170 Biographical Account of (Marcu, 
advancement. He used, nevertheless, to speak lightly of his early 
proficiency, and to accuse himself of want of application; but 
from what I have learnt, his abilities and attainments were highly 
respected by his cotemporaries, and he was remarked at a very early 
period for the ingenuity of his reasonings, as well as the boldness of 
his opinions. According to his own account, his taste for the accu- 
rate sciences was not much excited by the pure mathematics, and 
he only began to attend to them after he discovered their use in 
natural philosophy. 
In the year following that in which he took his degree, Dr. Dick, 
who was joint Professor of Natural Philosophy with his father, died, 
and Mr. Robison offered himself to the old Gentleman as a tem~- 
porary assistant. He was recommended, as I have been told, by 
Mr. Smith, but was nevertheless judged too young by Mr. Dick, as 
he was not yet nineteen. ‘The object to which his father, a man of 
exemplary piety, wished to direct his future prospects, was the 
church; to which, however, he was at this time greatly averse, 
from motives which do not appear, but certainly not from any 
dislike to the objects or duties of the clerical profession. It was 
very natural for him to wish for some active scene, where his turn 
for physical, and particularly mechanical science, might be ‘xer- 
cised ; and the influence of those indefinite and untried objects, 
which act so powerfully on the imagination of youth, directed his 
attention toward London. Professor Dick and Dr. Simson joined 
in recommending him to Dr. Blair, Prebendary of Westminster, 
who was then in search of a person to go to sea with Edward, Duke 
of York, and to assist his Royal Highness in the study of mathe- 
matics and navigation. When Mr. Robison reached London, in 
1758, he learnt that the proposed voyage was by no means fixed ; 
and after passing some time in expectation and anxiety, he found 
that the arrangement was entirely abandoned. ‘This first disap- 
pointment in a favourite object could not fail to be severely felt, and 
had almost made him resolve on returning to Scotland. 
He had been introduced, however, to Admiral Knowles, whose 
son was to have accompanied the Duke of York ; and the Admiral 
was too conversant with nautical science not to discover in him a 
genius strongly directed to the same objects. Though the scheme 
of the Prince’s nautical education was abandoned, the Admiral’s 
views with respect to his son remained unaltered, and he engaged 
Mr. Robison to go to sea with him, and to take charge of his in- 
struction. From this point it is that we are to date his nautical, as 
well as scientific, attainments. 
About the middle of February, 1759, a fleet sailed from Spithead 
under the command.of Admiral Saunders, intended to co-operate 
with a military force which was to be employed during the ensuing 
summer in the reduction of Quebec. Young Knowles, whom Mr. 
Robison had agreed to accompany, was a midshipman on board the 
Admiral’s ship, the Neptune, of 90 guns ; but in the course of the 
‘voyage being promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Royat 
~ 
