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than removed our feeling of the difficulties with which the whole subject is surrounded. We do not wish to represent those difficulties as precluding the propriety of an attempt to remove the exist ing evils, by a change in the form of the notes issued by the Bank of England; but we do feel them to be such as make it imperative upon those with whom the responsibility rests, to be fully satisfied that they shall produce an improvement before they venture to effect a change.

All which is humbly submitted to your royal highness's consideration and judgment.

Jos. BANKS.
WILLIAM Congreve.
WILLIAM COURTENAY.
DAVIES GILBERT.
JER. HARMAN.

W. H. WOLLASTON. CHARLES HATCHETT. Soho-square, Jan. 15, 1819.

COLONISTS TO THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

Official Circular.

Downing-street, London, 1819. I have to acquaint you in reply to your letter of the

that the following are the conditions under which it is proposed to give encouragement to emigration to the Cape of Good Hope.

The sufferings to which many individuals have been exposed, who have emigrated to his Majesty's foreign possessions unconnected and unprovided with any capital, or even the means of support, having been very afflicting to themselves and equally

burthensome to the colonies to which they have proceeded, the government have determined to confine the application of the money recently voted by address in the House of Commons, to those persons who, possessing the means, will engage to carry out, at the least, ten able-bodied indi viduals above 18 years of age, with or without families, the government always reserving to itself the right of selecting from the several offers made to them those which may prove, upon examination, to be most eligible.

In order to give some security to the government, that the persons undertaking to make these establishments have the means of doing so, every person engaging to take out the above-mentioned number of persons or families shall deposit at the rate of 107. (to be repaid as hereinafter mentioned) for every family so taken out, provided that the family does not consist of more than one man, one woman, and two children under 14 years of age. All children above the number of two will be to be paid for, in addition to the deposit above-mentioned, in the proportion of 5l. for every two children under 14 years of age, and 51. for every person be. tween the ages of 14 and 18.

In consideration of this deposit, a passage shall be provided at the expense of government for the settlers, who shall also be victualled from the time of their embarkation until the time of their landing in the colony.

A grant of land, under the conditions hereafter specified, shall be made to him at the rate of 100 acres for every such per

son

son or family whom he so takes out; one-third of the sum advanced to government on the outset shall be repaid on landing, when the victualling at the expense of government shall cease. A further proportion of one-third shall be repaid, as soon as it shall be certified to the governor of the colony that the settlers under the direction of the person taking them out are actually located upon the land assigned to them; and the remainder at the expiration of three months from the date of their location.

If any parishes in which there may be a redundancy of population shall unite in selecting an intelligent individual to proceed to the Cape, with settlers under his direction, not less in number and of the description abovementioned, and shall advance money in the proportion abovementioned, the government will grant land to such an individual at the rate of 100 acres for every head of a family, leaving the parish at liberty to make such conditions with the individual, or the settlers, as may be calculated to prevent the parish becoming again chargeable with the maintenance of such settlers, in the event of their return to this country.

But no offers of this kind will be accepted, unless it shall be clear that the persons proposing to become settlers shall have distinctly given their consent, and the head of each family is not infirm or incapable of work.

It is further proposed, that in any case in which one hundred families proceed together, and apply for leave to carry out with

them a minister of their own persuasion, government will, upon their being actually located, assign a salary to the minister whom they may have selected to accompany them, if he shall be approved by the secretary of state.

The lands will be granted at a quit rent to be fixed, which rent, however, will be remitted for the first 10 years; and at the expiration of three years (during which the party and a number of families, in the proportion of one for every hundred acres, must have resided on the estate) the land. shall be measured at the expense of government, and the holder shall obtain, without fee, his title thereto, on a perpetual quit rent, not exceeding in any case 21. sterling for every 100 acres; subject, however, to this clause beyond the usual reservations*. that the land shall become forfeited to government, in case the party shall abandon the estate, or not bring it into cultivation within a given number of years. I am, your most obedient humble ser

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for the purpose of considering how far it may be practicable and advisable to establish within his Majesty's dominions a more uniform system of weights and measures, having obtained such information as we have been able to collect, beg leave to submit with all humility the first results of our deliberations.

1. We have procured, for the better consideration of the subject referred to us, an abstract of all the statutes relating to weights and measures which have been passed in the United Kingdoms from the earliest times; and we have obtained from the country reports, lately published by the Board of Agriculture, and from various other sources, a large mass of information respecting the present state of the customary measures employed in different parts of the United Kingdom. We have also examined the standard measures of capacity kept in the Exchequer, and we have inquired into the state of the standards of length of the highest authority. Upon a deliberate consideration of the whole of the system at present existing, we are impressed with a sense of the great difficulty of effecting any radical changes, to so considerable an extent as might in some respects be desirable; and we therefore wish to proceed with great caution in the suggestions which we shall venture to propose.

2. With respect to the actual magnitude of the standards of length, it does not appear to us that there can be any sufficient reason for altering those which are at present generally employed.

There is no practical advantage in having a quantity commensurable to any original quantity existing, or which may be imagined to exist, in nature, except as affording some little encouragement to its common adoption by neighbouring nations. But it is scarcely possible that the departure from a standard once universally established in a great country, should not produce much more labour and inconvenience in its internal relations than it could ever be expected to save in the operations of foreign commerce and correspondence, which always are, and always must be, conducted by persons, to whom the difficulty of calculation is comparatively inconsiderable, and who are also remunerated for their trouble, either by the profits of their commercial concerns or by the credit of their scientific acquirements.

