Robert Clerk

General Robert Clerk (c.1720 – 1797) was a British engineer officer who served in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. His report on the state of the defences of Rochefort (Rochefort, Charente-Maritime) in 1757 was the main reason for that French naval port being chosen as the target for a major British expedition, the Raid on Rochefort, for which Clerk was appointed chief engineer.

Early career

Robert Clerk (sometimes spelled Clark or Clarke) was born about 1720, the son of an Edinburgh physician. John Entick speaks of him as a worthy, intelligent, skilful officer. However Horace Walpole wrote, ”There was a young Scot, by name Clarke, ill-favoured in his person, with a cast in his eyes, of intellects not very sound, but quick, bold, adventurous.” Clerk entered the Army as a second lieutenant in Cotterrell's Marines with seniority 11 June 1741. He was appointed a practitioner engineer on 24 May 1749, promoted to sub-engineer on 30 May 1753, while also becoming a lieutenant in the 25th Regiment of Foot on 2 October 1755. In 1746, Clerk was appointed as an engineer-in-ordinary to an expedition, commanded by General St Clair, to take Quebec. Due to the lateness of the season, in September the force was diverted to Port L’Orient in Brittany. In 1747 Clerk was an engineer with the Anglo-Dutch troops defending the town of Bergen-op-Zoom against the besieging French army led by Count Löwendahl. After a long and destructive siege the town was taken by a surprise assault and Clerk captured; “being pursued into a house where the enemies fired at him through a door, he opened it and told them he was related to Marshal Löwendahl, who would reward them for saving him. Being conducted to the Marshal, with the same readiness he avowed the deceit, urging that he had no other method of saving his life. Löwendahl was pleased with the man, and gave him money.”

The Raid on Rochefort The expedition left England on 8 September 1757 and on the 23rd the fleet entered Basque Roads, battered the fort on Île-d'Aix and captured the island. On the 24th Clerk was sent by Mordaunt to Aix to examine prisoners regarding the state of the defences of Rochefort but got no useful answers. After dinner Clerk went in the dark with Captain Howe of the Magnanime and Mr Boyd, the Controller of the Train, to reconnoitre Fouras. They landed at the tip of the promontory at low tide and walked over spongy ground for a couple of miles to within about a mile of the fort. On the 25th a council of war was held and it was determined that an attempt upon Rochefort was neither advisable nor practicable. Clerk again visited the Île d'Aix to examine prisoners, in particular a French engineer. His idea was to give the impression that he knew everything and to let the prisoners confirm his thoughts during casual conversation. On the 28th another council of war was held and it was resolved to land in Châtelaillon Bay, however, due to the tide and weather the landing that night was abandoned. Despite this, Clerk was further employed the next day in accompanying Maj-Gen Conway and Col Wolfe to carry out further reconnaissance of the proposed landing sites at Châtelaillon. Meanwhile, during the day of the 29th the demolition of the Aix fortifications was commenced: “The following two days were spent in blowing up the half-finished fortifications on the Island of Aix; and in doing of which, lest it be said that no blood was spilt upon our famous expedition, we managed so as to blow up a few of our own soldiers.” On 1 October 1757 the fleet weighed anchor and on the 6th arrived back in England.

Inquiry and Court-Martial

On the return of the fleet with nothing to show for the great expense of the expedition, both Pitt and the King were understandably annoyed. On 1 November the King issued a warrant for an inquiry, Clerk being among the many called as witnesses. On the 21st it reported its findings and the King ordered Mordaunt to be tried by court-martial for disobeying his instructions.

The court-martial opened on 14 December 1757. Wolfe was quite clear in his mind, “The whole affair turned upon the impracticability of escalading Rochefort, and the two evidences brought to prove that the ditch was wet (in opposition to the assertions of the Chief Engineer, who had been in the place), are persons to whom, in my mind, very little credit should be given. Without their evidence we should have landed, and must have marched to Rochefort; and it is my opinion that the place would have surrendered or been taken in forty-eight hours.” Clerk was quizzed at some length and, though being always careful to say he could only say what he had seen more than 3 years before, he maintained his assertion that not all of the ditch around the town could be flooded as parts of it were higher than the tide could reach.

Subsequent career

Despite having been instrumental in the choice of Rochefort as a target, Clerk seems to have escaped any blame for the failure; indeed, he was associated with Wolfe as a bold, adventurous young officer held back from capturing Rochefort by the timidity and indecisiveness of superannuated commanders. Clerk continued to mix with the highest levels of society. On 1 December 1757, while both he and Wolfe were on notice to be witnesses at Mordaunt's court-martial, Wolfe wrote to his mother, “(Tomorrow) night I am to meet (the) guest (of my old friend Rich), who is sent by the King of Prussia; Mr. Keith, our late envoy at Vienna; a son of Field-Marshal Count Lacy's; and Colonel Clarke, the engineer. These, with myself, make five very odd characters, and for the oddity of the mixture I mention it to you.” This was a prescient remark because even as it was written on 8 September 1758, Clerk's impetuosity was getting him into trouble. In 1758 Clerk, who had resigned from the Corps of Engineers on 1 January 1758, was appointed to the staff for the expedition to Cherbourg in Brittany. The Earl of Warwick separated from his wife in September 1760 assuring Elizabeth an income of £2,000 per year. They later lived in Clerk House, Marylebone, newly designed for the couple by architect Robert Adam. Both Clerk and Elizabeth were quietly married in the English Ambassador's Chapel in Paris in February 1774, after her husband the Earl had died in 1773.