Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 88.: To DAVID HUME - 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:

88.: To DAVID HUME - 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.


88.

To DAVID HUME

MS., GUL Gen. 1035/130 (portions cut out); Scott 263–4.

[? Toulouse, Sept. 1765]1

My Dear friend

It gives me the Greatest pleasure to find that you are so well contented with your present situation. I think however you are wrong in thinking of settling at Paris. A man is always displaced in a forreign Country, and notwithstanding the boasted humanity and politeness of this Nation, they appear to me to be, in general, more meanly interested, and that the cordiality of their friendship is much less to be depended on than that of our own countrymen. They live in such large societies and their affections are dissipated among so great a variety of objects, that they can bestow but a very small share of them upon any individual. Do not imagine that the great Princes and Ladies who want you to live with them make this proposal from real and sincere affection to you. They mean nothing but to gratify their own vanity by having an illustrious man in their house, and you would soon feel the want of that cordial and trusty affection which you enjoyed in the family of Lord and Lady Hertford, to whom I must beg to be remembered in the most dutiful and respectful manner. Your objections to London appear to me to be without foundation. The hatred of Scotch men can subsist, even at present, among nobody but the stupidest of the People, and is such a piece of nonsense that it must fall even among them in a twelvemonth. The Clamour against you on account of Deism is stronger, no doubt, at London where you are a Native and consequently may be a candidate for everything, than at Paris where as a forreigner, you possibly can be a candidate for nothing. Your Presence dissipated in six months time much stronger prejudices in Edinburgh, and when you appear at Court, in open day light, as you must do upon your return, and not live obscurely at Miss Elliots2 with six or seven scotchmen as before, the same irresistible good temper will in a very few weeks dissipate much weaker prejudices at London and [ ]3 to hold their tongues. In short I have a very great interest in your settling at London, where, after many firm resolutions to return to Scotland, I think it is most likely I shall settle myself.4 Let us make short excursions together sometimes to see our friends in France and sometimes to see our friends in Scotland, but let London be the place of our ordinary residence. Before you set out from Paris I would beg of you to leave me some letters to honest men and women. You may leave them either with Foley or with Thellason and Neckar,5 to be delivered on my arrival at paris. The Duke desires to be remembered[ ]3

[1 ]The letter is undated, but seems to be a reply to Letter 87 from Hume, dated 5 Sept. Smith was travelling in the south of France later in Sept. See Letter 99 addressed to Andrew Millar, dated ? autumn 1766, for another comment on Hume’s notion about settling in Paris.

[2 ]Miss Ann Elliot of Middlemiln, a poor relation of the Minto family; with her sister Peggy, she kept a boarding–establishment, much frequented by Scotsmen, in Lisle Street, Leicester Fields. While in London, Hume lodged there, c. 1758–c. 1768.

[3 ]Portions cut out.

[4 ]Smith visited London, 1766–7, 1773–6, 1777 (Jan.–c. Nov.), 1782, 1786 (Apr.–May), and 1787 (Mar.–Aug.), but made his home in Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh.

[5 ]Paris bankers.