Beschreibung:

HARRISON, John (bap. 1693-1776). A Narrative of the Proceedings Relative to the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea . London: Printed for the Author and sold by Mr. Sandby, 1765. Extremely rare first edition of Harrison's claim to be awarded the £20,000 'Longitude Prize'. 'Mr. Harrison hopes these proposals will be thought satisfactory to the public' (p.18). The second sea trial of Harrison's fourth time-keeper, H4, was made aboard the Tartar on a voyage from Portsmouth to Barbados in 1764. Harrison's son accompanied the voyage and made further refinements to the watch and when it arrived at Barbados the error of the watch was found to be only 43 seconds. Upon returning to England, the Board of Longitude refused to grant the longitude award to Harrison in full, causing him to publish defences of his watch and its precision. The present work copies letters that the Admiralty sent to Harrison in the preceding years establishing his development of the watch, and concludes with his own memorial. In it he outlines his claim, concluding in part that 'whereas a method (invented by your Memorialist) for the Discovery of the Longitude hath been tried by Experiments made according to the Appointment of your Honourable Board... Your Memorialist therefore humbly prays; that your Honourable Board will be pleased to grant him such Certificate as directed by the above recited Act' (pp.13-14). The Board held firm for more than nine years, however. It was not until the intervention of Parliament in 1774 that Harrison received the balance of his reward of £20,000 to which, under the Act of 1714, he was entitled. (See Commander J.B. Hewson, A History of the Practice of Navigation , Glasgow, 1963, pp. 241-245). Only 3 copies have appeared at auction in the past 40 years (ABPC/RBH): the Streeter copy, Christie's New York 17 April 2007, lot 253; Bloomsbury 30 October 2008, lot 192; and The Law Society copy, Sotheby's 12 Dec 2012, lot 16. The National Maritime Museum did not have a copy of the pamphlet until 2003, when it acquired the papers of the 2nd Viscount Barrington, a member of the 18th-century Board of Longitude. The self-published pamphlet was presumably printed in an extremely limited edition for private circulation to members of the board. Adams & Waters 2017; Crone 557. Octavo (200 x 125 mm). Pp. [2], 18, [2, blank] (without half-title but with final blank D2, light spotting to title and onto following leaf, faint central horizontal creasefold). Disbound; contained in modern blue morocco-backed slipcase).