40 EARLY LIFE. 



Clerk adds that such communication was made ; that 

 the Admiral expressed, before he left London, his en- 

 tire approbation of the scheme ; and after his return 

 openly acknowledged that it was Mr Clerk who had 

 suggested the manoeuvres by which the victory of the 

 12th of April 1782 had been obtained. 



Clerk's system was followed by Howe, St Vincent, 

 Duncan, and Nelson, and with well-known success. 

 The manoeuvre is, in fact, the same that Napoleon 

 practised on shore the placing an adversary between 

 the fire of two bodies. What makes Clerk's merit 

 the more remarkable is, that he was not a professional 

 man, and had never even gone a voyage to sea.* 



John Clerk's intimacy was very close with the 

 Principal and his sister, who both had great confi- 

 dence in his practical sense upon most subjects, when 

 not perverted by certain odd prejudices and fancies. 

 For instance, she being, like him, a warm advocate of 

 exercise as a means above everything for promoting 

 health, used to quote him as saying, when asked, 

 " What were you to do in bad weather ? " " Why, 

 run up and down stairs ; there is no better exercise, 

 or better fitted to bring all the muscles into play." 



Once during the Reign of Terror, a fast-day sermon 

 was preached, which we attended with him ; and 

 after morning service, when we were complaining of 

 the preacher as having exaggerated by charging the 

 Jacobins with sacrificing the priests at the foot of the 

 altar, " Foot of the altar ! " said John, "that is only 



* See Appendix VII. 



