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51.: To LORD SHELBURNE - 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.


51.

To LORD SHELBURNE

MS., Bowood Libr., Marquess of Lansdowne; Scott 253–4 (in part).

Glasgow, 15 July 1760

My Lord

I send your Lordship enclosed in the same packet with this letter Mr. Fitzmaurices receipts for the money he has got from me since the beginning of November last. The Sum, you will see, is upwards of ninety Pounds. I did not propose to trouble your Lordship upon this subject till November next. But I happened unluckily to catch cold in March last and I suffered this illness, thro’ carelessness, to hang about me till within these three weeks. I then thought I had got entirely the better of it. But upon going into Edinburgh about ten days ago, having lain in a damp bed in a house in that neighbourhood, it returned upon me with so much violence that two days ago, My friend Dr. Cullen took me aside on the street of Edinburgh, and told me that he thought it his duty to inform me plainly that if I had any hope of surviving next winter I must ride at least five hundred miles before the beginning of September. I came home yesterday to settle my affairs which, so well as I can judge, will take me up near a fortnight. If I was in health, it would not take up two days, but at present I can give so little continued application that I have already been obliged to interrupt this letter twice in order to let the profuse sweat, which the labour of writing three lines had thrown me into, go off. I am besides obliged to employ a great deal of time in Riding. I propose going the length of York and returning by the West of England as soon as my affairs will allow me. If, indeed, I run down as fast for these ten days to come as I have done for these ten days past, I think I shall save myself the trouble and My Mother, who is my heir, the expence of following my friends prescription.

As the expence of this proposed journey comes upon me a little unexpectedly I find myself obliged to begg that your Lordship would order payment immediately of the money I have advanced. Besides the money contained in the enclosed account Mr. Fitzmaurice owes three different accounts, two to different Booksellers and one to a Clothier. It will be three or four days before I can get in these different accounts. By what he tells me they will amount to between thirty and fourty Pounds Sterling. I fancy nearer the latter than the former. I must likewise beg of your Lordship to remit the last of these sums upon trust and I shall immediately take care that the Accounts themselves be transmitted to you. I would chuse to leave him behind me free in the world and as my intended journey will run away with all my ready Cash I cannot do it otherwise.

It would be throwing away Mr. Fitzmaurices time to make him accompany me on this expedition. He has had amusement and Dissipation enough during the ten days he staid with me in Edinburgh. A longer relaxation is altogether unnecessary to one of his hardy and strong constitution. He is at present and has been ever since the rising of the College extremely well employed. He stays at home all the forenoon which Time he employs in reading the best English Authors. Immediately after dinner he read with me L’Esprit des Loix for an hour or more till I caught my Last cold. That lecture is now, indeed, probably at an end for this Summer. The Evening he spends in exercises, in Dancing or in learning the exercise of an Officer and a Soldier. He learns them with no other view than to form his body, for I do not discover in him the least inclination towards the army. He has less disposition towards those parts of Science which are in some respects the objects of taste; than towards the mathematical and mechanical learning. In these he makes extraordinary progress but seems to have less time for what is called polite literature and his mind is in some respects like his body, rather strong and firm and masculine than very graceful or very elegant. No man can have a stronger or a more steady resolution to act what, he thinks, the right part, and if you can once satisfy him that any thing is fit to be done you may perfectly depend upon his doing it. To this excellent disposition he joins a certain hardness of character, if I may call it so, which hinders him from suiting himself, so readily as is agreeable, to the different situations and companies in which he has occasion to act. The great outlines of essential duty which are always the same, you may depend upon his never transgressing, but those little properties which are continually varying and for which no certain rule can be given he often mistakes. He has upon this account little address and cannot easily adjust himself to the different characters of those whom he desires to gain. He had learned at Eton a sort of flippant smartness which, not having been natural to him at first, has now left him almost entirely. In a few months more it will probably fall off altogether. The real bottom of his character is very grave and very serious, and by the time he is five and twenty, whatever faults he has will be the faults of the grave and serious character, with all its faults the best of Characters. I heard some time in April last that his companions accused him of narrowness. I told him of it immediately, and he soon explained to me what had given occasion to the accusation. I have ever since been more liberal to him and soon after gave him first six and then four Pounds to spend during the time of the Assizes. This has raised a good deal the article for pocket. As I am thoroughly convinced that there is now no chance of his ever being a spendthrift, I do not think that it could have any good effect to pinch him at present and it might have a very bad one. Take him altogether he is one of the best young men I have known, and since he came here has done more good than I ever knew anybody do in the same time. I have not the least fear that any thing will go wrong in my absence. I do not propose being away above a month. He will be in my house and have the conversation and assistance of several of my colleagues whenever he pleases to call for it. Independent of this my confidence in his own steadyness is now perfect and entire, and my illness will only be the loss of a lecture to him. Remember me in the most respectful manner to Lady Shelburne. I began this letter in the forenoon and finish it at night. It has been the labour of almost a day, you may judge how often I have been obliged to interrupt it. I am with the greatest respect

Your Lordships most Obliged and obedient Servant

Adam Smith

Mr. Fitzmaurice has gone out and has forgot to leave the Accounts with the vouchers of his receipts. Your Lordship will receive them in another packet by next post. His receipts come by this post in a packet by themselves. Your Lordship will observe that the date of his receipt for the jaunt to Edinburgh is yesterday, the day we came home and settled accounts. He had received the money as he had occasion for it and kept the rest of it. The same was the case of several of his other receipts, their dates are often posterior to the real time in which the money was received.

[Endorsed: ‘July 15. 1760. Mr. Smith of Glasgow giving account of his ill state of health and desiring a remittance of Money on acct. of my Son Thomas. I have accordingly remitted to him two Drafts on Gosling & Co. for £100 each this 23 July 1760.’]