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288.: From DR. JAMES MENTEATH - 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:

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288.

From DR. JAMES MENTEATH

  • Address: To Adam Smith Esq., Commissioner of the Customs, Edinburgh

MS., GUL Gen. 1035/173; Scott 308.

My dear Adam

From Your sensibility of Soul You will easily conceive the pleasure that Your most obliging Favour of the 15th gave me; and entirely relying on Professor Millars Authority and no less on good Davids for the great Service done to my Son by Mr Angier,1 I have this Day written to Mr Erskine2 desiring Him [to send]3 You 43 Guineas, which I must beg the favour [of] You to pay to Mr Angier on my Account, as likewise my most grateful Thanks and to tell Him that I received His Letter, which I should have answered myself but did not know where a Letter might find Him. Mr Angiers Fee for a Cure is 50 Guineas, now as I had given Him 10 Guineas for his Attendance on my Son this time twelve Months I presume that He will think the 40 Guineas now a full Payment, but if You find He expects 50 for what He has lately done I will beg the favour of You to give them, the 3 Guineas is on Account of His Expences while He was at Glasgow.

What You say with respect Yourself as to money Matters, is equally applicable to me; We have both much larger Incomes now than at a former period, but I am not quite certain that either of Us is more happy than we were then. Solomon sith, ‘He that increaseth Knowledge increaseth Sorrow’; this may be true; but I am not quite certain of it, as I am, of this that He who increaseth Property increaseth Trouble; this I experience daily.

I am not quite determined about going to Glasgow [for] my Son, but if I go shall certainly return by Edinburgh and do [my]/self the pleasure of seeing You. My best Respects attend Your Sunday Night Friends4 and believe me to be with great truth

My dear Adam Your ever most obliged and most affectionate

Jas. Stuart Menteath

[1 ]No letter of Smith’s to Menteath dated 15 Mar. has been traced, but Letter 284 dated 2 Feb. 1789 explains matters. ‘Good David’ is David Douglas, Smith’s nephew: at this time a student attending Glasgow University.

[2 ]Not traced but presumably Menteath’s man of business in Edinburgh.

[3 ]MS. damaged.

[4 ]Smith’s Sunday night suppers at Panmure House were an institution among Edinburgh intellectuals.