the influence of his station in aiding a President to stifle, without discussion, propositions recommended for consideration by some of the most highly gifted members of the Society, those who doubt the propriety of the principle may reasonably be pardoned for the disgust they must necessarily entertain for the practical abuse to which it leads.
Of the other three Commissioners, who received each a hundred a-year, although the nomination was, in point of form, in the Admiralty, yet it was well known that the President of the Royal Society did, in fact, always name them. Of these I will only mention one fact. The late Sir Joseph Banks assigned to me as a reason why I need not expect to be appointed, (as he had held out to me at a former period when I had spoken to him on the subject) that I had taken a prominent part in the formation of the Astronomical Society. I am proud of the part I did take in establishing that Society, although an undue share of its honour was assigned to me by the President.
It may, perhaps, be inquired, why I publish this fact at this distance of time? I answer, that I stated it publicly at the Council of the Astronomical Society;—that I always talked of it publicly and openly at the time;—that I pur-
