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LETTER XLVI.: The ‘detested Edition’: Lord North: the National Debt: Dalrymple's History. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

Edition used:

Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

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LETTER XLVI.

The ‘detested Edition’: Lord North: the National Debt: Dalrymple's History.

Dear Sir

You will have a Copy of my philosophical Pieces corrected in a few weeks by a safe hand, who will deliver them to Miss Elliot1. . She will inform you by a Penny post Letter2. of their Arrival. I have perusd them carefully five times over; yet the Corrections I make are not of Importance. Such is the Advantage of frequent Impressions!

It vexes me to the last Degree, that, by reason of this detested Edition of my History, I shoud have so distant or no prospect of ever giving a correct Edition of that Work3. . I assure you, if Mr. Millar were now alive, I shoud be tempted to go over to Dublin4. , and to publish there an Edition, which I hope woud entirely discredit the present one. But as you are entirely innocent in the Conduct of this Affair, I scruple to take that Resolution. The worst of it is, that Affairs have been so manag’d as to leave me in entire Ignorance of the State of the Sale; tho’ I am now confident, that, as you see evidently I am resolv’d never to engage again with the public, you will no longer have any Scruple to tell me the whole Truth of the Matter.

But to leave this Subject, which is so very vexatious, and to talk of public affairs; I am much inclind to have the same good opinion of Lord North, which you express5. : His taking the Helm in such a Storm6. , and conducting it so prudently, prepossesses one much in his favour: I am also assurd, that he was the last in the Ministry who woud give up the Resolution of punishing that insolent Fellow, Beckford and the City of London7. . But to me, his Conduct of the Spanish Affair appears rash, insolent and unjust. The publication of the Spanish Papers confirms me farther in that Opinion. It appears, that the Spaniards had never abandond the Settlement, made by the French, which was prior to ours8. ; and consequently that their right was in every respect undisputable. And as the Court of Spain offerd from the first to disavow the Governor of Buenos Ayros9. , if we woud disavow Hunt10. , to run the Danger of a War which woud have thrown all Europe, and almost the whole Globe into a Ferment, must be regarded as an unpardonable Temerity. We were savd from that Disaster by nothing but the extreme Love of Tranquillity in the French King11. , an Incident which no Human Prudence coud forsee. But what must we think of the Effrontery of the Patriots, who rail at Lord North for Tameness and Pusillanimity? They did not probably know the secret, otherwise they woud have exclaimd with better Reason against his Rashness and Imprudence.

I wish I coud have the same Idea with you of the Prosperity of our public Affairs. But when I reflect, that, from 1740 to 1761, during the Course of no more than 21 Years, while a most pacific Monarch sat on the Throne of France12. , the Nation ran in Debt about a hundred Millions13. ; that the wise and virtuous Minister, Pitt, could contract more Incumbrances, in six months of an unnecessary War, than we have been able to discharge during eight Years of Peace14. ; and that we persevere in the same frantic Maxims; I can forsee nothing but certain and speedy Ruin either to the Nation or to the public Creditors15. . The last, tho’ a great Calamity, woud be a small one in comparison; but I cannot see how it can be brought about, while these Creditors fill all the chief Offices and are the Men of greatest Authority in the Nation16. . In other Respects the Kingdom may be thriving: The Improvement of our Agriculture17. is a good Circumstance; tho’ I believe our Manufactures do not advance; and all depends on our Union with America, which, in the Nature of things, cannot long subsist18. . But all this is nothing in comparison of the continual Encrease of our Debts, in every idle War, into which, it seems, the Mob of London19. are to push every Minister. But these are all other Peoples Concerns; and I know not why I shoud trouble my head about them.

