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55.: From LORD CARDROSS - 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.


55.

From LORD CARDROSS1

MS., GUL Gen. 1035/140; unpubl.

St. Andrews, 6 June 1761

Dear Sir,

The post will bring this and a Letter2 from my Father at the same Time, Begging your Interest and Assistance in an Affair which deeply concerns us both. It will be needless for me to recapitulate the nature of this affair or the Circumstances which render the Success of our Sollicitation, much to be wished for and of great Importance to our Family.

The Multiplyed Civilities and Kindnesse’s I have receiv’d at Your Hands, have Emboldened me to Second my Father’s Letter to you, assuring you of my Gratitude for these Marks of your Goodness and Friendship to me.

I won’t follow the common System of Letters of Sollicitation in setting forth the merits of the Object for whom we Sollicit; If my Brother3 is honour’d by your University to be their Exhibitioner,4 He will come and remain at Glasgow to study with You and I flatter myself will give more Substantial proofs of his merit and Capacity than I would do were I to write a Quire of Paper upon the Head; Indeed these Encomiums are always fulsome, Ill timed, and Disagreeable.

As I have heard you say you compleated your Studys at Oxford, It will be needless for me to Display the many Unavoidable Expenses to which a Student of any Denomination is Liable but particularly a Lad of Rank and a Lively Spirit; These Motives Induced Lord Buchan to ask the first vacancy of the High Exhibitions that you are not Enter’d into Engagements for; as the Nature of an Entailed Estate does not Admitt of large Allowances to his Children; the Proffitts of the Exhibition would remove a part of the Expense which the Education of a Churchman Incurrs, and the Objections which were laid to my Brothers following The Strong Inclinations He has for the Church. I have taken the Liberty to Inclose a Letter to Mr Fitzmaurice,5 I beg you will Remember me to Mrs Smith, and Miss Douglass. I have heard nothing of Poor Dr Lindsay6 which makes me hope His Distemper has abated.

I Know your Usual Indulgence will Induce you to forgive my troubling you with this Letter So I finish this without any other Apology than Assuring You That I am

Dear Sir with Sincere Regard your Obliged and Humble Servant

[signature cut out]

P.S. Pray Remember me Kindly to Mr Fitzmaurice. Something has c[ome] in the which prevents my writing this Post.

[1 ]The cover is endorsed with a note stating that the letter is from the ‘son of the Earl of Buchan’, i.e. David Stewart Erskine (1742–1829) later 11th Earl of Buchan, who left somewhat unreliable reminiscences of his time as a student at Glasgow under Smith (GUL Buchan MSS.). He founded the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and wrote literary biographies and essays.

[2 ]Letter not traced; the fa. was the 10th Earl of Buchan.

[3 ]Henry Erskine (1746–1817) lawyer, politician, poet, and wit: when he was presented to Johnson by Boswell in 1773, he dropped a shilling into Boswell’s hand, whispering that ‘it was for the sight of his bear’ (BLJ v.39, n.4). He was educated at St Andrews, Edinburgh, and Glasgow; advocate 1768; Lord Advocate 1783, 1806; Dean of Faculty 1785–95; condemned the Sedition and Treason Bills of 1795 as unconstitutional—his equally brilliant bro. Thomas (1750–1823) fought against them in the English courts; M.P. 1806–7; Commissioner to inquire into the administration of justice in Scotland 1808.

[4 ]Snell Exhibition.

[5 ]Hon. Thomas Fitzmaurice.

[6 ]Hercules Lindesay, Professor of Civil Law (d. 1761).