Mr. _Maskelyne_ then proceeds to give us an Account of the Watch’s going from Day to Day, which in his 15th Page he concludes thus: “From the foregoing Numbers it appears, that the Watch was getting from the very first near 20 seconds per day; a circumstance which is not my business to account for; but which, as it kept near mean Time in the Voyage to Barbadoes, seems to shew that the Watch cannot be taken to pieces and put together again without altering its Rate of going considerably, contrary to Mr. _Harrison_’s Assertions formerly.”
When I made the Discovery, upon Oath, of the Principles and Construction of the Watch, to six Gentlemen appointed by the Board of Longitude and to Mr. _Maskelyne_, (who insisted on having a Right to attend, as being a Commissioner) which Discovery was finished on the 22d Day of _August_, 1765, as appears by the annex’d Certificate,[2] the Watch then remained in my Hands, all taken to pieces: I little imagined the Board of Longitude would take it from me, as not conceiving any Use they could make of it; and having besides received Assurances from them, that they only wanted the formal Delivery of it, in compliance with the Terms of the new Law, without meaning to deprive me of the Use of it: I therefore went on making some experiments, and alter’d the Rate of its going, thereby to determine a Fact I wanted to be satisfied about. The Watch was under this Experiment the latter End of _October_, 1765, when upon receiving the Certificate for the Remainder of the first Moiety of my Reward, I was ordered to deliver it to the Board. My Son, attending with it, being asked if it was then as fit as before to ascertain the Longitude, reply’d in the Affirmative; for as I have before shewn, the _Rate of its going_, when once ascertained, does not prevent its keeping the Longitude. He was not asked the present Rate of its going, nor could he have answer’d with precision if he had, because we had not had Notice sufficient to determine that Point; but we did, at that Time, tell several of our Friends that it went about 18 or 19 Seconds a Day, _fast_, and we have at several Times since (without ever dreaming that this was to become a Point of public Discussion) had Occasion to mention the same Thing to several Members of Parliament, Commissioners of Longitude and other Gentlemen, insomuch that we did not believe any body was uninformed of it, who at all attended to the Business of the Longitude.