Among the acts of the states-general preserved in the government archives at The Hague, Van Swinden found that on 2nd October 1608 the assembly of the states took into consideration the petition of Hans Lippershey, spectacle-maker, a native of Wesel and an inhabitant of Middelburg, inventor of an instrument for seeing at a distance.
On 4th October a committee was appointed to test the instrument, and on the 6th of the same month the assembly agreed to give Lippershey goo florins for his; instrument.
Further, on the 15th December of the same year they examined an instrument invented by Lippershey at their request to see with both eyes, and gave him orders to execute two similar instruments at goo florins each; but, as many other persons had knowledge of this new invention to see at a distance, they did not deem it expedient to grant him an exclusive privilege to sell such instruments.
The dates of these documents dispose effectually of Borel's statement that Lippershey borrowed the ideas of Jansen in 1610.
They also prove that, whilst Metius was in possession of a telescope, with which he may have experimented, about the time when Lippershey presented his application for patent rights, yet.
