by Samuel Smiles.
Originally published in Longman's Magazine (Longmans, Green & Co.) vol.1 #2 (Dec 1882).
At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, one of the most remarkable instruments is to be seen—the first chronometer, the parent of a numerous progeny of chronometers, used on board of every sea-going ship, to the advantage of navigation, of commerce, as well as of science. As far back as the reign of Queen Anne, in the year 1714, the English Government offered the large prize of 20,000l. to the person who should find the method of discovering the longitude at sea, within certain specified limits. The reward was offered to the world, to inventors and scientific men of all countries, without any restriction of nation, or race, or language. To the surprise of everyone—it was thought remarkable, and it was remarkable—the prize was won by a man who had been brought up as a village carpenter, of no school, or college, or university. But the truth is that the great mechanic, like the poet, is born, not made; and John Harrison, the winner of the famous prize, was a born mechanic. He did not, however, accomplish his object without the exercise of the greatest skill, patience, and perseverance. Indeed, his life, so far as we can ascertain the facts of it, is one of the finest examples of difficulties overcome, and of undaunted perseverance eventually crowned by success, in the whole range of biography.
No complete narrative of Harrison's career was ever written. Only a short notice of him appears in the 'Biographica Britannica,' published in 1766, during his lifetime,—the facts of which were obtained from himself. A few notices of him appear in the 'Annual Register,' also published during his lifetime. But no Life of him has since appeared. Had he won battles by land or sea, we should have had biographies of him without end. But he pursued a more peaceful and industrious course. His discovery conferred an incalculable advantage on navigation, and enabled innumerable lives to be saved at sea; it also added to the domains of science by its more exact measurement of time. But his memory has been allowed to pass silently away, without any record being left for the benefit and advantage of those who have succeeded him. The following memoir includes nearly all that is known of the life and labours of John Harrison.
He was born at Foulby, in the parish of Wragby, near Pontefract, Yorkshire, in May 1693. His father, Henry Harrison, was carpenter and joiner to Sir Rowland Wynne, owner of the Nostel Priory estate. The present house was built by the baronet on the site of the ancient priory. Henry Harrison was a sort of retainer of the family, and he long continued in their service.
Little is known of the boy's education. It was certainly of a very inferior description. Like George Stephenson, Harrison had always a great difficulty in making himself understood, either by speech or writing. Indeed, every board-school boy receives a better education now than John Harrison did a hundred and eighty years ago. But education does not altogether come by reading and writing. The boy was possessed of vigorous natural abilities. He was especially attracted by every machine that moved upon wheels. The boy was thus 'father to the man.' When six years old, and lying sick of small-pox, a going watch was placed upon his pillow, which afforded him infinite delight.
When seven years old he was taken by his father to Barrow, near Barton-on-Humber, where Sir Rowland Wynne had another residence and estate. Henry Harrison was still acting as the baronet's carpenter and joiner. In course of time young Harrison joined his father in the workshop, and proved of great use to him. His opportunities for acquiring knowledge were still very few, but he applied his powers of observation and his workmanship to the things that were nearest him. He worked in wood, and to wood he first devoted his attention.
He was still fond of machines going upon wheels. He had enjoyed the sight of the big watch going upon brass wheels when he was a boy; but, now that he was a workman in wood, he proposed to make a time-keeper with wheels of that material. After many difficulties—and nothing can be accomplished without them—he succeeded in making a wooden clock, with wheels of wood. This, however, was only a beginning. He proceeded to make better clocks; and then he found it necessary to introduce metal, as being more lasting. He made pivots of brass, which moved more conveniently in sockets of wood, with the use of oil. He also caused the teeth of his wheels to run against cylindrical rollers of wood, fixed by brass pins, at a proper distance from the axis of the pinions; and thus to a considerable extent he removed the inconveniences of friction.
