PREFACE
v
which he appeared at the head of, would have supposed him a fit person to superintend the examination 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 colleagues and although goaded to it by some pointed remarks in a periodical of extensive circulation.[1]—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?[2] In another page, he is declared to be
- ↑ "The subject of this debate is undoubtedly of great importance 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 indefatigable labours, that we cannot but think it will be very incumbent 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 important end by means of a Timekeeper." Monthly Review for 1767.
- ↑ What can be thought of his assurance, when long subsequently he pretended, to the younger Mudge, that "there was
