In looking at all the circumstances of this statement, we regret its divided responsibility. Mr. Weld has seen Mr. Babbage’s documents. Should he have made an insufficient selection, who is to blame? Mr. Weld says, “I have derived very valuable information from an unpublished statement drawn up by Mr. Babbage, which he has been so kind as to place in my hands. The original documents, which are in Mr. Babbage’s possession, and which are referred to, I have myself examined.” From all this we should conclude that if Mr. Weld had omitted anything material, or fallen into any misconception, Mr. Babbage would before this have set it right. But it would be more satisfactory if we had Mr. Babbage’s own acceptance of the statement thus made, as being that on which he is content to rest his case; at least until some specific counter-statement should demand more detail of explanation. Continued silence will be tantamount to such acceptance. There is also one piece of information which must be drawn out before the case can be finally adjudicated. We stand thus:—Scientific rumour states that Mr. Babbage compelled the Government to give him up by demanding permission to abandon the _Difference Engine_ and substitute the _Analytical Engine_. To this, in the formal point of view, Mr. Babbage has fully answered, by showing that the Government never communicated to him that it was their pleasure he should proceed on the plan originally contemplated. The question now remains—Did Mr. Babbage, or did he not, in the several unanswered applications which he made to the Ministry, press the claims of the new machine and the abandonment of the old? If so, did he do it in such a manner as to give to understand, or make apparent, that he would not consent to recommence operations at the point of relinquishment? The “several applications” which were made from 1833 to 1838 are not particularized, much less described as to contents. But, in October 1838, Mr. Babbage wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, stating, to use Mr. Weld’s words, that “the question he wished to have settled” was, whether the Government required him to superintend the completion of the _Difference Engine_ according to the original plan and principle, or whether they intended to discontinue it altogether. Now the words _quoted_ are very like the idiom a person would employ who had in his mind that up to that time some other question had been among those proposed for discussion. And it is worthy of note that all the communications are undescribed until we come to the one of October 1838; which shows that then at least, whether before or not, Mr. Babbage had put the question on the right issue. Of what tenor, then, were the undescribed applications?[51] If of the same as that of October 1838, Mr. Babbage stands quite clear; but if they were such as fairly to give rise to the rumour above mentioned, then it must be said, that though _he_ had every disposition to get wrong, Government always