The Council adopted the Report, expressing their trust, that while Mr. Babbage’s mind was intently occupied on an undertaking likely to do so much honour to his country, he might be relieved as much as possible from all other sources of anxiety. It is clear that the Council of the Royal Society regarded Mr. Babbage’s engine, as it then existed, in a favourable light, and were sanguine respecting its satisfactory completion. Government acted on the foregoing Report; funds were advanced, the machinery was declared national property, and the works were continued. But there was evidently a misgiving on the part of the Lords of the Treasury, for the official payments soon failed to meet the heavy and increasing expenses incurred by Mr. Babbage. Under these circumstances, by the advice of Mr. Wolryche Whitmore (Mr. Babbage’s brother-in-law), a meeting of Mr. Babbage’s personal friends was held on the 12th of May, 1829. It consisted of:— The Duke of Somerset, F.R.S., Lord Ashley, M.P., Sir John Franklin, Capt. R.N., F.R.S., Mr. Wolryche Whitmore, M.P., Dr. Fitton, F.R.S., Mr. Francis Baily, F.R.S., Sir John Herschel, F.R.S. They drew up the annexed Report:— “_May 12, 1829._ “The attention of the undersigned personal friends of Mr. Babbage having been called by him to the actual state of his Machine for Calculating and Printing Mathematical Tables; and to his relation to the Government on the one hand, and to the Engineers and workmen employed by him in its execution on the other, declare themselves satisfied, from his statements and from the documents they have perused, of the following facts. “That Mr. Babbage was originally induced to take up the work on its present extensive scale, by an understanding on his part, that it was the wish of Government he should do so, and by an advance of 1,500_l._ in the outset, with a full impression on his mind that such further advances would be made as the progress of the work should require, and as should secure him from ultimate loss. “That the public and scientific importance of the Engine has been acknowledged, in a Report of a Committee of the Royal Society, made at the time of its first receiving the sanction of His Majesty’s Government, and that its actual state of progress is such, as in the opinion of the most eminent Engineers and other Members of the Royal Society, as detailed in a further Report of a Committee of that body, to warrant their impression of the moral certainty of its success, should funds not be wanting for its completion. “That it appears, that Mr. Babbage’s actual expenditure has amounted to nearly 7,000_l._ and that the whole sum advanced to him by the Government is 3,000_l._