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Gentlemen, 



I have generally commenced my annual addresses to you, by re- 

 turning my thanks to my colleagues in the Council for the assistance 

 that I have received from tliem in performing my presidential duties. 

 On the present occasion I must extend my acknowledgement, and 

 express, in the warmest manner that I am able, my grateful sense 

 of the unvarying kindness that I have experienced at the hands of 

 the Society at large. 



Holding our General Meeting, as w^e now do for the first time in 

 June, six months only having elapsed since the election of the last 

 Council, there are many topics of former addresses which will form 

 no part of that which I now deliver. The time for the award of 

 our Medals has not yet arrived. It would also be premature to give 

 an obituary, before the official announcement, of the names of those 

 Fellows whom we have lost, which announcement will take place as 

 usual on St. Andrew's day. I presume, however, that henceforth 

 the obituary will be read in June, with reference to the deaths de- 

 clared in the preceding November. This will in some respects be 

 more convenient, and will give additional time for its due prepara- 

 tion. 



I regret extremely, that I have it not in my power to announce to 

 you that any intelligence has arrived respecting the Northern Ex- 

 pedition of Sir John Franklin. It is hardly necessary for me to 

 mention, that both by land and sea the Government has taken steps 

 to obtain intelligence of, and also to give assistance to our gallant ex- 

 plorers. I am sure you will all join me in the fervent wish that 

 Heaven may prosper these endeavours. 



I have to inform you, that the Council of the University of London 

 have been so kind as to grant us the temporary loan, if we should 

 have occasion to wish for it, of three rooms adjoining to ours and to 

 those of the Society of Antiquaries. This concession may be very 

 convenient to the Royal Society. One of these rooms is lent to the 

 Society of Antiquaries, for their use, on Thursday evenings : I need 

 hardly say, therefore, that at those times, we could not make use of 

 them, and that it would have been the farthest thing from the wish of 

 us all to interfere with the accommodation of a Society, with which 

 we have always been, and I trust always shall be, on the most 

 friendly terms : indeed, so many of our Fellows form also a portion 

 of the Society of Antiquaries, that there must always be a mutual 

 bond between us. On your part then, Gentlemen, I beg to express 

 our thanks to the Chancellor and Council of the University of 

 London. 



Today, Gentlemen, come into operation for the first time our new 

 regulations on the subject of election. I have never concealed my 

 own doubts on the main feature of these regulations. I believe that 

 many Fellows of the Society participate in these doubts, but it 

 would be to me a matter of the deepest regret if they do not receive 

 a fair trial. Still more should I deplore the result, if the supposed 

 errors of these regulations were to be visited on the unoflTending 