I maintaind and still maintain that Henry's History has merit20. ; tho’ I own’d and still own, that the Length of the Undertaking is a great Objection to its Success; perhaps an insuperable one. But what shall we say to Sir John Dalrymple's new History21. , of which, I see, you are one of the publishers? He has writ down that he has been offerd 2000 pounds for the Property of it: I hope you are not the Purchasers; tho’ indeed I know not but you might be a Gainer by it: The ranting, bouncing Style of that Performance may perhaps take with the Multitude22. . This however I am certain of, that there is not one new Circumstance of the least Importance from the beginning to the End of the Work23. . But really I doubt much of his Veracity in his Account of the Offer: I shoud be much obligd to you for your Information on that head. Never let the Bargain made by Dr. Robertson be thought extravagant24. , if this be true. I shoud add a great Number of Cyphers to bring up the Knight's Performance to an equal Value with that of the Doctor.

I very much regret with you Sir Andrew Mitchels Death25. : He was a worthy, well-bred, agreeable man. If the Prince, at whose Court he resided, us’d him ill of late Years, he richly deserves the Epithet you give him26. . Sir Andrew's chief Fault was his too great Attatchment to that prince.

I am Dear Sir Yours sincerely

David Hume.

  • Edinburgh,

11 of March, 1771.

[1.]Note 1. See ante, p. 94, n. 8.

[2.]Note 2. The Penny Post was not so extensive as it had once been. In 1710, for instance, ‘any letter, or parcel not exceeding one pound weight or ten pounds value, was conveyed for one penny to and from all parts within the Bills of Mortality, to most towns within ten, and to some within twenty miles round London, not conveniently served by the General Post.’ Chamberlayne's Present State of Great Britain, 1710, p. 281. In 1765 ‘the port of every letter or packet [weight not mentioned] within the Cities of London or Westminster, the Borough of Southwark and their Suburbs, was one penny upon putting in the same; and a second penny upon the delivery of such as are directed to any place beyond the said Cities, Borough and Suburbs, and within the district of the Penny-Post Delivery.’ Court and City Register, 1765, p. 133. In 1801 the postage was raised to twopence, and from that time we find mention of the Twopenny Post. The term ‘Suburbs’ had a very limited signification; for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. Ninth Report of the Commissioners of the Post Office, 1837, p. 4.

The general postage of the country was gradually raised. In 1710 a letter of a single sheet was conveyed 80 miles for twopence; an ounce weight of letters for eightpence. Above 80 miles for three-pence, and an ounce for one shilling. In every 24 hours the post went 120 miles. Chamberlayne's Present State, p. 281. By a scale established in 1764 these charges of twopence and threepence were raised to threepence and fourpence. To Edinburgh and Dublin the charge was sixpence; to New York, one shilling; to the West Indies, eighteen-pence. Court and City Register for 1765, pp. 131–133. The postage was still further raised in 1784, 1797, 1801, 1805, and 1812, when it reached its maximum. From that year a letter carried over 80 miles was charged ninepence; over 300 miles, thirteen-pence. Penny Cyclo. xviii. 455.

[3.]Note 3. Strahan in his letter of March 1 had in vain said:—’The octavo edition of your History must undoubtedly soon be cleared; of which I shall be sure to give you timely notice.’ Hume refused to be convinced, or even comforted.

[4.]Note 4. In the proceedings in the House of Lords on the question of Literary Property, Lord Camden, on Feb. 22, 1774, arguing against a perpetuity, in fact almost against any copyright whatever, said:—’It was not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke instructed and delighted the world; it would be unworthy such men to traffic with a dirty bookseller for so much a sheet of a letter-press . . . Knowledge and science are not things to be bound in such cobweb chains; when once the bird is out of the cage . . . volat irrevocabile—Ireland, Scotland, America, will afford her shelter.’ Parl. Hist. xvii. 1000. How Scotland afforded her shelter I do not understand, for that country must have come under the Copyright Act of the eighth of Queen Anne. In fact in it provision is made for a Court of Arbitration composed of Englishmen and Scotchmen (post, Letter lxxiii). Ireland, I believe, was not included till the Act of 41 Geo. III. c. 107, in which protection is granted for books printed ‘in any part of the United Kingdom, or British European dominions.’ Provision is made at the same time for the delivery ‘of two copies of all books entered at Stationers’ Hall, for the use of the libraries of Trinity College and the King's Inns, Dublin.’ Statutes at Large, xliii. 316, 320. Up to that time an Irish bookseller could reprint for the Irish market a book published in Great Britain. In one respect he was at a disadvantage. Dean Swift writing to B. Motte, a London bookseller, on May 25, 1736, said:—’One thing I know, that the cruel oppressions of this kingdom by England are not to be borne. You send what books you please hither, and the booksellers here can send nothing to you that is written here. As this is absolute oppression, if I were a bookseller in this town, I would use all the safe means to reprint London books, and run them to any town in England that I could, because whoever offends not the laws of God, or the country he lives in, commits no sin.’ Swift's Works (ed. 1803), xx. 171. .

