Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/248

NO. 1 Friends, and for shewing that the cause which they from public spirited motives had the goodness to espouse, was not unworthy of their patronage.

JOHN HARRISON.

Red-Lion-Square, June 23, 1767.





Sir,

Finding it impossible to obtain justice from the Board of Longitude, and therefore vain to hold any further intercourse with it, I am emboldened to make this last effort for preserving the benefit of my Father's Invention to this country; requesting a few minutes of your attention; and if I durst flatter myself that you could with propriety lay my case before His Majesty, I should have no doubt but the nation would be relieved from the imputation of violated faith, and that an Invention so important to science, to commerce and to naval greatness, would still find a Protector.

Impelled by the irresistible bent of his genius, my Father (in a remote part of the country, and under circumstances most unfavourable) had for many years devoted himself to the improvement of clock-work, before he even knew of the existence of a reward for discovering the Longitude; and so long ago as