stimulant to the spectator to imitate their virtues that he may 
 himself achieve the same renown. Would not the surviving 
 friends of Dr. Jenner take umbrage, if it was supposed, as in 
 the parable, that they excused themselves, by one saying, 
 " I have bought a yoke of oxen, and must go to prove them ; 
 and another, I have married a wife, and must needs go see her;" 
 and so on, or, in the current phrase, what is every body's 
 business, becomes nobody's ? A subscription with such an 
 object, would have this peculiar advantage, that in those very 
 many cases, comprising indeed a vast number in the middle 
 and higher ranks of society, where families have been rescued 
 from the ravages of the small pox, by an early vaccination; 
 the parties acknowledging the obligation would, we suggest, 
 not be backward in confirming the sentiment, by their quota to 
 the funds collected.* 
 
 No. 6. 
 ON THE CHARACTER OF MR. GEORGE GRAHAM. 
 
 THE friendly solicitude of George Graham, f implied so exalted 
 a degree of virtue (showing him superior to the far- famed Man 
 of Ross, whose liberality was not exposed to such an ordeal) 
 that the Author, in his admiration of the circumstance, blended 
 with an impulse of gratitude in behalf of the descendants of the 
 
 Consistently with the above, the Author has directed his Bookseller 
 to contribute a sovereign, in his name, to such subscription, if the want 
 of it is acknowledged, and proceedings are adopted conformably. 
 See page 65.
 
 NO. 6. APPENDIX. 215 
 
 Mechanician, has attempted to make the world better ac- 
 quainted with this practical philanthropist; which knows of 
 him only as an eminent clock and watchmaker. When our 
 Adventurer went to London, in 1727, with the plans of his first 
 Machine for the Longitude, he called on Graham, by the ad- 
 vice of Dr. Halley, who told him not to mind something re- 
 pulsive in his first reception. After they got the ice broke (as 
 John Harrison expresses it) this worthy man, than whom there 
 could not be a better judge, allowed that young Harrison's 
 plans were superior to his own ; and probably saw that he was 
 destined to supplant the reputation of all who had gone before 
 him (his own inclusively) yet he manifested not a particle of 
 that envy and ill-will Which few but such rare geniuses can 
 suppress at such a time which Addison could not, who, it 
 seems agreed, 
 
 Uore, like the Turk, no rival near the throne. 
 Which Pope himself, who wrote that line, was unequal to:* 
 for he envied the success of the Beggars' Opera, the production 
 of his friend Gay. Graham instead of picking what he could 
 out of the young man who had brought his drawings with him, 
 and then conjuring up bugbears to dissuade him from applying 
 to the Board of Longitude, which is too often the sequel of 
 such an affair, detained him to pot-luck,f treated him like a 
 brother, though an entire stranger, and gave him the most 
 judicious counsel; nor did he stop at this negative kindness 
 (advice being cheap) for he lent him money without security, 
 and without interest. Nay, we have it on the testimony of 
 John Harrison, that when he was pressed by the difficulties 
 his enterprize led him into, and his friends came forward for 
 his relief, "Graham was still among the rest."t In short the 
 
 * With these, Voltaire may form a trio, for " his despotic jealousy could 
 brook no rival in literary fame." 
 
 t These kindred geniuses, it appears, kept up an animated discussion, 
 on scientific chronometry, from ten in the morning till eight in the evening. 
 
 t There was the more merit in this, when it is considered that he was 
 not like the Man of Ross, and other celebrated philanthropists, disengaged 
 from the cares of a family.
 
 -M(> APPENDIX. NO. G. 
 
 >//.- who so quaintly pretended to search for an honest man, 
 would have embraced, and thrust him into his tub, if there had 
 been room enough for both. Such conduct may be concluded 
 to have been a source of consolation to this excellent person in 
 life's closing scene; and was wanting to be repeated with a 
 sonorous blast, to pervade the tympanum of certain mathemati- 
 cal Professors at Oxford and Cambridge, whose consciences, 
 to judge by their overt acts, "were seared, as with a hot iron." 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, thought there was a deal more good 
 than bad in human nature; and certainly such men as George 
 Graham would bear him out. Those of a contrary opinion, 
 allege that they should be regarded as an Oasis in the desert. 
 Leaving the point to be decided by more competent abilities, 
 we would observe that Gray, in his far-famed elegy chaunts 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen; 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 To imply that the inherent virtues of some of 
 
 "The rude forefathers of the hamlet," 
 
 were wholly lost and unknown, from the obscurity of the pre- 
 cincts. In contradiction to the sentiment, however, this phi- 
 lanthropist flourished in the heart of London in Fleet-street, 
 to wit! and yet his merit was never enquired after, except in 
 his profession : it came under the cognizance of a meeting of 
 Admirals and Civilians, among whom professed Scholars like- 
 wise took their seats; and can it be supposed their acquisitions 
 under Euclid, Aristotle, or Quintilian, had left them so igno- 
 rant of 
 
 "The proper study of mankind," 
 
 which the poet says, is Man ; as not to know that, of all men 
 living, John Harrison was the last person whose concerns 
 Graham could have been expected to take an interest in pro- 
 moting, which yet he did with a fraternal solicitude! that might 
 have made a convert even of Swift, who, in the legacy his 
 hatred left to the world (the verses on his own death) has this 
 cogent question 
 
 If, in a battle you should rind
 
 NO. 6. APPENDIX. 217 
 
 One, whom you loved of all mankind, 
 Had some heroic action done, 
 A champion killed, or trophy won, 
 Rather than be so overtopt, 
 Would you not wish his laurels cropt? 
 The answer may be safely in the negative here. Graham, no 
 doubt, would have been glad to achieve the Longitude, had he 
 been equal to it: whether he wished his laurels cropt, as an 
 abstract question is perfectly immaterial, while such was his 
 conduct towards a rival, whom he could not be supposed to 
 love most of all mankind, for he had never seen him before. 
 Pope and Addison, and divers other celebrated men, were 
 quite unequal to such a conquest over themselves, of which 
 there is even official evidence in the present case. 
 
 At a Board of Longitude, 16th January, 1741. 'A cer- 
 'tificate being read, of the usefulness of a machine invented by 
 ' Mr. John Harrison, for finding the Longitude at sea, by mea- 
 ' suring time ; it being an improvement which he hath made on 
 'two others which were before contrived by him, but of a dif- 
 'ferent construction and considerably less than either of them, 
 'and Mr. Graham informing the Board that Mr. Harrison hath 
 'been ten years from first to last employed on the said machine, 
 'and been at very great expense in employing several persons 
 'to assist him in making the same, and that, in his opinion, 
 'it may in all probability effect when completed, the finding 
 'of the Longitude at sea. But Mr. Harrison representing that 
 'his circumstances are such, that he shall not be able to com- 
 'plete his said machine, unless he can be supplied with the 
 'sum of 500; but that with such encouragement he will un- 
 'dertake to put his machine together, and in motion, by the 
 ' first day of August next , and in a condition by the first day 
 'of August, 1743, to be placed on board one of his Majesty's 
 'ships, in order to the making a trial thereof. And the Board 
 'being satisfied that the said machine may be of advantage to 
 'navigation, in finding out the Longitude, and that therefore 
 'experiments thereof ought to be made: Resolved, &c.'
 
 218 APPENDIX. NO. G. 
 
 As none of the Commissioners understood the subject much, 
 it was of prime importance to the applicant, that the first clock 
 and watchmaker in London (as Graham was) should come for- 
 ward to verify the correctness of his allegations. But it brings 
 under observation at a subsequent period, those Collegians 
 whose conduct, with all the advantages of a learned education, 
 was totally at variance with the bright example of this excellent 
 person. 
 
 The rivalry alluded to (from which Dr. Halley must always 
 be excepted, who, like Newton, preferred a Timekeeper) may 
 be dated from the importation of Professor Mayer's Tables, 
 in 1756, from the aid of which wonders were expected, while 
 it was entirely forgotten that, while their utility is so much 
 circumscribed by the laws of nature, the seaman is often not 
 much better off than before. But waiving this considera- 
 tion, what can be said to the moral attributes of these lu- 
 minaries from Cam and Isis ? Were they natives of Gotham 
 ("born in thick Raeotian air") who were incapable of pro- 
 fiting by the extraordinary merit of a layman thus recorded 
 on their own minutes ?* They might concoct passable dis- 
 courses for the spiritual rostrum, yet they were "but as 
 
 A novel and important remark, in the letters to young Stanhope, is 
 that in antient authors, particulars are admired, the counterparts of 
 which pass unregarded in the neighbourhood. t The same reasoning is 
 frequently applicable to modern instances of recent date ; for how many 
 have heard and admired the case of Frederic 3rd and the Miller, who yet 
 never knew an item of the particulars here given of George 3rd, although 
 beyond comparison of more moral interest than those of the other affair, 
 because of the trouble and perseverance they called for. Again, who is 
 not aware of the immortality conferred by Pope on the Man of Ross, for 
 his meritorious example in the use of riches, perhaps devolving on him by 
 inheritance? while the use, not of wealth, but of a moderate competence 
 (the fruits of his industry) heightened by a conquest over the baser pas- 
 sions of our nature, in George Graham, is as unknown to those whom it 
 concerns, as the virtue of GEORGE III. OP THESE UNITED KINGDOMS. 
 Pope, we believe, knew no more of him than as a superior mechanic, 
 and possibly, his own watchmaker. 
 
 t Thli petition thr Noble Writer appwitely illustrate, in the Letter numbered 162, 12th edition.
 
