DEAR SIR,--In consequence of the conversations I have had with you, respecting your engaging in the service of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, I this day laid the matter before the managers of the Institution at their meeting,[32] and I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the proposal I made to them was approved, and the following resolution unanimously taken by them: ‘Resolved,--That Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant Editor of the Journals of the Institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of 100_l._ per annum.’ On this occasion I did not neglect to give an account to the managers of the whole of what passed between us respecting the situation it was intended you should fill in the Institution on your engaging in its service, and the prospects that could with propriety be held out to you of future advantages, and the managers agreed with me in thinking that, as you had expressed your willingness to devote yourself entirely and permanently to the Institution, it would be right and proper to hold out to you the prospect of becoming, in the course of two or three years, Professor of Chemistry in the Institution, with a salary of 300_l._ per annum, provided that within that period you shall have given proofs of your fitness to hold that distinguished situation. Although you must ever consider the duties of the offices you may hold under the Institution as the primary objects of your care and attention, yet the managers are so far from being desirous that you should relinquish the private philosophical investigations in which you have hitherto been engaged, and by which you have so honourably distinguished yourself and attracted their attention, that it will afford them the sincerest pleasure to encourage and assist you in these laudable pursuits, and give you every facility which the philosophical apparatus at the Institution can afford to make new and interesting experiments. You will naturally consider the Journals of the Institution as the most proper vehicle for communicating to the public from time to time short accounts of the progress you may make in your investigations; this will, however, by no means be considered as precluding you in any degree from presenting to the Royal Society of London, or any other learned body, philosophical papers or memoirs on such scientific subjects as may engage your attention, or from publishing in any other manner the results of your researches.