Mr. Bernard reviewed all the expenditure from the first, beginning with the purchase of the house (and the two adjoining houses held under it) for 4,850l. For the charter, 583l. For arms, 101l. For lecture room, repository, laboratory, and workshop, 5,227l., which was 1,800l. less than was expected, and ‘it has been completed, as the visitors conceive, in a manner and with a degree of attention and economy very creditable to those who undertook the care and direction of it.’[21]... 1,181l. was paid for fitting up and furnishing the workshops and for experiments incidental to the use of them. ‘It is to be observed that a part of this expense ought regularly to be charged to the apparatus. Some loss, however, will probably be incurred upon this article of expenditure, as that part of the arrangement seems to be in a great measure given up. The loss, however, it is hoped, will be inconsiderable, as by a plan recently brought forward by a very scientific member of the Committee of Managers (Mr. Hatchett), it is proposed to form for the use of proprietors, and for the benefit of the Institution, in these and the adjoining rooms, the establishment of a very extensive and useful laboratory, upon a scale of magnitude and with a degree of advantage that are not likely to be equalled in any part of his Majesty’s dominions.’
After reviewing the domestic expenditure and the expenditure of the invested principal Mr. Bernard said:
Upon the whole the visitors have the pleasure of stating to the annual meeting that, in the examination of the expenditure incurred in a concern of so great magnitude, under some peculiar circumstances and difficulties and during a period of near four years, they have found the whole of the accounts correctly stated, verified, and balanced except as to a small deficit of 47l. 14s. 10½d. entered as such by mistake, the vouchers for which having been actually produced; and they conceive that there is nothing that merits censure and much that deserves approbation.
With regard to the present state and progress of the Institution he said:
In the supply of useful models, one of its original and most important objects, very little advance is yet made. The lectures and public experiments connected with them will be considerably augmented in the coming season. The new plan for the laboratory promises to increase the scope and utility of it, and at the same time very much to diminish, if not eventually provide for, the expense of that part of the Institution. The library and proposed collection of books of reference will form a library establishment honourable to the British nation, favourable to science, advantageous to the pursuits of scientific men, and very conducive to the increase of the funds and of the utility, prosperity, and permanency of the Institution.
He thus ended his report:
The fabric of the Royal Institution is now completed by the efforts of individuals.... The attempt has been as arduous as the object has been great and important—not less than that of giving fashion to science and of forming a centre of philosophical and literary attraction, for supplying instruction to the young, and rational amusement to mature life, with essential advantages to the public and increase of resources to the country by new discoveries and improvements in the arts and manufactures.
Early in January the managers resolved that Dr. Young and Mr. Davy should give one hundred lectures in the ensuing season, to begin on October 26.
On January 21 Dr. Young proposed to the managers a preface to the second volume of the Journal of the Institution. It was referred to the Select Committee, who advised that at the present period, when, on account of the situation of the finances and expenses of the Institution, a considerable alteration is become necessary in their arrangements, any publication of the kind proposed by Dr. Young had better be deferred for the present. This preface, written by Dr. Young, never was published, and, as it gives a good view of the Institution as it was left by Rumford, it is of interest as a record of the past.