s I f s v/aw ^UUM ^/rai- lVFPC/x "tfUJIIVJ JO .\\\E-UNIVERJ//i l i c linn* 11 v At Z&te- ^ ^ 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 fniMiatos<- 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 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- 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: tliivsidrnt, 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- '/-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 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.wy 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 , 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\xt2, 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, 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 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 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. Jirpaprr 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. it -- University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 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