116 FRAGMENT OF AN INTENDED ACCOUNT 



" was also a boat with sails, which furnished me with much 

 " employment. I had studied Robinson Crusoe, and I read 

 " all the sea-voyages I could procure." 



The desire of going to sea, which could not but arise out of 

 these exercises, was forced to yield to family considerations ; 

 but, fortunately for his country, the propensity to naval affairs, 

 and the pleasure derived from the study of them, were not 

 to be overcome. 



He had indeed prosecuted the study so far, and had become 

 so well acquainted with naval affairs, that, as he tells us him- 

 self, he had begun to study the difficult problem of the way of 

 a ship to windward. This was about the year 1770, when an 

 ingenious and intelligent gentleman, the late Commissioner Ed- 

 gar, came to reside in the neighbourhood of Mr Clerk's seat 

 in the country. Mr Edgar had served in the army, and, with 

 the company under his command, had been put on board Ad- 

 miral Byng's ship at Gibraltar, in order to supply the want of 

 marines ; so that he was present in the action off the Island of 

 Minorca, on the 20th of May 1756. As the friend of Admi- 

 ral Boscawen, he afterwards accompanied that gallant officer 

 in the more fortunate engagement of Lagos Bay. 



After the American war was begun, an attention to the 

 narratives of his friend, and still more to the actions which were 

 then happening at sea, served to convince Mr Clerk that there 

 was something very erroneous in the methods hitherto pursued 

 by the British admirals for bringing their fleets into action ; in- 

 somuch, that, though nothing could exceed the skill with which 

 each individual ship was worked, yet when one whole fleet was 

 opposed to another, the plan followed was uncertain and preca- 

 rious, and it seemed that the expedient for forcing an enemy to 

 fight, remained yet to be discovered. It appeared, indeed, that 



very 