In the meantime Harrison eagerly improved every incident from which he might derive further information. There was a clergyman who came every Sunday to the village to officiate in the neighbourhood; and having heard of the sedulous application of the young carpenter, he lent a manuscript copy of Professor Saunderson's discoveries. The blind professor had prepared several lectures on natural philosophy for the use of his students, but they were never intended for publication. Young Harrison now proceeded to copy them out, together with the diagrams. Sometimes, indeed, he spent the greater part of the night in writing or drawing.
As part of his business, he undertook to survey land, and to repair clocks and watches, besides carrying on his trade of a carpenter. He soon obtained a considerable knowledge of what had been done in clocks and watches, and was able to do not only what the best professional workers had done, but to strike out entirely new light in the clock- and watch-making business. He found out a method of diminishing friction by adding a joint to the pallets of the pendulum, whereby they were made to work in the nature of rollers of a large radius, without any sliding, as usual, upon the teeth of the wheel. He constructed a clock on the recoiling principle, which went perfectly and never lost a minute within fourteen years. Sir Edmund B. Denison says that he invented this method in order to save himself the trouble of going so frequently to oil the escapement of a turret clock, of which he had charge; though there were other influences at work besides this.
But his most important invention, at this early period of his life, was his compensation pendulum. Everyone knows that metals expand with heat and contract by cold. The pendulum of the clock therefore expanded in summer and contracted in winter, thereby interfering with the regular going of the clock. Huygens had by his cylindrical checks removed the great irregularity arising from the unequal lengths of the oscillations; but the pendulum was affected by the tossing of a ship at sea, and was also subject to a variation in weight, depending on the parallel of latitude. Graham, the well-known clockmaker, invented the mercurial compensation pendulum, consisting of a glass or iron jar filled with quicksilver and fixed to the end of the pendulum rod. When the rod was lengthened by heat, the quicksilver and the jar which contained it were simultaneously expanded and elevated, and the centre of oscillation was thus continued at the same distance from the point of suspension.
But the difficulty, to a certain extent, remained unconquered until Harrison took the matter in hand. He observed that all rods of metal do not alter their lengths equally by heat, or, on the contrary, become shorter by cold, but some more sensibly than others. After innumerable experiments Harrison at length composed a frame somewhat resembling a gridiron, in which the alternate bars were of steel and of brass, and so arranged that those which expanded the most were counteracted by those which expanded the least. By this means the pendulum contained the power of equalising its own action, and the centre of oscillation continued at the same absolute distance from the point of suspension through all the variations of heat and cold during the year.
Thus by the year 1726, when he was only twenty-three years old, Harrison had furnished himself with two compensation clocks, in which all the irregularities to which these machines were subject were either removed or so happily balanced, one metal against the other, that the two clocks kept time together in different parts of his house, without the variation of more than a single second in the month. One of them, indeed, which he kept by him for his own use, and constantly compared with a fixed star, did not vary so much as one minute during the ten years that he continued in the country after finishing the machine. Living, as he did, not far from the sea, Harrison next endeavoured to arrange his timekeeper for purposes of navigation. He tried his clock in a vessel belonging to Barton-on-Humber; but his compensating pendulum could there be of comparatively little use; for it was liable to be tossed hither or thither by the sudden motions of the ship. He found it necessary, therefore, to mount a chronometer, or portable timekeeper, which might be taken from place to place, and subjected to the violent and irregular motion of a ship at sea, without affecting its rate of going. It was evident to him that the first mover must be changed from a weight and pendulum to a spring wound up and a compensating balance.
He now applied his genius in this direction. After pondering over the subject in his mind, he proceeded to London in 1728, and exhibited his drawings to Dr. Halley, then Astronomer Royal. The Doctor referred him to Mr. George Graham, the distinguished horologer, inventor of the dead-beat escapement. After examining the drawings and holding some converse with Harrison, Graham perceived him to be a man of uncommon merit and gave him every encouragement. He recommended him, however, to make his machine before again applying to the Board of Longitude. He accordingly returned home to Barrow to complete his task, and many years elapsed before he again appeared in London to present his chronometer.
