In 1757 Robison applied for the office of assistant to Dr. Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, in the place of the son of that gentleman, who had just died; but though he had already taken the degree of Master of Arts, he was thought too young to hold so important an office, being only about nineteen years old. His friends wished him to study for the church; but, preferring some occupation in which his mechanical tastes might be indulged, he turned his eyes to London. Furnished with letters from Professor Dick and Dr. Simson, he obtained an introduction to Admiral Knowles, who engaged him to take charge of his son’s instruction while at sea. In that capacity he sailed from Spithead in 1759, with the fleet which assisted the land forces in the taking of Quebec; he and his pupil being rated as midshipmen in the Admiral’s ship. Robison was on duty in the boat which carried Wolfe to the point where the army scaled the heights of Montcalm the night before the battle; and as the sun was setting in the west, the General, doubtless from an association of ideas suggested by the dangers of the coming struggle, recited, in an under tone, Gray’s ‘Elegy on a Country Churchyard;’ and when he had finished, said, “Now, gentlemen, I would rather have been the author of that poem than take Quebec.” When Robison returned from his voyagings in 1763, a travelled man,--having had the advantage, during his absence, of acting as confidential assistant of Admiral Knowles in his marine surveys and observations,--he reckoned himself more than on a par with Watt; but he soon found that, during the period of his absence from Glasgow, his friend had been even busier than himself. When they entered into conversation, he found Watt continually striking into new paths where he was obliged to be his follower. The extent of the mathematical instrument maker’s investigations was no less remarkable than the depth to which he had pursued them. Not only had he mastered the principles of engineering, civil and military, but diverged into studies in antiquity, natural history, languages, criticism, and art. Every pursuit became science in his hands, and he made use of his subsidiary knowledge for the purpose of helping him towards his favourite objects.