Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 85.: From JOHN GLASSFORD - Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith

Return to Title Page for Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith

Search this Title:

85.: From JOHN GLASSFORD - 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.


85.

From JOHN GLASSFORD1

  • Address: To Dr Smith

MS., GUL Gen. 1035/150; Scott 258–9.

Glasgow, 5 Nov. 1764

Dear Sir

I have at different Times had the Pleasure of hearing of your wellfare Since you left Glasgow, altho not favoured with any Letter from yourself. I hope that your Time passes agreeably and that you are bringing forward at your Leisure Hours the usefull work that was so well advanced here.2 It would be a Pity to want it longer than you find necessary to finish it to your own liking, as it may then very safely make its appearance.

This I send under cover to Mr George Kippen3 of this Place who I expect will be at London about the Time this gets there as he sett out from Glasgow on the 29th of last Month with an Intention to go from London to France in order to pass the Winter in one of the Southern provinces of that Kingdom for the Benefit of his Health which for upwards of a year has been very indifferent But which Doctor Black thinks will be greatly benefited by the exercise that he gets in this journey thither and which the Mildness of the Winter Season in the South of France will permit his taking in these Months that you know are too unfavourable here for Valetudinary people to go much abroad. Mrs Kippen goes along with Mr Kippen as does Mr Clawson4 whom you probably have known at the university here and who will make an agreeable Companion to Him.

You no doubt are Accquainted with Mr Kippens Character and usefullness in Society which makes it unnecessary for me to say much in Recommendation of Him to your Civilities if he fixes at Tholouse or its neighbourhood. I know that he can depend on your best advice and friendship in directing him to a proper House to lodge in That they may have as many of the conveniences as are to be afforded to Strangers in their Situation.

You no doubt know that your friend Mr William Smith5 came to the Incle factory6 Warehouse as was proposed before you left Glasgow where he gives application and seems in general very qualified for Business of that sort. His younger Brother7 is gone upon a Voyage in one of my Ships from hence to Havre de grace and from thence to Maryland and back to this place with an Intention to keep at Sea if this trying voyage pleases Him.

I referr you to some of your other Correspondents for any News that are going here. Indeed I do not remember any worth noticing to you and my now writing you except that the Members for Scotland seem now resolved to carry the Bill for abolishing the optional Clause in Bank and Bankers notes8 this ensuing Session which you know was drop’d in the Last. I am with great regard

Dear Sir, Your most obedient and Humble Servant

John Glassford

[1 ]John Glassford (1715–83), tobacco merchant and shipowner, one of the richest men in Glasgow; Bailie 1751; purchased Dougalston, Dumbarton; is remembered in his native city by a street named after him.

[2 ]WN: an indication that Smith’s Glasgow friends knew of this work on economics during his professorial years. The scene for discussion of this was probably Provost Andrew Cochrane’s Political Economy Club (Rae 90–1).

[3 ]George Kippen, junior, merchant, admitted burgess of Glasgow, 1737; he was still alive in 1781.

[4 ]Patrick Clason (d. 1811), Glasgow M.A. 1758, tutor to the Earl of Dunmore; schoolmaster of Logie.

[5 ]Probably a distant cousin of Adam Smith.

[6 ]Made broad tapes; founded in 1732 by Alexander Harvey, who brought at great risk two looms and a worker from Haarlem to start the industry in Glasgow.

[7 ]? An Adam Smith who left Glasgow University in 1764 without taking a degree.

[8 ]Dealt with payment of bank notes in cash or notes of other banks; the ‘optional clause’ was not abolished until much later; see Hamilton 300, 305, 311–12, 315. Glassford was a partner in the Glasgow Arms Bank, founded in 1750, and a founder of the Thistle Bank in 1761.