 NO. 6. APPENDIX. 219 
 
 sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal," if their practice was 
 so unequal to their precepts. Had this benevolent man, 
 and excellent Christian (we would say, though Calvin might 
 have predestined him to be damned) done every thing he could 
 to overset the views of the Candidate, instead of taking a re- 
 fined pleasure (a pleasure they knew not) in promoting them, 
 the common infirmity of human nature would have been pleaded 
 in extenuation of such selfish demeanour towards a man, who 
 he might have said, came to London "to take the bread out of 
 his mouth :"* but no such set off could be brought to bear on 
 their own case, for they were not of his trade, when they mani- 
 fested so much envy, jealousy and meanness, particularly in 
 refusing him a check on the computations, although (we repeat 
 that) the commonest sense of equity called for it:f and this 
 moral deformity, were their old acquaintance, Juvenal, resus- 
 citated, might have produced from the red-hot pincers, with 
 which his muse was armed, a more biting satire than "words 
 
 * By the favour of a Correspondent, we are enabled to insert the fol- 
 lowing few particulars of this distinguished Mechanician. 'George 
 'Graham was born in 1675, at Gratwick, an obscure village in the North 
 'of Cumberland. In 1088 he was sent to London, and apprenticed to a 
 ' thirty-hour clockmaker. When he was out of his time, he entered the 
 'service of Mr. Tompion, one of whose nieces he married. This union 
 'proved unfortunate: Mrs. Graham had two sons, whose legitimacy her 
 'husband refused to acknowledge. On the 9th March, 1720, he was 
 'elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and admitted on the 16th of the 
 'same month. And that year, after having, in 1716, become an Assistant 
 'he was chosen Master of the Clockmakers' Company. He died on the 
 ' 16th November, 1751, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, on the 
 ' 24th of that month. 
 
 ' He left about 6,000 ; which was divided between his Widow and 
 ' her two Sons : she survived him but a short time.' 
 
 t Either from public reproach, or private compunction, they gave up 
 this point, and tacitly admitted the injury that had been done him. After 
 the return from Barbadoes, he was desired to name an equal number of 
 Computers, on his own part ; but it was then unnecessary, because he 
 personally knew and respected the abilities and fitness of those named by 
 the Board: so that he thought it sufficient to name one only himself to 
 that office.
 
 2'2U APPENDIX. NO. (). 
 
 far bitterer than wormwood" can convey ! in which, to .say the 
 least, he would have evinced no more respect for their scien- 
 tific designations, than he may be supposed to have had tor 
 those of Doctor Trypherus, a Professor of the Art of Carving; 
 who, in his time, gave practical lectures, at which his pupils 
 exercised themselves on all sorts of subjects in wood, and the 
 hacking and hewing these resounded through the Suburra.* 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 SOME REMARKS ON THE RESPECTIVE CHARACTERS OF 
 GEORGE III. AND DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON; SUGGESTED 
 BY MR. CROKER'S ANNOTATIONS ON THE BIOGRA- 
 PHY OF THE MORALIST. 
 
 t REG RET at seeing the merits of this Prince disregarded by 
 those courtiers, or those philosophers, or, whoever the people 
 were whose impenetrable osfrontis would have entitled them to 
 some mention in the Dunciad, draws attention to that marked 
 superiority in points of no small importance by general consent, 
 which the one occupant of St. James's, or Buckingham House, 
 shows over the other of Bolt-court, Fleet-street. All readers, 
 
 * A street which, we are told, answered to the Strand in London. 
 This refinement on civilization, is perhaps equalled by "A treatise on 
 the Art of tieing the neckcloth, explained by cuts," which we lately 
 heard of; and to which, the Author having prefixed his portrait, we can- 
 not doubt he attaches adequate importance. 
 
 t The Note, page 15, continued.
 
 NO. 7. APPENDIX. 221 
 
 where the English language extends, are under signal obliga- 
 tions to Mr. Croker, for detecting the latent source of what is 
 called one of the Doctor's prejudices* much too mild a term, 
 we opine, for the slanderous aspersion of a whole class of 
 public functionaries, certainly entitled to the same protection 
 as a Secretary of the Admiralty, to wit. It gives but a 
 humiliating view of human nature, when so learned and intel- 
 lectual a man as Dr. Johnson reduces himself to a level with 
 the illiterate mass, whose prejudices are excusable because 
 they have not his discriminating judgment to be enabled to 
 shake them off. His own opinion of Gibber is brought to re- 
 collection by this inconsistent weakness. He was one day 
 speaking in disparagement of Colley (one half of whose con- 
 versation was made up of oaths) and when some person re- 
 minded him of the merit of his comedies, Johnson was not 
 disposed to allow much weight to that consideration : because 
 as he said, it was his trade to write them. The remark might 
 be conceded, but with a proviso here, for it was his own trade 
 to write Ramblers and Idlers, or what you will, and to incul- 
 cate the best rules for our conduct in every department of social 
 life (particularly to avoid prejudices) but it might be the trade 
 of others, if they would, to put them in practice. 
 
 The Jacobite prejudices of the literary colossus were laugh- 
 
 * Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines " EXCISE, a hateful tax, levied 
 upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, 
 but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid ;" and in 'the Idler 
 (No. 65) he calls a Commissioner of Excise " one of the lowest of all human 
 beings." This violence of language seems so little reasonable, that the 
 editor was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity ; this men- 
 tion of the trade [by his father] in parchment (an exciseable article) afforded 
 a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records 
 of the Excise Board, is to be found the following letter, addressed to the 
 supervisor of excise at Lichfield : " July 25th, 1725. The Commissioners 
 received yours of the 22nd instant; and since the justices would not give 
 judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the tanner, notwithstanding the 
 facts were fairly against him, the Board directs, that the next time he 
 offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit 
 of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the Exchequer."
 
 222 APPENDIX. NO. 7. 
 
 i 
 
 able enough, but not so here, for it was that impatience of the 
 control of the laws, and indeed of all control, which charac- 
 terizes the turbulent democrat of any period, and more espe- 
 cially our own. We scruple not to retort his epithet, he was 
 himself a wretch, when he could thus stigmatize as " the lowest 
 of all human beings," officials employed and paid by the state 
 to collect one of the most important branches of the revenue, 
 and whose bounden duty it became to detect any evasion, or 
 concealment, like that which Michael Johnson seems to have 
 been guilty of: for the facts are stated to have been " fairly 
 against him." Under those circumstances, the officers appear 
 to have adopted the more lenient course, by laying an informa- 
 tion against him before the magistrates, which was doubtless 
 less expensive and ruinous than a prosecution by the Exchequer 
 a forbearance which, if it did not elicit some gratitude from 
 the Bookseller's Son, ought to have neutralized his resentment. 
 How came Mr. Croker to overlook the coincidence between 
 the Jacobite Johnson's hatred of an excise tax, and the demo- 
 cratical outcry against any tax they dislike, including tithes, 
 which leads to unlawful combinations in Ireland at present ? 
 We do not know a more curious illustration of the commonplace 
 truism, that " extremes always meet" than this affair affords, 
 and to improve the joke, we learn further, that, being one of 
 those interesting men who are the founders of their own fortune, 
 Mr. Croker was himself heretofore in an inferior grade of the 
 Irish excise. This jostling might have been expected to induce 
 some acerbity towards the departed philosopher : for could 
 Johnson have been resuscitated, and had some humourist in- 
 formed him that his biography was annotated by a quondam 
 gauger of spirits above proof, he would have mustered as much 
 ineffable contempt in the expression of his countenance, as the 
 old Lord Auchenleek is described to have shown, while he 
 commented in his native dialect on Jamie keeping such hopeful 
 company. 
 
 The author of the Idler was unfortunate in pulling an old 
 house over his head, when he vilified the Commissioners of
 
 NO. 7. APPENDIX. 223 
 
 Excise, as "the lowest of all human beings :" for they could 
 have retorted with a vengeance, by appealing to the Doctor's 
 nearest associates, who would have found it not a little puz- 
 zling to defend him from the imputation of being himself at the 
 bottom of the scale; when we read that, at his club, when Mr. 
 Fox was in the chair, he exclaimed " patriotism is the last refuge 
 of a scoundrel!" to a philosopher respected like Dr. Adam 
 Smith, he could give the lie direct! And to his friend, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, whose fame and consequence were mainly dependant 
 on his skill in the art, he spoke with all possible contempt of 
 painting. It is no excuse, that his sight was tad, for he knew 
 it very well, and, unless he was ungovernably obstinate and 
 opiniated, should have known his incompetency to decide 
 without appeal on such a subject : besides he was opposed to 
 the general sentiment, to which he could be no stranger; which 
 tells us that 
 
 These polished arts have humanized mankind, 
 Soften'd the rude, and calm'd the savage mind. 
 Again he who well knowing his chief intimate, Boswell, had 
 an over-measure of vanity,* could harrow his feelings, by in- 
 
 * The character of a jolly fellow, which Mr. Croker finds Boswell had 
 got among his countrymen, and which, to many, is synonymous with 
 that of a hearty one, does not accord with an anecdote in Holcroft's 
 diary. 
 
 Mr. Lowry, an engraver, applied to Boswell's literary patron to write 
 him a letter to serve his interest in some advantage he was soliciting : 
 with this the Doctor kindly complied. As the applicant was leaving the 
 house, Boswell met him, and, as might be expected, was inquisitive to 
 know his business, and to see the letter. For which purpose, he showed 
 him the greatest attention, to draw him to the next coffee-house, and in- 
 duce him to wait till he had copied it ; but the moment the copy was finished, 
 and in his pocket, the proud Scotchman took no further notice of him. 
 
 From the above it seems, Boswell, when off his guard, and not appre- 
 hending any future consequences, had more dissimulation in his composi- 
 tion than Johnson would at all have relished : for had he detected him at 
 such a season with a bifrons, like Janus, he would have held a tremen- 
 dous cat-o'nine-tails over the young laird of Auchenleek ; any lash in 
 which, would have been equivalent to Simkin's denunciation of the Cap- 
 'ain (in the New Bath Guide)
 
 224 APPENDIX. NO. 7. 
 
 timating that at a preceding period he would have been exalted 
 in (that literary pillory) the Dunciad. We say he who could 
 thus trample on the common courtesies of civilized existence, 
 might have been taken for a savage in an European dress; but 
 he could not have been imported from America; for, according 
 to Mr. Weld, although the Indians are implacable towards 
 their enemies, yet nothing can exceed their fraternal kindness 
 to each other. 
 
