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26.: To WILLIAM JOHNSTONE - Adam Smith, Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith [1740]

Edition used:

Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, vol. VI of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).

Part of: The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


26.

To WILLIAM JOHNSTONE

MS., Pierpont Morgan Libr., New York; Scott 236.

Dear Johnstoune

I am much obliged to you for your attention in mentioning me to Mr. Elliot:1 I have the greatest desire to see him but have been looking in the map and find Minto2 above three score mortal miles from Glasgow the nearest way that I can go to it. This abates my ardor a good deal. However I shall take the affair ad avisandum.

I send you enclosed a portion of a letter I received last night from Captain Gordon;3 it is of an early date, but it had come under cover to another Gentleman who was out of the way. It is [n]ot what I expected. I had told him that we might make a demand upon him for one or two hundred pounds, and tho he gives me here an unlimited commision we must not abuse Generosity, but confine our demand to a sum within the largest of the two; and the more within it the better. Show this letter to John Hume4 and if you can too to James Russel;5 and let me know by next post if possible what sum will be wanted from him.6 I ever am,

Dear Johnstoune ever yours

Adam Smith

[1 ]Gilbert Elliot.

[2 ]Minto, Roxburgh.

[3 ]? Hon. William Russell Gordon (1736–1816), 2nd s. of William, 2nd Earl of Aberdeen; educ. Glasgow University 1748; Cornet 11th Dragoons 1756, Captain 1759.

[4 ]John Home the dramatist.

[5 ]James Russel (d.1773), Edinburgh surgeon and later Professor of Natural Philosophy.

[6 ]Scott speculates (236, n. 3) that the project mentioned in this letter was the establishment of the Glasgow Academy of Art.