19 



SECTION II. 



1827 TO 1831. 



IT was at this time that he became acquainted with my 1827. 

 father, William Trend. They first met at the office of William 

 the Nautical Almanac, of which their common friend, 

 Lieutenant Stratford, R.N., had been recently appointed 

 Comptroller. Mr. Trend and Mr. Stratford were both 

 members of the old Mathematical, and subsequently of 

 the Astronomical Society. Though my father was, even 

 at that time, far behind Mr. De Morgan as a mathe- 

 matician, the two had a good deal of mathematics in 

 common. My father had been second wrangler in a year 

 in which the two highest were close together, and was, as 

 his son-in-law afterwards described him, an exceedingly 

 clear thinker and writer. It is possible, as Mr. De 

 Morgan said, that this mental clearness and directness 

 may have caused his mathematical heresy, the rejection 

 of the use of negative quantities in algebraical operations ; 

 and it is probable that he thus deprived himself of an 

 instrument of work, the use of which might have led him 

 to greater eminence in the higher branches. This same 

 heresy gave occasion to many amusing arguments and 

 discussions. But between these two sympathy in matters 

 of morals and principle formed a stronger bond than 

 similarity of pursuit. My father had sacrificed good 

 prospects as a clergyman to his conscientious scruples 

 about the doctrines of the Established Church, as ex- 

 pressed in the Creeds and Articles, and had been through 

 life an earnest advocate of religious liberty. These cir- 



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