 Fame although too silent on the virtues of our third George, 
 as is unhappily seen here, has been less reserved on certain 
 defects that interfered with the graces, but insulted no one. 
 That rapidity of utterance of which he was accused when the 
 bow \\as unbent, in colloquial intercourse, wholly disappeared 
 when he was collected and deliberate of purpose; for, accord- 
 ing to Dr. Letsom, whose judgment few can question, "he was 
 the finest reader he ever heard." On the contrary, the rude- 
 ness of the distinguished man of letters, spoken of, was a se- 
 vere annoyance to those who were not disposed to tolerate it, 
 in consideration of so much merit. We learn from Mr. Cum- 
 berland, that when Goldsmith had to muster a party of good 
 men and true for the first night of his comedy, " She stoops to 
 Conquer," and when Dr. Johnson was not to be forgotten, he 
 paid court to him, and, on that day, had patience with his 
 provoking language, "as Boswell had on every day." 
 
 There was one, and only one, eminent Author of the pre- 
 ceding generation, whose failing, which often threw good man- 
 ners out of the window, bore a striking resemblance to the 
 strange latitude of non-observances which Dr. Johnson showed 
 even towards those for whom he professed much esteem. The 
 biographers of Dean Swift say, that he knew and exacted from 
 others the punctilios of good breeding; and yet his own de- 
 meanour was formed on no model that his friends knew of. 
 He was often very rude, which is illustrated by his behaviour 
 to the Countess of Burlington. Pope and Dryden, Steele and 
 
 the man I abhor, like the devil, dear mother, 
 
 Who one thin;; conceals, and professes another.
 
 NO. 7. APPENDIX. 225 
 
 Addison, Locke and Newton, and their contemporaries of 
 chief note, have not left any thing recorded of them resembling 
 the peculiarities of this pair of originals. How it came that 
 Swift and Johnson manifested the same habit, considering their 
 early lives and prospects were so dissimilar, we are unequal to 
 expound; but both these uncommon men must have known that 
 any ordinary fellow, who had affected the same licence, would 
 have been shouldered out of the room, and excluded from all 
 society but that of the bear garden. In becoming so eccentric, 
 did they presume then on the deference which they knew was 
 paid to the consequence derived from their works or were 
 these vagaries unpremeditated ? 
 
 The sagacity Mr. Croker has shown in detecting the source 
 of the Doctor's hatred of excisemen and excise laws (which the 
 great Cham of literature must have imagined would never meet 
 the light) and his success in elucidating numerous passages in 
 Boswell's work, without prejudice to those of Mrs. Piozzi, 
 Sir John Hawkins, &c., indicating how much his services 
 might have been valued by the commonwealth of letters, had 
 they taken a different direction; as they might have done in a 
 season of peace, we suppose, without deranging his regular 
 avocations, we cannot but regret that the summons which re- 
 cently stimulated him to dip his pen in never-fading ink, when 
 Samuel Johnson was the theme; was some fifteen years ago, 
 either entirely unheard, or only as small aud exile a voice as 
 that of Hylas to his Master, who thought him three miles off* 
 (when the water nymphs had got possession of his page.) 
 Had Mr. Croker, in 1818, when he resorted to the records of 
 the Board of Longitude, for his purpose at the time, followed 
 up a hint (much broader than the parchment manufactory) in 
 one of those records, dated the 28th November, 1772, which 
 he either overlooked, or passed on to the order of the day; 
 nobody would have thought on 
 
 * Lord Bacon deduces from this fable, that the antients were well ac- 
 quainted with the effect of sound passing through water, which is as here 
 described. > y.i'* 
 
 Q
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 7. 
 
 A waste of genius in the toil of Knolles 
 for by the educated part of the community the subject would 
 have been welcomed as an useful antidote against the return of 
 those times, the signs of which are portentous in the horizon, 
 when a certain Baronet, whose name 
 
 " 1' oblivion better were consign'd, 
 
 actually moves in his place, in the Commons that the House 
 of Peers be abolished. By the way, for a moiety of the im- 
 pertinence displayed in the document alluded to, in which these 
 mental niltirntars indirectly intimate to his Majesty, that he 
 was poaching on their manor, would not Cromwell have shipped 
 off such consequential coxcombs in the expedition under Penn 
 and Venables? with, or without commissions, assigning u an 
 nrthotlox reason, that "Judgments are prepared for scorners, 
 and stripes for the backs of fools." 
 
 These reflections arose not from any desire to undervalue the 
 labours of Dr. Johnson, whole pages of whose works Johan 
 llurrinshas by heart, or to hold cheap those benevolent quali- 
 ties, which his patience with the testy blind gentlewoman, 
 Mrs. Williams, and even his consideration for his poor old cat, 
 may illustrate, 4 * but were suggested by the extraordinary dis- 
 parity between the Moralist and the Monarch, in the important 
 article of self-control : the value of which a philosopher of the 
 world, like Lord Chesterfield, and a spiritual preceptor, are 
 equally prepared to demonstrate, though not from the same 
 premises. We learn that Ursa major when going to be intro- 
 duced to the old Laird of Auchenleek, was entreated and im- 
 
 * Had Dr. Johnson had children, his paternal affection, and solicitude 
 for their welfare, would have tended to enlarge the labours of Mr. Croker. 
 This amiable trait, in George 3rd, expanded to a decree that proved fatal 
 to his mental faculties. Previous to the last interview with his Daughter, 
 Sophia, the Princess had a ring made and engraven on it 
 
 When this you see 
 
 Remember me. 
 
 This ring she put on her Father's finger, not foreseeing the overpow'ring 
 shock to his sensibility; for IIP was never more himself, afterwards, but 
 livcfl and died a subject fm 1 a lunatic asylum.
 
 NO. 7. APPENDIX. 227 
 
 plored by his companion, to avoid, in conversation, two sub- 
 jects which would be sure to produce discord. The first of 
 these (which was something about Sir John Pringle) was passed 
 by; but the other soon led to an acrimonious altercation, which 
 could only be stopped by an appeal to the rights of hospitality; 
 which luckily his host was scrupulous of. So extravagant was 
 the petulance of an author, with whose learned lucubrations 
 we are so much entertained, that, being partial to late hours 
 himself, he has been known to say, a man was a scoundrel that 
 went to bed before twelve o'clock ! 
 
 There was this enormous difference between the early lives 
 and prospects of these contrasted characters; that the scholar 
 might have apostrophized adversity in the language of Gray 
 
 Daughter of Jove! relentless pow'r! 
 Thou tamer of the human breast; 
 
 Whose iron scourge, and tort'ring hour 
 The bad affrights, afflicts the best. 
 
 Bound in thine adamantine chain, 
 
 The proud are taught to taste of pain 
 
 He had tasted deeply the cup of bitterness, yet it imparted no 
 humility to his address in after-life, which was the fruit to have 
 been expected from those lessons. Now we see, George 3rd 
 when only a boy of twelve (a sensible boy, says Lord Chester- 
 field) became heir apparent to the crown of these realms, with 
 a probability of succeeding to it in the prime of youth a cir- 
 cumstance so unfavourable to suavity of manners and command 
 of temper, that if an impatience of contradiction had been 
 noticed, and an everlasting dictum heard from him, we could 
 scarcely have quarelled with effects corresponding with their 
 causes. 
 
 Mr. Croker, whom we believe greatly to respect the memory 
 of this Monarch; who is assuredly well entitled to the regard 
 of any literary person that visits the royal library now adorning 
 the British Museum, will excuse us, if we observe that the 
 hint in the minutes of the Board of Longitude alluded to, which 
 it happened he passed by, would, with a little attention, have
 
 228 APPENDIX. NO. 7. 
 
 led him to find, on a comparison of circumstances, that to the 
 embittered and haughty spirit of Dr. Maskelyne, thus thwarted 
 point blank in his special purposes, the origin and main support 
 of these licentious demonstrations may be ascribed (in a Court 
 where he sat as Judge in his own cause, and never had the 
 delicacy to withdraw.) The challenge to produce his dicoveries 
 by the Moon, might have shown him writhing on tenter-hooks; 
 nathless he was determined not to succumb to the Mechanic, 
 or WHOSOEVER WERE HIS A BETTORS, while he was backed 
 by his Colleagues from Cam and Isis, for reasons equivalent 
 to the esprit du corps, and seconded by Lord Sandwich, from 
 motives that never transpired: and the Lunar party knowing 
 that by the letter, though not in the spirit of the Commission 
 of which they formed a part, and were then a majority, they 
 were responsible to Parliament, but not to the crown, they 
 mustered a front, in opposition to the King's sentiments, which, 
 originating as it did, in private and personal animosity, would 
 have exposed them to public scorn, had the particulars been 
 known. When George 3rd condescended (and in him it was 
 a condescension) to communicate with them, not indeed in the 
 regal character, but as it were like a private gentleman, anxious 
 for the improvement of navigation and scientific mechanics. 
 As they could not affect an ignorance of by whom the junior 
 Harrison was sent, unless they had more brass about them 
 than Wood, the half-penny monger in the Drapier's Letters; 
 it was wholly inconsistent with a monarchial Government, 
 where the King is the fountain of honour, to dismiss his 
 messenger (metaphorically speaking) with no better than a slap 
 on the jaws. And most certainly, could Mr. Croker's favourite 
 philosopher, in theory, have changed places with the greater 
 philosopher, in practice, on receiving such a report, he would 
 have blended his voice, not with the music but the thunder 
 of the spheres.
 
 NO. 8. APPENDIX. 229 
 
 No. 8. 
 A NOTE ON JUNIUS AND WOLCOT. 
 
