Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/215

158 2. That such information has not been given as will enable other workmen to make other attracted by the phases of the Moon, but always finding reasons for preferring lunations to chronometry, which the immortal founder of their philosophy disapproved. It is indeed an extraordinary fact (rendered so by the conduct of his professed followers) that Sir Izaac, when examined at the bar of the House of Commons, placed an exact Timekeeper at the head of his list of the expedients by which the desired object would most probably be accomplished: but, he observes, "by reason of the motion of a ship, the variations of heat and cold, wet and dry, and the difference of gravity, such a watch had not been made."—It may be alleged that Professor Mayer's Tables were not known then, but they were at the time in reference, yet neither that scientific Officer, Captain Campbell, nor Dr. Maskelyne himself could show any thing conclusive for the safety of ships. Granting, we will say, that the ingenious Professor's Tables enabled the observer to overcome all difficulties for the time being, except in cloudy nights and an unsteady ship, yet as they could avail nothing towards setting aside the physical impossibilities arising from the Moon being accessible only during so limited a portion of her orbit (a consideration which Dr. Maskelyne, with invincible pertinacity affected to overlook all his life) we are fully justified in assuming that Sir Izaac, like Dr. Halley and Admiral Campbell, would never have been found appreciating this method higher than its practical merits deserved.—We repeat, therefore, and (bating small powers) we would have repeated with a loud voice to the Lunar mathematicians at the Board of Longitude, that they were diametrically opposed to the opinion of their founder, in a question on which no considerate person could be silent, for it involved the safety of thousands of lives and millions of property.

Had this discrepancy been confined to speculative dogmas, it might not have been worth bestowing paper and ink on,