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APPENDIX.
NO. 1.
me (offering security for it if required) for the sake of employing other workmen to make the different parts by model, with quicker dispatch,[1] and in order
- ↑ 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 particular 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 Commissioners) 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 themselves, without enquiry, to abet the personal animosity of that
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.
