EARLY HISTOBY OF THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC. 15 



" Petitions from the computers, Mr. Henry Andrews, Mrs. 

 Mary Edwards, and the Rev. Malachy Hitchins, were then read, 

 representing the great loss they should sustain, if after having 

 made the computations for twenty-six years, they are deprived 

 of an employment from which they derive their support, and on 

 which they have been accustomed to depend, without having 

 received any notice till lately of this unfortunate event to them 

 being likely to take place, and praying for such relief as should 

 be found meet." 



After some discussion the Board resolved, on the recom- 

 mendation of the Astronomer Eoyal, to employ the computers on 

 extra computations during the next five years, particularly with 

 regard 40 the comparison of the results of these calculations, 

 made with Lalande and Mason's new tables of the moon, with the 

 observations that have been made at the Eoyal Observatory since 

 the establishment of the new instruments by Dr. Bradley in 1750, 

 and "that the computers should be paid at the same rate as at 

 present, according to the quantity of work they should do."* 



It is only necessary to remark further that the suspension of 

 the ordinary calculations turned out, as was expected, to be 

 advantageous to the character of the work, as it enabled the 

 employment of several improved methods in the computation of 

 the Almanacs after 1804. All the old computers were in due 

 time restored to their usual amount of work, and the Almanac 

 in future was issued about four or five years in advance. After 

 the death of Mr. Hitchins the office of comparer was left in 

 abeyance for two years, when, in 1811, the Eev. Mr. Brown, of 

 Tideswell, Derbyshire, was appointed by the Board of Longitude 

 to succeed him. During this interval the duties of the comparer 

 were assigned to those of the computers who had the most 

 experience in the calculations. 



Before closing these notes, I think that I ought to refer to 

 an important error in some of the County histories, relating to 

 the date when the Rev. Malachy Hitchins was connected for a 

 short time with the staff of the Royal Observatory, and when he 

 assisted in observing the transit of Venus, and in making other 

 astronomical observations, all of which may be found recorded in 

 the volume of "Grreenwich Observations" for 1769. This error 



* Eoyal Observatory MSS., Class A, Shelf B., No. 418. 



