EARLY FINANCIAL STRAITS 25 



which the first Charter was granted application was made to the 

 King for a grant of lands or other property in Ireland, where the 

 Duke of Ormond, the Lord Lieutenant, was charged with the 

 rearrangement of confiscated property. The King even wrote 

 personal letters to the Duke strongly recommending the Society 

 for 'a liberal contribution from the adventurers and officers of 

 Ireland for the better encouragement of them in their designs '. 

 As nothing came of the royal appeal the Society in 1663 directly 

 petitioned the Duke himself, but without success. 



Early in 1664 a proposal was considered * to solicit a grant 

 from the King of such lands as were left by the sea '. Another 

 suggestion was ' that the King might be spoken to, to confer such 

 offices in the Courts of Justice, or the Custom House, as were in 

 his Majesty's grant, upon some members of the Society for the 

 use of the whole '. At last a petition was sent up to the King 

 praying him to grant Chelsea College l and the lands belonging 

 to it to the Society. There were many legal obstacles to this 

 grant, but at last in the year 1669 the property was finally 

 conveyed to the Royal Society (see postea, p. 27). In the 

 meantime it was firmly resolved 'that every member of the 

 Council should think on ways to raise a revenue for carrying on 

 the design and work of the Society '. The need of strenuous 

 exertions to augment the income became all the more urgent as 

 increasing difficulty was found in obtaining the ordinary subscrip- 

 tions of the Fellows. At the end of eleven years (1673) it was 

 found that the arrears amounted to almost 2,000. (See note 

 on the 'Bonds', p. 173.) In later years, after the adoption of 

 a regulation that defaulters with their subscriptions beyond 

 a certain period of time lost their Fellowship, the contributions 

 have been paid without trouble. 



Regular or stated meetings of the Royal Society have been 

 held weekly during the session from the beginning of its history, 

 but the day of the week and the hour of assembly have some- 

 what varied. At first in 1663 they took place on Wednesday at 

 2 p.m., but in July of the same year the hour was changed to 



1 This was an institution founded by James I for the purpose of defending the 

 established Church and refuting heresies. It had a Provost and seventeen Fellows, all 

 theologians. But it did not thrive, and by the time of Charles II was turned into a kind 

 of hospital or prison for the prisoners and wounded men in the war with the Dutch. 



