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177B.: To [WILLIAM STRAHAN] - 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.


177B.

To [WILLIAM STRAHAN]

MS., RSE viii. 42 (unsigned draft letter); Rae 306–7.

[Kirkcaldy, Oct. 1776]

Dear Sir

When I received your last letter1 I had not begun the small addition which I proposed to make to the life of our late friend. It is now more than three weeks since I finished it and sent one copy to his Brother and another to Dr Black. That which I sent to his Brother is returned with remarks,2 all of which I approve of and shall adopt. Dr Black waits for John Home, the Poet, who is expected every day in Edinburgh whose remarks he proposes to send along with those of all our common friends. The work consists only of two sheets in the form of a letter to you; but without one word of flattery or compliment. It will not cost my servant a forenoon to transcribe it, so that you will receive it by the first post after it is returned to me.

I am much obliged to you for so readily agreeing to [print] the life, together with my addition separate from the Dialogues. I even flatter myself that this arrangement will contribute, not only to my quiet, but to your interest. The clamour against the dialogues, if published first, might hurt for some time the sale of the new edition of his works and when the Clamour has a little subsided, the dialogues might hereafter occasion a quicker sale of another edition.

I do not propose being with you till the Christmas holidays; in the meantime I should be glad to know how things stand between us; what copies of my last book3 are either sold or unsold and when the balance of our bargain is likely to be due to me. I beg my most respectful and affectionate complements to Mr Cadell; I should have written to him but you know the pain it gives me to write with my own hand and I look upon writing to him and you as the same thing. I have been since I came to Scotland, most exceedingly idle. It is partly in order to bring up in some measure my leeway that I propose to stay here two months longer than I had intended. If my presence however was at all necessary in London I could easily set out immediately.4

I beg the favour of you to send the enclosed to Mr Home.5 The purpose of it is to bespeak my Lodgings.

[1 ]Letter 173 from Strahan, dated 16 Sept. 1776.

[2 ]See Letter 176 from John Home of Ninewells, dated 14 Oct. 1776.

[3 ]WN.

[4 ]Smith went to London in Jan. 1777 and remained until Oct. of that year.

[5 ]The poet.