Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/491

Rh present Master of the Rolls, and the present Judge of the Admiralty Court; and that our direction included some of the first merchants in the City, two or three Directors of the Bank of England, and about an equal number of India Directors.

The proposition made to me was that I should have the entire management of the concern as Director and Actuary, with a salary of 1,500l. a-year, and apartments in the establishment, with liberty to practise as an Actuary.

On consulting my friend the late Francis Baily, F.R.S., who had himself practised as an Actuary, he strongly advised me to accept the office. He assured me that the profit arising from private practice could scarcely be less than l,000l. a year, and would probably be much more.

Under these circumstances, I accepted the proposition. On examining the materials which existed for a Table of the value of lives, I found in one of the addresses of Mr. Morgan, the Actuary of the Equitable, materials with which to construct, by the aid of various calculations, a very tolerable Table of the actual mortality in that Society. Upon this basis I calculated the Tables of our new Institution. After three months' labour, when the whole of the arrangements had been completed, and the day for our opening had been fixed, circumstances occurred which induced us to give up the plan. After the experience I had now had of the amount of time occupied by such an office, I was unwilling to renew the engagement with other parties. I hoped by great exertions to complete the Difference Engine after the lapse of a few years, and that I should not be allowed to become a serious loser by that course.

The Institution was therefore given up, and we each contributed about 100l. to discharge the expenses incurred.

Within the subsequent twelvemonth, an application to take