Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/189

132 proper to preclude me from, by a new law, passed at the instance of the Commissioners of Longitude, placing me too certainly under the discretion of the Commissioners and totally changing the terms on which the reward was to be given me; enacting that I should have half of it when I had disclosed the principles and construction of the machine, and assigned over for the use of the public the last made Timekeeper, together with the three others which were not so perfect as the last; and the other half when I should have made more Watches, without determining how many, and proved them to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, without defining the mode of trial. I frankly confess that from thenceforward I considered the second moiety of the reward as lost for ever. The first moiety I obtained, though it was with great difficulty, as the Act required me to