Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/118

Rh periods many years before, to enable the Petitioner to prosecute his experiments.

It should be observed, that when the Candidate was assisted by the Commissioners, so far back as 1787 with an advance of money, in consequence of the recommendations he brought with him from scientific men of the first eminence, it was stipulated in behalf of the public, that such advances were to be regarded as loans to be thereafter included in the reward if he became entitled to it; and this was consonant to equity; nothing being said about a right of property in the work he should produce; but when the Machines he had constructed were claimed and taken possession of, under Lord Morton's Act, the case was totally altered. If any person should assist a mechanic with money to complete some works in hardware, and afterwards secure them to himself without leave of the maker, or enquiring his price, it would be universally held that the latter was exonerated from the original debt. This the either from the effects of education and habit, or of an original flaw in his mental conformation, was incapable of discerning,