Such was the condition of Harrison's chronometer when he arrived with
it in London in 1735, in order to apply to the commissioners appointed
for providing a public reward for the discovery of the longitude at
sea. He first showed it to several members of the Royal Society, who
cordially approved of it. Five of the most prominent members--Dr.
Bailey, Dr. Smith, Dr. Bradley, Mr. John Machin, and Mr. George
Graham--furnished Harrison with a certificate, stating that the
principles of his machine for measuring time promised a very great and
sufficient degree of exactness. In consequence of this certificate,
the machine, at the request of the inventor, and at the recommendation
of the Lords of the Admiralty, was placed on board a man-of-war.

Sir Charles Wager, then first Lord of the Admiralty, wrote to the
captain of the Centurion, stating that the instrument had been approved
by mathematicians as the best that had been made for measuring time;
and requesting his kind treatment of Mr. Harrison, who was to accompany
it to Lisbon. Captain Proctor answered the First Lord from Spithead,
dated May 17th, 1736, promising his attention to Harrison's comfort,
but intimating his fear that he had attempted impossibilities. It is
always so with a new thing. The first steam-engine, the first
gaslight, the first locomotive, the first steamboat to America, the
first electric telegraph, were all impossibilities!

This first chronometer behaved very well on the outward voyage in the
Centurion. It was not affected by the roughest weather, or by the
working of the ship through the rolling waves of the Bay of Biscay. It
was brought back, with Harrison, in the Orford man-of-war, when its
great utility was proved in a remarkable manner, although, from the
voyage being nearly on a meridian, the risk of losing the longitude was
comparatively small. Yet the following was the certificate of the
captain of the ship, dated the 24th June, 1737: "When we made the
land, the said land, according to my reckoning (and others), ought to
have been the Start; but, before we knew what land it was, John
Harrison declared to me and the rest of the ship's company that,
according to his observations with his machine, it ought to be the
Lizard--the which, indeed, it was found to be, his observation showing
the ship to be more west than my reckoning, above one degree and
twenty-six miles,"--that is, nearly ninety miles out of its course!

Six days late