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52.: 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.


52.

To LORD SHELBURNE

MS., Bowood Libr., Marquess of Lansdowne; unpubl.

Glasgow, 11 Nov. 1760

My Lord

Mr Fitzmaurice being at present indisposed with sore eyes I write this letter to make his apology to your Lordship and to Lady Shelburne for his not having written so regularly of late as usual. He got cold at Inveraray, the effect of which was to make the scurvy on his face strike in and fall upon his eyes. They were, he tells me, ill there, and have been so ever since his return. These three days he has been confined to a dark room. Had he taken proper care of them immediately upon his return, they probably would have given him less trouble. But his manliness hinders him from being so careful of his person, or as attentive to the first beginning of Disorder as I would wish him. The inflammation is in the ball of one of his eyes. By the application of Leeches it is this day a good deal reduced and he is free from all pain. I have no doubt, as he has at last agreed to sit at home for all the remaining part of this week and read none, that by the beginning of next week they will be well. Till they are so and he is able to write himself I shall write either to your Lordship or to Lady Shelburne every post to inform you how they are. I reckon this accident a little unlucky as he must probably use them very sparingly on account of the weakness which may remain when the inflammation is entirely gone; He had resumed his studies with great spirit immediately on his return and did not appear to have been at all dissipated by his journey. While I make his apology I am sensible that I have much more reason to make my own for having, without any such excuse, so long neglected to thank your Lordship for the many obligations your Lordship and Lady Shelburne laid me under while at Wycombe.1 I shall, however, trust entirely to your goodness in this respect for forgiveness, and without any take the liberty to subscribe myself your Lordships

most Obliged and most Obedient Servant

Adam Smith

[Endorsed: ‘Nov.11.1760 Mr Smith with account of my Son Thomas his Complaint in his Eyes I sent this letter to the Bishop of Killala by post Nov. 20 1760. Answer’d Nov. 25. 1760’.]

[1 ]Smith had presumably visited Lord Shelburne’s home on the jaunt anticipated in Letter 51, but nothing is recorded about this occasion.