OH the Oil Question. Ill 



they say, " We come now to another, and perhaps, not the 

 least extraordinary, of Mr. Parkes' charges against the scientific 

 witnesses to whom he was opposed. The first time he brought 

 this accusation was in court during the trial." In reply, I 

 have no intention of calling in question the title which these 

 gentlemen give themselves of scientific witnesses; yet I must 

 say, that if they had been ambitious of being considered feir 

 and candid witnesses, they would have felt it to be obligatory 

 upon them to have added what I said in court on this subject, 

 and also what the learned Judge said in his address to the 

 complainant from the bench ; " I can assure you," said he, 

 " that to me, instead of conveying any imputation on you, it 

 was entirely the reverse ; it went only to say, in spite of human 

 skill and observation, there might be a mixture in oil, but that 

 uo person could be less suspected than you *." 



As to the sample of oil which one of these associates thought 

 fit to send to me in April, 1820, and the offence which they 

 have talcen at my returning it, I would ask any impartial 

 person whether, if he had been professionally engaged as I 

 was, in a cause where 70,000Z. were depending in some mea- 

 sure upon the caution and prudence with which he acted, he 

 would have received any sample of oil that an opponent might 

 have chosen to send him, and would have undertaken to 

 analyze it, and subject himself to be examined in court upon 

 the result of that analysis ; or whether he would not have re- 

 turned it unopened, as I did ? It will hardly be credited, but 

 this frivolous complaint is made in three different parts of the 

 Associates' book. 



" Laudes, Gaure, nihil ; reprehendis cuncta, videto 

 Ne placeas uulli, dum tibi uemo placet." 



At page 63, they^say what I confess did rather surprise me : 

 " Wilkinson spoke of concussions in the boiler, which Mr.Parkes 

 tells us he never witnessed ; we do not think he did. He never 

 perhaps, operated upon such a quantity of oil, at a temperature 

 sufficient to produce them." 



* Sec Mr. Guruey's Report of the First Trial, pages S!07, 209, and 212. 



