364 
the transaction, leaving the world to> 
_ Judge, without drawing any. inference 
himself. 
@. That Napier wanted the world to’ 
believe, either against evidence, or with- 
out evidence, that he was the inventor 
of the new system. Dr. Hutton’s conclu- 
ding language is, “It would have been 
more candid in Lord Napier, to have 
told the werld, in the second edition of 
this book, that Mr. Briggs had mentioned 
this improvement to him, and that he 
had: thereby i been. confirmed in the te- 
solution he had already taken, before 
Mr. Briggs’s communication with him, to 
adopt it in that his second edition, as 
being better fitted to the decimal no- 
tation of arithmetic, which was in ge- 
meral use. Such a declaration would 
have been but a piece of justice to Mr. 
Briggs; and he not having inade it, can- 
not but incline us to suspect that Lord 
Napier was desirous that the world 
should ascribe to him alone, the merit of 
this very useful improvement of the 
Jogarithms, as well as that of having ori- 
ginally invented them; though, if the 
having first communicated. an invention 
to the world be.sufficient to entitle a 
man to the honour of having first in- 
vented it, Mr. Briggs had the better tithe 
to be called the frst inventor. of this 
happy improvement of the logarithms.” 
Qn the whole, I think every unpre- 
judiced reader must admit, that while 
Briggs’s conduct was modest, frank, dis- 
interested, and neble, Napier’s was 
close, uncandid, selfish, and ignable; ex- 
tremely dishonourable to the character 
of one, who had done so much for science 
in the invention of the original system, 
That Dr. Hutton’s statement is correct, 
there can be no doubt: otherwise, Lord 
Buchan, and his _cogdjutor, | would not 
have passed it over in. silence; nor 
should we have seen a quarter of a cen- 
tury elapse, without any other attempt to 
weaken the effect of bis statement, than 
the indirect one which has called forth 
these strictures. 
Permit me just to say, farther, that 
near the era of the invention, there 
seemed no hesitation in ascribing this 
important improveinent to Briggs. Thus, 
in a choice little set of Tables, by Fobn 
Newton, printed in 1654, which I have 
recently laid my hands upon in our col- 
lese library, the author speaks of his - 
Tables, as differing not much from these 
which Master Henry Briggs, that famous 
‘Mathematician of our age, hath long 
Since published in his book, entituled, 
An Accotint of the Wellesley Family. 
Trigonometria Britannica, to whom all 
[Nov.’ I, 
future aces must acknowledge- them- 
selves obliged, for that rare invention of 
_this kind of the Artificial Numbers; and 
had it been but well considered, his sub< 
division of each dégree of the quadrant, 
into one hundred parts, deserves almost 
as high a commendation; by means 
whereof, the part proportional, may be 
obtained with much more ease, than by 
our vulgar tables. 
Bat it is time to conclude. Iam con- 
fident you are no more willing than Tan, 
that the most respectable and most 
widely-circulated periodical publication 
of the present day, should lend its aid to 
the depreeiation of a character, to whom 
science isso much indebted, as to Henry 
Briggs. And I therefore entertain strong 
hopes, that you will let the facts, here 
stated, speak for themselves, in the next 
Number of your valuable Magazine. 
College, Camb. Your’s, &c. 
Oct. 10, 1809. Puito-VERITAS, 
EE 
T6 the Editor of the Monthly Masetie 
ae 
N account of the family of Wellesley 
‘cannot be uninteresting to your nu 
merous readers;-I therefore transmit a 
brief extract which I have made cou- 
cerning them. 
Sir Dudley Colley, Bart. succeeded 
his father in 1637, and ,was. father of 
Elizabeth, who married Garret Welles- 
ley, esq. of Meath, whose son leaving no. 
issue, devised lis whole property to Riche 
ard Colley, one of his mother’s family. 
Sir Dudley was succeeded by Sir Henry, 
who, by bis marriage, 1674, with Mary, 
daughter of Sir William Usher, had 
Henry and. Richard, Henry, in 1719, 
marned Lady Mary Hamilton, daushter 
of James, sixth Earl of Abercorn, and 
sister of Lady Elizabeth, who marred 
William Brownlow, esq. and was. mother 
of Elizabeth, who ‘married John Vesey, 
first Lord Knapton, grandfather of the 
present Viscount De Vesci, and father 
of Viscountess. Pery, and of Viscountess 
Northland, and.of the wife of Sir Robert 
Staples, Bart. father of. Isabella, who 
married Gerald Fitz,Gerald, esq. son of — 
-the late Right Honourable ge nets) Fitz- 
Gerald, by “his second. wife, the younger 
daughter of Mercer, esq. and 
co: heqress, vath, hex sister, the widow of 
Stephen Cassan, esq. of Queen’s County, 
who died 1773. Richard Colley, before 
named, was the first who assumed the 
name. Wellesley; was created Baron 
Mornington, 1746; and was father of 
ayers 
~ 