The remarkable success which Harrison had achieved in his compensating pendulum could not but urge him on to further experiments. He was no doubt to a certain extent influenced by the reward of 20,000l. which the English Government had offered many years before for an instrument that should enable the longitude to be more accurately determined by navigators at sea than was then possible; and it was with the object of obtaining pecuniary assistance to assist him in completing his chronometer that Harrison made his first visit to London to exhibit his drawings in 1728.
The Act of Parliament offering this superb reward was passed in 1714, in the twelfth year of the reign of Queen Anne. It was right that England, then rapidly advancing to the first position as a commercial nation, should make every effort to render navigation less hazardous. At that time the ship, when fairly at sea, out of sight of land, and battling with the winds and tides, was in a measure lost. No method existed for accurately ascertaining the longitude. The ship might be out of its course for one or two hundred miles, for anything that the navigator knew; and only the wreck of his ship on some unknown coast told of the mistake which he had made in his reckoning.
It may here be mentioned that it was comparatively easy to determine the latitude of a ship at sea every day when the sun was visible. The latitude—that is, the distance of any spot from the equator and the pole—might be found by a simple observation with the sextant. The altitude of the sun at noon is found, and by a short calculation the position of the ship may be ascertained.
The sextant, which is the instrument universally used at sea, was gradually evolved from similar instruments used from the earliest times. The object of these instruments has always been to find the angular distance between two bodies—that is to say, the angle of two straight lines which are drawn from those bodies to meet in the observer's eye. The simplest instrument of this kind may be well represented by a pair of compasses. If the hinge is held to the eye, one leg pointed to the distant horizon, and the other leg pointed to the sun, the two legs will be separated by a certain angle, which will be the angular distance of the sun from the horizon at the moment of observation.
Until the end of the seventeenth century the instrument used was of this simple kind. It was generally a large quadrant, with one or two bars moving on a hinge,—to all intents and purposes a huge pair of compasses. The direction of the sight was fixed by the use of a slit and a pointer, much as in the ordinary rifle. This instrument was vastly improved by the use of a telescope, which not only allowed fainter objects to be seen, but especially enabled the sight to be accurately directed to the object observed.
The instruments of the pre-telescopic age reached their glory in the hands of Tycho Brahe. He used magnificent instruments of the simple 'pair of compasses' kind—circles, quadrants, and sextants. These were for the most part ponderous fixed instruments, and of little or no use for the purposes of navigation. But Tycho Brahe's sextant proved the forerunner of the modern instrument. The general structure is the same; but the vast improvement of the modern sextant is due, firstly, to the use of the reflecting mirror, and, secondly, to the use of the telescope for accurate sighting. These improvements were due to many scientific men—to William Gascoigne, who first used the telescope, about 1640; to Robert Hooke, who, in 1660, proposed to apply it to the quadrant; to Sir Isaac Newton, who designed a reflecting quadrant;[1] and to John Hadley, who introduced it. The modern sextant is merely a modification of Newton's or Hadley's quadrant, and its present construction seems to be perfect.
It therefore became possible accurately to determine the position of a ship at sea as regarded its latitude. But it was quite different as regarded the longitude—that is, the distance of any place from a given meridian, eastward or westward. In the case of longitude there is no fixed spot to which reference can be made. The rotation of the earth makes the existence of such a spot impossible. The question of longitude is purely a question of TIME. The circuit of the globe, east and west, is simply represented by twenty-four hours. Each place has its own time. It is very easy to determine the local time at any spot by observations made at that spot. But, as time is always changing, the knowledge of the local time gives no idea of the position of a moving object—say, of a ship at sea. But if, in any locality, we know the local time, and also the local time of some other locality at that moment—say, of the Observatory at Greenwich—we can, by comparing the two local times, determine the difference of local times, or, what is the same thing, the difference of longitude between the two places. It was necessary therefore for the navigator to be in possession of a first-rate watch or chronometer, to enable him to determine accurately the position of his ship at sea, as respected the longitude.