3. The subdivisions of weights and measures at present employed in this country, appear to be far more convenient for practical purposes than the decimal scale, which might perhaps be preferred by some persons for making calculations with quantities already determined. But the power of expressing a third, a fourth and a sixth of a foot in inches, without a fraction, is a peculiar advantage in the duodecimal scale, and for the operations of weighing and of measuring capacities, the continual division by 2 renders it practicable to make up any given quantity with the smallest possible number of standard weights or measures, and is far preferable in this respect to any decimal scale. We would

therefore

therefore recommend, that all the multiples and subdivisions of the standard to be adopted should retain the same relative proportions to each other as are at present in general use.

4. The most authentic standards of length which are now in existence being found, upon a minute examination, to vary in a very slight degree from each other, although either of them might be preferred without any difference that would become sensible in common cases, we beg leave to recommend, for the legal determination of the standard yard, that which was employed by general Roy in the measurement of a base on Hounslow heath, as a foundation for the trigonometrical operations that have been carried on by the ordnance throughout the country, and a duplicate of which will probably be laid down, on a standard scale, by the committee of the Royal Society appointed for assisting the astronomer royal in the determination of the length of the pendulum; the temperature being supposed to be 62 degrees of Fahrenheit, when the scale is employed.

5. We propose also, upon the authority of the experiments made by the committee of the Royal Society, that it should be declared, for the purpose of identifying or recovering the length of this standard, in case that it should ever be lost or impaired, that the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds of mean solar time in London, on the level of the sea, and in a vacuum, is 39.1372 inches of this scale; and that the length of the metre em

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ployed in France, as the ten-millionth part of the quadrantal arc of the meridian, has been found equal to 39.3694 inches.

6. The definitions of measures of capacity are obviously capable of being immediately deduced from their relations to measures of length; but since the readiest practical method of ascertaining the magnitude of any measure of capacity is to weigh the quantity of water which it is capable of containing, it would, in our opi❤ nion, be advisable in this instance to invert the more natural order of proceeding, and to define the measures of capacity rather from the weight of the water they are capable of containing, than from their solid contents in space. It will therefore be convenient to begin with the definition of the standard of weight, by declaring, that 19 cubic inches of distilled water, at the temperature of 50 degrees, must weigh exactly 10 ounces of troy, or 4,800 grains; and that 7,000 such grains make a pound avoirdupois; supposing, however, the cubic inches to relate to the measure of a portion of brass, adjusted by a standard scale of brass. This definition is deduced from some very accurate experiments of the late sir George Shuckburgh on the weights and measures of Great Britain; but we propose at a future period to repeat such of them as appear to be the most important.

7. The definitions thus established are not calculated to introduce any variation from the existing standards of length and of weight, which may be considered as already sufficiently well ascertained. But, with respect

to

to the measures of capacity, it ap. pears, that the legal standards of the highest authority are considerably at variance with each other the standard gallon, quart and pint of queen Elizabeth, which are kept in the Exchequer, having been also apparently employed, almost indiscriminately, for adjusting the measures both of corn and beer; between which, however, a difference has gradually, and as it may be supposed unintentionally, crept into the practice of the Excise; the ale gallon being understood to contain about 4 per cent more than the corn gallon, though we do not find any particular act of parliament in which this excess is expressly recognized. We think it right to propose, that these measures should again be reduced to their original equality; and at the same time, on account of the great convenience which would be derived from the facility of determining a gallon and its parts by the operation of weighing a certain quantity of water, amounting to an entire number of pounds and ounces without fractions, we venture strongly to recommend, that the standard ale and corn gallon should contain exactly 10 pounds avoirdupois of distilled water, at 62° of Fahrenheit, being nearly equal to 277.2 cubic inches, and agreeing with the standard pint in the Exchequer, which is found to contain exactly 20 ounces of

water.

8. We presume that very little inconvenience would be felt by the public from the introduction of this gallon, in the place of the customary ale gallon of 282 cubic

inches, and of the Winchester corn gallon, directed by a statute of king William to contain 269, and by some later statutes estimated at 2724 cubic inches; especially when it is considered that the standards by which the quart and pint beer measures used in London are habitually adjusted, do not at present differ in a sensible degree from the standard proposed to be rendered general. We apprehend also, that the slight excess of the new bushel above the common corn measure, would be of less importance, as the customary measures employed in different parts of Great Britain are almost universally larger than the legal Winchester bushel.

9. Upon the question of the propriety of abolishing altogether the use of the wine gallon, and establishing the new gallon of 10 pounds as the only standard for all purposes, we have not yet been able to obtain sufficient grounds for coming to a conclusive determination; we can only suggest, that there would be a manifest advantage in the identification of all measures of the same name, provided that the change could be made without practical inconvenience: but how far the inconvenience might be more felt than the advantage, we must leave to the wisdom of his majesty's government to decide.

10. In the mean time it may be adviseable to take into consideration the present state of the numerous and complicated laws which have been enacted at various times for the regulation of

the

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