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80.: From JOHN MILLAR - 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.


80.

From JOHN MILLAR1

  • Address: To Dr Adam Smith, to the care of Andrew Miller, Bookseller, opposite St Catharine Street in the Strand, London

MS., GUL Gen. 1035/149; Scott 257.

Glasgow, 2 Feb. 1764

Dr Sir

I write this to you, with the concurrence of Dr Black to acquaint you of the State of our affairs since you left us. Dr Reid at Aberdeen has been strongly recommended by Lord Kames.2 He is also recommended to Dr Traill3 by Lord Deskford. There is great reason to believe that interest will be used from all these different quarters with Mr. Mckenzie.4 Possibly too the Duke of Queensberry5 and Lord Hopeton6 will be engaged in his behalf, the consequence of which in the present state of things is altogether uncertain.

Black and I still think that Young is by far the best man who has appeared; for Morehead7 refuses to accept. We earnestly beg that if you can do any thing in counterworking these extraneous operations you will exert yourself. I cannot but say that we join also in wishing that if you know any place where your opinion of Young would be of Service, you would take an opportunity of giving it. I can assure you he needs that assistance. There is now a strong circumstance in his favour which we could not know formerly. He has taught the class hitherto with great and universal applause, and by all accounts discovers an ease and fluency in Speaking which, I own, I scarce expected. No body knows of my writing this but Black. Yours sincerely

John Millar

Your mother is in good health.

[1 ]John Millar (1735–1801), jurist and historian; educ. at Glasgow under Smith; tutor to Lord Kames’s son George, late 1750s; advocate 1760; Professor of Civil Law, Glasgow, from 1761, lecturing on civil law, jurisprudence, and both Scots and English law; prominent member of the University Literary Soc.; upheld radical political views, opposing the slave trade and sympathizing with the French Revolution; his distinguished pupils included David Hume the Younger, Lord Melbourne, Thomas Muir, and Smith’s nephew and heir, David Douglas (Lord Reston); published The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771), and Historical View of the English Government (1787), offering a materialist analysis of history. While in general following Smith’s lead as a social scientist, Millar was critical of Smith’s conclusions expressed in WN, in particular that concerning ‘unbounded freedom of trade’. Millar held that when public interest warranted it, there should be ‘a regulation of trade’ (Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume, ed. J. Hill Burton, Edinburgh, 1849, ii. 479).

[2 ]Thomas Reid was elected Smith’s successor on 22 May 1764. Kames and Reid developed a lifelong friendship, in part based on sharing the Common Sense philosophy.

[3 ]Robert Traill (d. 1775), Professor of Oriental Languages, then Divinity, from 1761.

[4 ]Hon. James Stuart Mackenzie (?1719–1800), M.P. for Ross–shire 1761–80, brother of the 3rd Earl of Bute who secured him as minister for Scotland 1761–65; respected by George III for conscientious exercise of patronage (HP iii. 504).

[5 ]Charles Douglas (1698–1778) 3rd Duke of Queensberry and 2nd Duke of Dover; Privy Councillor; Vice–Admiral of Scotland; Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland 1760; Lord Justice–General 1763–78.

[6 ]John, 2nd Earl of Hopetoun (1704–81), one of the Lords of Police 1744–60, said to have spent all of his salary on charity; his first wife was a sister of Lord Deskford.

[7 ]George Muirhead (d. 1773), Professor of Oriental Languages 1753, of Humanity 1754–d.