The Online Library of Liberty

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• The Life of David Hume , Esq.
• Letter From Adam Smith , Ll.d. to William Strahan , E Sq. 2.
• A Brief Account of William Strahan.
• Letters of Hume
• Letter I.: The History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter II.: On the Reception of Vol. Ii of the History.
• Letter III.: Bargaining With Millar the Bookseller.
• Letter IV.: The Quarto Edition of the Essays.
• Letter V.: The Bargain With Millar Concluded.
• Letter VI.: Dr. Hurd's Artifices.
• Letter VII.: Errata In the Essays.
• Letter VIII.: Millar Suspected of Extortion.
• Letter IX.: Second Edition of the History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter X.: The New Method of Spelling.
• Letter XI.: The History of England Under the Tudors Completed.
• Letter XII.: Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.
• Letter XIII.: The Early History, and the Accession of George III.
• Letter XIV.: James Macpherson Introduced to Mr. Strahan.
• Letter XV.: On‘accommodating’ the Different Parts of the History.
• Letter XVI.: Hume's Departure For France.
• Letter XVII: French Works For Translation Into English.
• Letter XVIII.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XIX.: The Printing-presses In London: Medicine For the Dutch Ambassador.
• Letter XX.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XXI.: Session of 1765: Rage Against the Scots.
• Letter XXII.: The King's Birth-day Kept In Paris.
• Letter XXIII.: Faction In England.
• Letter XXIV.: The Arrival of Hume and Rousseau In London.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVI.: Hume's Account of His Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVII.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXVIII.: Millar's Complaint of Neglect.
• Letter XXIX.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXX.: Complaints of Strahan's Negligence.
• Letter XXXI.: Hume's Occupations As Under Secretary.
• Letter XXXII.: An Appointment Sought For Strahan.
• Letter XXXIII.: An Application to Lord Hertford.
• Letter XXXIV.: Applications to Lord Hertford and General Conway.
• Letter XXXV.: An Apology For Not Keeping an Engagement.
• Letter XXXVI.: Hume In Edinburgh: Tempests Brewing In Public Affairs.
• Letter XXXVII.: The Opening of the Session of 1770.
• Letter XXXVIII.: The City Address: the ‘detestable’ Edition of the History.
• Letter XXXIX.: Lord Home: End of the Session: Lady Grant.
• Letter Xl.: Cadell Disbelieved: Sir Archibald Grant's Plantations.
• Letter Xli.: Complaints of the 1763 Edition of the History.
• Letter Xlii.: the Historical Age: Dr. Henry's History.
• Letter Xliii.: Dr. Henry's Introduction to Strahan.
• Letter Xliv.: a New Edition of the Philosophical Pieces.
• Letter Xlv.: the Ohio Scheme: Threat of War With Spain.
• Letter Xlvi.: the ‘detested Edition’: Lord North: the National Debt: Dalrymple's History.
• Letter Xlvii.: the Art of Printing: Revised Editions: Dr. Johnson's Pamphlet: the Earl of Chatham: Sir John Dalrymple.
• Letter Xlviii.: Correcting Books: Warburton and His Gang: Lord North's Timidity: Powers of Government Lost.
• Letter Xlix.: New Edition of the History.
• Letter L.: the Principles of Penal Law: Landholders Versus Stockholders.
• Letter Li.: Miscarriage of Presentation Copies of the History.
