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[Page 6]
them with a single watch tried by an indifferent Person whose former Statements were found to be erroneous. Had this been done a most decided Superiority indeed would have been then seen in my favor, and if the Protestor says he did not recollect the two watches of Mr. Emery's tried at Greenwich by authority, what then becomes of his diligence and attention.
When Mr. Emery's Time keepers were under Trial by authority I then said to Doctor Maskelyne that it was wasting time to try such machines and that I then had a Time keeper just come home from a long East India Voyage, Dirty as it then was, it would beat Mr. Emery's which was then clean, in the best condition, and then under Trial for the Premium, at which the Doctor seemed angry, but I prevailed on him to try my Time keeper and at the end of twelve months its error from mean was time only 1'.56", allowing no rate, and which is allowed to be the most rigorous method, and this error is within the strictest limits of the act which gives the reward of ten thousand pounds, and by the previous months rate, it likewise beat the Time keeper of Mr. Arnolds No. 36, set forth in the protest. The Protestor surely ought not to have suffered this to have escaped his diligence and attention, as he he sets his judgment so decidedly against that of the whole Board; and the following extraordinary Circumstance ought to have impressed it on his Memory. In consequence of the above watch having gone within the strictest limits of the Act, I petitioned the Board for some such Reward as others had received, who had not done so much. I received a Message from the Board by the Astronomer Royal that they were not authorized to give any Money on the going of one watch, that the Act demanded two watches to be tried at the same time, and that they had nothing to do with the going of a single watch. Here then to put me off from Reward the Protestor felt himself bound by the strict Letter of the Act and had nothing to do with any single watch but only with two tried by authority as the Act directs. Now after I have conformed to the Act and submitted two Time keepers to trial by authority, the Protestor to put me off from reward, says, he is not bound by the act to form his Judgment on the going of those tried by authority, and states the going of five watches four of which were tried by the Makers interested Friends, and thereby perverts his former Judgment. Those who read the Act will see, that the Board are authorized to give any sum they think proper under five thousand pounds on the going of one watch, and the Board well know that all the different Sums granted to Harrison, Arnold and Mudge were on the going of one watch - if the Protestor advised the Board to send me such a Message as above stated they surely are not very much obliged to him for it.
The Protestor laments that only two persons have submitted to the mode of Trial prescribed by the act. If he does not know that three persons have submitted to it, he ought not to talk of diligence and attention, and if the Terms of the Act are hard the Board made them so, as they drew up those Terms, and that they are hard was acknowledged by the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to try Mr, Mudges Case who