Before the middle of the eighteenth century good watches were comparatively unknown. The navigator mainly relied upon his Dead Reckoning, without any observation of the heavenly bodies. He depended upon the accuracy of the course which he had steered by the compass, and the mensuration of the ship's velocity by an instrument called the log, as well as by combining and rectifying all the allowances for drift, lee-way, and so on, according to the trim of the ship; but all of these were liable to much uncertainty, especially when the sea was in a boisterous condition. There was another and independent course which might have been adopted—that is, by observation of the moon, which is constantly moving amongst the stars from west to east. But until the middle of the eighteenth century good lunar tables were as much unknown as good watches.
Hence a method of ascertaining the longitude, with the same degree of accuracy which is attainable in respect of latitude, had for ages been the grand desideratum for men 'who go down to the sea in ships.' Mr. Macpherson, in his important work entitled 'The Annals of Commerce,' observes, 'Since the year 1714, when Parliament offered a reward of 20,000l. for the best method of ascertaining the longitude at sea, many schemes have been devised, but all to little or no purpose, as going generally upon wrong principles, till that Heaven-taught artist Mr. John Harrison arose;' and by him, as Mr. Macpherson goes on to say, the difficulty was conquered, having devoted to it 'the assiduous studies of a long life.'
The preamble of the Act of Parliament in question runs as follows: 'Whereas it is well known by all that are acquainted with the art of navigation that nothing is so much wanted and desired at sea as the discovery of the longitude, for the safety and quickness of voyages, the preservation of ships and the lives of men,' and soon. The Act proceeds to constitute certain persons commissioners for the discovery of the longitude, with power to receive and experiment upon proposals for that purpose, and to grant sums of money not exceeding 2,000l. to aid in such experiments. The clause of the Act, by which rewards are offered to such inventors or discoverers as shall succeed in enabling the longitude to be ascertained within certain limits, is as follows:—
'And for a due and sufficient encouragement to any such person or persons as shall discover a proper method for finding the said longitude, be it enacted by the authority aforesaid that the first author or authors, discoverer or discoverers, of any such method, his or their executors, administrators, or assigns, shall be entitled to, and shall have, such reward as is hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, to a reward or sum of 10,000l. if it determines the said longitude to one degree of a great circle, or sixty geographical miles; to 15,000l. if it determines the same to two-thirds of that distance; and to 20,000l. if it determines the same to one-half of the same distance; and that one moiety or half part of such reward or sum shall be due and paid when the said commissioners, or the major part of them, do agree that any such method extends to the security of ships within eighty geographical miles of the shores which are the places of the greatest danger, and the other moiety or half part when a ship, by the appointment of the said commissioners, or the major part of them, shall thereby actually sail over the ocean from Great Britain to any such port in the West Indies as these commissioners, or the major part of them, shall choose or nominate for the experiment, without losing their longitude beyond the limits before mentioned.'
It will, in these days, be scarcely believed that little more than a hundred and fifty years ago a prize of not less than ten thousand pounds should have been offered for a method of determining the longitude within sixty miles, and that double the amount should have been offered for a method of determining it within thirty miles! The amount of these rewards is sufficient proof of the fearful necessity for improvement which then existed in the methods of navigation. And yet, from the date of the passing of the Act in 1714 until the year 1736, when Harrison finished his first timepiece, nothing had been done towards ascertaining the longitude more accurately, even within the wide limits specified by the Act of Parliament. Although several schemes had been projected, none of them had proved successful, and the offered rewards therefore still remained unclaimed.
