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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) 221.: To JOHN SINCLAIR OF ULBSTER - Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith
221.: To JOHN SINCLAIR OF ULBSTER - 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).
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221.
To JOHN SINCLAIR OF ULBSTER
Sinclair Corr., i. 389–90; Rae 382–3. MS., Meisei University, near Tokyo, Japan; Sinclair Corr., i, 389–90; Rae 382–3. Custom–House, Edinburgh, 14 Oct. 1782 My Dear Sir,
I have read your pamphlet several times over, with great pleasure, and am very much pleased with the style and composition. As to what effect it might produce, if translated, upon the Powers concerned in the armed neutrality, I am a little doubtful. It is too plainly partial to England. It proposes that the force of the armed neutrality should be employed in recovering to England the islands she has lost; and the compensation which it is proposed that England should give for this service, is the islands which they may conquer for themselves, with the assistance of England, indeed, from France and Spain. There seems to me, besides, to be some inconsistency in the argument. If it be just to emancipate the Continent of America from the dominion of every European power, how can it be just to subject the islands to such dominion? And if the monopoly of the trade of the Continent be contrary to the rights of mankind, how can that of the islands be agreeable to those rights? The real futility of all distant dominions, of which the defence is necessarily most expensive, and which contribute nothing, either by revenue or military force, to the general defence of the empire, and very little even to their own particular defence, is, I think, the subject upon which the public prejudices of Europe require most to be set right. In order to defend the barren rock of Gibraltar, (to the possession of which we owe the union of France and Spain, contrary to the natural interests and inveterate prejudices of both countries, the important enmity of Spain, and the futile and expensive friendship of Portugal,) we have now left our own coasts defenceless, and sent out a great fleet, to which any considerable disaster may prove fatal to our domestic security; and which, in order to effectuate its purpose, must probably engage a fleet of superior force. Sore eyes have made me delay writing to you so long. I ever am, my Dear Sir, your most faithful and affectionate humble servant,
Adam Smith
You will receive your papers under two covers by the same Post with this letter. [Postscript crossed out in MS].
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