hat Council, to ask publicly for
an explanation of the following resolution, which stands in the
Council-books for Dec. 21, 1828.

"Resolved, That 500 copies of the President's Discourses, about to be
printed by Mr. Murray, be purchased by the Society, at the usual trade
price."

The answer given to that question was, "THAT THE COUNCIL HAD AGREED TO
PURCHASE THESE VOLUMES AT THAT PRICE, IN ORDER TO INDUCE MR. MURRAY TO
PRINT THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECHES."

I remarked at the time that such an answer was quite unsatisfactory, as
the following statement will prove.

The volume consists of 160 pages, or twenty sheets, and the following
prices are very liberal:

L s. d.
To composing and printing twenty sheets, at
3L. per sheet............... 60 0 0
Twenty reams of paper, at 3L. per ream..... 60 0 0
Corrections, alterations, &c.......... 30 0 0

Total cost of 500 copies...... 150 0 0

Now upon the subject of the expense of printing, the Council could not
plead ignorance. The Society are engaged in printing, and in paying
printers' bills, too frequently to admit of such an excuse; and several
of the individual members must have known, from their own private
experience, that the cost of printing such a volume was widely different
from that they were about to pay, as an inducement to a bookseller to
print it on his own account. Here, then, was a sum of above two hundred
pounds beyond what was necessary for the object, taken from the funds
of the Royal Society; and for what purpose? Did the President and his
officers ever condescend to explain this transaction to the Council;
or were they expected, as a matter of course, to sanction any thing
proposed to them? Could they have been so weak, or so obedient, as to
order the payment of above three hundred and eighty pounds, to induce a
bookseller to do what they might have done themselves for less than half
the sum? Or did they wish to make Mr. Murray a present of two hundred
pounds? If so, he must have had powerful friends in the Council, and it
is fit the Society should know who they were; for they were not friends,
either to its interests or to its honour.

The copies, so purchased, were ordered by the Council to be sold to
members of the Society at 15s. each: (the trade price is 15s. 3d.) and
out of the five hundred copies twenty-seven only have been