" ANSON." Robins was also preparing an enlarged edition of his New Principles of Gunnery; but, having provided himself with a com plete set of astronomical and other in struments for making observations and experiments in the Indies, he departed hence at Christmas in 1749 ; and after a voyage, in which the ship was near be ing cast away, lie arrived at India in July following. There he immediately set about his proper business with the great est diligence, and formed complete plans for Fort St. David, and Madras, but he did not live to put them into execution. For the great difference of the climate from that of England being beyond his constitution to support, he was attack ed by a fever in September the same year ; and though he recovered out of this, yet about eight months after he fell into a languishing condition, in which he continued till his death, which happened the 29th of July 1751, at on ly 44 years of age.
By his last will, Mr. Robins left the publishing of his mathematical works to his honoured and intimate friend Martin Folkes, Esq. President of the Royal So ciety, and to Dr. James Wilson ; but the former of these gentlemen being incapa citated by a paralytic disorder, some time before his death, they were afterwards published by the latter in 2 vols. 8vo,
1761. To this collection, which contains his mathematical and philosophical pieces only, Dr. Wilson has prefixed an account of Mr. Robins, from which this memoir is chiefly extracted. He added also a large appendix, at the end of the second volume, containing a great many curious and critical matters in various interesting parts of the mathematics.
It is but justice to say, that Mr. Robins was one of the most accurate and elegant mathematical writers that our language can boast of; and that he made more real improvements in artillery, the flight and the resistance of projectiles, than all the preceding writers on that subject. His new principles of gunnery were translated into several other languages, and commented upon by several emi nent writers. The celebrated Euler translated the work into the German language, accompanied with a large and critical commentary ; and this work of Euler's was again translated into Eng lish in 1714, by Mr. Hugh Brown, with notes, in one volume quarto.