“I was naturally anxious now about the settlement of my salary and of the Observatory establishment.  I do not know when the Syndicate made their Report, but it must have been in the last term of 1828.  It recommended that the salary should be annually made up (by Grace) to L500:  that an Assistant should be appointed with the assent of the Vice-Chancellor and dismissable by the Plumian Professor:  and that a Visiting Syndicate should be appointed, partly official and partly of persons to be named every year by Grace.  The Grace for adopting this Report was to be offered to the Senate on Feb. 27th.  The passing of the Grace was exposed to two considerable perils.  First, I found out (just in time) that a Senior Fellow of Trinity (G.A.  Browne) was determined to oppose the whole, on account of the insignificant clause regarding dismissal of Assistants, which he regarded as tyrannical.  I at once undertook that that clause should be rejected.  Secondly, by the absurd constitution of the ‘Caput’ at Cambridge, a single M.A. had the power of stopping any business whatever, and an M.A. actually came to the Senate House with the intention of throwing out all the Graces on various business that day presented to the Senate.  Luckily he mistook the hour, and came at 11 instead of 10, and found that all were dispatched.  The important parts of the Grace passed without any opposition:  but I mustered some friends who negatived that part which had alarmed G.A.  Browne, and it was corrected to his satisfaction by a new Grace on Mar. 18th.  I was now almost set at rest on one of the great objects of my life:  but not quite.  I did not regard, and I determined not to regard, the addition to my salary as absolutely certain until a payment had been actually made to me:  and I carefully abstained, for the present, from taking any steps based upon it.  I found for Assistant at the Observatory an old Lieutenant of the Royal Navy, Mr Baldrey, who came on Mar. 16.

“On May 4th I began lectures:  there were 32 names.  The Lectures were improving, especially in the optical part.  I do not find note of the day of termination.—­I do not know the actual day of publication of my first small volume of Cambridge Observations, 1828, and of circulation.  The date of the preface is Apr. 27th 1829.  I have letters of approval of it from Davies Gilbert, Rigaud, and Lax.  The system which I endeavoured to introduce into printed astronomical observations was partially introduced into this volume, and was steadily improved in subsequent volumes.  I think that I am justified, by letters and other remarks, in believing that this introduction of an orderly system of exhibition, not merely of observations but of the steps for bringing them to a practical result—­quite a novelty in astronomical publications—­had a markedly good effect on European astronomy in general.—­In Feb. and March I have letters from Young about the Nautical Almanac:  he was unwilling to make any