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plain my invention upon oath, and the Commissioners were pleased to put into that oath, words of an indeterminate and unlimited meaning, and refused to explain them, or even permit me or my Son to ask what was meant by them.[1] 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 understood without it,[subnote 1] 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
- ↑ 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.
