Johan Horrins

“ There is no other rank in life that can be so generally defined, because there is no other order of men who are framed so much alike, and have such a sameness in so many respects. If we contemplate this Monarch as a private Gentleman, divested of the cares of state, and of the anxieties of a large family but endowed with an ample fortune, would he not son have found his place and class with the Hanways and the Howards of that period? ”

“ If the various casualities in life should place oppressed genius, of either sex, within the reach of his sustaining hand, let him carry the ever honoured merits of George 3rd as an amulet, worn in imagination, to refresh and stimulate him to a conduct above all praise in this state of being, and an accredited passport to the mansions of the blessed. ”

“ The Physician has intercourse with affliction, with pain, with death; his voice is naturally attuned to mildness and gentleness; his step is light and quiet; his face is susceptible of a look of sympathy; he has to do with humanity in its feebleness, to listen to the complaints of the suffering, to bear with the moans of the distressed; it is part of his business to be and to look amiable; who can speak unkindly to the dying? A brute of a Doctor must be a brute indeed! ”

“ Now we assert that whoever knew John Harrison, would immediately have said, that no consideration on earth could have tempted him to arrive at the same point of recompense through those hateful scenes in which he had to contend with such objectionable characters as any man becomes who is not ashamed to sit in judgment on his own cause—an oppression from which this worthy citizen, as well as scientific and enterprising genius, was finally relieved only by the interference of George 3rd. ”

“ This most ingenious and able mechanic, who has spent above forty years of an industrious and valuable life in search of this great discovery—and has discovered it; who has, according to the verdict of the whole mechanical world, done more than ever was expected—and even gone beyond the line drawn by that Act of Parliament, in consequence of which he undertook the work; this man is now, at the age of fourscore, to have his legal right withheld from him, by adhering to an Act which stands between him and his reward. ”

“ The power of the Commissioners, as such, being superior to that of the crown, their proceedings being cognizable only by Parliament, the individuals, alluded to, could indulge their private animosity under a public pretext, as Lord Morton had done before them; yet it can scarcely be supposed they would take their zest of revenge with so little regard to decency, that in aiming a knock-down blow at the aged Claimant, they were indifferent if it drew blood into the cheeks of his extraordinary friend and adviser. ”

“ It was only the protection extended to John Harrison by his Sovereign, that enabled him at length to cut this Gordian knot. The whole conduct of the Lunar party, and of the northern Peer, furnishes an impressive lesson, of the revolting consequences to be expected, when any set of men are entrusted with arbitrary power without any enquiry into the probable perversion of it to the purposes of clashing interests, or of unextinguishable animosity. ”

“ Croker, for detecting the latent source of what is called one of the Doctor's prejudices [2] —much too mild a term, we opine, for the slanderous aspersion of a whole class of public functionaries, certainly entitled to the same protection as—a Secretary of the Admiralty, to wit. It gives but a humiliating view of human nature, when so learned and intellectual a man as Dr. Johnson reduces himself to a level with the illiterate mass, whose prejudices are excusable because they have not his discriminating judgment to be enabled to shake them off. ”

“ To do this, it is not necessary that a Watch should perform its revolutions precisely in that space of time which the Earth takes to perform her's; it is only required that it should invariably perform it in some known time, and then the constant difference between the length of the one revolution and the other, will appear as so much daily gained or lost by the Watch, which constant gain or loss, is called the rate of its going, and which being added to or deducted from the time shewn by the Watch, will give the true time, and consequently the difference of Longitude. ”

“ A NOTE ON JUNIUS AND WOLCOT.
What would Junius, [1] who, whatever might be his rank or destination, was one of the proudest of men, have said, on finding himself assimilating so closely with such refuse as he would have deemed Wolcot? Yet these people who disgraced more than they did honour to the species, were from the same stock: the same ill blood runs in their veins. Junius suffered a malevolent spirit to suppress all regard for truth in too numerous instances; and Wolcot, in the vulgar phrase, would have lied with the devil for a bean-stack, and won it. ”

“ Sir, it is a disgrace to this nation, that a man who, as his petition sets forth, has spent forty years of a life of now fourscore, in studying and making so great a discovery as his watch most certainly is, should still remain without his reward, though he had the positive engagement of Parliament to depend on. ”

“ But here the Cromwell, or Protector, who by sufferance, trod on the necks of these rump Commissioners was only a consequential pretender, conspicuous for his affectation, and of such inordinate self-conceit, that no man could differ in opinion with him whom he was not disposed to think non compos. He was the cause that many of the advantages which might have been derived from the distinguished genius and prolonged life of John Harrison were lost to the world. ”