Gibbon, writing of the first volume of the Decline and Fall, published in 1776, says:—’The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin.’ Misc. Works, i. 223.

Hume having sold the copyright of his History to London booksellers could not publish a rival edition in Great Britain. In Ireland however he was outside the reach of the Act. There he could reprint his work with such great improvements, that ‘it would discredit the present edition.’ It would be smuggled into England to the great injury of Strahan and Cadell. The following undated letter to William Mure, most likely written in 1756 on the publication of the second volume of the History of Great Britain under the Stuarts, shows that Hume and his publishers were intending at that time to bring out a Dublin edition:—’The first Quality of an Historian is to be true and impartial; the next to be interesting. If you do not say that I have done both Parties justice, and if Mrs. Mure be not sorry for poor King Charles, I shall burn all my Papers, and return to Philosophy. . . . We shall make a Dublin Edition; and it were a Pity to put the Irish farther wrong than they are already. I shall also be so sanguine as to hope for a second Edition, when I may cor[rect]1.1 You know my Docility.’ M. S. R. S. E.

[5.]Note 5. Strahan had written:—’One word of politics more, and I have done. You seem to think we are in a much worse way than we really are. I admit the inexcusable timidity of the Ministry, in suffering so many and so great insults which no Government ought to overlook. But notwithstanding all our follies and all our misconduct the nation in general is actually in a thriving condition. The Opposition is melting away to nothing, and every day falling more and more into contempt. Wilkes is hardly ever heard of but in a way very little to his credit. The boldest of his adherents are either tired out and have deserted him, or they are no more. In short a steady, able, honest Minister (and such I hope Lord North may prove to be) may yet support this country long in honour and credit. Wealth pours in upon us from a thousand channels, particularly the East Indies, which adds perhaps too much to our luxury, and that may at length prove fatal. But this is a poison which operates slowly, and many events may occur to check its progress, without endangering the general welfare and security of the State.’ M. S. R. S. E.

On Oct. 27, 1775, Hume writing of the disturbances in America, said:—’Tell him [Lord Home] that Lord North, though in appearance a worthy gentleman, has not a head for these great operations.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 479. Gibbon, in describing the eight sessions in which he sat in Parliament, says:—’The cause of government was ably vindicated by Lord North, a statesman of spotless integrity, a consummate master of debate, who could wield with equal dexterity the arms of reason and of ridicule.’ Misc. Works, i. 221. Johnson described his Ministry as ‘neither stable nor grateful to their friends,’ and as ‘feeble and timid.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 348, 355.

[6.]Note 6. In the latter half of January, 1770, the Lord Chancellor Camden had been dismissed, the new Lord Chancellor Yorke had died suddenly—by his own hand it was commonly believed—the Speaker of the House of Commons had died two days later, the popular Commander in Chief Lord Granby had resigned, and his resignation had been followed by many others; and at last the Prime Minister himself, the Duke of Grafton, ‘in a very extraordinary moment indeed, in the midst of his own measures, in the midst of a session and undefeated,’ resigned also. ‘It was impossible,’ wrote Horace Walpole, ‘to choose a more distressful moment than he selected for quitting; and had the scale turned on Wednesday [Jan. 31, when the Opposition had flattered themselves with victory in a division], I do not know where we should have been. The House of Commons contradicting itself, a reversal of the Middlesex election, a dissolution of Parliament, or the King driven to refuse it in the face of a majority! I protest I think some fatal event must have happened. . . . The people are perfectly quiet, and seem to have delegated all their anger to their representatives—a proof that their representatives had instructed their constituents to be angry. . . . Yet I am far from thinking this Administration solidly seated. Any violence, or new provocation, may dislodge it at once. When they could reduce a majority of an hundred and sixteen to forty in three weeks, their hold seems to be very slippery.’ Letters, v. 223, 225. See ante, p. 136, n. 5.

