134 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1846. no-decision of the Council by proposing a vote of regret 

 u P on ^ s measures, he wrote to the Times giving his own 

 views of the matter, and thus complicating the difficulties 

 of the position. The most active members of the Council 

 declared that they would not work on the possible con- 

 dition that a vote of f regret,' or, which was the same 

 thing, ' censure,' should be passed upon their measures. 

 Mr. Sheep- Mr. Sheepshanks, on the occasion of the South and 

 opinion. Troughton arbitration, had given offence to Mr. Babbage, 

 and his strong desire that justice should be done to Mr. 

 Adams only increased Mr. Babbage's displeasure at the 

 non-award of the medal. Mr. Sheepshanks was happily 

 more prudent in his expressions, and though amusingly 

 sarcastic in his letters, temperate in his public behaviour. 

 If he had not been so at this time, the concussion in the 

 Society might have ended in a complete disruption. He 

 was a fellow of Trinity, with a strong love for his own 

 University, and a desire that the glory so fairly earned by 

 one of its members should not be quite lost to Cambridge, 

 He says, in a letter to my husband dated November 20, 

 1846 :- 



As to the medal, I will tell you my mezzo-termine. To give 

 the medal in due course to Leverrier, and, if the Council think 

 fit, after due deliberation, to grant, by means of a special meet- 

 ing, a medal to Adams, who did undoubtedly discover the planet 

 nine months before Leverrier, and it was by no fault of his that 

 we did not catch it first. His communication to the Astronomer 

 Royal and to the Plumian Professor on an astronomical subject 

 is surely a publication so far as Adams is concerned according, 

 at least, to all rules hitherto recognised. He saves us, I think, 

 all real difficulty by waiving his claim to the discovery ; for if we 

 were called upon to decide by Waring's rule we should be 

 compelled to decide in his favour, at least, after verifying the 

 postmarks of the letter quoted by Airy. 



Now, as he has not raised this very thorny point, it seems to 

 me that quiet and good-tempered and sensible people, who have 

 not committed themselves to a positive opinion before they had 

 heard all the story, may come to some conclusion satisfactory to 

 all parties except the ultra-French or the anti- Cambridge. 



