I urged very strongly that it should be published immediately, but she resisted it as strongly, though she could but acknowledge her conviction that it was a comet.

She remarked to me, 'If it is a new comet, our friends, the Bonds, have seen it.

It may be an old one, so far as relates to the discovery, and one which we have not followed.' She consented, however, that I should write to William C.Bond, which I did by the first mail that left the island after the discovery.

This letter did not reach my friend till the 6th or 7th, having been somewhat delayed here and also in the post-office at Cambridge.
"Referring to my journal I find these words: 'Maria will not consent to have me announce it as an original discovery.' "The stipulations of His Majesty have, therefore, not been complied with, and the peculiar circumstances of the case, her sex, and isolated position, may not be sufficient to justify a suspension of the rules.
Nevertheless, it would gratify me that the generous monarch should know that there is a love of science even in this to him remote corner of the earth.

"I am thine, my dear friend, most truly, "WILLIAM MITCHELL." * * * * * HON.