To return to Harrison. After reaching his home at Barrow, after his visit to London in 1728, he began his experiments for the construction of a marine chronometer. The task was one of no small difficulty. It was necessary to provide against irregularities arising from the motion of a ship at sea, and to obviate the effect of alternations of temperature in the machine itself, as well as in the oil with which it was lubricated. A thousand obstacles presented themselves, but they were not enough to deter Harrison from grappling with the work he had set himself to perform. Everyone knows the beautiful machinery of a timepiece, and the perfect tools required to produce such a machine. Some of these Harrison procured in London, but the greater number he produced for himself. Many entirely new adaptations were required for his chronometer. Wood could no longer be employed, and he had therefore to teach himself to work accurately and minutely in brass and other metals. Having been unable to obtain any assistance from the Board of Longitude, he was under the necessity, while carrying forward his experiments, of maintaining himself by working at his trade of a carpenter and joiner. This will account for the very long period that elapsed before he could bring his chronometer to such a state that it might be tried with any approach to certainty in its operations.
Harrison, besides his intentness and earnestness in respect of the great work of his life, was a cheerful and hopeful man. He had a fine taste for music, and organised and led the choir of the village church, which attained a high degree of perfection. He invented a curious monochord, which was not less accurate than his clocks in the mensuration of time. His ear was distressed by the ringing of bells out of tune, and he set himself to remedy them. At the parish church of Hull, for instance, the bells were harsh and disagreeable, and by the authority of the vicar and churchwardens he was allowed to put them into a state of exact tune, so that they proved entirely melodious.
But the great work of his life was his marine chronometer. He found it necessary, in the first place, to alter the first mover of his clock to a spring wound up, so that the regularity of the motion might be derived from the vibrations of balances, instead of those of a pendulum in a standing clock. Mr. Folkes, President of the Royal Society, when presenting the gold medal to Mr. Harrison in 1749, thus describes the arrangement of his new machine. The details were obtained from Harrison himself, who was present. He made use of two balances situated in the same plane, but vibrating in contrary directions, so that the one of these being either way assisted by the tossing of the ship, the other might constantly be just so much impeded by it at the same time. As the equality of the times of the vibrations of the balance of a pocket-watch is in a great measure owing to the spiral spring that lies under it, so the same was here performed by the like elasticity of four cylindrical springs or worms, applied near the upper and lower extremities of the two balances above described.
Then came in the question of compensation. Harrison's experience with the compensation pendulum of his clock now proved of service to him. He proceeded to introduce a similar expedient into his proposed chronometer. As is well known to those who are acquainted with the nature of springs moved by balances, the stronger those springs are the quicker the vibrations of the balances are performed, and vice versi; so it follows that those springs, when braced by cold, or when relaxed by heat, must of necessity cause the timekeeper to go either faster or slower, unless some method could be found to remedy the inconvenience.
The method adopted by Harrison was his compensation balance, doubtless the backbone of his invention. His 'thermometer kirb,' he himself says, 'is composed of two thin plates of brass and steel, riveted together in several places, which, by the greater expansion of brass than steel by heat and contraction by cold, becomes convex on the brass side in hot weather and convex on the steel side in cold weather; whence, one end being fixed, the other end obtains a motion corresponding with the changes of heat and cold, and the two pins at the end, between which the balance spring passes, and which it alternately touches as the spring bends and unbends itself, will shorten or lengthen the spring, as the change of heat or cold would otherwise require to be done by hand in the manner used for regulating a common watch.' Although the method has since been improved upon by Leroy, Arnold, and Earnshaw, it was the beginning of all that has since been done in the perfection of marine chronometers. Indeed, it is amazing to think of the number of clever, skilful, and industrious men who have been engaged for many hundred years in the production of that exquisite fabric—so useful to everybody, whether scientific or otherwise, on land or sea—the modern watch.