 WHAT would Junius,* who, whatever might be his rank or 
 destination, was one of the proudest of men, have said, on 
 finding himself assimilating so closely with such refuse as he 
 would have deemed Wolcot? Yet these people who disgraced 
 more than they did honour to the species, were from the same 
 stock: the same ill blood runs in their veins. Junius suffered 
 a malevolent spirit to suppress all regard for truth in too nu- 
 merous instances; and Wolcot, in the vulgar phrase, would 
 have lied with the devil for a bean-stack, and won it. He 
 wrote for a dinner, and made no secret of it, nor yet of his 
 selfish and discreditable inducements " to cry havoc, and let 
 slip his" doggerel 
 
 Were I to write of common folks 
 
 No soul would buy my rhymes so queer and jokes; 
 
 Then what becomes of mutton, beef and pork? 
 
 How would my masticating muscles work? 
 
 At Princes let but satire lift his gun, 
 
 The more the feathers fly, the more's the fun. 
 
 E'en the whole world, blockheads and men of letters, 
 
 Enjoy a cannonade upon their betters. 
 
 That blockheads enjoyed his fun, as he calls it, without the 
 least regard to its veracity, we allow, though we were not 
 prepared for such a thick-skulled compliment to his readers ; 
 
 * Refers to page 77.
 
 A I'P i:\DlX. NO. S. 
 
 but he might safely have been desired to name any respectable 
 man of letters that felt gratified by his fabrications. Like 
 Junius, he was reckless of whatever ill consequences might 
 result from his writings, for he chaunts 
 
 Panegyric moves with snail-like creep, 
 And defamation on the lightning's wings. 
 
 That is, defamation was more profitable to the empty pockets 
 of the one and the revenge of the other; and we add, that no 
 intelligent person can peruse the works of Wolcot in connexion, 
 without soon observing that he had no standard for his opinions 
 but the state of his funds. Hence he is by turns a royalist 
 and a republican, having written with equal virulence on both 
 sides of the question. If he writes con amove, it is on the side 
 of anarchy ; for the production in which he excelled himself, 
 both in pathetic and satirical touches,* was addressed to certain 
 journeymen Shoemakers, who, about forty years ago, combined 
 against their masters to raise their wages; but with so little 
 reason, that the Judge who tried the ringleaders said the pro- 
 fits must be exorbitant which would enable them to live six 
 weeks in idleness. The drift of this poetical tirade, was to 
 excite the lower class to pull down all above them: but the 
 allusions in it manifest the grossest ignorance of the particulars 
 connected with the marriage of Henry, Duke of Cumberland; 
 whose brother, George 3rd, censured that step in the most 
 unqualified terms; the Duchess however held her jointure by 
 the same right as any other dowager in the kingdom; which 
 this ignorant instructor (for he elsewhere says he will instruct 
 
 * You must not heed your childrens hunger'd cry, 
 Nor once over their little sorrows sigh, 
 In tears their blubber'd faces let them steep 
 And howl their griefs to sleep. 
 
 \\'f must support too her fine gold-lac'd cre-w, 
 Hcliind her gilt coach, dancingt jolly fellows, 
 
 With canes and ruflles goodly to the view, 
 
 And (suiting their complexions) pink umbrellas. 
 
 t The footmen Handing on a large leather cushion, stuffed with elastic material*, suggested the epithet.
 
 NO. 8. APPENDIX. 
 
 us in the knowledge we want) does not appear to have kaown;* 
 nor yet that the disproportionate union with the widow of 
 Colonel Luttrel, which was incompatible with obvious reasons 
 of state, gave occasion for that Act of Parliament by which, 
 in future, all marriages of the Royal Family, without the con- 
 sent of the King in council, were declared null and void. 
 
 The misrepresentations of this fellow, brought to mind the 
 exaggerated charges of Junius against the Duke of Grafton; 
 not as regards the rangership of Whittlebury forest (for those 
 have been fully exposed) but the virulence indulged against the 
 private character of that Nobleman, who had a commixture of 
 virtues and failings common among men of all ranks. The 
 Author happened luckily to be acquainted with a person who, 
 after having been many years in the service of his Grace, re- 
 tired with a decent competence to his native village (Hatfield, 
 in Yorkshire.) When questioned on the subject of the Duke's 
 domestic conduct, it was evident it had been such as con- 
 ciliated the regard of his dependants. And when this was 
 observed in one who had had those ample opportunities which 
 Junius had not, of observing his presumed enemy at home, 
 under his every day garb, usages and description, it is as con- 
 clusive against the fabrications of the mortified politician as 
 the case of John Harrison is against those of Peter Pindar, 
 Another piece by whom, is enough to make the blood curdle 
 
 * It may be doing a service to the young men who admire this man's 
 works, to show them the ignorance of their professed instructor, who 
 points out to their admiration " our Edwards and our Henries," intending 
 thereby to degrade their modern successors ; but without explaining that 
 nothing could be more futile than the purpose in which those heroes were 
 engaged : for Edward III. who took the lead in these " deeds of arms," 
 supposing his construction of the salique law to have been correct, was 
 not the rightful heir to the crown of France by his own rule. If he had 
 succeeded in his enterprise, the certain result would have been that 
 England would have become a province of France. Voltaire has the cre- 
 dit of illustrating this consequence, by showing that the Tartars who 
 invaded China, and subverted the reigning dynasty, afterwards submitted 
 with sword in hand to the Chinese emperors of their own race.
 
 232 APPENDIX. NO. 8. 
 
 at the brutality of the Jacobin who could deliberately produce 
 a ditty, which it may be thought, all hell alone could have 
 responded. It originated in a report which crossed the channel, 
 that the regicides had placed the miserable Prince, Lewis 
 XVII. with a shoemaker: which one unworthy Englishman, 
 either for lucre, or from a besotted depravity, thus com- 
 mented on. 
 
 See stool-propp'd Majesty the leather spread, 
 
 Behold its pretty fingers wax the thread, 
 And now the leather on the lapstone ; hole, 
 
 Now puts his Majesty the bristle in, 
 
 Now wide he throws his arms, with milk-white skin, 
 
 And now he spits, and hammers on the sole. 
 Such was, in effect, the prime supporter of the haughty un- 
 known, who wreaks his vengeance on George 3rd, in the spirit 
 of a New Zealand savage, for injuries which must remain for 
 ever undefined, and had they been contemporaries, he would 
 in equity have been entitled to the distinguished consideration, 
 and to a cover at the table of the malevolent spirit, his half 
 brother: where they might have debated the point like two 
 Chieftains fiom Pandemonium, 
 
 "To find no end, all in infernal mazes lost." 
 One of the most prominent assertions they are both conspicuous 
 for, is that George 3rd was insatiably fond of flattery; and if 
 it be allowed to furnish a criterion for our confidence in their 
 veracity, is it not below contempt? We need not repeat that 
 the case of John Harrison affords as decisive a contradiction 
 to this calumny, as De Foe or Richardson could have invented 
 it would have been blazoned eftsoons in every corner of the 
 palace, and echoed in the adjoining precincts, had this Prince 
 been disposed to snuff such incense; and had he not, on the 
 contrary "shut his ears to the voice of the charmer, charmed 
 he never so wisely." 
 
 We are not sure we are correct in giving this low-lived fel- 
 low, as Junius would have called his kinsman, the credit of 
 making a defamatory stride beyond his principal, in perse-
 
 XO. 8. APPENDIX. 
 
 cuting the most virtuous Monarch in our annals since Alfred 
 swayed the sceptre. It comes in the form of a surmise and in- 
 sinuation, for not a solitary fact bears out the sweeping charge. 
 "The Earl [Paulet] has won the royal smile, and is made 
 a Lord of the bedchamber; but as capricious inconstancy is a 
 prominent feature in the Brunswic family, a royal frown may 
 be at no great distance:" 
 
 And should the Monarch turn from sweet to sour, 
 Which cometh oft to pass in half an hour. 
 In what history, memoirs, or diary, or collection of anecdotes, 
 had he found that the individuals of the royal family are more 
 changeable than other men? If he could have laid his hand 
 on his authority, where was it? Instead of such an explana- 
 tion, you find only the rhymes just quoted. The late Sir John 
 Barton, who had been above forty-six years attached to his 
 present Majesty (William IV.) gave a very different account 
 from that of this mercenary calumniator ; leaving the inference, 
 that no distinguished family in the kingdom could be quoted as 
 more an example of consistency than the House of Brunswic. 
 We had almost forgotten, that Wolcot, in trying to make a 
 miser of the King, actually accuses him of omitting the dot 
 over the i, in writing, to save his ink. It has often happened 
 to the writer of this, as also to forget the stroke through the t: 
 yet it would not follow that he is sparing of his ink, and his 
 apprehension is lest the reader should be of the same opinion. 
 The Author of the Rape of the Lock was never thought a 
 miser, though his friend, Swift, calls him " paper sparing 
 Pope." The Dean has not mentioned any deficiency in his 
 hospitality, when he was his guest. If " he saved five shillings 
 in five years," by writing his compositions on the backs of 
 letters, yet when Frederic, Prince of Wales, honoured him 
 with his company to dinner, he set out his table as was befitting, 
 without those marked omissions that seldom fail to denote the 
 muckworm: like Fielding's Lovegold, who being to give an 
 entertainment to please his mistress, considers it would be 
 advisable to have, in the first place, a large suet pudding, to
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 8. 
 
 cloy the stomachs of the guests. If George 3rd had some 
 frugal habits in private life, analogous to those of Pope (a point 
 we leave to those better informed) he needed no prompter, if 
 any occasion like an installation of the knights of the Garter 
 elect, at Windsor Castle, in which his seven Sons walked 
 before him, called for a splendor and sumptnousness accordant 
 with the ceremonial, and every way worthy of the Monarch 
 and his noble guests. Notwithstanding these pointed con- 
 siderations, Junius, who perfectly concurs with Wolcot in 
 finding this Prince insatiably fond of flattery, would have been 
 equally ready to impute to his Sovereign the meanest parsimony, 
 had the hint been started when he wrote : which from \Volcot's 
 career being of later chronology, happened not to be the case. 
 
