words" of his authorities, evidently uses his own. It is desirable that this peculiarity of " ornamenting everything he touches" (and I wish his license extended no farther) should not be overlooked.

I will now state the real circumstances of the case, and in more detail than I could well do, vivâ voce, at the meeting of the Visitors (when I was so unexpectedly called upon), or at the Royal Society, where my condensed defence was so irregularly stopped.

It is known to several members of the Board that I have in my time paid considerable attention to astronomical instruments and, indeed, was even a sort of authority-until my excellent friend, the Astronomer Royal, took the wind out of my sails. I was particularly smitten with the principle of repetition; and after having purchased a Borda's circle by Troughton (which introduced me to his acquaintance), I was most anxious to obtain a Borda's reflecting circle by him. I soon discovered that from Mr. Troughton nothing could be got, and least of all an instrument the principle of which he disliked. In this dilemma, I saw a favourable account, by Sir Thomas Brisbane, of the performance of a circle of reflexion by Jecker of Paris; and, as a friend was going to Paris, in the winter, I believe, of 1823, I requested him to procure me a circle of Jecker's and to get Troughton's name engraved upon it, so as to pass our Customs without duty, and without causing him delay or trouble. This was done, and the instrument, I am pretty sure, left by him at Troughton's shop in Fleet Street, to have the inscription erased, and to be adapted to the stand of a British circle which Troughton had recently sold me. It is most probable that the officers at Dover had their attention drawn to the erroneous inscription by the commissioner, and so passed it; but I can say nothing about this of my own knowledge.

I own that I am now heartily ashamed of this transaction, although everybody smuggled in those days, directly or indirectly.* The absurdity and injustice of our fiscal laws were self-evident, and, consequently, few felt bound to obey them. To me, then a student in the Temple (being, as I was already, a freetrader of the first water, and not favourably disposed towards the financial arrangements of an unreformed house), the duty on astronomical instruments was particularly ridiculous, the article being as little likely to be imported into England from France, in those days, as coals into Newcastle. I should be surprised if the duties on astronomical instruments imported from France into England in ten years from the peace, amounted to as many shillings. The duty, like some others, must have been imposed merely to complete the symmetry of the stupid system of protection, now happily disappearing; and had not the poor merit of the laws compelling burials in woollen and the use of metal buttons: there were no imports on which it could be levied.

I had, besides, my own grievances against the Customs, as I sup* At that time Bandana handkerchiefs were contraband; yet every gentleman, as Mr. Hume remarked in the House, had a bandana in his pocket, from Mr. Speaker downwards.

pose most persons had who travelled thirty years ago. From a mistake in form, I had some time before paid the duty upon a Geneva watch according to the price paid at Geneva, and not, as the law is, on the value assigned; a difference which, in this case, amounted to several pounds. Another time, returning through Brighton, my party and myself were detained several hours in a passage of the Custom-house, while a select portion of the Brighton unwashed was gathered round the doorway; and this because the officer had no competent acquaintance with his duty,* and could not get through his work.

The law being ridiculous and ill-administered and enacted by an unreformed parliament, I leaned, I fear, to the doctrines of my Cambridge fellow-student, "Alein, the clerk":

66 For, John, ther is a lawe that saieth thus,
That if a man in o point be agreved,
That in another he shal be releved."

I looked, perhaps, upon smuggling as a sort of "reprisals" on an
enemy. Whether the idea of putting a false mark to mislead the
officers was suggested by my Brighton experience of their stupi-
dity, or by a common practice of traders, or by a wish to triumph
over the ignorance of the searchers (the deception was so gross as
to give me that sort of satisfaction), I cannot now recollect; I
rather think that a wish to spare Mr.
any delay or trouble
in paying the duty was my real motive. The duty itself, on a
proper estimation of the instrument, could not have exceeded
fifty shillings or three pounds.