It is unnecessary here to mention in detail the particulars of Harrison's invention. These were published by himself in his 'Principles of Mr. Harrison's Timekeeper.' It may, however, be mentioned that he invented a method by which the chronometer might be kept going without losing a second of time. This was during the process of winding up, which was done once in a day. While the mainspring was being wound up a secondary one preserved the motion of the wheels and kept the machine going. After seven years' labour, during which Harrison encountered and overcame numerous difficulties, he at last completed his first marine chronometer. He placed it in a sort of moveable frame, somewhat resembling what the sailors call a 'compass jumble,' but much more artificially and curiously made and arranged. In this state the chronometer was tried from time to time in a large barge on the river Humber, in rough as well as in smooth weather, and it was found to go perfectly, without losing a moment of time.
Such was the condition of Harrison's chronometer when he arrived in London with it in 1735, in order to apply to the commissioners appointed for providing a public reward for the discovery of the longitude at sea. He first showed it to several members of the Royal Society, who cordially approved of it. Five of the most prominent members—Dr. Halley, Dr. Smith, Dr. Bradley, Mr. John Machin, and Mr. George Graham—furnished Harrison with a certificate, stating that the principles of his machine for measuring time promised a very great and sufficient degree of exactness. In consequence of this certificate the machine, at the request of the inventor and at the recommendation of Sir Charles Wager, First Lord of the Admiralty, was placed on board a man-of-war, and carried, with Mr. Harrison, to Lisbon and back again. The chronometer was not affected by the roughest weather, or by the working of the ship through the vast rolling waves of the Bay of Biscay. By means of its exact measurement of time an error of almost a degree and a half (or ninety miles) in the computations of the reckoning of the ship was corrected at the mouth of the Channel.
Upon this first successful trial of his chronometer the Commissioners of Longitude gave Harrison the sum of 500l., on condition that he should proceed to make further improvements in his machine. Mr. George Graham urged that the Commissioners should award him double the amount; but this was refused. At the recommendation of Lord Monson, however, Harrison accepted the sum as a help towards the heavy expenses and labour which he had incurred, and was about to incur, in perfecting the machine. He was instructed to make his new chronometer of less dimensions than the first, which was thought too cumbersome and to occupy too much space on board.
He accordingly proceeded to make his second chronometer. It occupied a space of about only half the size of the first. He introduced several improvements. He lessened the number of the wheels, and thereby diminished friction. But the general arrangement remained the same. This second machine was finished in 1739. It was much more simple in its arrangement, and much less cumbrous in its dimensions. It answered even better than the first, and though it was not tried at sea its motions were sufficiently exact for finding the longitude within the nearest limits proposed by Parliament.
Not satisfied with his two machines, Harrison proceeded to make a third. This was of an improved construction, and occupied still less space, the whole of the machine and its apparatus standing upon an area of only four square feet. It was in such forwardness in January 1741 that it was exhibited before the Royal Society, and twelve of the most prominent members signed a certificate of 'its great and excellent use, as well for determining the longitude at sea as for correcting the charts of the coasts.' The testimonial concluded: 'We do recommend Mr. Harrison to the favour of the Commissioners appointed by Act of Parliament as a person highly deserving of such further encouragement and assistance as they shall judge proper and sufficient to finish his third machine.' The Commissioners granted him a further sum of 500l. accordingly. Harrison was now reduced to necessitous circumstances by his continuous application to the improvement of the timekeepers. He had also got into debt, and required further assistance to enable him to proceed with their construction.
Although Harrison had promised that the third machine would be ready for trial on August 1, 1743, it was not finished for some years after. In June 1746 we find him again appearing before the Board, asking for further assistance. While proceeding with his work he found it necessary to add a new spring, 'having spent much time and thought in tempering them.' Another 500l. was voted to enable him to pay his debts, to maintain himself and family, and to complete his machine.
Three years later he exhibited his third machine to the Royal Society, when he was awarded the Gold Medal for the year. In presenting it Mr. Folkes, the President, said to Mr. Harrison, 'I do here, by the authority and in the name of the Royal Society of London for the improving of natural knowledge, present you with this small but faithful token of their regard and esteem. I do, in their name, congratulate you upon the successes you have already had, and I most sincerely wish that all your future trials may in every way prove answerable to these beginnings, and that the full accomplishment of your great undertaking may at last be crowned with all the reputation and advantage to yourself that your warmest wishes may suggest, and to which so many years so laudably and so diligently spent in the improvement of those talents which God Almighty has bestowed upon you, will so justly entitle your constant and unwearied perseverance.'