 Such was the paucity of his resources, --the want of sub- 
 stance for the lash of a professed satirist, whom the Aonian 
 Maids would have tossed in a blanket (if they had such an ar- 
 ticle.) He counted on being read at any rate, if he levelled 
 his shafts at the throne, though they might be pointed with 
 lead, as in the notable hit just quoted, and evidently caters tor 
 the depraved taste of the many, who desire to see those above 
 them, in every sense, reduced to their own level. Though 
 neither Junius, nor his understrapper were philosophers, they 
 bring to mind a just observation on Kochefoucault, given by 
 Dr. Hawksworth in the Adventurer, who calls him "the great 
 philosopher for administering consolation to the idle, the envious 
 and the worthless part of mankind." 
 
 Respecting the famed political Incognito, the Author, who 
 adopts the original and at present the prevailing opinion, that 
 he was Viscount Sackville, thinks the interview he sought with 
 Lord Mansfield, a short time before his death, to beg his 
 Lordship's forgiveness for injuries which no one could divine, 
 unless they had been inflicted under the mask of Junius, not a 
 little corroborative of his identity. But the compunction he 
 felt towards that Nobleman, leaves an enormous hiatus, when 
 it is asked why no expedient of any kind was adopted for his 
 submission in a higher quarter -t-> expiate, if possible, his ag-
 
 NO. 8. APPENDIX. 235 
 
 gravated ingratitude to the best of Sovereigns? As to Wolcot, 
 who bears the same relation to Junius that the squire does to 
 the knight (if the comparison may pass, for nothing could be 
 more opposed to the generosity of chivalry than the unfounded 
 aspersions of both) a few words after the Socratic method would 
 have shown him specially entitled to be exhibited " in close 
 catasta pent." For with all his affected detestation of flattery, 
 and 
 
 " He never drank at adulation's spring;" 
 no dignatory in the church or state ever was, or will be, more 
 coarsely lubricated with the goose-grease of fulsome encomiums 
 than "young Augustus," or the Prince of Wales; who is en- 
 dowed with every attribute that could be thought of to com- 
 mand our esteem and admiration, while no merit whatever is 
 conceded to George 3rd, except that of having given the world 
 such a Prince. The sequel of these gallimaufry flights was 
 consummately ridiculous ; for while Peter was prancing on his 
 long-eared poetical nag, so much to his own delight, and that 
 of numerous readers in St. James's, we hope not, but at St. 
 Giles's, to wit, he entirely forgot that the good taste, for which 
 among other shining qualities he extolled his highness so lavishly 
 (and a large portion of which he possessed) would show him de- 
 spising the literary Parasite, whose real object was of sterling 
 import. Such was the overweening self-sufficiency of this man, 
 that you gather from his swaggering hints he actually expected 
 to be handsomely provided for, when the Regent should suc- 
 ceed to power: but being wholly disappointed in these golden 
 dreams, he veered round with characteristic effrontery, and, 
 like Pope's magpie, bestowed almost verbatim on the Son the 
 same language with which he had before vilified the Father : 
 of which " England's golden calf" may be thought a sufficient 
 specimen. 
 
 To show the utter recklessness of this man to what impeach- 
 ed his veracity, he got hold of it as a good thing to turn the 
 penny by, that the British Ambassador at the court of Pekin, 
 had duly conformed to the ceremony called Ko-tou, so degra-
 
 23(5 APPENDIX. NO. 8. 
 
 ding to European ideas, and forthwith tossed up in his doggerel 
 frying-pan, an invective against the absurd meanness of the 
 compliance; not sparing, of course, the Government that ap- 
 pointed Lord Macartney, and so on. Had he not been in haste 
 to show that "one fool makes many," he might, by waiting a 
 few days, or, perhaps a few hours, have avoided falling out of 
 the frying-pan into the fire ; and rescued the slattern,* his 
 Muse, from the imputation of hearing aloud that "a greater 
 liar Parthia never bred." Yet, possibly finding the more you 
 stir it, the more it will stink, he never apologized to his readers 
 for a blunder by which he was holding them dog-cheap. And 
 soon after, it is likely, in the ordinary course of his business, 
 he would thrust on them some stuff from the Palace, impressed 
 on doubting people by the conviction that A had it from B, 
 who was told it by C, who had just then met D, piping-hot 
 from the coffee-house, where he had seen K, who is known to 
 be the half-brother to the first scullion on the establishment; 
 and uncle besides to the deputy clerk of the kitchen, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Such, or something like it, seems to have been the source 
 of that quarto catch-penny scurrility which proved so palatable 
 to that numerous class in society, called by Lord Chesterfield, 
 male gossips ; and soon found its way into Lady Tabby 
 Touchup's drawing-room and Sir Pontius Periwinkle's peripa- 
 tetic repository, and where else, those (equivocal) gentlemen 
 who were not ashamed to invite him to their tables, could say.f 
 
 * The degraded taste, which gave a vogue to Peter Pindar, drew this 
 sentiment from Mr. D'Isreal, in his Defence of Poetry. 
 
 E'en Shakespear's genius, Spencer's fancy fail, 
 
 While Folly bids her Wolcot's scandal hail. 
 
 Tis she that gives his malice wings to fiy ; 
 
 Nursing in natal dirt the infant lie, 
 
 Till grown more bold it flaunts about the town, 
 
 The dirty Prostitute of half-a-crown. 
 
 t The idea that he was a wit, wholly misled those who expected to find 
 his conversation seasoned with turns of humour. Of two friends of the 
 Author who had dined in his company; one by accident, and the other in
 
 NO. 8. APPENDIX. 
 
 If it be adjudged supererogatory that the Author should find 
 any room on his pages for a pseudo adjunct to the republic of 
 letters, whose conduct all the respectable writers of the same 
 aera concur in reprobating, particularly the Author of Pursuits 
 of Literature, who is extremely severe on this obscure person, 
 as he calls Wolcot, and condemns in pointed terms, the general 
 tendency of his writings; but not having thought it worth while 
 to bestow any letter-press on him in detail, except with refer- 
 ence to the conceited admission, that kings may be necessary 
 in a state, just as a nail or a peg is to some building, the pre- 
 ceding glances at a few others of his mercenary compositions 
 may not appear misplaced; especially when it is considered 
 that he got his bread mostly by hacking, with a blunt edge, 
 the aforesaid nail or peg (if we must use his own degrading 
 idea.) It was the coincidence between Junius and a libeller 
 by trade, in the odious vocation of injuring George 3rd as much 
 as they could in the esteem of his subjects, that insensibly in- 
 duced an association of persons therefrom. They either knew 
 nothing of his real character, or they were fraudulent enough 
 to affect an ignorance convenient for their purposes ; but the 
 depravity of the Aristocrat, who may be concluded to have 
 had frequent opportunities of assuaging his bile at St. James's, 
 exceeds that of a needy scribbler, who himself had no auricu- 
 lar knowledge of his insulted Sovereign. 
 
 Allowing for the variance in chronology, there is a passage 
 in the works of \\isfellow labourer that precludes comment, and 
 should have been especially commended to the attention of 
 Junius, if he professed to believe in a future state of retribu- 
 tion, viz. 
 
 How could I hold aloft my tuneful head, 
 Or proudly hope at doomsday to be read? 
 
 a party; the first said, that if he had not previously known who he was, 
 he should have taken him for a cheesemonger : while the brightest saying 
 the other could quote, bordered on blasphemy, without being in the least 
 exhilerating. One of the dishes was stewed eels, which Peter Pindar 
 relished so well, as to say, that "if he had been consulted at the creation 
 he would have had all other fish eels, 1 '
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 ' . 
 No. 9. 
 
 ANECDOTES OF GEORGE IV., WHEN PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 THAT the prevalent idea among- mankind, which 
 supposes Kings are surrounded with flatterers ever 
 ready to magnify even indifferent actions, which 
 would not be noticed in common life, is often wholly 
 unfounded, at least in this country, the distinct and 
 decided example we have given in these MEMOIRS 
 will show. To an exposition based upon the clearest 
 facts in the case of his Father, we are enabled to 
 add some particulars of George IV. equally un- 
 known, but which the general voice would certainly 
 desire should be rescued from oblivion that they 
 are so, was owing to the same concurrence of for- 
 tuitous incidents which, sixty years after John 
 Harrison's petition was laid before Parliament, dis- 
 closed the philanthropic and unwearied interest his 
 Sovereign had taken in procuring him redress for 
 the violation of the legislative pledge. To the cir- 
 cumstance of the Author having been in habits of 
 intimacy with the persons introduced (till separated 
 by change of residence to distant parts of the king-
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 239 
 
 dom) was owing 1 their being now brought forward, 
 as an appropriate addition, he thinks, to "A TRAIT 
 IN THE CHARACTER OF GEORGE III." 
 
 On the first meeting- of the House of Commons, 
 June 29th, 1830, after the demise of George IV., 
 Sir Robert Peel coming forward in his official cha- 
 racter, paid a well deserved tribute to the memory 
 of the deceased Monarch. "The late King," said 
 the honourable Baronet, " was an admirable gen- 
 " tleman, and a liberal patron of the arts. His 
 " heart always sympathized with any appeal to his 
 "benevolence. (Hear, hear, hear, and great 
 " cheering.) I do not wish, Sir, to deliver any 
 " overstrained panegyric on his late Majesty ; his 
 " acts speak for themselves." That these praises 
 were not words of course, the weight of which 
 would not bear being sifted to the bottom, the fol- 
 lowing illustrative facts will show. 
 
 Mr. Edmund Scott was an engraver of respect- 
 able abilities, well known as such formerly in the 
 metropolis, but subsequently a crayon painter, 
 resident at Guildford in Surry. He was a man of 
 strict sobriety and regular habits, but having a large 
 family, and not being remunerated in proportion 
 to his labours, he got into pecuniary difficulties, 
 was arrested and in confinement : when the Prince 
 of Wales heard of his situation, and through the 
 intervention of a military gentleman* his royal high- 
 
 * According to the Artist's Son, this was Lieutenant Colonel 
 Huxley Sandon.
 
