Having neither asked nor been offered any acknowledgment for all the sacrifices I had made, I felt that I had some just claims to one of these appointments. Every application was unsuccessful; whatever may have been the reasons, the conduct of Government has been exactly that which might have been expected had they been the _allies_ or the _dupes_ of the party which thought it necessary, from enmity to Sir James South, to “discredit” the author of the Analytical Engine. One only of the many reports which were circulated, I thought it worth while to contradict, and that cost me more trouble, and wasted more of my time, than the refutation of the calumny was worth. It was boldly and perseveringly stated that I had received from the Government a large pecuniary reward for my services. The fact was, not merely that I never _did_ receive any such reward, but that I was almost constantly _advancing money_ to pay the engineer who was constructing the Engine for the Government, before I had myself received the amount of his bills from the Treasury. On tracing up these rumours, they were usually found to arise from a species of dishonesty very difficult to convict. Thus one person circulated them widely; when asked for the grounds of the charge, he referred to certain Parliamentary Papers, and affected to believe that the sums paid _for the workmen_ were paid to the _inventor_: of course _he_ could no longer safely propagate the falsehood. Another then took up the tale, until he was met by the same question, when _he_ not only expressed his delight at being informed of the truth, but half convinced his indignant, though credulous auditor, that _he_ would assist in propagating the correction. Thus the assertion was continually repeated, until honourable and upright men, who had been deceived and discovered the deception, were so frequent in society, that it became dangerous to the character of the traducers to continue the circulation of the calumny. Even since the first edition of this work has appeared, one of these calumnies has been again revived, in the statement that— The reason why the Government gave up the construction of the original Difference Engine was, that Mr. Babbage refused to finish _it_, and wished them to take up the Difference Engine No. 2.