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no. 1.
APPENDIX.
121
proving nothing, and the third decided in my favour.[1] Further proof of the Watch having succeed-
- ↑ The current reason assigned for the non-payment of the reward after the trial to Jamaica, which had proved so successful, was that the Longitude of that Island was not sufficiently known. This was not disavowed at head quarters,[subnote 1] although, if admitted, it compromised the integrity of those who directed proceedings with a knowledge of that uncertainty, and yet construed it as a nullity of his claim. But the Longitude of Jamaica had been correctly determined by a transit of Mercury, on October 25th, 1743, given in the Philosophical Transactions; which having been communicated to Lord Anson, was laid before the (mathematical) Commissioners above a month previous to the trial: but by them appears to have been disregarded; a reason for which flighty tokens the Candidate's Journal indirectly discloses, viz. that the paper alluded to, on the transit, was by Mr. James Short, F. R. S. and then (1761) a member of the Council, who, from certain
- ↑ The refusal of a check on the computations, and the doubts respecting the Longitude of Jamaica, were not the only resources of the Lunar party, for Dr. Maskelyne, in his answer to the younger Mudge, takes occasion to say, that the reason of the trial to Jamaica being unsatisfactory, was that the Candidate had not given in a rate of going for the Timekeeper. But upon turning to the Instructions for the Voyage, it is found they are wholly silent on this point—leaving a very dishonourable inference: for if the previous rate of going was indispensably necessary to the claim, it is incredible that it was omitted in the Instructions by accident, or if it were, the injury in making him responsible for the consequences of such omission can never be got rid of.
a Merry Andrew, or some boy clever at bob cherry, than for a Secretary of the Admiralty, to wit.—The parties concerned in this awkward cross purpose, certainly exposed themselves to the reprehension of being told that debtor and creditor accompts; regular entries and balance sheets, are no more kept back in science than in trade, except in smuggling transactions, fraudulent bankruptcies and affairs of similar repute.
