At a subsequent meeting, one of the members, in an elegant and pointed speech, proposed a vote of thanks to Dr. Hutton, which was with some difficulty carried by a majority of five. No sooner

was the meeting broken up, than the President summoned a council, at which the resolution of the former council, respecting Doctor Hutton, was declared a wise one, and ought to be enforced. On the meeting of the society the next day, Dr. Horsley moved that Dr. Hutton's defence, which the council had treated not only as nugatory, but as a full justification of the former council, should be read to the society. The motion was introduced with a short speech, in which the proceedings of the council of the preceding day were treated with great freedom, and the injustice shown to Dr. Hutton with high indignation. This motion was seconded by Dr. Maskelyne, and no reply being made, Dr. Hutton's defence was read.

This defence having made a considerable impression, the Presi dent summoned a cabinet council of his friends, to deliberate on what was best to be done. The result of their deliberations was, that some motion should be brought forward which should quash all enquiry into the President's official conduct, by a general vote of thanks or approbation. A card was accordingly sent to all the members of the society, requesting their attendance on the 8th of January; at which meeting the following motion was made and seconded:"That this society do approve of Sir Joseph Banks for their President, and will support him." This motion was very warmly opposed in a very sensible speech by Mr. Edward Poore. lowed on the same side by Mr. Baron Maseres; to whom succeedHe was foled Dr. Horsely, who, in a very modest manner, mentioned the time he had devoted, the contributions he had made, and the high office he had borne in the society. that he would not be willing to disturb the peace of the society, and This he did as a presumptive evidence call off its attention from his own favorite pursuits. But abuses he alledged had been long practiced, and were still increasing, which must affect the honor and prosperity of the society, which in fact threatened its very existence, and for which debate was the only remedy. The following address to the President was peculiarly excellent, and strongly characteristic of the speaker's manner:

"Sir, if I should consider the motion as a mere compliment to the President, having neither retrospect nor consequences, I would be one of the foremost to concur in it. For, Sir, whatever warmth of resentment I may be apt to feel and to express, when I conceive the character of my friend to be injuriously attacked; with whatever zeal, with whatever vehemence of zeal, I may be ready to rise, when the chartered rights of this society are to be asserted, when its constitution is to be defended against encroachments; I am still ambitious to seize every fair occasion of expressing personal respect to Sir Joseph Banks. And I feel it a most painful task, which my duty to the society imposes on me, to arraign and to expose his conduct, in the high office which he does us the honor to hold among us. Sir, it has been suggested to me, by gentlemen who conceive that debate is the worst thing which can happen in this society, that if the abuses with which I charge the President's government do re

1

ally exist, I might take a better and more effectual way of obtaining the remedy of accomplishing what they consider to be my ultimate purpose, by communicating my opinion to the members of the society in private visits: and I am really inclined to think that this is very good advice. If my intention were to cure the abuses of the President's government by preventing the renovation of his authority next St. Andrew's day, I do think that this purpose might be more certainly carried in the way which has been recommended to me. But, Sir, I believe you will yourself allow, that the method which I now pursue of public debate and discussion, if a less certain, is a far more fair and honorable way. You would rather, Sir, that I should make your plan of government a topic of public debate, than that I should calumniate your character in private. This, therefore, is the method to which I shall adhere as the most honorable. I must, therefore, however unwillingly, speak to the merits of the question now before us: and if I should bring forward offensive matter, I must entreat your candid hearing. You are a public man in this Society: your conduct, therefore, must be subject to revision: and you must bear with an adversary who charges you publicly, because he disdains to wound in secret."

In another part of this admirable speech, in allusion to this irregular mode of voting support to the President, the doctor observed,

"As for those optimists, who hold Sir Joseph Banks to be the best of all possible Presidents to be found in this best of all possible worlds, let them come down at the next anniversary, and re-elect him. That will be the season for giving him support. At present no support can be given him, unless it be the unjust support of approving the conduct towards Dr. Hutton, which the Society hath already condemned, or of securing him against all future complaint by a general vote of approbation."

