Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 109.: 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:

109.: 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.


109.

To DAVID HUME

  • Address: To David Hume Esqr, Under Secretary for the Northern Department, London

MS., RSE vii. 37; Rae 243 (in part).

Dalkieth house,1 13 Sept. 1767

My Dear friend

I cannot easily express to you the indignation with which your last letter2 filled me. The Bishop is a brute and a beast and unmerited preferment has rendered him, it seems, still more so.3 I am very much ashamed that the very great affection which I owe to his Brother4 had ever imposed upon me so much as to give me a good opinion of him. He was at Kirkaldy since I received your letter and I was obliged to see him, but I did not behave to him as I otherwise would have done. He thought proper to leave Edinburgh the day or the day before his brother arrived in it, without waiting to see that Brother to whom he owes everything, who was then, and is still in the most terrible distress, and who used to have no other foible so great as his esteem and regard to this haughty Blockhead. I excuse our old friend for not having taken more notice of this affair on account of the present state of his health upon which I shall explain myself to you more fully at meeting.5

Be so good as to convey the enclosed letter to the Count de Sarsfield; I have been much in the wrong for having delayed so long to write both to him and you.

There is a very amiable, modest, brave worthy young Gentleman who lives in the same house with you. His name is David Skeene.6 He and I are Sisters sons; but my regard for him is much more founded upon his personal qualities than upon the relation in which he stands to me. He acted lately in a very gallant manner in America of which he never acquainted me himself and of which I came to the knowledge only within these few days. If you can be of any service to him you could not possibly do a more obliging thing to me.

The Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh have been here now for almost a fortnight.7 They begin to open their house on Monday next and I flatter myself will both be very agreable to the People of this country. I am not sure that I have ever seen a more agreeable woman than the Dutchess. I am sorry that you are not here because I am sure you would be perfectly in love with her. I shall probably be here some weeks; I would wish, however, that both you and the Count de Sarsfield would direct for me as usual at Kirkaldy. I should be glad to know the true history of Rousseau before and since he left England.8 You may perfectly depend upon my never quoting you to any living soul upon that Subject. I ever am Dear Sir, Most faithfully yours

Adam Smith

[1 ]Dalkeith House or Palace, Midlothian, one of the residences of the Buccleuch family; rebuilt for Duchess Anne 1700 by James Smith, and said to be an imitation of Het Loo in the Netherlands.

[2 ]Letter 104, dated 13 June 1767.

[3 ]See Letter 104 for Hume’s account of Bishop John Oswald’s ‘rage’.

[4 ]James Oswald of Dunnikier.

[5 ]James Oswald was in failing health.

[6 ]Afterwards of Pitlour; appointed Inspector of Roads in Scotland 1787.

[7 ]The Duke md. Lady Betsy only dau. of the Duke of Montagu on 3 May 1767. The newly–married couple came to Dalkeith at the beginning of September and were to celebrate the Duke’s birthday on the 13th, but the news of Charles Townshend’s death caused the celebrations to be put off. Smith stayed with the Buccleuchs two months at this time, though he was not a man ‘to promote jollity at a birthday party’, according to Carlyle 511–12.

[8 ]See Letters 111 and 112 from Hume, dated 8 and 17 Oct. 1767.