Page:A Letter on the Subject of the Cause (1797).djvu/81

 already public right. The matter of a Specification for ſuch a patent, was to give a fair deſcription of the improvement, and the nature and manner of its connection only with the ground work; if more was graſped at, or included than expreſſed, in the petition, ſuch a Specification was likewiſe a fraud on the public, and could not have his ſanction.

Thus I have laid before your Lordſhip, the opinions of theſe two eminent men, and although I may have ſtrayed a little in words, I am confident I have not in ſubſtance. I will now, with much ſubmiſſion, recite what I heard from your Lordſhip, as preciſely as I can, at Weſtminſter, on the cauſe Boulton and Watt verſus Bull.

After hearing the ſcraps of evidence I gave on that occaſion, as in the preſent inſtance, at a very late period of that long trial, and under diſadvantages nearly ſimilar to thoſe I have complained of on this, your Lordſhip remarked as follows.

I confeſs, ſaid your Lordſhip, that what has fallen from the laſt evidence (meaning myſelf) has very materially changed my ideas reſpecting the