The speaker then goes on to vindicate Dr. Hutton, after which he proceeds to the adduction of his charges against the President, particularly with regard to the influencing of elections, eight very strong and flagrant instances of which he entered into the particular history of, but was at last borne down by an incessant clamor for the question on the part of the President's friends, with an accompaniment of sticks. In the midst of this indecent confusion, so unworthy of any meeting, and particularly a philosophical one, Dr. Horsley indignantly closed his speech, in the following strong terms:

"Sir, since it is the resolution of your friends, that I am not to be heard upon an argument, to which they are conscious that they can frame no reply, I shall struggle no longer with their clamour. I shall say but a few words more. Sir, it would be absurd to vote for the present question without a discussion of its merits. Approbation is no approbation, unless it be accompanied with a conviction that it is deserved, on the part of those who bestow it. Sir, I well know the generosity of your high spirit will reject an approbation voted in ignorance. Sir, you will say to us, Give me no approbation till you are satisfied that I deserve it. Approbation given, while a sum picion may remain that it is undeserved, is a false compliment.

Falsus honor juvat

Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem

Let the charges which have been set up against my conduct, be fairly discussed and fully investigated. When they are found to be groundless and nugatory, then give me your approbation. Your approbation given then will gratify me; because it will be at the same time an approbation of me, and a censure of those who have dared, without cause, to arraign my conduct. Approbation given now, before these charges are done away, were premature. It will not gratify me. It will offend. These, Sir, I know to be your sentiments. I concur with you in these sentiments and I move the previous question."

:

Dr. Maskelyne rose next, and after a short speech, seconded the motion for the previous question. Lord Mulgrave having said, that "some broad hints might be necessary to convince the gentlemen who seemed so active in promoting these dissentions, how highly their conduct was disapproved by the majority of the Society;" Dr. Horsley rose in some warmth, and addressed the President in these

words:

"Sir, what has fallen from the noble lord, seems so directly pointed at me, that I must beg leave to say a few words, to inform the noble lord what may be the effect of broad hints. Sir, we see and confess the extent of the President's personal interest. We see that great numbers may be occasionally brought down, to ballot upon particular questions, who do not honor the Society with a very regular attendance. We are well aware, Sir, that oppressive statutes may be framed in the council, and, with this support in the Society at large, received. We understand, that motions, personally offensive and injurious, may be brought forward, and perhaps may be carried. And by these means the remedies, which the scientific part of the Society would wish to apply to the abuses which exist, may be prevented. But, Sir, I am united with a respectable and numerous band, embracing, I believe, a majority of the scientific part of the society; of those who do its scientific business. Sir, we shall have one remedy in our power, when all others fail. If other remedies should fail, we can at last secede. Sir, when the hour of secession comes, the President will be left with his train of feeble Amateurs, and that toy* upon the table, the ghost of that society in which philosophy once reigned, and Newton presided as her minister.”

On putting the previous question, the numbers were, for it 59, against it 106, the President's own vote included. The main question was then put, and the members were against it 42, for it 119. The President's own vote in his own cause again included.

Further efforts were made by Dr. Horsley and the other friends of Dr. Hutton to procure his re-establishment, and to check the increasing despotism of the President, but without effect. A new stretch of power was soon afterwards exhibited, of which the following account appeared in the "Public Advertiser of April 6, 1784."

"We hear that the President of the Royal Society has given fresh disgust to several of the fellows of it, by a step he has just taken concerning the office of one of the principal secretaries, which has lately become vacant by the resignation of the Rev. Mr. Maty. He has sent round a card to all the fellows of the Society, (to whom the election of a new secretary belongs) to inform them, that Dr. Blagden (a

* Pointing to the mace.

respectable and learned physician) has offered himself a candidate for the office, at his desire, and to recommend him to their choice. This expression at his desire, seems to imply that no person ought to presume to be candidate without his approbation, or even be supposed to have any chance of succeeding without it, or of failing of success when he has obtained it: which are implications that are by no means agreeable to the more independent members of the Society. This card is called by many of them, the President's Conge d'Elire. Dr. Horsley, in particular, gave it that title publicly at the meeting of the Society at Somerset Place, on Thursday last, the 1st of this instant April, 1784. It is,' said he, a call upon the Society to elect a new secretary, and a nomination by the President, as their sovereign, of the person he would have them choose; which is exactly similar to the proceeding of the King in the nomination of a new Bishop."

