On the subject of the first I much wish for your opinion whether the author may be considered a proper person to receive your medal next year; and, if not, who you think a more deserving candidate?
Be so good as to deliver the 'Nautical Almanac' to M. Delambre with my best regards, and to assure the Institute that I shall never forget the various favours I have in my literary character received from them or those which literary people, my friends, have received from them on my account. I honour and respect them both as a body and as individuals more than ever, and look forward with earnest wishes for the time when I may again communicate with them freely, as I once had the happiness of doing. I have received their medallic diplomas for Mr. Cavendish, Dr. Maskelyne, Dr. Herschel, and myself, and will distribute them without delay. Pray remind them, however, that Mr. James Forbes, F.R.S., is still a prisoner among them; though an old man, possibly he does not wish to return home, as his daughter has married into a French family. Possibly other insurmountable obstacles have prevented his release, as the Institute have so nobly and handsomely proved their wish that the Fellows of the Royal Society should be restored to their pursuits of science.
From the tone of your letter it appears to me that you are likely to take root in the soil in which you now grow. I am sorry that you did not return to England, as you gave me every reason to expect you would, last year. Your house at Brompton is an inadequate pledge of your future residence here, as experience has confirmed me in believing.
In the meantime the Institution has irrevocably fallen into the hands of the enemy, and is now perverted to a hundred uses for which you and I never intended it. I could have successfully resisted their innovations had you been here, but, alone, unsupported, and this year confined to my house for three months by disease (gout), my spirit was too much broken to admit of my engaging singly with the host of H.'s and B.'s[26] who had possession of the fortress. Adieu, then, Institution! I have long ago declared my intention of attending no more.
You desire that Davy may have your papers for insertion in the Journals. Alas! the Journals have ceased for more than a year, and the printing office is removed from the house of the Institution. Your papers, however, shall be communicated to him, as they have already been to Sir Charles Blagden.