real state of the case:--

In 1785, Lord Sidney, one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of
State, wrote to the Council a letter, dated Whitehall, March 8, 1785,
from which the following is extracted:--

"The King has been pleased to consent, that any copies of the
Astronomical Observations, made at the Observatory of Greenwich, (and
paid for by the Board of Ordnance, pursuant to His Majesty's command,
of July 21, 1767,) which may at any time remain in the hands of the
printer, shall, after you have reserved such copies as you may
think proper as presents, be given to the said Nevil Maskelyne, in
consideration of his trouble in the superintending the printing thereof.
I am to signify His Majesty's pleasure, that you do, from time to time,
give the necessary orders for that purpose, until His Majesty's further
commands shall be communicated to you.

Soon after this letter, I find on the council-books:--

"Ordered, That sixty copies of the Greenwich Observations, last
published, be retained as presents, and that the rest be delivered to
the Astronomer Royal."

It is difficult to be sure of a negative fact, but in searching many
volumes of the Proceedings of the Council, I have not discovered any
revocation of this order, and I believe none exists. This is confirmed
by the circumstance of the Council at the present day receiving
precisely the same number of copies as their predecessors, and I believe
that in fact they do not know the authority on which the right to those
sixty rests.

Supposing this order unrevoked, it was clearly meant to be left to the
discretion of the Council, to order such a number to be reserved, "from
time to time," as the demands of science might require. When, therefore,
they found that the number of sixty copies was insufficient, they ought
to have directed the printer to send them a larger number; but when they
found out the purpose to which the Astronomer Royal applied them, they
ought immediately to have ordered nearly the whole impression, in order
to prevent this destruction of public property. If, on the other hand,
the above order is revoked, and we really have no right to more than
sixty copies; then, on discovering the Observations in their progress
towards pasteboard, it was the duty of the Council of the Royal Society,
as visitors of the Royal Observatory, immediately to have represented to
Government the evil of the arrangement, and to have suggested, that if
the Astronome