 240 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 ness discharged the debt. After which rightly 
 judging that the properest course, if he would ex- 
 tend his benevolence, was to employ the artist 
 professionally, he set him to take a portrait of his 
 Princess a fact directly at variance with the gene- 
 ral, if not the universal belief, that mutual disgust, 
 and a separation from bed and board took place 
 almost immediately after their nuptials. If so, that 
 the bridegroom shortly after should have employed 
 an artist to take the likeness of his partner, cannot 
 be reconciled to is indeed quite incompatible with 
 ordinary notions in such concerns, for no man sepa- 
 rated from his wife under such circumstances ever 
 thinks of introducing a painter with such an object. 
 How can he be supposed to contemplate the pro- 
 duction of art with pleasure, if the original, from 
 whatever causes is wholly an alien to his satisfac- 
 tion ? How, we ask, is a difficulty to be got over, 
 directly opposed to historical credence ?* for it leads 
 
 * Neither was this circumstance a solitary exception to the 
 current belief which supposes the match was forced on the heir 
 apparent and wholly contrary to his inclination : for Mr. 
 Jefferys, of Picadilly, who furnished the jewellery ordered in 
 consequence of the marriage, and was a principal creditor of 
 his royal highness, having published a pamphlet on account of 
 some dispute with the Commissioners appointed to settle the 
 Princes affairs: incidentally informs us that at the period of 
 the proposed nuptials of the Prince of Wales with his Cousin, 
 the Princess Caroline of Brunswic, he passed much of his 
 time at Carlton House; and though it is at such complete va- 
 riance with the generally received opinion, he continues ' I 
 'declare it to be my firm belief, however subsequent events,
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 241 
 
 to the inference that the royal pair differed little 
 from other young couples during- the probation 
 called the honey-moon. It is certain that from this 
 portrait, a whole length, the joint production of 
 Edmund Scott,* and of Mr. Stothard, the academi- 
 cian, a print was taken; which the Author has 
 seen, and which decided his own persuasion on the 
 subject: but in a case surrounded with so much 
 novelty, indecision becomes a merit towards the 
 public, and a bonus to the numerous writers who 
 would complain of having incurred an awkward 
 erratum, "by following rumour with her hundred 
 tongues." 
 
 Changing the scene, we bring forward Mr. 
 Charles Sheriff, born at Edinburgh, in 1755, being 
 the second son of an eminent merchant in that city. 
 Having lost his hearing when only three years old, 
 it had all the consequences of being born deaf; and 
 he continued in the state incident to that misfortune 
 till about the age of eleven, when a circumstance 
 very material to his future destiny occurred. 
 
 Mr. Braid wood, the enterprizing schoolmaster of 
 
 ' which may be truly termed unfortunate for his Royal High- 
 'ness and for the country, may contradict the probability of 
 'my assertion, that no person in the kingdom appeared to feel, 
 'and I believe at the time did actually feel, more sincere pleasure 
 ' in the prospect of the proposed marriage and the consequent 
 ' separation from Mrs. Fitzherbert than his Royal Highness.' 
 
 * The family reside chiefly at Brighton. His eldest Son 
 (who can testify to the facts related) is of respectable abilities 
 as a landscape painter, in water colours. 
 
 R
 
 242 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 the northern capital, had at this time matured his 
 scheme for educating- those under this privation, 
 and it happened remarkably enough, our subject 
 was his first pupil. From what is thought little 
 better than a state of idiotism, he was brought to 
 understand the language to write letters con- 
 forming to orthography and grammar ; and to speak 
 so as to be understood in the family, and by his 
 intimates. He could not, as has been related of 
 some individuals, converse by observing the motion 
 of the lips in the speaker, but otherwise his facility 
 of apprehension was extraordinary ; for if a person 
 opposite wrote rapidly in the air with his finger, 
 Mr. Charles could read such writing although re- 
 versed and evanescent, as the Author has frequently 
 witnessed. Having early employed himself in 
 sketching with the blacklead pencil, and painting 
 being designated as his future profession, he was 
 placed with a drawing master in London, named 
 Burgess; under whom, his works of that period 
 show his progress to have been rapid ; insomuch 
 that it was proposed, though rather prematurely, 
 to take him to Italy, the common rendezvous of 
 artists and connoisseurs from every country. All 
 his bright prospects, however, were soon overclouded 
 by a storm that burst with a calamitous pressure on 
 the whole family. The failure of Fordyce, an emi- 
 nent banker at Edinburgh in that day, drew after 
 it the insolvency of many mercantile men, and 
 among others, Mr. Sheriff's father: but who, being
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. '243 
 
 favoured by Providence, when he thought himself 
 irretrievably ruined, found an unexpected resource 
 in the abilities of our artist, whose filial piety wanted 
 no stimulant, and he immediately commenced busi- 
 ness in London, as a miniature painter and this 
 most exemplary son and brother, whom his con- 
 nexions once apprehended would prove a burden to 
 them, supported his parent and the junior part of 
 the family, consisting- of two sons and two daughters, 
 in a creditable manner, as long as his assistance 
 was essential to their welfare. Both his sisters were 
 respectably married to Officers of the Navy. His 
 brothers chose the sea, and the younger of them, 
 Lieutenant John Sheriff, rose to the command of 
 L'Espugle sloop of war, in which he lost his life 
 while gallantly repulsing the crew of a French pri- 
 vateer which had boarded her in the West Indies. 
 
 To enhance the merit of this virtuous conduct in 
 the young man, it should be observed, that the ex- 
 ample of his elder brother was wholly wanting; 
 who, although he had been a material cause of their 
 father's failure, with whom he was in partnership 
 at the time, not only contributed nothing to the 
 common support, but had even the assurance to 
 expect his brother would assist him. The pressure 
 of these dependants was a serious obstacle to Mr. 
 Sheriff's acquiring a fortune by his talents; and 
 although he was of a domestic turn, and partial to 
 the sex, his situation precluded him from marrying. 
 Yet he never complained of such hardships (as they
 
 244 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 might be called ;) on the contrary, the Author has 
 heard him express the pleasure he found in being 
 so useful to his father and the family. 
 
 Mr. Sheriff's uncommon character and merit 
 having reached Carlton House, the Prince sent 
 for, and honoured him by sitting for his portrait, a 
 large miniature, which being admired in the ex- 
 hibition at Somerset House, increased his custom. 
 If this was in the usual course of things, yet an 
 accidental occasion his highness availed himself of, 
 showed an intimate knowledge of the human heart. 
 It touched those chords which (except in the misan- 
 thrope) harmonize with the desire all feel to be 
 esteemed by others, which less disposes them to 
 quarrel with themselves. Mr. Sheriff happened 
 one evening to be amongst the lookers on at the 
 principal assembly in Brighton ; certainly without 
 the most distant thought of joining a set formed 
 either of the nobility, or persons of the first fashion 
 and fortune. His illustrious patron was there, and, 
 coining up, accosted him with his usual affability ; 
 enquiring after his health, his professional success, 
 and asking ivlty he did not dance? The artist 
 being thus taken by surprise, scarcely knew what 
 he said, but it purported that he had no right to 
 mix with company so much above him. The Prince, 
 over-ruling his diffidence, introduced him, as a 
 partner, to a lady of quality. With whom Mr. 
 Charles, who probably excelled in the dance,* as 
 
 * This may surprise thosp w ho do not reflect that dancing
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 245 
 
 he was admired in fencing-, tripped it till the assem- 
 bly was over. That nothing- mig-ht be wanting- to 
 enhance a notice so flattering-, his partner set him 
 down at his lodging-s from her carriage : and the 
 assembly was long remembered by our subject; 
 but for obvious reasons he avoided showing himself 
 there again.* It is proper to add to this anecdote, 
 that Mr. Sheriff (from whom the Author had it) 
 was, a man of fine presence, tall and of a graceful 
 demeanour, so that any lady might have waived the 
 difference of rank, on being taken out by so genteel 
 a figure.f 
 
 consists of a certain number of measured movements; so that 
 if such a person keeps time with a partner, who has a correct 
 ear, his own auricular deficiency will not be easily observed. 
 
 * He certainly had not a glimpse of a failing imputed in no 
 measured terms to the Prince Regent, by the following article: 
 ' there was in him not only the pride of the Monarch, but 
 'the pride of the man ; even in his moments of condescension, 
 'when he attempted to throw off the king and sink into the 
 'man, ever and anon glimmered forth some sparklings of the 
 'ruling passion, which threw a reserve and a coldness over his 
 'society.' 
 
 f After the death of his father, at the advanced age of eighty- 
 four, whose wants were carefully attended to, and whose grey 
 hairs descended with comfort to the grave, in having such a 
 son, Mr. Sheriff embarked for India, a scheme he had con- 
 templated many years antecedent, but was deterred from by 
 his amiable solicitude for his relatives, as has been described. 
 It maybe mentioned, that while in that region, among those 
 who encouraged his abilities by employing his pencil was, Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley, now the great captain of the age. Having 
 realized a moderate competency, our Artist re-embarked for
 
 APPENDIX NO. 9. 
 
 While Sir Robert Peel was at tempting a portrait 
 of George IV. in the House of Commons, his grace, 
 the Duke of Wellington, on the same date, drew 
 attention to a sketch of the same subject in the Upper 
 House of Parliament; an outline from which cer- 
 tifies us that "no man ever approached his Majesty 
 who did not feel gratified by his learning,* his con- 
 England. He married, bought a house and settled in Cum- 
 berland Place, on the Padington Road. The remainder of 
 his life he was happy in the quiet he coveted, and in the atten- 
 tions of his wife (whom be had known from a child.) He died 
 a few years ago, leaving a memory dear in the esteem of those 
 that knew him well; which perhaps this brief account may 
 extend. 
 
