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160 regard for the church, and to have adhered to his friends in the navy, solely from the bettor chance of advancement, because, as his biographer with unquestionable truth observes, "it lay more in the ay of the Board of Longitude to help one to promotion in the navy than in the church." He returned to Glasgow, and renewing an acquaintance long since commenced with Dr Black, entered with ardour on the new views in chemistry connected with the existence of latent heat, which his eminent friend was beginning to divulge to the world. He at the same time commenced an intimacy with Mr Watt, and was so far acquainted with his proceedings, as to be able to certify the justice of his claim to those vast improvements in the steam engine, which a singular accident had been the means of suggesting to his genius. At the recommendation of Dr Black, Robison was appointed his successor in the chemical chair of Glasgow, which, in 1766, he had relinquished for that of Edinburgh. After continuing four years in this situation, one of a novel and uncommon character presented itself for his acceptance. The empress of Russia had made a request to the government of Britain, for the service of some able and experienced naval officers to superintend the reformation of her marine. With more liberality than generally characterizes the intercourse of nations, the request was agreed to, and Mr Robison's tried friend, admiral Knowles, was appointed president of the Russian Board of Admiralty. It had been his intention to recommend Robison for the situation of official secretary to the Board, but finding such an office incompatible with the constitution of the Russian Board, he contrived to engage his sei vices to the public, in the capacity of his private secretary, and in the end of December, 1770, both proceeded over land to St Petersburg. For a year after his arrival, he assisted the admiral in forcing on the attention of the Russians such improvements in ship-building, rigging, and navigation, as their prejudices would allow them to be taught by foreigners, backed by the influence of government. Meanwhile he had sedulously studied the Russian language, and in the summer of 1772, the reputation of his accomplishments induced the offer of the vacant mathematical chair attached to the Sea cadet corps of nobles at Cronstadt. On his acceptance of the appointment, his predecessor's salary was doubled, and he was raised to the rank of colonel, an elevation to which he could not step with proper Russian grace, without producing such documents as bore the appearance of evidence to the nobility of his birth. Besides his duties as mathematical professor, he acted in the room of general Politika, who had retired, as inspector-general of the corps; a duty in which he had to inspect the conduct and labours of about forty teachers. He did not long rcmp.in in this situation.

In 1773, from the death of Dr Russel, a vacancy occurred in the natural philosophy chair of Edinburgh, which the patrons, at the instigation of principal Robertson, invited Mr Robison to fill. On hearing of this invitation, prospects of a still more brilliant nature were held out to him by the empress: he hesitated for some time, but, being apart from such society as even the more enlightened parts of Russia afforded, he finally preferred the less brilliant, but more pleasing offer from his native country, and in June, 1777, he set sail from Cronstadt to Leith. The empress, on his departure, requested that he would undertake the care of two or three of the cadets, who were to be elected in succession, and promised him a pension of 400 rubles or £80 a-year. The pension was paid for three years, and is supposed to have been discontinued because Robison had not communicated to the Russian government the progressive improvements in British marine education. In the winter of 1774, he commenced his lectures in Edinburgh. "The sciences of mechanics," says his biographer, "hydrodynamics, astronomy, and optics, together with electricity and magnetism, were