234 Report of the Select Committee on the Elgin Marbles. 
they must possess, at the sight of drawings sent home by Mr. ' 
R. Cockerell, a gentleman incapable of disguise, as well as from 
the interest which must necessarily be felt in every work of 
Grecian art executed in the age of Pericles, or at least in that 
immediately subsequent ; considering likewise the general dis- 
appointment and regret which would be felt if the moment were 
lost, and they should irrecoverably get into the hands of one of 
the, continental sovereigns; I was convinced that it would be 
desirable for the cause of the arts in England, that the purchase 
should, if possible, be effected. 
“Lord Castlereagh being at this time absent on the conti- 
nent, I applied forthwith to the first Lord of the Treasury, the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Colonial Secretary of 
State; and on laying before them the above considerations, J 
received from them severally their consent, that the governor of 
Zante should be authorised to effect the purchase at a public 
sale to the amount mentioned. A messenger was immediately 
sent off, who arrived a few days previous to the sale, and the 
bargain was concluded for 60,000 dollars. 
“Was the purchase effected at 15,000/.?—The price was 
60,000 dollars ; by the course of exchange it came to 19,000J.- 
“ 'To what circumstance was it owing, a public sale could not 
be dispensed with ?—Because the property belonged half to Ger- 
mans and half to Englishmen, and they would not allow any one, 
even of the discoverers, to make the purchase without a public 
sale. Mr. Lee, one of the Englishmen, a gentleman of large 
fortune in Warwickshire, I was assured, offered the money if he 
was allowed to take them without a public sale, and I have that 
in Mr. Cockerell’s hand-writing. 
“* Do youknow what the expense of bringing them to England 
was ?—No, I do not; they came over ina ship of war or a trans- 
port, therefore I should think the expense would be very little. 
“¢ You mentioned that the public were disappointed respecting 
the ZEgina marbles; in what way was that >—They were dis- 
covered about two years before, bytwo English travellers and two 
German travellers. Mr. Cockerell was one of the English dis- 
coverers, and he wrote a detailed account of it home to his 
father, and mentioned, that the value they set upon them at 
Athens at that timewas 6000/. This being communicated, and 
being the subject of conversation at the Dilettanti Society, Lord 
Hardwicke, who is a member of that Society and a trustee of 
the British Museum, undertook to recommend to the trustees 
of the British Mueseum, to request the authority of Government 
to make an offer of 60002. The offer was made in the first in- 
stance through Mr. Cockerell, but on these conditions, that we 
should 