In a very ingenious pamphlet written by Mr. Maty, one of the Minority, entitled "An History of the Instances of Exclusion from the Royal Society, which were not suffered to be argued in the late Debates," are these observations on this unphilosophical warfare:

"The Royal Society was a Society; we do not wish to see it a monarchy; it did conduct itself according to the rules of justice and equity: we desire it may not violate those rules; its principles were, that the first distinction of men is virtue, and the second learning; we cannot bear that birth should take rank with either of these.Now, the President does think that it ought; and therefore it is proper to look out for one, who, with Sir Joseph Banks's merits, be those merits what they may, does not think so. The conclusion of the same tract, which, though written by Mr. Maty, was drawn up under the inspection, and expressed the sentiments of the whole respectable minority, is as follows:

"If indeed the dignity of the Society has been committed, and if our learned brethren of Europe, have indeed reason to lament, that we staud no longer on that high eminence where they loved to see us; it was then committed, when, for the first time, and with a fatal example to literature, an example that has been but too much followed, we suffered our chair, which ever before had been offered to unassuming modesty, to be claimed and publicly canvassed for through this great town; it was committed when we received into that chair, the chair of Newton, a gentleman who had not published a single line in our Transactions, nor given any sign of literary merit, but what might have been given by one of the humblest of the votaries of the humblest of the sciences; it was committed when we sent forth to Europe, at the head of our learned volume, a speech of that gentleman, deficient in English, deficient in idea, full of fulsome and undignified adulation of ourselves, mean and inadequate in expressions of respect and gratitude where the highest respect and gratitude are due. The dignity of the Society was committed, when we sat patiently by, and saw that gentleman encouraging those very disorders he was elected to restrain; at one time voting in his own cause; at another affecting not to count the balls in a question which was going against him; a third, taking the sense of the body, in direct opposition to a positive statute, by tumultuous acclamation; cling

ing, in short, like a polypus, to every one of his usurpations; and never (which has driven us to this harsh necessity) never at any one period of the long nine months the contest has now lasted, acknow. fedging that he might be mistaken, promising that he would amend; or even soliciting a friendly conference of the two parties, authoritatively to settle what might be amiss. Finally, our dignity has been essentially committed, by some of us persisting, against every admonition, and by every artifice persisting, to support acts which it is one of the first and darling distinctions of science to abhor and repress, acts of arrogance, acts of injustice, acts of inhumanity. These are our real humiliations; these are the true causes, that point the unlearned finger at us. To aim at the cure of such evils, can lessen the dignity of no man, or set of men. On the contrary, it is to the honor of our natures that we have felt, it will long continue our boast and consolation that we have endeavored to redress them."

For entering into so particular a detail of these dissentions, our excuse is, that Dr. Horsley has been frequently charged with an overbearing arrogance and an intemperate zeal in the part which he took on the occasion. We are thoroughly convinced that every candid reader will see from this statement, which is in every point accurate, much to admire in the ardor of Dr. Horsley's friendship, in the open and manly avowal of his sentiments, in his liberal regard and support of men of modest merit and real learning, and not less in the dignified superiority of his mind, which scorned to appear in the courtly train of wealthy and pompous pretenders to science.

From this time he absented himself from the meetings of the Royal Society, till about a year or two ago, when some alterations for the better having taken place, he again gave his occasional assistance, and at the last anniversary was chosen one of the council. [To be continued.]

FOR THE CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Remarks on the 9th Chapter of Romans.

IN order rightly to understand the main object which the apostle here has in view, it is necessary to remark, what is very manifest from numerous places in the New-Testament, that the Jews, even after they became christians, could not be brought, but with a great deal of difficulty, to believe that the visible church of God was to comprehend the Gentiles: they still continued to think that the law of Moses was binding; that the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, and confirmed into the people of Israel, was of unalterable obligation, and that none could be entitled to the visible privileges of God's covenant, unless they entered the fold of his chosen people by circumcision. This mistake St. Paul very largely combats, in many of his epistles; and he touches upon it in several places in this to the Romans; particularly in the fourth chapter, where he argues that Abraham was justified without circumcision, Inasmuch as he had the testimony of God that he was righteous before the covenant was given. And from the promise made to Abrakam, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, he