I shall scarcely be held to justify this transaction now; as I said before, I am heartily sorry for it. I admit that silly and oppressive laws must be obeyed so long as they continue to be laws; and though, in point of fact, the evasion of such laws has generally been the efficient cause of their removal, I allow that the only proper mode of proceeding is to press earnestly and peaceably for their abolition, obeying them meanwhile. It is not enough to say that the maker of the bad law is more to blame than the breaker. That is true; yet the general principle of obedience to law is one too valuable to be broken, in any case, unless where a positively wrong act is commanded to be done. Happily our reforms in the last thirty years have tolerably reconciled our laws with common sense and common fairness; but I ask, and have a right to ask, to be judged by the ordinary practice thirty years ago, when the occurrence took place.

* The officer, who had been a clerk in the Customs, suggested to the Board that the clerks were more numerous than necessary. On inquiry this was found to be true, and the reduction extended to himself; as a compensation, he was sent to Brighton as a searcher. This I learnt afterwards from Commissioner R-. So ignorant was this person of his duty, that I was forced to ask him for the tariff, and to teach him the difference between things contraband and those paying duty. He would have charged, but for my interference, a poor French mechanic for three or four books printed in England. Some trifling things were stolen from us on this occasion by the lower officials, but no redress could be had.

After this confession I may be allowed to say how restitution was made. Some years later, I imported a theodolite from Munich, and applied to the Treasury to have it free of duty. The reply not coming as early as I expected, and the Customs officers assuring me that leave would not be granted, I paid the duty. A few days afterwards I received permission to bring in my circle duty free, and applied to the Custom-house for repayment; but the refunding what had been once received, was so repugnant to the usages of the establishment, that I gave it up. As the Munich circle was worth the Jecker's circle at least thrice over, I consider the Customs to have been no losers by me.

I have already mentioned that the instrument was delivered directly by Mr. to Troughton, and I am as certain of this as I can be of anything which I don't positively recollect. I am sure it did not pass previously through my hands. I remember, most distinctly, that I learned from Troughton's own mouth, how Jecker had executed my commission of engraving his name. There was no need of erasure, he said, for Jecker had engraved his own name and then screwed over it a small plate with his (Troughton's) name. He said, too, that the work was better than the French work he had formerly seen (I am pretty sure we had not then heard of Gambey, and that Troughton alluded to Fortin's circles), but that he did not like well enough to adopt it as his own.*

Now this is all that passed between Troughton and myself on this matter, I am positive; and as I am sure he never said knowingly anything that was untrue, I assert that the additions with which Sir James has garnished my simple story are the coinage of his own "base and bitter" imagination. I had nothing to do personally with the introduction of the instrument. I never applied to Troughton to procure me false evidence (he was certainly one of the last men to apply to in such a case) nor to any one else, nor did I take any step to procure the admission of the instrument, either by myself or through any other person, beyond what I have already stated. I give the most flat and positive contradiction to Sir James's "recollections ;" and if I do not repeat the still more offensive word which escaped from me when I first heard from Mr. Babbage what I am charged with, it is because I don't know the mental state of Sir James at the time he published this story. He might

"Like one

Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,"-

* As an illustration of the proverb "Cheating never thrives," I may mention that this unlucky circle was immediately seen to be unfit for the delicate purposes for which I designed it, and I am not sure that I ever made an observation with it. Some years afterwards, it was pulled to pieces in order to use the limb for a heliostat; and I believe that, for the last twenty years, if in existence at all, it has formed a part of the lumber of Mr. Simms's factory.

really have believed in 1852 what he had no suspicion of in 1824, nor some years later.

To gentlemen who know me and Sir James South, I, perhaps, need not say any more; he asserts, and I deny,―utri creditis Romani. But I will propose to Sir James a few inconsistencies, and I will trouble him or his ally, Mr. Babbage, to clear them up.

He says, and I suppose Mr. Babbage believes him (we are all agreed, I fancy, to grant implicit credit to Troughton), that I proposed to Troughton to lend me a man to declare the circle of British origin, which Troughton most indignantly refused.* He also says that Troughton, "a few days afterwards," repeated this fit of virtuous indignation; but now, in the presence of the offensive circle, which was quietly occupying a place in Troughton's shop. Though Sir James does not tell his story very clearly, the meaning must be, that I applied to Troughton (the circle being in limbo) to assist me to liberate it by a false oath, that he most indignantly refused, that I then got it out myself by making a false declaration, personally or by proxy, and then sent it to Troughton as if nothing disagreeable had happened; that he took it in with the same nonchalance, reserving to himself the privilege of venting his indignation in big words to Sir James South. It is now many years since Troughton died, but some of the gentlemen I am addressing may remember enough of him to judge whether he could have acted thus inconsistently and weakly. I ask, too, whether such an imputation on Troughton can be rendered probable by such a witness as Sir James South, twenty-eight years afterwards?

