His position was not a bright one. The Government had, indeed, provided him with a building for his observatory, and a small house for his own residence, but he had no instrument and no assistant. The first difficulty was partly overcome for the moment by gifts or loans from Sir Jonas Moore, and by one or two small loans from the Royal Society. The death of this great friend and patron, four years after the founding of the Observatory, and only three years after his entering into residence, deprived him of several of these; it was with difficulty that he maintained against Sir Jonas' heirs his claim to the instruments which Sir Jonas had given him. There was nothing for him to do but to make his instruments himself, and in 1683 he built a mural quadrant of fifty inches radius. His circumstances improved the following year, when Lord North gave him the living of Burstow, near Horley, Surrey, Flamsteed having received ordination almost at the time of his appointment to the Astronomer Royalship. We have little or no account of the way in which he fulfilled his duties as a clergyman. Evidently he considered that his position as Astronomer Royal had the first claim upon him. At the same time, comparatively early in life he had expressed his desire to fill the clerical office, and he was a man too conscientious to neglect any duty that lay upon him. That in spite of his feeble health he often journeyed to and fro between Burstow and Greenwich we know; and we may take it as certain that at a time when the standard of clerical efficiency was extremely low, he was not one of those who 'For their bellies' sake, Creep and intrude and climb into the fold.' His chief source of income, however, seems to have been the private pupils whom he took in mathematics and astronomy. These numbered in the years 1676 to 1709 no fewer than 140; and as many of them were of the very first and wealthiest families in the kingdom, the gain to Flamsteed in money and influence must have been considerable. But it was most distasteful work. It was in no sense that which he felt to be his duty, and which he had at heart. It was undertaken from sheer, hard necessity, and he grudged bitterly the time and strength which it diverted from his proper calling. How faithfully he followed that, one single circumstance will show. In the thirteen years ending 1689, he made 20,000 observations, and had revised single-handed the whole of the theories and tables of the heavenly bodies then in use. In 1688 the death of his father brought him a considerable accession of means, and, far more important, the assistance of Abraham Sharp,[1] the first and most distinguished of the long list of Greenwich assistants, men who, though far less well known than the Astronomers Royal, have contributed scarcely less in their own field to the high reputation of the Observatory. [1] Abraham Sharp had been with Flamsteed earlier than this--in 1684 and 1685.