Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/100



reflection incidentally arising out of the preceding circumstances, to which, in parliamentary languge, it may be attached as a rider, is that, any political writer in search of a set off against "Wilkes and liberty," the popular cry of that period, had the curious document quoted been in his way, would have argued from it, that the privilges of the commonalty could be in no danger, unless from the licentious use of them, if these public men, the Commissioners of Longitude, to wit, could treat an indirect communication of the King's sentiments, on a subject of magnitude, with no more ceremony than they might have done a report from the Jockey Club, on some point connected with their motto, "the Devil take the hindmost"—The rashness of their conduct, considering his Majesty would send for the minutes of the Board, is the more extraordinary, as the Author has by him a copy of this memorial, and underneath, in the hand-writing of William Harrison, is his version of the affair, which, strange to say, is more favourable to the Commissioners than their own denunciation of the royal interference, and as follows—