10 Annversary Address by Sir Wiliam Huggins. [Noy. 30, 
William Petty, in a document preserved in the archives of the Society, 
estimates the value of the lands granted by the King to the Society, but not 
received by them, “as a great matter, but I know not what.” 
It is on record that the non-fulfilment of the King’s generous intentions 
towards the Society did not damp the philosophic ardour of the Fellows; 
indeed, it is a question on which opinions may widely differ whether the rich 
endowment of the Society, almost from its very birth, would have increased 
its scientific success. We must not forget that, in the case of institutions 
as well as of individuals, the powerful and healthy stimulus to the exertion 
needful for success which arises from the necessity of coping with and 
overcoming difficulties, whether of a monetary or other kind. In no small 
degree was due to the personal favour with which Charles II. regarded the 
Society, the exceptional position it early took up, and which it still holds 
to-day, of a private institution supported and controlled from within, 
which, at the same time, is acknowledged by the State as the authoritative 
national representative of Science in this country, and from time to time 
consulted as such. 
The first royal act which distinctly gave this representative character 
to the newly chartered Society appears to have been the King’s declaring 
his pleasure on the 15th October, 1662, “that no patent should pass for any 
philosophical or mechanical invention until examined by the Society.” This 
personal recognition by the King of the national position of the Society 
was followed and confirmed a few years later by a request from the 
department of the Admiralty for assistance from the Royal Society in raising 
some ships sunk off Woolwich. The Council replied that, though they 
would have great pleasure in affording all assistance in their power by advice, 
the want of funds rendered it impossible for them to provide the necessary 
machinery. 
From that time down to the present the Royal Society, while remaining 
a purely private institution for the promotion of Natural Knowledge, has 
been regarded by the Government as the acknowledged national scientific 
body, whose advice is of the highest authority on all scientific questions, and 
the more to be trusted on account of the Society’s financial independence ; 
a body, which, through its intimate relations with the learned societies of the 
Colonies, has now become the centre of British Science. The Society’s 
historical position and the scientific eminence of its Fellows have made it 
naturally the body which the scientific authorities of foreign countries regard 
as representing the Science of the Empire, and with which they are anxious 
to consult and to co-operate, from time to time, on scientific questions of 
international importance. 