Mr. Folkes, in his speech, spoke of Mr. Harrison as 'one of the most modest persons he had ever known.' 'In speaking of his own performances he has assured me that, from the immense number of diligent and accurate experiments he has made, and from the severe tests to which he has in many ways put his instruments, he expects he shall be able with sufficient certainty, through all the greatest variety of seasons and the most irregular motions of the sea, to keep time constantly, without the variation of so much as three seconds in a week, a degree of exactness that is astonishing and even stupendous, considering the immense number of difficulties, and those of very different sorts, which the author of these inventions must have had to encounter and struggle withal.'
Although it is common enough now to make first-rate chronometers—sufficient to determine the longitude with almost perfect accuracy in every clime of the world—it was very different then, at the time that Harrison was occupied with his laborious experiments. Although he considered his third machine to be the ne plus ultra of scientific mechanism, he nevertheless proceeded to construct a fourth timepiece, in the form of a pocket watch about five inches in diameter. He found the principles which he had adopted in his larger machines to apply equally well in the smaller; and the performances of the last surpassed his utmost expectations. But in the meantime, as his third timekeeper was, in his opinion, sufficient to supply the requirements of the Board of Longitude as respected the highest reward offered, he applied to the Commissioners for leave to try that instrument on board a royal ship to some port in the West Indies, as directed by the statute of Queen Anne.
It was not until March 12, 1761, that he received orders for his son William to proceed to Portsmouth, and go on board the 'Dorsetshire' man-of-war, to proceed to Jamaica. But another tedious delay occurred. The ship was ordered elsewhere, and William Harrison, after remaining five months at Portsmouth, returned to London. By this time John Harrison has finished his fourth timepiece—the small one—in the form of a watch. At length William Harrison set sail with this timekeeper from Portsmouth for Jamaica in the 'Deptford' man-of-war, on November 18, 1761, and returned to England on March 26, 1762. On the arrival of the ship at Port Royal the timekeeper was found to be only five and one-tenth seconds in error, and during the voyage of over four months, on its return to Portsmouth in the 'Merlin,' it had only erred one minute fifty-four and a half seconds. In the latitude of Portsmouth this only amounted: to eighteen geographical miles, whereas the Act required that it should only come within the distance of thirty miles or minutes of a great circle. One would have thought that Harrison was now clearly entitled to his reward of 20,000l.
But the delays interposed by Government are long and tedious. Harrison had accomplished more than was requisite to obtain the highest reward. It was necessary for him to petition Parliament on the subject. Three reigns had passed: Anne had died; George I. and George II. had reigned and died; and now in the reign of George III. an Act was passed enabling Harrison to obtain the sum of 5,000l. immediately as part of the reward. But the Commissioners differed about the tempering of the springs. They required a second trial of the timekeeper. Two more years passed, and Harrison's son again departed with the instrument on board the 'Tartar' for Barbadoes on March 28, 1764. He returned in about four months, during which time the instrument enabled the latitude to be ascertained within ten miles, or one-third the required geographical distance.
Harrison memorialised the Board again and again. In the following September they virtually recognised his claims by paying him on account 1,000l. In February 1765 the Board entered a minute on their proceedings that they were 'unanimously of opinion that the said [Harrison's] timekeeper has kept its time with sufficient correctness, without losing its longitude in the voyage from Portsmouth to Barbadoes beyond the nearest limit required by the Act of 12th of Queen Anne, but even considerably within the same.' They would not give him the necessary certificate, though they were of opinion that he was entitled to be paid the full reward.
Harrison was now becoming old and feeble. He had attained the age of seventy-four. He had spent forty long years in working at the chronometers. He was losing his eyesight, and could not afford to wait much longer.
