248 Royal Irish Academ?/. 



" No. 3.— 



''STATEMENT OF FACTS 



" BY THE 



"DELEGATES OF THE EOTAL DUBLIN SOCIETY, 



" I?i Refly to the Averments of a Letter, dated the 23rd May, 

 " last, from the Secretary of the Council of the Royal Irish 

 " Academy to the Secretaries of the Treasury. 



" A. The letter from the Council of the Academy alleges that 

 the Eoyal Duhlin Society's chartered functions are limited to 

 Husbandry and the Useful Arts ; in other words, to Agriculture 

 and Industry. 



" If the assertion had been that the/rs^ Charter of this ancient 

 Society makes no direct mention of two principal provinces of 

 the Society's subsequent work, viz. : Science and Art, the state- 

 ment would have been true. Nothing, however, pertinent to 

 the letter would have followed from so guarded a statement, 

 and the broader assertion which the letter makes is wholly in- 

 correct. 



"At the remote date of our first Charter (1750), the great 

 and important group of Sciences which are now chiefly studied 

 by Scientific men were almost unknown ; but according as they 

 grew up, and the dependence of Industry upon them became 

 understood, the omission in the Charter was felt, and was sup- 

 plied by the Irish Legislature. 



" It has also been provided for in the Society's Supplemental 

 Charter. Accordingly, from a date far back in the last century 

 down to the present time, Science, both pure and applied, has 

 steadily, and indeed necessarily, been cultivated by the Eoyal 

 Dublin Society, and the Society is now entitled to continue this 

 practice at once by reason of the case, by prescriptive usage, by 

 the authority of Parliament, and by its supplemental Charter. 



" We may refer, among other Acts, to the 25 Geo. III. c. 27 

 (1785), which directs the Society to apply funds therein granted 



