506 BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT 



and accomplishment of Mr Robison, must have turned out ra- 

 ther as a punishment than a reward. It was, however, the ob- 

 ject which, by the advice of Sir Charles Knowles, he now as- 

 pired to ; and, indeed, he had done so, ever after his first voy- 

 age in the Royal William ; for it appears that he had wished 

 to be made Purser to the Peregrine, at the time when Lieute- 

 nant Knowles was appointed to the command of that ship, 

 though, considering its smallness, the situation could have 

 been attended with little emolument *. 



Thus disappointed in his hopes, Mr Robison resolved on re- 

 turning to Glasgow, in order to qualify himself for entering 

 into the Church. Indeed, the idea of prosecuting his original 

 destination seems often to have occurred to him, even when 

 his views appeared to have a very different direction. When 

 he left the Royal William in 1761, he was not without serious 

 intentions of resuming the study of Theology. This appears, 

 both from a letter he wrote to his father, about that time, and 

 from one which he himself received from young Knowles, 

 who rallies him on his new profession, and on the singularity 

 of having acquired a taste for theological studies in the ward- 

 room of a man of war. When he undertook the voyage to Ja- 

 maica, he would have wished to have had the patronage of his 

 employers, for obtaining some ecclesiastical preferment rather 



than 



* It is, however, true, that the place of Purser was afterwards offered to Mr 

 Hobison, but such a one as he could have no temptation to accept. In 1763, 

 when Lord Sandwich was First Lord of the Admiralty, his solicitations were 

 so far listened to, that he was appointed to the Aurora, of 40 guns, then 

 on the stocks. As the ship must be long of being in commission, and the pay of 

 the Purser, in the mean time, very inconsiderable, Mr Robison declined accept- 

 ing this appointment. 