“ His illustrious patron was there, and, coming up, accosted him with his usual affability; enquiring after his health, his professional success, and—asking why he did not dance?—The artist being thus taken by surprise, scarcely knew what he said, but it purported that he had no right to mix with company so much above him. The Prince, over-ruling his diffidence, introduced him, as a partner, to a lady of quality. ”

“ That during the remaining eleven days in each month, when the Sun and Moon may, if the weather is clear be observed at the same time, no reliance can safely be placed upon the best instruments in the hand of the best observer for ascertaining the Longitude within the limits of the Act of Queen Anne; and consequently, that how valuable soever the Lunar tables may be for correcting a long dead reckoning, and thereby telling us whereabouts we are, when we are not afraid of falling in with the land, yet even during these eleven days, they do not extend to the security of ships near the shore. ”

“ That corporations will be guilty of a meanness and oppression which, individually, they would be perfectly ashamed of, or desire to be thought so, is not a new observation, but it is insufficient to explain the circumstances detailed; for whatever might be the opposition of the Lunar party to the success of the Timekeeper, or their hostility to the Mechanics, still it becomes difficult to believe that any set of public men could throw common humanity to the dogs, and equity to the devil, in this way ”

“ The Astronomer Royal argues as if he really had no apprehension of the disingenuous, crafty, and indefensible conduct he was imputing to his antagonist. He calls it prudence in John Harrison, to have, as be believes, contrived a machine which he knew would keep time within the nearest limits of the Act in a first, or second voyage, but not in a third or fourth; and falling into the everlasting error of selfish men, he measures the Claimant by bis own scale, although nothing could be more abhorrent to him than the villainous scheme (for so he calls it) which he was so strangely charged with. ”

“ Now, the exact time of the day at the place where we are, can be ascertained by well known and easy observations of the Sun if visible for a few minutes at any time from his being ten degrees high until within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon until he is only 10 degrees high in the afternoon; if therefore, at any time when such observation is made, a Timekeeper tells us at the same moment what o'clock it is at the place we sailed from, our Longitude is clearly discovered. ”

“ Even when they are qualified to avail themselves of the Astronomer's vigils in their behalf, they know what the occupant of Flamstead Hill, with invincible pertinacity, affected to conceal from himself,—that a clouded sky, or an unsteady vessel, may serve only to illustrate the precariousness of everything on earth, or in "the great sea-deeps." Waiving this, however, we remember the opinion of an experienced naval Officer; which was that the Tables might be of some use in long voyages, but not in short ones, because the voyage would be finished before the observations would. ”

“ So that, under such circumstances, to affect to stand on higher ground, as the Astronomer Royal actually does, and to allow only that Watches may be useful as an auxiliary to the method he practises; a concession which is thus demonstrated to be a contradiction in terms, could only excite the mirth of a Jack-tar; with whatever gravity it might be heard by the learned gownsmen in an Oxford, or a Cambridge, common room. Altogether a condescension so untoward becomes the bitterest irony on the Lunar recreant, the proofs of whose superiority never were forthcoming ”

“ But as the name of this physician, however respectable, was seldom heard of in the provinces, his reputation being confined to the metropolis (unlike that of Mr. Abernethy and Sir Henry Halford) it would be a solecism to inscribe on his tomb—memoriæ sacræ eternam; which, though rather hyperbolical, nobody would think misplaced on the cenotaph of a Jenner, a Watt, or a Davy. It will not, while our language lasts, be enquired who those men were; but, when the present generation has passed away, will not the fame of Dr. Babington depend more on the monument itself than on his professional merits ”

“ Will any person in these days say otherwise than that the common sense of the question plainly pointed out no time should be lost in adopting such measures as were best calculated to bring the Invention into use; yet the opinion of the only man equal to that absorbing desideratum was uniformly rejected by—Lord Morton; and when the importance of the circumstances is considered, it shows very remarkably how the vanity and weakness, or the revenge of an individual of rank, can frustrate without any enquiry, a national concern such as this was. ”

“ I leave the reader to judge of the practicability of making these observations from what follows:
To ascertain the Longitude by the Moon and a star, requires a distinct horizon to be seen in the night, which is next to impossible, and if you have not an horizon, the altitude of neither Moon nor star can be taken: it also requires (and this perhaps when a ship is in a high sea) the distance of the Moon and star, in order to come at which, the image of one of them must be reflected through a silvered glass, and the other seen through an unsilvered part of the same glass ”