pillars of society renders it impossible for her to act without resting on them; and it is because she thus acts, that the King of kings has vouchsafed to give her wisdom and power to overcome the united effort of the surrounding nations, to whom she stands, and will, I trust, remain, a bright example.
In presenting my Method, after having received the negative just stated, I must necessarily feel diffident: but my diffidence arises from the high respect and deference due to the rank and talent of the Board of Longitude; and not, in any measure, from an apprehension of any material error in my Method; for it has not been until I had spent many years in inquiry and observation, and in examining the highest works of our own countrymen as well as those of most other nations, that I have ventured to meet the public on principles, which certainly have never before been presented to the world in the manner in which I apply them; for though the phenomena of nature, hitherto existing, cannot be new; yet the mode of applying those phenomena to practical purposes admits of endless variety: and, as I stand on the undeviating laws ordained by the Almighty, I well know the efficiency of my Method; and that conviction leads me to conclude, that the simple guise in which the outline of my Method appeared, or a press of important business, was the cause why the Board of Longitude omitted all inquiry, of me, into my Method, which is now presented in a more expanded form; not, however, with the presumptuous intention of controverting the opinion of the Board of Longitude, but because I conceive my Method is efficient, and that, if it be found so, it must prove a very high acquisition to the greatest maritime people in the world—the British Public.
40, Philip Street, Kingsland Road.
