I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
C.A.  GREY.

G.  B. Airy, Esq.

* * * * *

The passage in the Regulations referred to above is quoted in the following letter to Count Ouvaroff: 

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
1847, Oct. 22.

SIR,

Referring to your Excellency’s letter of the 24 August/5 September, and to my answer of the 25th September, in which I expressed my sense of the high honor conferred on me by His Majesty the Emperor of Russia in offering me, through your Excellency, the Order of St Stanislas, and my pride in accepting it:—­I beg leave further to acquaint you that I have thought it necessary to make enquiry of Lord John Russell, First Lord of Her Majesty’s Treasury, as to my competency to accept this decoration from His Majesty the Emperor of Russia:  and that his Lordship in reply has referred me to the following Regulation of the British Court;

“5th.  That no Subject of Her Majesty could be allowed to accept the Insignia of a Foreign Order from any Sovereign of a Foreign State, except they shall be so conferred in consequence of active and distinguished services before the Enemy, either at Sea, or in the Field; or unless he shall have been actually employed in the Service of the Foreign Sovereign.”

In consequence of the stringency of this Regulation, it is my duty now to state to your Excellency that I am unable to accept the decoration which His Majesty the Emperor of Russia was pleased, through your Excellency, to offer to me.

I beg leave to repeat the expression of my profound reverence to His Majesty and of my deep sense of the honor which he has done me.

I have the honor to be,
Sir,
Your Excellency’s very faithful
and obedient servant,
G.B.  AIRY.

To His Excellency
  Count Ouvaroff,
    &c. &c.

In the course of the following year a very handsome gold medal, specially struck, was transmitted by Count Ouvaroff on the part of the Emperor of Russia, to Mr Airy.

1848

“In April I received authority to purchase of Simms an 8-inch object-glass for the new Transit Circle for L300.  The glass was tested and found satisfactory.  While at Playford in January I drew the first plans of the Transit Circle:  and C. May sketched some parts.  Definite plans were soon sent to Ransomes and May, and to Simms in March.  The instrument and the building were proceeded with during the year.  The New Transit Circle was to be erected in the Circle Room, and considerable arrangement was necessary for continuing the Circle Observations with the existing instruments, whilst the new instrument was under erection.  When the new Transit is completely mounted, the old Transit Instrument may be removed, and the Transit Room will be free for any other purpose.  I propose to take it as Private Room for the Astronomer