 The circumstance of this gentleman having been the first boy 
 on whom Mr. Braidwood tried a mode of instruction adapted 
 to the very peculiar situation of those forlorn beings ; t its suc- 
 cess, and the diffusion of the advantages among the higher and 
 the middle classes of society, as well as the increase of chari- 
 table foundations for extending the benefit of it to the indigent: 
 above all, the future man doing so much honour to the 
 species as was seen in the active habits, the filial piety and 
 fraternal affection of Mr. Sheriff J ought to rescue these par- 
 ticulars from the various transitory occurrences in "the busy 
 hum of men." 
 
 * From his classical studies we have an admired translation 
 of the Epistle from Servius Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death 
 of his daughter Tullia. 
 
 t In the biography of Mr. Baker, a distinguished Fellow of the Royal 
 Society, and founder of the Bakerian lecture, it is mentioned that in the 
 former part of his life he educated some pupils of this description; but 
 whether the priority of date was with this gentleman, or Mr. Braidwood, 
 we cannot say : neither are we acquainted with the date of the successful 
 labours of the celebrated Abbe Sicard, at Paris. 
 
 t There are some verses in print, by Caleb Whiteford, a member of the
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 
 
 descension, affability, and kindness of disposition." 
 With a high opinion of his Majesty's kindness 
 and condescension, the Author was impressed by 
 the circumstances above related : the knowledge of 
 which, he has said, he owed to his intimacy with 
 the parties concerned. Private friendship indeed 
 may occasionally lead to the contemplation of par- 
 ticulars of curiosity and interest unknown to the 
 public collector. The first of the attributes in the 
 preceding short extract, immediately assimilated 
 with the recollection of a lamented friend, the 
 reverend Thomas Watson, of Bilton, in Holderness, 
 to whom he could resort on any literary question, 
 and at whose parsonage he passed some of the plea- 
 santest hours of his life. This Gentleman one day, 
 in a conversation on the identity of the author of 
 the "Pursuits of Literature," gave it in a decided 
 manner to the Prince of Wales; alleging that "he 
 was well known to be one of the best, scholars we 
 had." It is not the writer's idea, so many reasons 
 maybe given against the supposition, which might 
 be overlooked by a retired observer ; but that a man 
 of letters (a good classic) should entertain and de- 
 
 Literary Club, and one of the commissioners employed at Paris, to con- 
 clude the treaty of peace with France and Spain, in 1763. The want of 
 a copy precludes their insertion here. They are entitled " Lines supposed 
 to be from the mouth of Charles Sheriff, who is deaf and dumb, on seeing 
 Garrick in Lear." To which may be added, that this eminent Actor, 
 whom he had probably pleased by taking oft" some part in dumb show, 
 said, that if it had not been for his deprivation, he would have excelled 
 on the boards. Altogether, he appears to have attracted the attention of 
 the distinguished men in his time.
 
 248 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 fend this belief he thought too honourable to the 
 memory of George IV., and too confirmatory of the 
 Duke of Wellington's assertion, to be omitted on 
 the present occasion.* Mr. Watson, who had not 
 
 * In accordance with his Grace of Wellington's observation, 
 and with the remarkable opinion of the learned individual just 
 mentioned, we give the ensuing extract from the Address of 
 the President, the Bishop of Salisbury, to the Royal Society 
 of Literature, at their anniversary meeting, April 28th, 1031. 
 [Given from the Supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine. 
 Part 1st lor that year.] 
 
 'Adverting to the loss which the Society had sustained in 
 1 the decease of its munificent founder and patron, King George 
 ' IV., he took occasion to enumerate some of the more im- 
 ' portant services rendered by the deceased Monarch to the 
 'cause of Literature. 
 
 'IJis Majesty's attention to the interests of Literature and 
 ' sound learning, an attention called forth by the genuine bias 
 'of his cultivated taste and classical accomplishments was 
 'evinced as early as the year I7JH5, by his donation of two gold 
 ' and two silver medals to the scholars of Winchester; the 
 ' i'oruier for the best English composition, the latter for the 
 'encouragement of eloquence. 
 
 'The King was a contributor to the building of St. David's 
 ' College ; and this benefit to the interests of Religion and 
 ' Learning was subsequently augmented by some valuable en- 
 ' dowments bestowed upon that Institution. 
 
 'That meritorious charity, the Literary Fund, has, at vari- 
 'ous times, largely partaken of the munificence of the late 
 1 Sovereign. 
 
 ' Jt was by his Majesty's order, that the work " De Doctrina 
 4 Christiana," &c., discovered in the State Paper Office, in 
 '1823, and ascribed (though, in Lordship's opinion, errone- 
 'ously) to Milton, was translated and published.
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 249 
 
 been introduced at Carl ton House, must have formed 
 this conclusion from his intercourse with some of 
 his learned contemporaries.* Among 1 others, he was 
 
 ' In the same year, George IV. further merited the title of 
 'a Benefactor to Literature, by giving to the nation the valua- 
 ' ble and extensive Library which had been collected by his 
 Royal Father. 
 
 'One of the earliest proofs given by the King of his cultivated 
 ' taste and love of antient learning, was shown in the Literary 
 ' Mission to the Court of Naples, for the more rapid develope- 
 'ment and transcription of the Herculanean Manuscripts a 
 ' Mission equally honourable to the country from which it 
 'emanated, and the accomplished Prince who promoted it, 
 'and successful, beyond what is generally known, in its re- 
 sults.'f 
 
 * Another opinion of this Gentleman's, which may be given 
 for its curiosity, if not entitled to the notice of the historian, 
 was that, on seeing it currently circulated, how the Prince of 
 Wales associated with the leading members of the opposition, 
 he would not allow it to be deduced as a fair inference, that 
 the Prince concurred in opinion with Mr. Fox on public mea- 
 sures. "It is" said he "the policy of the Brunswic Family, 
 for one of their number always to mix with the party out of 
 place, to learn the plans, views and questions, discussed among 
 them." He then instanced Duke William of Cumberland, 
 the conqueror at Culloden, who was long remarked for being 
 opposed to the Cabinet and Frederic, Prince of Wales, 
 seemed to have a predilection for those who were not in power. 
 It may be said, there was no occasion to doubt the Duke's 
 sincerity, if he appeared inimical to the Pelham, or the Bute 
 administrations ; and Prince Frederic (according to Lord 
 Orford) was so much at variance with his Father and Queen 
 
 t It is much to be regretted, however, that the learned have been 
 hitherto disappointed, in hoping to recover, from this source, the lost 
 books of Livy.
 
 250 APPENDIX. NO. 9. 
 
 intimate with the poet Mason, whom he had known 
 
 Caroline, that the supposed policy of the step does not seem 
 conclusive. It is certain, after all, that George IV. on suc- 
 ceeding to power, would not accept the resignation of Mr. 
 Percival, but told him to prosecute his plans, which were 
 based on those of the Pitt administration, in distinction from 
 the ideas and purposes of Mr. Fox, to whose politics he had 
 long been supposed partial : so that this sequel may be allowed 
 to coincide with Mr. Watson's assumption. 
 
 The transition from this Monarch's encouragement of learning 
 to the munificent contribution, herewith specified, is insensible. 
 A writer not otherwise partial to the memory of George IV.,* 
 launches out thus: 'perhaps there is no one [action] which 
 ' imparts a greater lustre to the character of George IV. as tho 
 ' patron of genius, than his munificent gift towards the erection 
 ' of a monument to the memory of James Watt. The incident 
 1 may appear at the first view as trifling in itself; but a meeting 
 ' called for the purpose of the erection of a monument to a great 
 ' benefactor of the human race, is worthy of the most civilized 
 ' nations. f Such meetings should be held forth as examples 
 to other countries, to awaken amongst those who approach 
 ' nearest to civilization and generous emulation of true glory and 
 'just gratitude. Such meetings impart a new value to the 
 ' discoveries and the productions of genius; they excite youth- 
 
 * In a work published by Kelly in Paternoster Row. But the Author 
 is so irregular in his judgment, that, in speaking of lawyers, for instance, 
 he calls them, without exception, human sharks. Not considering that 
 there is the same diversity of good and bad among them as among other 
 men. 
 
 t Granted but why was no meeting ever called, in this civilized nation, 
 40 perpetuate the memory of the first discover of the LONGITUDE? the bene. 
 fit he conferred on mankind was without alloy : whereas, from the mul- 
 tiplied extension of the steam engine, such a necessary of life, as coals, 
 will eventually become, though neither our children, nor our children's 
 children, to the third or fourth generation, may live to see it, of exorbi- 
 tant price, and beyond the reach of the poor.
 
 NO. 9. APPENDIX. 251 
 
 at Cambridge, and who was at Bilton six weeks 
 before his death. 
 
 ' ful talents to redouble their efforts in order to produce works 
 ' that may be useful to their country, and worthy, in their turn, 
 ' of immortality.' 
 
 * On Friday the 18th of June, 1824, a public meeting was 
 ' held, at which the Earl of Liverpool presided, supported by 
 ' such men as Brougham, Mackintosh and Wilberforce, for 
 ' the purpose of entering into a subscription to defray the ex- 
 
 * penses of the erection of a monument to the memory of the 
 ' Father of the Steam Engine. The first words uttered by the 
 ' Prime Minister of the British Empire, surrounded by the 
 
 * most distinguished personages of the Government and the 
 ' country, either by their learning or their eloquence, were to 
 ' announce that the meeting was called for the purpose of of- 
 ' fering a public tribute of gratitude and respect to the memory 
 ' of the best and most extraordinary man to whom the country 
 ' had ever given birth. We confess [says the author of the 
 ' work quoted] that such an eulogium is rather exaggerated, 
 
 * especially in a country that has produced a Newton ; for we 
 ' can speak from personal experience that, in society, James 
 ' Watt was a most repellent character, and appeared to treat 
 ' every man with contempt and indifference who could not con- 
 ' verse on pistons, cylinders and boilers.* In other respects, 
 ' the speech of Lord Liverpool was such as might have been 
 ' expected from so great and enlightened a mind ; and he con- 
 
 * eluded his speech by observing, that his Majesty George IV. 
 ' had charged him to inform the meeting, that he was deeply 
 ' sensible of the services that had been rendered to Great 
 ' Britain by him, "to whose memory we are about, as I in- 
 formed you at first, to offer the tribute of our respect and 
 
 * Such a statement, from personal knowledge, argues a surprising con- 
 trast between James Watt and John Harrison : for the latter was not 
 deficient in good manners, and showed no contempt for those who could 
 neither talk on chronometry, nor music.
 
