Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/41

xxxiv yet be would have waived this discrepancy, had there not been other circumstances connected with it, too momentous to be overlooked. For haying been instructed by their late Manager to hold the teazing, the disheartening and insiduous uncertainty over his head, they refused to say whether such trial, however favourable the result, would be satisfactory: and as this was a direct contravention of the implied compact between him and the legislature, when he set to work (about his thirty-third year) which had always led him and the Commissioners, till Lord Morton took his seat among them, to consider the reward, in the event of a successful trial to the West Indies, as much his own as any other property that might be formally conveyed; it could not be expected he should acquiesce in his labours being rendered as interminable (at his great age) as his personal enemies might chuse to dictate. Yet neither did that forcible objection fully show the gist and bearing of this disgraceful business—which was, that ten months of the trial they required were to be under the especial superintendence of the Astronomer Royal, whom of all men he regarded as his mortal enemy: whether correctly, or otherwise, we need not stop to enquire; when it appears that Dr. Maskelyne though unable to reply to the diminutive octavo given herewith, and suffering judgment to go against him by default, was relieved by his party from "the slough of despond:" who were not ashamed to enable him,