Faraday to William Edward Fitzmaurice   16 August 1858

Royal Institution | 16 August 1858

Dear Sir

I received your Official & your private¹ letters of the 12th instant in due time. I have waited this long before answering the latter because I wished to obtain a copy of my letter to the Society of the Trinity House, containing the points on which I desired to be informed if called upon for an advising opinion². I have not yet obtained it, but expect to do so to day & will send it to you[.] You will find the paragraphs numbered. I do not find that your official letter of the 12th gives any of the information wanted under paragraphs 2. 3 and 4; without which I can form no opinion. If when you receive my letter you have any further data to send me in writing, I shall be glad to consider them before I communicate to the Trinity Board[.]

You wrote “private” on the outside of your official communication, and “confidential” within. I will take care to respect these intimations as far as falls within my duty: but I can have nothing private or confidential as regards the Trinity House which is my chief. Whatever opinions I send to them I must accompany with the papers you send me. If therefore you wish anything held back from them send me another official answer and I will return you the one I have, marked “confidential”.ø Our correspondence is indeed likely to become a little irregular, because your papers have not come to me through the Trinity House. You will feel that I cannot communicate any opinion I may form, to you:- I am bound to the Trinity house to whom I must communicate in confidence. I have no objection to your knowing my conclusions but the Trinity House is the fit judge of the use it may make of them, or the degree of confidence they may think they deserve, or the parties to whom they may choose to communicate them.

You will see that it is only after a careful consideration of the full answers to the many enquiries made in paragraphs 1. 2. 3. 4 & 5 of my letter and then only in consequence of a favourable or at least an uncertain result, that I should think a trial in a lighthouse as at Blackwall necessary. When such a trial is made it ought to be full including every arrangement that would be needed at any lighthouse; such as Gas retorts - furnaces - gasometers - cylinders - pumps, pump motors &c in fact every thing required for a continuous light, supplied night after night for some weeks. It is only so that the liabilities of any proposed plan can be tested[.]

I write thus fully to prevent the necessity of future communication. Do not answer before you receive the copy of my letter which I am to procure from the Trinity house. Then send me all the information on which I am to form an opinion:- and I will send it on with my opinion to the Trinity House[.]

Very Truly Yours | M. Faraday

Honble | Major Fitzmaurice | &c &c &c

ø returned by desire on the 20th aug