[7.]Note 7. In the Debate of March 15, 1770, on the Remonstrance of the City, ‘Lord North spoke in a very high style. . . . Speaking of the Lord Mayor, he called him “that worthy magistrate, if I may still call him worthy after this action of his.”’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 876. General Conway made a strong speech ‘against lenity’ (ib. p. 888); but ‘the danger of still increasing the public ill-humour and discontent by taking violent measures against so respectable a body as the Corporation and Citizens of London’ (Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 81) deterred the Ministers. See ante, p. 147, n. 7, and p. 185.

[8.]Note 8. See ante, p. 165, n. 9.

[9.]Note 9. The Spanish Ambassador ‘owned that he had from Madrid received intelligence that the English had been forcibly expelled from Falkland's Islands by Buccarelli, the Governor of Buenos Ayres, without any particular orders from the King of Spain. But being asked whether in his Master's name he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to answer without direction.’ Johnson's Works, vi. 192.

[10.]Note 10. Captain Hunt of the Tamar (ante, p. 165, n. 9). The Spanish Ambassador ‘proposed a convention for the accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning given to the Spaniards by Hunt should be disavowed on one side, and the violence used by Buccarelli on the other. This offer was considered as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi [the Spanish Minister at Madrid] was told that injury required reparation.’ Ib. p. 193.

[11.]Note 11. See ante, p. 167, n. 10.

[12.]Note 12. Lewis XV.

[13.]Note 13. In 1736 the debt of England amounted to about 50 millions; in 1748, at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to 78 millions; in 1756, to 75 millions; in 1763, at the Peace of Paris, to 139 millions. In the next twelve years it was reduced by somewhat more than 10 millions. In Lord North's administration it rose from 129 to 268 millions. Penny Cyclo. xvi. 100. See ante, p. 130, n. 20.

[14.]Note 14. Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords on Nov. 22, 1770, said:—’My Lords, while I had the honour of serving his Majesty I never ventured to look at the Treasury but at a distance; it is a business I am unfit for, and to which I never could have submitted.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 1106.

[15.]Note 15. Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation on April 19, 1774, said:—’Do you forget that, in the very last year, you stood on the precipice of general bankruptcy? . . . The monopoly of the most lucrative trades, and the possession of imperial revenues, had brought you to the verge of beggary and ruin.’ Payne's Burke, i. 103. In a note which Hume, shortly before his death, added to the third Appendix in his History (v. 475), he says:—’It is curious to observe that the minister in the war begun in the year 1754 was in some periods allowed to lavish in two months as great a sum as was granted by Parliament to Queen Elizabeth in forty-five years. The extreme frivolous object of the late war, and the great importance of hers, set this matter in still a stronger light. Money too we may observe was in most particulars of the same value in both periods. She paid eightpence a day to every foot soldier. But our late delusions have much exceeded anything known in history, not even excepting those of the Crusades. For I suppose there is no mathematical, still less an arithmetical demonstration, that the road to the Holy Land was not the road to Paradise, as there is that the endless increase of national debts is the direct road to national ruin. But having now completely reached that goal, it is needless at present to reflect on the past. It will be found in the present year, 1776, that all the revenues of this island north of Trent and west of Reading are mortgaged or anticipated for ever. Could the small remainder be in a worse condition, were those provinces seized by Austria and Prussia? There is only this difference, that some event might happen in Europe which would oblige these great monarchs to disgorge their acquisitions. But no imagination can figure a situation which will induce our creditors to relinquish their claims, or the public to seize their revenues. So egregious indeed has been our folly, that we have even lost all title to compassion in the numberless calamities that are awaiting us.’ ‘The late war’ with ‘its extreme frivolous objects’ of the great Tory historian, was the war by which, according to the great Whig historian, ‘the first Englishman of his time had made England the first country in the world.’ Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1874, ii. 195.

