The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-10-19 00:00:00

" TO THE EDITOR OF THE TI3IE§.

" Sir—llaving seen my name in the Times connected with cop.
per sheeting and patent copper,' 1 think it right to inform you, that
everything relating to me lu that paragraph is false.
" You probably win not wish statements which are erroneous,
which some may think calumnious, and which may mislead the
shipowners or the country, to be noticed anywhere but In re own
pages. I trust, therefore, that you will insert an 1121 l'd con.
tradiction of them in your paper. I am, Sir,
" 11. DAVY.

" Ist. It Is not true that any Committee of the Royal Society
was formed to investigate the causes of the decay of copper sheet.
ing, at the request of the Lords of the Admiralty. The Commis.
elopers of the Navy Board cousulted with the President of •he
Royal Society on this subject, and he proposed to them to refer it
to the Council, who formed a Committee for the invest resin of it.
This was in 182.!, long before • patent copper' was hated of.
" 2. It leftist that any vessels, protected according to Sir 11.
Davy's principles, and sent out upon short cruises by the Lords of
the Admiralty, have returned Infested with worms and barhaeles.
•• 3. It is file that any failure has taken place in my expert.
moms. As far as they have yet gone, they seem to show that
the decay of copper may be entirely prevented in harbour, and
to a great extent, in sailing, by the protectors ; and the ravages
of worms, Ike. upon protected ships, is an entire fiction : m.
deed, it requires peculiar ingenuity to imagine how worms
CON prey upon the Lytton: of a ship, the copper of which remains
untouched.
" 4. It is cot true that the President of the Royal Society has
made any voyages at the public e.rpense. The Commissioners of
Longitude having resolved to ascertain the longitude of different
points of great importance to navigation in the North Sea, by
chronometers, the use of the Comet steam best was granted to
them by the Admiralty, and she was put under the direction of
the President of the Royal Society for this purpose, and lie took
the opportunity of trying certain experiments on the protection
of copper, going in her to Sweden. and coming back in her
from the north of the Waer, making his journeys and iroy.
ages in Sweden, Denmark, Holstein, and Hanover, at his Fri.
vote expense.
"5. It is not true that he had a pleasant voyage. He had a
stormy passage out, and a still more stormy passage home ; and he
wishes the author of the paragraph in question no severer punish.
meet for his inaccuracies and if lie be a Landsman, and
liable to sea-sickness, than a similar voyage.
" Oct. 17."

No exposure of falsehood can be more complete than this.
There is no angry parleying ; Sir 11. comes at once to the
point; his confutation is clear, brief, and conclusive.
Let us now remark the mean and miserably-evasive
audacity with which the Times Journalist endeavours to
back out. Ile prefaces the above letter thus:—
" iVs insert, with a feeling of great regret for die author, but
with no feeling of reluctance on out own account, the following
very singular letter tenet the I'residcnt of the Itoyal Society, in
answer to a paragraph which solicited in our paper of Saturday.
If the patriot' of tloc learned President had not entirely blinded
his understanding, bemuse have seen that the language which he
employs is neither becoming the chair which he occupies, nor
calculated to produce conviction in the quaater which he addresses.
In order to have the pleasure of making out as many assertions as
possible to which he may apply the epithet of`•false," he divides
our paragraph into tire propositions, which he takes the liberty of
contradicting, and only one of which touches the point at issue
between us and the lea: red President. .

" First, that a committee was appointed to investigate the causes
of the rnpid decay of copper-sheathing, Sir Ilumphry does not
deny; though, cisiniing to he at the birth of toe said committee,
he corrects us with respect to its genealogy, and ascribes its origin,
not to the Admiralty directly, but to the Council, through the
representation or the Admiralty."
I shall take the liberty of' dissecting this reply as we
proceed. The assertion that `Sir If umphry ascribes
the appointment of the Committee " to the Council,
through the representation of the Admirally,” is utterly
unauthorised. There s not even a word that can justify
such a gross anti barefaced misstatement.
"The second assertion which he draws from our paragraph for
the purpose of contradicting, is the only proposition respecting
with,, we are at issue with the learned President If ships pro.
tected by his principles have neither got foul when sent on pht.rt
voyages, or retained in harbour, then our information was wrong;
but even though it were correct, as we still believe it to he. we
would not apply the word fal:e to the Preside it's contradiction,
without a stronger pmvocation than that which he received."
If the "late, Editor still &Were., his statement to be cor-
rect, why does he not proceed to state the frets which still
justify his hdi,f of it, after it is thus decidedly affirmed to
he false. But he afficcts, for the purpose of call"' off the
reader's attention from the main point, to bet i htily in
dudgeon at the application by Sir 11. of the term to
those assertions which he has taken the liberty to contra-
ct:et. " Ire would not," says he, " apply the went idle to
the President's contradiction, without a strong:,- rronoca_
lion titan that which he see, iced." Intleo.d! and how touch
more of wofinntded aspersion must the Times newspaper
be permitted to cast upon any man before he may take
the liherty of contradicting. it, or may be allowed to affirm
that it is false? Sir It DAVY is charged with being so
ignorant of the science he professes, as to apply as a ranttly

that which turned out to be worse Man Me disease. His
experiment is hclol up to the shipowners of the country
as a failure, when the direct reverse Was the fact.
Vessels protected upon his principles are represented "
returning after a short cruise, so infested with 117,,r,,
and barnacles, as to be in a worse condition than
if they had not been protected at all. And he is held up
to the public as making his chymical experinients a pretext
for taking a pleasant summer excursion to the North 8,2
and the Baltic, at the public cost. And all this, follow,,
is not provocation enough, though utterly and every word
of it untrue, to excuse him in publicly declaring it to he
false !!! Really this would be a new sort of chivalry!
'• Our answer to his second head of charge will apply ey,,,,11y
to
the third."
That is, it is equally inapplicable to eithir, but is a
subterfuge which it suits the wriLr, for the sake of getting
over them, to extend to both.
" With regard to the President's fourth declaration of untruth'
we shall say nothing."
Having nothing to say, the writer had no dicier.. There
was no other mode fur hint to escape out of the predica-
ment into which lie had brought himself:

I will not occupy your columns with any further ani.
madversions. My advice to the Times gdit,r is, timt
when, in attacking the public and private character of intli.
yiduals, he next involves himself in falsehood, he will con.
trive some less disgraceful tnanner of getting out of it.
October IS. VERITAS.