Faraday to Thomas Romney Robinson   20 November 1863

Royal Institution | 20 Nov 1863.

My dear Robinson

Absence at Sea, for the very purpose of observing fog-signals, has occasioned some delay in my acknowledgment of yours of the 16th instant¹. To write a short answer to a long letter is difficult, but having read over all that I have of the correspondence I do not find occasion to alter any thing that I have written, & therefore hope to succeed.

As to the Athenaeum account², I shall not reply or disclaim. To write would only lead to controversy, & controversy has too often for its stimulating element the obscuration of truth. I feel myself unjustly treated there; but submit to the injustice, hoping, that those who may feel themselves the cause of it, will some day put it right.

Your language in the report gives me no pain; put in whatever you think right. I have no dread of the difficulty, the magnitude or the Expense of the investigation; but of the possible inefficiency of the men entrusted with it, & their irresponsibility. My letter to you of the 3rd instant³ must have shewn you that;- as also my previous one of the 22 July to the Trinity House⁴.

I have no copy of the Memorial⁵, for I had to return it to the Trinity House, and may forget much of it; you know how bad my memory is. I only wish, that, so far as I am concerned, it & my letter to the Trinity house should stand side by side. I have just read your last letter again but I do not wish to alter any thing; neither to add any thing.

In the long extract you gave me from the memorial, You, or at least the Committee, begin by saying, we “take the liberty of suggesting what seems to us likely &c”⁶ and that continues for about 3 pages:- but no man or set of men is suggested, as an anchor upon which the money or governing authority might trust either for the whole or any part of the investigation and it seems to me, that the men are far more important than the measures suggested.

Why does not the Committee offer its Chairman & itself to carry out the Experiments & observations they recommend? Why do they not make the proposition as to money & responsibility, which I gathered out of your letter to me of the 29th Octr⁷, & embodied in my letter to you of the 3rd instant? I can see no difficulty in your taking the charge & responsibility from your chair at Armagh; and so giving the Board of Trade, the Trinity House, the British Association, the Maritime world, & all those interested, the fullest confidence in the governing mind & the best founded hopes of a good & useful result. Only so or in some such manner does it seem to me that the directing head would have its proper relation to the report of the Committee.

I do not know the exact relation of the Board of Trade & the Trinity House to each other. I am simply an advisor upon philosophical questions, and am put into action only when called upon. I am afraid that the T.H has not the funds, nor the power; but I conclude that whatever they after careful consideration recommend, will be favourably entertained;- the will I know they have. The Board of Trade has the funds, the power, and I doubt not the will also; but, though I know little about it, I suppose it hesitates in deputing large responsibilities to any person or persons before it has some assurance[.]

The last paragraph in your letter refers to the Trinity Board experiments on Fog Signals. At only the beginning of this week it was engaged at sea off Dungeness in the comparison of Dabolls Fog horn, Holmes Steam trumpet, & the bell. I have reason to believe that a report on them & perhaps other results will go, if it has not already gone, to the B of Trade. But I have no right to say so much I am not in the confidence of either body I do not know what the Blue book contains⁸ or if there is any thing that should be added to its contents.

I am | My dear Robinson | Ever Truly Yours | M. Faraday