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290.: To SIR WILLIAM FORBES - 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.


290.

To SIR WILLIAM FORBES1

  • Address: Sir William Forbes Baronet

MS., NLS Acc. 4796 part 2, Box 10, Folder F19; unpubl.

Dear Sir

It gives me very gr[eat]3 concern that I cannot have t[he plea]sure of waiting on you an[d Mr] Chalmers4 today at Dinner [ac]cording to My Promise. B[?ad] pain and disorder in my st[omach] make it inconvenien[t] for me to dine out of my own house. I should be very happy to wait on Mr Chalmers if knew where he lodged. Or, if he would do me the honour to call upon me, he will find me at home always in the afternoon, and today, tomorrow and Sunday in the forenoon till two o’clock.2

Yours ever

Adam Smith

[1 ]Sir William Forbes (1739–1806), Edinburgh banker and author; entered firm of Coutts, 1754, became partner, changing the name of the firm to Coutts, Hunter & Co. 1773; friend of Boswell, for whom he read part of the MS. ‘Journal of a tour to the Hebrides’ in 1775 and 1777; a leader in preparing the Bankruptcy Act of 1783; consulted on financial matters by Pitt; member of Dr. Johnson’s ‘Club’; wrote Memoirs of a Banking–House (1803) and a Life of Beattie (1806).

[3 ]The letter is torn in a number of places, hence the conjectures about missing words.

[4 ]? George Chalmers.

[2 ]Forbes docketed the letter ‘18 Sept. 1789’.