 APPENDIX. NO. 10. 
 
 No. 10. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE INJURIOUS AND OPPRESSIVE 
 EFFECTS OF A CLAIM UNDER THE COPY-RIGHT ACT 
 FROM ELEVEN COLLEGES OR LIBRARIES. 
 
 IT is to be lamented that a leaven of the same meanness appa- 
 rent in the jealousy of the mathematical Professors, at the 
 success of the Mechanics, still pervades the proceedings at 
 Cambridge and Oxford; in the assertion of their abstract right 
 each to a copy, not only of books properly so called, but of 
 copper or steel plate prints, either plain or coloured, published 
 with letter-press explanations of the subject a class of works 
 
 4 gratitude. His Majesty is anxiously desirous of having his 
 ' name placed at the head of the proposed subscription for the 
 ' sum of five hundred pounds."'* 
 
 " The writer of the above, who dates in 1830, six years after the 
 meeting, professes not to know where the proposed monument is (to which 
 George IV. subscribed so liberally) nor yet where the funeral obsequies 
 of James Watt took place. He glances at Garrick, whose ashes repose 
 in the Abbey, though he conferred no lasting benefit on his country. But 
 waiving this, will any assiduous friend to the memory of the Earl of 
 Liverpool, Sir James Mackintosh, or Mr. Wilberforce, &c., inform us 
 on what ground a marked distinction may be said to be upheld between 
 " the father of modern chronometry" and "the father of the steam-engine," 
 or, more properly of the application of it: for they all knew the princi- 
 ple might be referred to the Marquis of Worcester in the seventeenth 
 century. And will Lord Brougham be so good as to inform us by what 
 ratiocination the genius of this eminent Engineer entitled him to an apothe-
 
 NO. 10. APPENDIX. 253 
 
 entirely unknown when the privilege was granted, to have a 
 copy of all printed books. In the case of prints expensively 
 got up, these copies become a prohibition on the publication ; 
 and by consequence have a decidedly injurious effect on the 
 progress of the arts in these kingdoms; and take the bread 
 out of the mouths of numbers of industrious and enterprizing 
 individuals. 
 
 To make the injury more apparent, suppose a publication of 
 this class is sold at as low a price as can be afforded, say ten 
 pounds. The prime cost, together with the charges of the trade, 
 advertising, &c., come to nine pounds, ten shillings: leaving 
 ten shillings for the net proceeds on each copy sold. Eleven 
 such copies, the number this impost exacts, reckoned by the 
 outlay sunk in them, apart from any profit, are equivalent to 
 one hundred and four pounds, ten shillings; which makes it 
 necessary that two hundred and nine copies should be sold, 
 before the proprietors can derive any advantage from the 
 speculation. 
 
 To so plain a statement, sundry logicians by trade, (who 
 reason no better than the first old woman we may light on) 
 oppose their abstract right, just as Shylock does to his pound 
 of flesh, without the least regard to any consequences, when 
 he produces his knife and scales. If they are not like that 
 caitiff virtually conspiring against the life of a citizen of Venice 
 (or of London) yet it matters naught to these philosophers in 
 professorial gowns, if, with the Jew, they uphold the selfish 
 principle which learning is supposed to fortify the mind against; 
 
 osis beyond certain other aspirants to that honour, as far as it could be 
 granted on earth? The merit of James Watt most certainly was very 
 great but it should be acknowledged in accordance with that of his 
 compeers; a Jenner, a Davy, and a Harrison, were severally, or "in 
 quaternion" with him, entitled to the consideration of the assemblage : 
 and while we would not interfere with the special purpose of the meeting, 
 we yet are persuaded it should not have been attempted to allot him a 
 consequence so transcendent as to throw into theshade all other benefactors 
 to mankind.
 
 254 APPENDIX. NO. 10. 
 
 nor yet it' they contravene, by this practice, the injunction so 
 frequently heard from them in set discourses, " Whatsoever 
 ye would that men should do unto you, do unto them." When 
 the copy-right Act was revised, the two Universities (it is un- 
 derstood) deputed each one of their body to town to prevent 
 prejudice to their rights to wit, the privilege of levying so 
 unfeeling a tax on authors, proverbially an unfortunate race 
 altogether and of extending the same, as if by the advice of 
 Ignatius Loyola, to the labours of the painter and the engraver, 
 till, as we have said, it operates absolutely as a veto on vari- 
 ous works that would do honour to the state of the arts in this 
 country, and the sale of which on the continent would be bene- 
 ficial to all concerned. 
 
 That knowledge is power, has been often said, and we will 
 not disturb the proposition; but that it is synonymous with 
 liberality of -sentiment in corporations aggregate, it would be 
 doing violence to the commonest sense of equity to admit 
 while the example of our two elder Universities is wanting to 
 do away with the mercenary privilege that brings them so often 
 in hostile contact with ingenious men, engaged in those arts 
 that 
 
 Soften the rude, and calm the savage mind. 
 
 It was not to have been expected, in the nineteenth century, 
 that the respectable class of persons concerned in those specu- 
 lations would be constrained, by this odious exaction, to resort 
 to such expedients as the following, which refers to a set of 
 picturesque views of English cities, superintended by Mr. 
 Mi it ion, who says 'This volume I published as a collection 
 'of prints, alone, without any letter-press, for the purpose of 
 'escaping the unjust penalty of giving eleven copies to certain 
 ' public and private institutions, some of which are rich, and 
 ' ought to purchase every new literary work, for the encourage- 
 'ment of authors.' 
 
 Setting aside the recommendation in the conclusion ; to the 
 indiscriminate encouragement in which there are manifest ob- 
 jections, will the gentlemen pointed at, continue, in forma
 
 NO. 10. APPENDIX. 255 
 
 pauperis, to hold out the sportula (or dole basket) for the re- 
 ception of all new works, having a few lines of letter-press ; 
 and, like the sturdy beggar in Gil Bias, making no distinction 
 between authors and artists, put all parties in bodily peril on 
 non-compliance? 
 
 That so glaring an impediment to the progress of what are 
 emphatically called the polite arts, should be found in the 
 seats of classic lore, and where (at Cambridge) a statue of 
 Ceres is shown, believed to be the same described by Pausa- 
 nias, argues less the predominance of a real interest and good 
 taste, than an awkward affectation in these "halls of grey 
 renown." The literati we have brought forward are probably 
 shy of claiming fellowship with their brethren at Aberdeen, 
 whose degraded spirit, which disposed them to pocket the best 
 price to be got for a gift they could not enjoy a present never 
 designed for an article of traffic, gave occasion for some re- 
 marks from the Bishop of London (in Parliament) on the 
 absurd and unequal pressure of this impost. ' Eleven copies/ 
 said his Lordship, 'were to be given, whether a work was 
 ' worth one guinea, or ten; so that a publisher who printed one 
 ' thousand copies of a work which sold for one guinea, had to 
 ' pay only eleven guineas out of one thousand ; whereas another, 
 ' who might publish only one hundred copies of a work worth 
 ' ten guineas, had to pay a tax of one hundred and ten guineas, 
 'out of the same sum of one thousand.' The distinguished 
 Prelate also stated that he considered the sum (500) intended 
 to be paid to the College of Aberdeen, to be too great, as he 
 knew that some of the Colleges would accept of 300 for re- 
 linquishing the right.* 
 
 * The eleven copies claimed under the Act, are two at London, by 
 the British Museum (on large paper) and Sion College ; two in Edin- 
 burgh, by the University and the Advocate's Libraries ; two in Dublin, 
 by Trinity College and the King's Inns; one goes to the Bodlean Library 
 at Oxford, and the other four to the Universities of Cambridge, Aberdeen, 
 Glasgow and Perth. In the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1832, 
 page 160, are some interesting observations on this subject; concluding 
 with a recommendation that the eleven copies should be reduced to three
 
 266 APPENDIX. NO. 10. 
 
 Which were the Colleges that emulated the one of Aberdeen, 
 by illustrating the maxim in Hudibras, 
 
 what's the value of a thing 
 
 But so much money as 'twill bring? 
 
 we do not know; but the Principals, if not distinguished by 
 their abilities in the Professor's chair, were clever at a bargain. 
 Like Wolsey's list of his costly plate, it is enough to spoil 
 the breakfast of those graduates whose humanity would recoil 
 at the idea of precluding artists, with numerous families, from 
 rinding employ in works too expensive to be got up consistently 
 with the heavy duty exacted in this obnoxious shape. Which 
 iiKikcs the motives of the gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge 
 extremely questionable, in delaying to take the lead in relin- 
 quishing a claim so injurious to men of letters in general, and to 
 he arts in particular, as is a copy of all new works, however 
 expensive. When we read, in the diurnal papers, that the 
 Dean and Chapter of Durham have parted with 94,000 of 
 their available property, in behalf of the University founded 
 there we are induced to ask, is there something in the air of 
 the northern English counties more favourable to manly and 
 liberal sentiments than that of the midland districts, where 
 Oxford and Cambridge are situated ? or how is this striking 
 contrast to be explained? 
 
 in number, severally for London, Edinburgh and Dublin, which the 
 Editor supposes would satisfy authors and publishers but we apprehend 
 it would not those persons concerned in prints, often expensively en- 
 graved and tinted, and which, though having letter-press explanations, 
 are no ways books in the sense contemplated by the original grant. 
 
 BKELTON, PRINTER, MARKET-PLACE, GRIM8BY. 
 
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