In addition to these inconsistencies, I think people who know me will not find any compatibility between the language said to have been used to me and my subsequent conduct. I certainly never was addressed in any such terms as those which, according to Sir James, were applied to me by Troughton; but I think, though not very implacable, I should have given a very wide berth indeed, for the future, to the man who had used such language to me.

An account of the subsequent relations between Troughton and myself will, I think, throw still further discredit on Sir James South's late recollections, and show that he has put words into his "old friend's" mouth, which his old friend would no more have uttered" than he would have bitten off his tongue," if I may be allowed to adopt Sir James's style.

I am pretty positive, from a number of circumstances, that Jecker's circle was introduced into this country early in 1824. I suppose, therefore, the date of the reported conversations was about February that year, not long before Sir James South took up his temporary residence in France. One of Sir James's

* I go further: my vigorous and high-spirited old friend would have kicked any one out of his shop who had made such a dishonourable and insulting proposal; and would have repeated the process, toties quoties, if the scoundrel who made it had shown himself there again.

favourite projects was to induce his "revered friend "-his "almost second parent"-to visit him in the summer of the same year, only a few months after the imaginary conversations. Is it not somewhat strange-or, rather, would it not be strange, if Sir James's story were true-that Troughton would only consent to pay this visit, on condition I would accompany him and take him in charge? He was then about seventy, rather infirm, very deaf, and not speaking or understanding a word of French. I am certain that Sir James South himself very strongly pressed me to undertake this journey, and I am almost certain that I was invited to take up my abode with him at Passy. Troughton and I did accordingly journey together most amicably to Paris and back again; and so satisfied was he with his companion, that, on a later occasion, he refused to go to Oxford, unless I would again escort him, which I did.

As Troughton and I could not see St. Denis on our return, on account of the funeral ceremonies of Louis XVIII.-as I remember, moreover, my disgust at being compelled to get a black suit for the general mourning (Sir James kindly recommending the tailor)—I can date our visit very nearly; it must have been about the end of September 1824.*

After our return from Paris (Troughton smuggled three or four bandanas for me, which, as he took snuff, was a convenience to both), Troughton got my consent to propose me for the Astronomical Society. I was proposed November 12, 1824, elected January 14, 1825, and immediately placed on the Council, February 11, 1825, most probably on his representation. I have been asked

if Sir James signed my certificate; he did not; he was then residing at Passy.† It is, perhaps, a better mark of the value Troughton set upon me that he introduced me to his very dear friend, the late Astronomer Royal, Mr. Pond, whose confidence I may say I possessed, and tried to deserve.

That Troughton's regard for me did, in some respects, go

* I will here add a trifling circumstance, which, to some minds, may have a little weight. Though Sir James was in England shortly before our visit, he was unreasonable enough to ask Troughton to carry over a pointer, instead of taking it himself. I should have declined such a troublesome commission; but Troughton had accepted it, and the dog was in his keeping before I knew anything of the matter. As he assured me the dog knew him, I gave an unwilling assent, and Dido with her basket was strapped on our carriage. But the dog neither knew him, nor anything, nor anybody else, and gave me infinite trouble and anxiety on the road. Now as Sir James must have known the unfitness of Troughton to take care even of himself, and, therefore, that the dog must fall entirely to my charge, is the liberty he took with me in harmony with the conversations which are supposed to have occurred only a few months before?

+ I have been asked whether Sir James South signed my certificate as a candidate for the Royal Society. He did not, neither did Baily or Pond (both of whom were members of the Council that year), or Troughton. It is clear I could have asked no one, as these names are omitted. I should never have applied to Sir James in any case, but at the date of my certificate, Jan. 14, 1830, he had been (as President of the Astronomical) under my guardianship for nearly a year. He was, moreover, at this time in bad odour with the Royal Society, though the Thirty-nine Charges were not printed till some months later.