• Letter Lii.: the New Edition of the History.
• Letter Liii.: the Revision of the History a Great Amusement.
• Letter Liv.: Dr. Franklin Hume's Guest.
• Letter Lv.: Variety In Folly: Pitt's Gout: Posterity.
• Letter Lvi.: Hume's Suppressed Essays.
• Letter Lvii.: the Suppressed Essays: a Note to Be Added to the History.
• Letter Lviii.: a Missing Sheet of the History.
• Letter Lix.: Learned Printers: Princess Dowager: George Iii and the East India Company.
• Letter Lx.: Life Tolerable Only By Labour: the Princess Dowager: Bengal.
• Letter Lxi.: the Licentiousness of Patriots.
• Letter Lxii.: the Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxiii.: Captain Brydone: Hume's House In St. Andrew's Square.
• Letter Lxiv.: the New Editions of the Essays and History.
• Letter Lxv.: Dr. Percy Offended By a Passage In the History.
• Letter Lxvi.: Brydone's Travels: Hume's Continuators: Tristram Shandy: Andrew Stuart.
• Letter Lxvii.: Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxviii.: All Faith Lost In Cadell and Strahan.
• Letter Lxix.: Dalrymple's Memoirs: Memoirs of King James II.
• Letter Lxx.: Strahan's Indignation At Hume's Attack On His Truthfulness.
• Letter Lxxi.: an Apology to Strahan.
• Letter Lxxii.: Colonel Stuart and the India House.
• Letter Lxxiii.: the Law of Copyright.
• Letter Lxxiv.: Dr. Wallace's Manuscript: Lord Kames's Sketches.
• Letter Lxxv.: Bargains Between Authors and Booksellers.
• Letter Lxxvi.: Dr. Wight and Dr. Trail: Folly of the War With the Colonies: Dr. Reid and Dr. Beattie.
• Letter Lxxvii.: the War With the Colonies: the Rousing of the British Lion.
• Letter Lxxviii.: Hume's Anxiety For the Correctness of His Works: the Effects of the Loss of America.
• Letter Lxxix.: Last Corrections of the History: Smith's Wealth of Nations: Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
• Letter Lxxx.: Publication of the Wealth of Nations and of the Decline and Fall: the Armament For America.
• Letter Lxxxi.: Hume's Departure For London.
• Letter Lxxxii.: Hume's Arrival In London.
• Letter Lxxxiii.: the Bath Waters: Journey to Bath: First Lord of the Admiralty At Speen Hill.
• Letter Lxxxiv.: the Bath Waters Injurious: Complaints of Injustice: Hume's Autobiography: Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter Lxxxv.: the Cause of Hume's Illness Discovered.
• Letter Lxxxvi.: Return to Edinburgh: a Dying Man's Corrections.
• Letter Lxxxvii.: a Further Correction: Hume's Physicians Report a Cure.
• Letter Lxxxviii.: the Last Correction: Life a Burthen.
• Letter Lxxxix.: Hume's Will: Disposition About His Unpublished Works.
• Letter XC.: Hume's Life and Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter XCI.: Proposed Publication of a Selection of Hume's Letters.
• Letter XCII.: Hume's Injunction About His Papers.
• Letter XCIII.: Hume's Life to Be Published Separately From the Dialogues.
• Letter XCIV.: Information Asked For About the Proposed Publication of Hume's Manuscripts.
• Letter XCV.: Copies of the History Asked For: the Dialogues: Hume's Sentiments With Regard to Futurity.
• Letter XCVI.: The Separate Publication of Hume's Life.
• Letter XCVII.: David Hume the Nephew: the Publication of the Dialogues.
• Letter XCVIII.: Request to Show Some of Hume's Letters to the King.
• Letter XCIX.: Hume's Letters Shown to the King and Queen.

