Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 251.: To [GEORGE CHALMERS] - 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:

251.: To [GEORGE CHALMERS] - 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.


251.

To [GEORGE CHALMERS]

MS., Kress Libr., Harvard University; Rae 400.

Custom–house, Edinburgh, 22 Dec. 1785

Sir

I have been so long in answering your very obliging letter of the 8th instt, that I am afraid you will imagine I have been forgetting or neglecting it. I hoped to send one of the accounts by the post after I received your letter; but some difficulties have occurred which I was [not] aware of and you may yet be obliged to wait a few days for it. In the mean time I send you a note extracted from Mr Websters book by his Clerk, who was of great use to him in composing it and who has made several corrections upon it since1

My letters as a Commissioner of the Customs are paid at the Custom house and my correspondents receive them duty free. I should, otherwise, have taken the liberty to inclose them, as you direct, under Mr Roses2 Cover It may, perhaps, give that Gentleman pleasure to be informed that the net revenue arising from the customs in Scotland is at least four times greater that it was seven or eight years ago. It has been increasing rapidly these four or five years past; and the revenue of this year has overleaped by at least one half the revenue of the greatest former year. I flatter myself it is likely to increase still further. The development of the causes of this augmentation would require a longer discussion than this letter will admit of.

Prices speculations cannot fail to sink into the neglect that they always deserved. I have always considered him as a factious citizen, a most superficial Philosopher and by no means an able calculator.3 I have the honour to be, with great respect and esteem,

Sir Your most faithfull humble Servant

Adam Smith

I shall certainly think myself very much honoured by any notice you may think proper to take of me in your book.4

[1 ]See Letters 249 and 250 addressed to Chalmers, dated 10 Nov. and 3 Dec. 1785, also 252 dated 3 Jan. 1786.

[2 ]George Rose.

[3 ]Dr. Richard Price (1723–91), Nonconformist minister and writer on morals, politics, and economics; supporter of the American and French revolutions; his Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1758), National Debt (2nd ed., 1772), Civil Liberty (6th ed., 1776; 1778 ed.), Reversionary Payments (4th ed., 1783), and American Revolution (2nd ed., 1785) were in Smith’s library (Bonar 150–1, Mizuta 48).

[4 ]Chalmers wrote of Smith’s views on foreign trade: ‘This subject has been amply discussed and finely illustrated by Dr Adam Smith, who merits the praise of having formerly strengthened our morals and lately enlightened our intellects’ (Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain, 1785 (1786), 76; see also 17, 158, 164, 191).