With these views I have addressed your Lordship, as the head of the Government; and whatever may be my sense of the injustice that has hitherto been done me, I feel, in laying this representation before your Lordship, and in making the offer I now make, that I have discharged to the utmost limit every implied obligation I originally contracted with the country.
I have the honour to be, &c., &c., &c., CHARLES BABBAGE.
_Dorset Street, Manchester Square._ _June 8, 1852._
As this question was one of finance and of calculation, the sagacious Premier adroitly turned it over to his Chancellor of the Exchequer—that official being, from his office, _supposed_ to be well versed in both subjects.
The opinion pronounced by the novelist and financier was, “That Mr. Babbage’s projects appear to be so indefinitely expensive, the ultimate success so problematical, and the expenditure certainly so large and so utterly incapable of being calculated, that the Government would not be justified in taking upon itself any further liability.”—_Extract from the Reply of Earl Derby to the application of the Earl of Rosse, K.P., President of the Royal Society._
〈REFERRED TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.〉
The answer of Lord Derby to Lord Rosse was in substance—
That he had consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who pronounced Mr. Babbage’s project as— { 108}
3. “The expenditure utterly incapable of being calculated.”
1. With regard to the “indefinite expense.” Lord Rosse had proposed to refer this question to the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, who would have given his opinion after a careful examination of the drawings and notations. These had not been seen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, if seen by him, would not have been comprehended.
The objection that its success was “problematical” may refer either to its mechanical construction or to its mathematical principles.
Who, possessing one grain of common sense, could look upon the unrivalled workmanship of the then existing portion of the Difference Engine No. 1, and doubt whether a simplified form of the same engine could be executed?
As to any doubt of its mathematical principles, this was excusable in the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was himself too practically acquainted with the fallibility of his own figures, over which the severe duties of his office had stultified his brilliant imagination. Far other figures are dear to him—those of speech, in which it cannot be denied he is indeed pre-eminent.