LETTER XXXI.

Hume's Occupations as Under Secretary.

[Spring of 1767.]

DearSir

I was sorry not to be at home, when you did me the Favour to call on me the other day: My occupations1. prevent my calling on you: But if you be any day at this End of the Town, the best way is to call on me at Mr. Conway's House, where I am every forenoon,2. and commonly between 10 and 3: It is in little Warwick Street3. : You’ll do me a Pleasure in allowing me at any time half an hour's Conversation with you.

I am Dear Sir Yours sincerely

David Hume.

Friday, Forenoon4. .

[1.]Note 1. Hume wrote to the Countess de Boufflers from London on March 1, 1767:—‘There has happened, dear Madam, a small change in my situation and fortune since I wrote to you. I was then very deeply immersed in study, and thought of nothing but of retreat and indolence for the rest of my life, when I was surprised with a letter from Lord Hertford, urging me to come to London, and accept of the office of Depute-Secretary of State under his brother [General Conway]. As my Lord knew that this step was contrary to the maxims which I had laid down to myself, he engaged my Lady Hertford to write me at the same time, and to inform me how much she and my Lord desired my compliance. I sat down once or twice to excuse myself; but I own, I could not find terms to express my refusal of a request made by persons to whose friendship I had been so much obliged…. I do not suspect myself at my years, and after such established habits of retreat, of being ensnared by this glimpse of Court favour to commence a new course of life, and relinquish my literary ambition for the pursuit of riches and honours in the state. On the contrary, I feel myself at present like a banished man in a strange country; I mean, not as I was while with you at Paris, but as I should be in Westphalia or Lithuania or any place the least to my fancy in the world.’ Private Corres. p. 235. Horace Walpole writes in his Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 414:—‘It happened at this period [Feb. 1767] that Mr. Conway, who talked of nothing but resigning, became in want of a secretary, William Burke quitting his service to follow his cousin Edmund into Opposition. My surprise was very great when Mr. Conway declared his resolution of making David Hume, the historian, who had served his brother, Lord Hertford, in the same capacity at Paris, his secretary. [Walpole's surprise was not so much at the appointment of Hume, as at the indication it gave that Conway had no intention to resign.]… I was pleased with the designation of Hume, as it would give jealousy to the Rockinghams, who had not acted wisely in letting Burke detach himself from Mr. Conway; and I prevailed on Lady Hertford to write a second letter, more pressing than her lord's, to Mr. Hume to accept. The philosopher did not want much entreaty.’

Hume in a letter to Blair dated April 1, 1767, thus describes his occupations:—‘My way of life here is very uniform, and by no means disagreeable. I pass all the forenoon in the Secretary's house from ten till three, where there arrive from time to time messengers that bring me all the secrets of the Kingdom, and indeed of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. I am seldom hurried; but have leisure at intervals to take up a book, or write a private letter, or converse with any friend that may call for me; and from dinner to bed-time is all my own. If you add to this that the person [General Conway] with whom I have the chief, if not only transactions, is the most reasonable, equal-tempered, and gentleman-like man imaginable, and Lady Aylesbury [the General's wife] the same, you will certainly think I have no reason to complain; and I am far from complaining. I only shall not regret when my duty is over, because to me the situation can lead to nothing, at least in all probability; and reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness. I mean my full contentment.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 384. The cup of his philosophic happiness was never destined to be full. Like ordinary men he had his unsatisfied longings. His ‘full contentment,’ should have come in the following year, when he was consoled for the loss of the easy dignity and the emoluments of an English Under-Secretary of State by a handsome pension conferred by the English King, and paid by the English people. It was then that his ‘lounging and dosing, which he called thinking,’ his ‘supreme happiness,’ thus found expression. ‘22nd July, 1768. There are fine doings in America. O! how I long to see America and the East Indies revolted, totally and finally,—the revenue reduced to half,—public credit fully discredited by bankruptcy,—the third of London in ruins, and the rascally mob subdued! I think I am not too old to despair of being witness to all these blessings.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 417.

[2.]Note 2. Boswell, who was careful to clear his writings of Scotticisms, in the third edition of his Life of Johnson in at least four places changed forenoon into morning. Boswell's Johnson, ii. 283, n. 3. Hume in one of his early letters says:—‘I last summer undertook a very laborious task which was to travel eight miles every morning, and as many in the forenoon to and from a mineral well.’ Burton's Hume, i. 34.

[3.]Note 3. Little Warwick Street opened out of Cockspur Street, Pall Mall.

[4.]Note 4. This letter must have been written soon after Hume's arrival in London, at the end of February, 1767. Adam Smith, writing to him on the following June 7, addresses his letter:—‘To David Hume Esq. Under Secretary for the Northern Department, at Mr. Secretary Conway's house, London.’ M.S.R.S.E. In the Court and City Register for 1765, p. 108, is a list of Ambassadors and Ministers which shews how the business with foreign countries was divided between the two Secretaries of State:—