'It was easy to perceive, from these demands, that the sieur understood not that the best lunar tables differed from the heavens; and that, therefore, his demands were not sufficient for determining the longitude of the place where such observations were, or should be, made, from that to which the lunar tables were fitted, which I represented immediately to the company. But they, considering the interests of his patroness at Court, desired to have him furnished according to his demands. I undertook it; and having gained the moon's true place by observations made at Derby, February 23, 1672, and November 12, 1673, gave him observations such as he demanded. The half-skilled man did not think they could have been given him, and cunningly answered "_They were feigned_." I delivered them to Dr. Pell, February 19, 1674-5, who, returning me his answer some time after, I wrote a letter in English to the commissioners, and another in Latin to the sieur, to assure him they were not feigned, and to show them that, if they had been, yet if we had astronomical tables that would give us the two places of the fixed stars and the moon's true places, both in longitude and latitude, nearer than to half a minute, we might hope to find the longitude of places by lunar observations, but not by such as he demanded. But that we were so far from having the places of the fixed stars true, that the Tychonic Catalogues often erred ten minutes or more; that they were uncertain to three or four minutes, by reason that Tycho assumed a faulty obliquity of the ecliptic, and had employed only plain sights in his observations: and that the best lunar tables differ one-quarter, if not one-third, of a degree from the heavens; and lastly, that he might have learnt better methods than he proposed, from his countryman Morin, whom he had best consult before he made any more demands of this nature.' This was in effect to tell St. Pierre that his proposal was neither original nor practicable. If St. Pierre had but consulted Morin's writings (Morin himself had died more than eighteen years before), he would have known that practically the same proposal had been laid before Cardinal Richelieu in 1634, and had been rejected, as quite impracticable in the then state of astronomical knowledge. Possibly Flamsteed meant further to intimate that St. Pierre had simply stolen his method from Morin, hoping to trade it off upon the government of another country; in which case he would no doubt regard Flamsteed's letter as a warning that he had been found out. Flamsteed continues:--