for ten months, and then be sent for two months on board a ship in the Downs; and all this I am required to submit to, without the least shadow of assurance on their part, that they will be satisfied with this trial, let it answer ever so well, or that I shall thereby be brought at all the nearer receiving what is due to me, although (independent of making the Watches) it must necessarily employ one whole year of mine or my Son's time, in superintending an examination, which, after all, can only prove that I, who have made one machine, can make another like it; and the point of general practicability, about which so much stir is affected to be made, would not be one jot advanced beyond what it is at present.
I cannot help begging the reader will here allow me to add a remark or two upon the general practicability of my Invention, as that is how said to be the only thing that was in dispute between the Commissioners and me, and that they only wanted to be satisfied as to this point. In order to clear it up then, I will submit to the public to determine whether the general use and practicability of my Invention can, in the nature of things, be attacked, unless under one of these three following heads:
1. That a Timekeeper, however perfect, is an insufficient means of ascertaining the Longitude at sea.[1]
- ↑ This was the uniform assumption of that party at the Board of Longitude who were not periodically, like Endymion,
