112 APPENDIX. 



the Society. And again, if he was not sure of its contents, how 

 could he now venture in his ' State of Facts/ positively to 

 insist, in opposition to what I had declared, " that his first and 

 last assertions were exactly the same." 1 This at least was 

 inexcusable. 



Next, he repeats his vague inferences as in his letter of the 

 8th of June, " that he had seen what he suspected to be those 

 vessels, &c.," and afterwards, when he comes to speak of the 

 conclusions concerning his claim, which I made in my letter 

 read before the Royal Society, he says, " that he was almost 

 ashamed, on my account, to add a plain corollary, that I must 

 or might have been conscious, that the injurious conclusion 

 with respect to him, which I was labouring to impress on the 

 members of a respectable Society, was drawn from arguments 

 that were weak, inconclusive, not real, but feigned." { After- 

 wards, he tells me, that he is glad, on my account as well as 

 his own, that I am at last really ashamed of my letter." And 

 he then finishes with the following passage : " Another unhappy 

 mistake of yours," says he " is, that you should not have known, 

 or rather perhaps misfortune of yours, since you do not seem 

 to have known so much, that you should not have been told, 

 that your presuming to draw the above conclusion concerning 

 any person who had the smallest pretence to character, without 

 producing proof and absolute certainty of its being true, was 

 what you never could be able to justify to any gentleman." 



Now, when it is considered that Dr. Monro obliged me to 

 act in the manner I have done, in order to secure my right, 

 do not these passages appear very extraordinary? But the 

 reader, I believe, will excuse my not dwelling upon them. I 

 shall therefore only add, that the proofs on which my con- 

 clusions were founded being now laid before the public, to 

 their judgment I willingly submit them, and that, with respect 

 to Dr. Monro, I have nothing more to say, than that I hope, 

 for his sake as well as my own, to see no more of his claims, 

 his assertions, and his conclusions. 



1 State of Facts, p. 26, in the note. 



2 The conclusions alluded to in these passages are printed above, pp. 97, 98. 



