venient that the President should read, previously to the award of any medals or to the decision of any other important subjects, the statutes relating to them. He might perhaps propitiate their attention to them, by stating, how much it importeth to the consistency of the Council to be acquainted with the laws on which they are about to decide.
If those who have been conversant with the internal management of the Council, would communicate their information, something curious might perhaps be learned respecting a few of these medals. Concerning those of which I have had good means of information, I shall merely state—of three of them—that whatever may have been the official reasons for their award, I had ample reasons to convince me of the following being the true causes:—
First.—A medal was given to A, at a peculiarly inappropriate time—because he had not had one before.
Second.—Subsequently a medal was given to B, in order to destroy the impression which the award of the medal to A had made on the public the preceding year.
Third.—A medal was given to C, "because we think he has been ill used."
