45 Geo. III. 
qttence of a representation to them, that the 
preserving and exhibiting it to the public 
View in the Metropolis would be highly ad- 
vantageous to the Cultivation of the Fine 
Arts, and at the same time honourable to the 
memory of their deceased Relation^ have ex- 
pressed their consent to surrender this Col- 
lection to the Public, if Parliament should be 
disposed to Purchase the same at the Sum of 
Twenty thousand Pounds, being (as they 
state) far less than its value, and if the like 
privilege were conferred upon their Family 
as was granted, in the like Cases, to the 
Families of Sir Hans Sloane and the Earl of 
Oxford, by vesting in the Heirs of the late 
Charles Townley y Esquire, the Power of no- 
minating two Trustees of the British Museum 
in perpetual Succession ; and that the Pe- 
titioners conceive it to be an Object of great 
National Importance for the Improvement of 
the Fine Arts, that a Collection of Antique 
Sculpture, of such acknowledged and un- 
rivalled Excellence, should be acquired and 
preserved for Public Inspection and Use ; 
and they have felt it the more incumbent 
upon them, to submit these Circumstances 
to the Consideration of Parliament, as they 
