ever accompany that manoeuvre, when skilfully conducted. The circumstances were very remarkable, and highly to the credit of the gallantry, as well as conduct of the admiral. The British fleet was to leeward, and its van, on reaching the centre of the enemy, bore away as usual along his line; and had the same been done by all the ships that followed, the ordinary indecisive result would infallibly have ensued. But the Formidable, lord Rodney's own ship, kept close to the wind, and on perceiving an opening near the centre of the enemy, broke through at the head of the rear division, so that, for the first time, the enemy's line was completely cut in two, and all the consequences produced which Mr Clerk had predicted. This action, which introduced a new system, gave a new turn to our affairs at sea, and delivered the country from that state of depression, into which it had been thrown, not by the defeat of its fleets, but by the entire want of success.
"It was in the beginning of this year, that the [Essay on] Naval Tactics appeared in print, though, for more than a year before, copies of the book had been in circulation among Mr Clerk's friends.[1] Immediately on the publication, copies were presented to the minister and the first lord of the admiralty; and the duke of Montague, who was a zealous friend of Mr Clerk's system, undertook the office of presenting a copy to the king.
"Lord Rodney, who had done so much to prove the utility of this system, in conversation never concealed the obligation he felt to the author of it. Before going out to take the command of the fleet in the West Indies, he said one day to Mr Dundas, afterwards lord Melville, 'There is one Clerk, a countryman of yours, who has taught us how to fight, and appears to know more of the matter than any of us. If ever I meet the French fleet, I intend to try his way.'
"He held the same language after his return. Lord Melville used often to meet him in society, and particularly at the house of Mr Henry Drummond, where he talked very unreservedly of the Naval Tactics, and of the use he had made of the system in his action of the 12th of April. A letter from general Ross states very particularly a conversation of the same kind, at which he was present. 'It is' says the general, 'with an equal degree of pleasure and truth, that I now commit to writing what you heard me say in company at your house, to wit, that at the table of the late Sir John Balling, where I was in the habit of dining often, and meeting lord Rodney, I heard his lordship distinctly state, that he owed his success in the West Indies to the manoeuvre of breaking the line, which he learned from Mr Clerk's book. This honourable and liberal confession of the gallant admiral made so deep an impression on me, that I can never forget it; and I am pleased to think that my recollection of the circumstance can be of the smallest use to a man with whom I am not acquainted, but who, in my opinion, has deserved well of his country.' "
Mr Playfair then proceeds to mention a copy of Mr Clerk's Essay, on which lord Rodney had written many marginal notes, full of remarks on the justness of Mr Clerk's views, and on the instances wherein his own conduct had been in strict conformity with those views; and which copy of the Essay is now deposited in the family library at Pennycuick. The learned professor next relates "an anecdote which sets a seal on the great and decisive testimony of the noble admiral. The present [now late] lord Haddington met lord Rodney at Spa, in the decline of life, when both his bodily and his mental powers were sinking under the weight of years. The great commander, who had been the bulwark of his country, and the terror of her enemies, lay stretched on his
- ↑ Fifty copies were printed of this edition, and distributed in a private way. The work was not published for sale till 1790. The edition of that year is therefore styled the first, and that of 1804, the second edition.