Full little knowest thou, who hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To spend to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow.
But Harrison had not lost his spirit. On May 30, 1765, he addressed another remonstrance to the Board, containing much stronger language than he had up to this time used. 'I cannot help thinking,' he said, 'but I am extremely ill-used by gentlemen who I might have expected a different treatment from; for if the Act of the 12th of Queen Anne be deficient, why have I so long been encouraged under it, in order to bring my invention to perfection? And, after the completion, why was my son sent twice to the West Indies? Had it been said to my son, when he received the last instruction, "There will, in case you succeed, be a new Act on your return, in order to lay you under new restrictions, which were not thought of in the Act of the 12th of Queen Anne"—I say, had this been the case I might have expected some such treatment as I now meet with.
'It must be owned that my case is very hard; but I hope I am the first, and for my country's sake I hope I shall be the last, that suffers by pinning my faith upon an English Act of Parliament. Had I received my just reward—for certainly it may be so called after forty years' close application of the talent which it has pleased God to give me—then my invention would have taken the course which all improvements in this world do; that is, I must have instructed workmen in its principles and execution, which I should have been glad of an opportunity of doing. But how widely this is different from what is now proposed, viz. for me to instruct people that I know nothing of, and such as may know nothing of mechanics; and, if I do not make them understand to their satisfaction, I may then have nothing!
'Hard fate indeed to me, but still harder to the world, which may be deprived of this my invention, which must be the case, except by my open and free manner in describing all the principles of it to gentlemen and noblemen who almost at all times have had free recourse to my instruments. And if any of these workmen have been so ingenious as to have got my invention, how far you may please to reward them for their piracy must be left for you to determine; and I must set myself down in old age, and thank God I can be more easy in that I have the conquest, and though I have no reward, than if I had come short of the matter and by some delusion had the reward!'
The Right Honourable the Earl of Egmont was in the chair of the Board of Longitude on the day when this letter was read—June 13, 1765. The Commissioners were somewhat startled by the tone which the inventor had taken. Indeed, they were rather angry. But Mr. Harrison, who was in waiting, was called in. After some rather hot speaking, and after a proposal was made to Harrison which he said he would decline to accede to 'so long as a drop of English blood remained in his body,' he left the room. Matters were at length duly arranged. Another Act of Parliament was passed, appointing the payment of the whole reward of 20,000l. to the inventor; one moiety upon discovering the principles of the construction of his chronometers and assigning his four chronometers (one of which was styled a watch) to the use of the public, and the remaining moiety on sufficient proof of the correctness of the chronometers.
Mr. Harrison, accordingly, made over to the Commissioners of Longitude his various timekeepers, and deposited in their hands correct drawings, so that other skilful makers might construct similar chronometers on the same principles. Harrison expressed the greatest readiness to explain his inventions, and to subject them to every required test. Indeed, there was no difficulty in making the chronometers, after the explanations and drawings which Harrison had published. An exact copy of his last watch was made by the ingenious Mr. Kendal, one of Harrison's apprentices. This chronometer was used by Captain Cook during his three years' circumnavigation of the globe, and was found to answer as well as the original. This, as well as Harrison's chronometer, is still to be seen at the Royal Observatory, and both are in a good going condition.
Although Harrison did not obtain the remaining moiety of his reward until 1767, two years after the above-mentioned meeting of the Board, his labours were over, his victory was secured, his prize was won. Notwithstanding his delicacy of health he lived a few years longer. He died in 1776, at his house in Red Lion Square, in his eighty-third year. It may be said of John Harrison that by the invention of his chronometer he conferred an incalculable benefit on science and navigation, and established his claim to be regarded as one of the greatest benefactors of mankind.
1. Sir Isaac Newton gave his design to Edmund Halley, then Astronomer Royal. Halley laid it on one side, and it was found among his papers after his death in 1742, and twenty-five years after the death of Newton.