And if any of these workmen have
been so ingenious as to have got my invention, how far you may
please to reward them for their piracy must be left for you to
determine; and I must set myself down in old age, and thank God I
can be more easy in that I have the conquest, and though I have
no reward, than if I had come short of the matter and by some
delusion had the reward!"
The Right Honourable the Earl of Egmont was in the chair of the
Board of Longitude on the day when this letter was read--June 13,
1765. The Commissioners were somewhat startled by the tone which
the inventor had taken. Indeed, they were rather angry. Mr.
Harrison, who was in waiting, was called in. After some rather
hot speaking, and after a proposal was made to Harrison which he
said he would decline to accede to "so long as a drop of English
blood remained in his body," he left the room. Matters were at
length arranged. The Act of Parliament (5 Geo. III. cap. 20)
awarded him, upon a full discovery of the principles of his
time-keeper, the payment of such a sum, as with the 2500L. he had
already received, would make one half of the reward; and the
remaining half was to be paid when other chronometers had been
made after his design, and their capabilities fully proved. He
was also required to assign his four chronometers--one of which
was styled a watch--to the use of the public.
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