¥802.J 
fert nothing but what either is truth, or 
appears to me as fuch. 
When Wouldhave, in confequence of 
the advertifement, prefented his model to 
the gentlemen at the Law-Houle, fome of 
them atked if a copper-boat would fwim ? 
Without confidering that, though they 
might, be very fenfible and refpeétable 
men, their habits of life had never led 
them to the ftudy of natural and expert- 
mental philofophy, he immediately repli- 
ed, that it was a law in hydroftatics for 
every buoyant body to difplace juft fuch a 
portion of the fluid as was equal to its 
weight: this he, nodoubt, uttered in his 
ufual rough manner. Afterwards he was 
told, that Mr. Greathead’s model was 
preferred to his, becaufe it was of wood ; 
he then, with a confiderable degree of 
warmth, toldthem, that they might pre- 
fer which they pleafed, but if he had in- 
tended to treat their advertifement with 
ridicule, he would have prefented them 
yu fuch a model as Mr. Greathead had 
done. Such language, it is certain, had 
little tendency to conciliate the good opi- 
nion of the Gentlemen, or to render them 
his friends ; and whenhe found that, after 
the boat was built, they affeéted to deny 
him the merit of the invention, he gave 
‘his tongue unlimited licence, and {carcely 
ever fpoke of them but in terms of con- 
tenpt. It will be hardly neceflary for me 
to mention the confequence of his beha- 
viour. IF to fatyrize one man, as Sterne 
juftly obferves, be to draw upon the faty- 
rift the refentment of all thofe with whom 
that man is conneéted ; W'ouldhave’s far- 
cafms on the gentlemen mufi naturally 
have procured him a number of enemies. 
To this, I am firmly perfuaded, is to be 
attributed their refufing to allow him the 
merit of the invention, and their patron- 
age of Mr. Greathead, who is only the 
uilder. Another reafon why he never 
made any proper application on the bufi- 
mefs, arofe from the verfatility of his 
mind, always employed, yet always chan- 
ging the employment ; fometimes arguing 
on mufic with the organift, and philofo- 
phifing, at other times, with a keelman. 
As honeftas he is pocr, and almoft as 
communicative as he is ingenious, he con- 
tented himfelf with the idea of being al- 
Jowed to be the inventor by all the unpre- 
judiced inhabitants of Shields; and though 
he received a guinea, being half of the re- 
ward offered by the committee for the beft 
model, he certainly never expected that 
the invention would be deemed worthy of 
inveftigation by a committee of the Houfe 
of Commons, till he found Greathead was 
Invention of Life-boats. 
321 
foliciting the reward ; he then made fome 
feeble efforts to bring the fubje& before 
the public, and addrefled a member of 
parliament : that it fhould not have been 
attended to, is not at all wonderful ; for, 
notwithftanding his great ingenuity, and 
warmth of imagination, his talents for 
compofition are not fuch as to intereft a 
firanger in his caufe: hefides, the ill- 
treatment he conceived himfelf to have 
received, rendered his ftatement (like his 
language) violent, and full of reflections 
on the parties to whom he attached blame. 
His clamour was not attended to, and 
Mr. Greathead received the national boun- 
ty for an imvention to which, it is now 
well-known, he had little or noclaim. To 
me it is furprifing, that the Gentlemen of 
the Committee of the Law-Houfe fhould 
have fuffered their paffions to predominate 
fo far, as to hinder them from doing juf- 
tice to a man becaufe he had affronted 
them; and that Mr. Greathead fhould 
have given to the public fo glaring a proof 
that he had no better foundation to reft his 
claim upon, than the certificate granted 
him by the above gentlemen, which, in 
fact, denies his being the inventor. That 
he gave in a model ot a boat, is undeniable; 
and that the life-boats are not built'after 
that model, is alfo undeniable; for that 
model was flat-bottomed, had nearly paral- 
lel fides, without any cork attached to 
them, femicircular ends, and very little 
fheer ; but the life-boats are inthe flaunch- 
ing form, and taper from the midfhip to 
the end, have a great quantity cf cork at- 
tached to them, in the very manner’ of 
Wouldhave’s model, befides a quantity 
added on the outfide, and very much fheer. 
Craving ycur pardon for trefpaffing fo long 
on the patience of your readers, I fhalt 
only add, that, as I believe the Gentle- 
men of South Shields are very defirous to 
know the author of any paper concerning 
the life-boat, 1 thall, to oblige them, fub- 
{cribe mytel, Sir, Your's; &c. 
WiLtiam ANTHONY Hai_s, 
Newcafile cn Tyne, ‘ 
OG. 5, 1802. 
——re— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
I thank you for inferting in your lite- 
rary Magazine my letter ref; ecting 
the national debr of France, and the cor- 
rection of the miftake I was led into,-by the 
paper to which I referred. Perfuaded that 
a correct hiltory of the means by which the 
French were enabled to fupport fo long and 
expenfive a.conteft, and of the prefent ftate 
of their finances, would be acceptable to 
) Ss 2z many 
