opportunity of proving by experiment for want of my models) the expense may be reduced to about 70 or £80.[1]
- ↑ It might have been supposed, that on reading this (if the supposition is conceded) the Commissioners would have become sensible of the ignorant presumption of the P. R. S. who was leading them a course the most opposite that could be conceived to the public interest; for it neutralized the great abilities of John Harrison, and rendered them useless for a purpose by far the most important to which they could be directed.—They should have procured a strait waistcoat for their Manager, if there was no other way to deal with him; and lost no time in getting his own bill (as he called it) repealed, if that was necessary. The same promptitude (unless they were wholly indifferent to the contempt of posterity, should have been shown in restoring to him the advantage (for it was the advantage of the country too) of frequently inspecting his former models in prosecuting his new works, which they had been purposely informed was his custom, and which none but a consummate blockhead would have deprived him of: for so would Swift have written, and so we believe George 3rd said, judging from his resentment at the general tenor of their conduct.
dients for brining his Invention into use, would have given no occasion for the meeting of bankers and merchants and shipowners, to complain that nothing had been done, was placed under the imperative control of— an ignoramus, we would say, though we are not wanting in respect for the Royal Society. He had given irrefragable proofs of being deficient in common sense, by having required the Candidate to make bricks without straw, in figurative language, or in plain truth, to employ workmen without having wherewithal to pay them: taking due caution, albeit, not to advance him a bodle out of his own pocket. The Claimant, as is seen above, gives it as his opinion that
