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[Page 3]
The Answer of Mr Thomas Earnshaw to the 'Protest' of Sir Joseph Banks Baronet against the Resolutions of the Honorable the Members of the Board of Longitude, made on the third and seventeenth days of March one thousand eight hundred and three, whereby they voted to Mr Earnshaw the sum of Two thousand five hundred pounds as a Reward for the superior Excellence of his Time Keepers, and for which votes Sir Joseph was then one of the Most Strenuous Advocates.
It is not my intention in examining Sir Joseph Banks's protest to lessen the Merit he possesses of being desirous of applying the Public Monies with a Judicious Hand but when on reading his said Protest I see him strenuously opposing his Brother Commissioners - Men who from their great abilities and knowledge of the Subject are eminently qualified for the Situation they hold and who had voted me a reward they were pleased to think my Merits deserved - but when I reflect on the known Character of Sir Joseph Banks, on the grounds on which the protest is drawn up and which I must know to be unjust and illiberal, and compare the vague Ideas and the Language with the Evidence which the Secretary to the Board (Mr Gilpin) gave before the Secret Committee of the House of Commons on the Petition of Mr Mudge, in one thousand seven hundred and ninety three I am in my own mind clear, that the opposition to my having the reward has its origin from that Gentleman and this I think will be manifest to any one who will give himself the trouble of comparing the protest with the Evidence of Mr Gilpin published in the printed report of the Select Committee - wherefore I shall in the following observations make use of the Word Protestor instead of Sir Joseph Banks as I am sure had he been thoroughly acquainted with the Subject and given it that attention and consideration it professes, he would not have suffered his name to be affixed where it now stands.
The Author of the Protest says he has examined with diligence and attention to find whether my Time Keepers are superior to others, and to prove they are not superior, he has published the going of only four Time Keepers of Arnolds out of the many hundreds he has made. Three of those four were tried only by Arnolds intimate and interested Friends, tried only on shore, and not tried by authority, and compared them with only two of mine which were tried by authority. Surely the Protestor ought to have taken notice of the many Certificates of the going of my Time Keepers which I sent to the Board, and which had been tried both on shore and at Sea, and in the longest Voyages, and likewise tried by orders of the Admiralty, not by intimate and interested Friends as Arnolds were but by the following respectable persons, Admiral Lord Gardner, Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour, Admiral Berkeley, Admiral Parker, Earl Spencer, Lord Garlies, Captains Bligh, Nancouver, Western, Baker, Broughton, and Flinders, all of the Royal Navy, and Captains Simpson, Gray, Palmer, Studd, Luard,