SIR HANS SLOANE. 
85 
be, after my decease, sell and dispose of the same, to 
be settled for the public uses aforesaid, at the rate of 
tiventy thousand pounds of lawful money of Great 
Britain. And my will and desire is, that his Grace 
the Duke of Richmond, the Lord Cadogan, Sir 
Robert Walpole, Sir Paul Methuen, Mr Edgecomb, 
or any other proper persons I have the honour to be 
known to, who understand matters of this nature, 
and may have access to his most excellent Majesty, 
King George the Second, and are willing to promote 
so public a good, may be humbly desired to offer them 
to his Majesty, at the rate above mentioned, for the 
purposes aforesaid. But if his Majesty shall not think 
lit to accept of the same within six months after such 
overture made, then my will is, that they be offered, 
at the same price, to the President, Council, and 
Fellows of the Royal Society of London, for improv- 
ing natural knowledge ; and upon their refusal, to the 
Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Oxford ; 
and upon their refusal, then successively to be offered 
to the College of Physiciaus at Edinburgh, the Royal 
Academy of Sciences at Paris, that at Petersburg!), 
Berlin, and Madrid, who have done me the honour to 
make me one of their members. And my will is that 
every one of them shall have one month’s time, to be 
accounted from the time of the respective offer made 
to them ; which offer or intention of mine may be 
signified to all, or any of them, for the acceptance of 
such offer, soon after my death. And in case none 
of the persons or public bodies aforesaid shall think 
fit to buy them at the price of twenty thousand 
pounds, then my will is, that my said executors do 
sell or dispose of them, either entirely to any person 
or body of men, or in parcels by auction, printed 
catalogues of them being timely dispersed ; and that, in 
selling or disposing of them, and their catalogues or 
observations upon them, they take the advice of such 
persons as are skilled in natural knowledge, medals, 
&c. allowing him or them what my executors and 
they think reasonable for their care and trouble in 
perusing and correcting my catalogues, which have 
