engagements are may be seen below.[1] The new Act, as I have already observed, did not determine
- ↑ 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.
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 subject;[subnote 1] whose Manager, thus compelled, 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 admitted 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.
- ↑ 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.
