Professor Pattison's statement of the facts of his connexion with the University of London / [Granville Sharp Pattison].

  • Granville Sharp Pattison
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Professor Pattison's statement of the facts of his connexion with the University of London / [Granville Sharp Pattison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘‘ 2d]y. Because no cliarge has yet been communicated to me, although I have demanded it from you. “ 3dly. Because I have offered to prove to you that the imputations cast on me by students have originated in the intrigues of Mr. Horner and cer¬ tain of my colleagues, and you have dismissed my charge on Mr. Horner’s answer, without communicating that answer to me, or permitting me to make a reply to it. “ In consequence of an informal notice from your authorized officer to one of my colleagues, which notice is accompanied by an extract from a ‘ report of Committee,’ and by a letter from Dr. Davis, proposing to me to accept of two hundred pounds per annum for five years, as a compensa¬ tion for my retirement, I think it right to declare that I will not listen to any proposal for my retirement, which is not founded on a complete vindi¬ cation of my character, and an avowal from the Council that no charge whatever has been established against me. “ Having obtained this vindication of my character, I offer to refer the terms upon which I shall retire from the University to two persons, one to be chosen by myself and another by you, and a third to be selected by them. “ In the mean time I protest against the injustice and insult I endure by the circulation in the open form of summons, and by the hands of your clerks and porters, of notices for my removal, which tend to injure my professional character. “ I have the honour to be, &c. “ Granville S. Pattison. “ Saturday MorningT Mr. Horner having, in his note to Dr. Davis, referred to in the above communication, stated as a threat, that, unless I accepted of the offer which it contained, and consented to receive the paltry and pitiful compensation of two hundred pounds per annum for five years, the payment of which was not even to be secured to me, but doled out in the shape of a miser¬ able charity from my colleagues ; “ he was quite sure that the Council would proceed to my removal, if I should make that step necessary.On the same day on which I sent in the foregoing letter, I went in person to the Council to express the contempt which I felt for the threat of their officer, and to express to them my assurance that they who were to be my judges must feel too much as men of honour to have made any declaration to the Warden, to warrant him in writing such a letter. At the end of the month my trial came on again, and again my enemies failed in the attempt to ruin me. A quorum of the Council could not be persuaded to attend to sanction an act of such deliberate departure from even the forms of justice, and it was fully understood that the persecutions would at last terminate, and that I should have peace and comfort. My enemies, however, seemingly aware that the adjourned trial could not accomplish the object they had in view, viz., my dismissal from my Professorships, were, in the interval of the trial, busily engaged in con¬ cocting the farce of the “ Select Committee.” The plot was hatched in the council-room of the University, and the par- * It. is but doing justice to Dr. Davis to give the following extract from his letter con¬ veying this offer;—“ I need not tell you, my dear friend, that this arrangement has not originated with me, as you must well remember that my proposal contemplated a larger sum, and for a period of time to be bounded only by an event in Providence, which I have the sincerest pleasure in considering as at a great distance.’*