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175.: To [JOHN HOME OF NINEWELLS] - 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.


175.

To [JOHN HOME OF NINEWELLS]

MS., RSE viii. 40 (39: draft); Rae 304.

Dear Sir

I send you, under the same cover with this letter, what I propose should be added to the account which your never to be forgotten1 brother has left of his own life. When you have read it, I beg you will return it to me and at the same time let me know if you would wish to have anything either added to it or taken from it. I think there is a propriety in addressing it as a letter to Mr Strahan to whom he has left the care of his works.2 If you approve of it, I shall send it to him, as soon as I receive it from you.

I have added at the bottom of my will the note discharging the legacy of two hundred pounds which your Brother was so kind as to leave me. Upon the most mature deliberation I am fully Satisfied that in justice it is not due to me. Tho it should be due to me, therefore, in strict law, I cannot with honour accept of it. You will easily believe that my refusal does not proceed from any want of the highest respect for the memory of your deceased Brother. I have the Honour to be, with the highest respect and esteem

Dear Sir, Most Sincerely and Affectionately yours

Adam Smith

[1 ]The phrase was later applied by Smith to his teacher Frances Hutcheson; see Letter 274 addressed to Dr. Archibald Davidson, dated 16 Nov. 1787, in which Smith accepted the rectorship of Glasgow University.

[2 ]See Letter 173, n. 3, and Letter 178, addressed to Strahan, dated 9 Nov. 1776.