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[Page 8]
not done that which in fact it had no right to demand of them to do, but if I did so the Law would soon bring me to reason. I despair not of finding equal Justice, and, if the Board render public Reward so very difficult to obtain what Mechanic will strive for it.
The Protestor admits that my Time Keepers have gone better than any others tried under the Terms of the Act, and as it had far excelled Mr. Mudge who had received three thousand pounds, I petitioned the Board for the same sum as Mr Mudge had received, and the Protestor himself was most earnest in the vote of that Sum to me, although he now asks if it would be a wise measure to give so great a reward - surely he should have thought of this before the vote was made, in that case it would have saved the Board and myself fifteen months trouble, and himself the trouble of opposing his own vote and entering his Protest against the opinion of the whole Board, arraigning the Judgment of his Fellow Commissioners, whose Talents he allows to be great (though not so great as his own.) From this it appears that I am highly bound in gratitude to the rest of the Board for their impartial Justice towards me, and when the power and influence of so great a Man as the Protestor is set in action against a single labouring Mechanic his cause must be very strong and clear indeed, to get the better of an Antagonist so high and mighty as the Protestor is. Justice and the Force of a Mechanism will bear me out as will appear in the Model I have made by Order of the Board.
The Protestor asks the Commissioners if it would be wise to vote me so large a Reward as Three thousand Pounds. I ask Common Sense, Common Justice, as well as Common Policy if it would be wise to refuse me that which the Board has voted me in two deliberate Resolves, which gives me as strong a Claim to it as though I had received it, and the Protestor might with the same propriety sue me for the five hundred pounds I have received as withhold from me the two thousand five hundred pounds twice voted, because withholding from me declares me to the World as an Imposter. In this Case my reputation is assassinated, and the honor of the Board called in question, and in this way, the Boar would become the Prosecutor of Mechanics instead of the Encourager of them. What Mechanic is there, who hears my Tale, would not shun my Fate. The Book of Improvements opened by the Immortal Newton will be for ever shut, had he been my Judge how different would have been the Judgment.
If instead of the opposition made against me by the Protestor he had given me that encouragement which the going of my Time Keepers instilled me to, and represented them to the Lords of the Admiralty how useful and certain they were in preventing Ships from taking a wrong course no doubt but his Majesty's Ships would, from such representation have been furnished with them at least, all the Admirals and Captains Ships sent out as Convoys. In that Case