The date of Robert Adam's return to England is generally understood to be 1762, but the architect himself makes mention of some work "done since my return to England in 1758." The mistake has probably arisen from the fact that James Adam did not leave his architectural studies in Italy until the former year. Robert, it is certain, is solely responsible for the screen of the Admiralty buildings in Whitehall, built in 1760. "The Admiralty," says Horace Walpole, "is a most ugly device, and deservedly veiled by Mr Adam's handsome screen." About this time there was a pacific invasion of England by the Scots, art being represented by William Chambers, Allan Ramsay--son of the poet--who, in Walpole's opinion, excelled Reynolds as a painter of women, Robert Strange, and the Adam brothers, Robert and James. Mr Clouston doubts the statement that Clérisseau accompanied Robert Adam to Italy. The young French architect was famous at the time of Adam's visit to the Continent, "and one of his pupils, Sir W. Chambers, was making a name in England. It is not altogether evident, therefore, how, a year later, he should have accompanied Adam to Spalatro in the subordinate position of assistant. Still, if any man had the capability of turning a master into a pupil through sheer force of character and magnetic presence, it must be admitted that that man was Robert Adam. His belief in himself was so colossal as probably to approach conceit. The very fact that, as a young man of twenty-nine, who had already had a most expensive education, he spent a considerable amount of his patrimony in a costly expedition, with the view of publishing a book which could not be expected to pay, is enough to show us something of the character of the man. "He had made up his mind that he was to take the world by storm, and he proceeded to do so with the most absolute confidence, in spite of disadvantages of which he must have been, at least partially, aware. "In his day in Scotland, and, indeed, for long after, the speech of even the most educated was as a foreign language to English ears. Anything 'Englishy' in accent was ridiculed. So much was this the case that when, towards the end of the century, certain Scottish advocates, who found their accent a serious drawback when arguing before the House of Lords, employed an 'English master,' the movement was laughed out of existence.