[16.]Note 16. See post, Letter of Aug. 19, 1771.

[17.]Note 17. The Annual Register for this year under the title of Useful Projects has six entries about agriculture. Arthur Young's first work, A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties, was published in 1768. At this time he and Burke were corresponding about growing carrots, fattening pigs, etc. Burke's Corres. i. 248, 257, 262.

[18.]Note 18. A passage in Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, spoken on March 22, 1775, shows that even by that date few people saw what was clear to Hume now. After considering three ways of dealing with ‘the stubborn spirit’ of the Colonists, Burke continues:—’Another has indeed been started, that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so slight a reception, that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger; like the frowardness of peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take nothing.’ Payne's Burke, i. 187.

[19.]Note 19. The ‘mob of London’ with Hume means the large majority of the Common Council and of the citizens in general.

[20.]Note 20. See ante, p. 155.

[21.]Note 21. Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland; the first volume of which was published in 1771, the second in 1773, and the third, under the title of Vol. ii. parts 3 and 4, in 1788.

[22.]Note 22. ‘“This Dalrymple,” said Dr. Johnson, “seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy. Great He! but greater She! and such stuff.”’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 210. At another time he attacked ‘the foppery of Dalrymple.’ Ib. p. 237. See also ib. v. 402–404 for Johnson's unceremonious treatment of the Baronet and imitation of his style.

[23.]Note 23. Hume judged the work more kindly when it was attacked by the Whigs. ‘Have you seen Sir John Dalrymple?’ he wrote on April 10, 1773. ‘It is strange what a rage is against him on account of the most commendable action in his life. His collection is curious; but introduces no new light into the civil, whatever it may into the biographical and anecdotical history of the times.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 467. Horace Walpole, who was angry with Dalrymple for his attack on Algernon Sidney, wrote on March 2, 1773:—’Need I tell you that Sir John Dalrymple, the accuser of bribery, was turned out of his place of Solicitor of the Customs for taking bribes from brewers?’ Letters, v. 441. On May 15 he wrote:—’There are two answers to Sir John Dalrymple, but not very good. The best answer is what he made himself to George Onslow, whom he told on warning [sic] him for traducing the immortal Sidney, that he had other papers which would have washed him as white as snow. With this Sir John has been publicly reproached in print and has not gainsaid it.’ Ib. p. 462.

[24.]Note 24. See ante, p. 14, n. 1.

[25.]Note 25. Sir Andrew Mitchell, the English Minister at Berlin, died in that town on Jan. 28, 1771. Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 176. Boswell, when on his travels, writing to him on Dec. 26, 1764, says:—’My most intimate friend, the friend of my youth, and the comfort of my being, is a Mr. Temple [the grandfather of the present Bishop of London].’ After asking Mitchell to get Temple employment he continues:—'sir, I beg and entreat of you to give me your interest. You are the only man in Britain, except my Sovereign, whom I would ask a favour of. . . . If you can aid me, you will most truly oblige a worthy fellow, for such I am.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 56. Voltaire, writing from Lausanne on Jan. 5, 1758, says:—’Le roi de Prusse, en parlant à M. Mitchel, ministre d’Angleterre, de la belle entreprise de la flotte anglaise sur nos côtes, lui dit:—“Eh bien! que faites-vous à présent?” “Nous laissons faire Dieu,” répondit Mitchel, “Je ne vous connaissais pas cet allié,” dit le roi. “C’est le seul à qui nous ne payons pas de subsides,” répliqua Mitchel. “Aussi,” dit le roi, “c’est le seul qui ne vous assiste pas.”’ Œuvres de Voltaire, L. I. ‘La belle entreprise’ was the disastrous expedition against Rochefort in September, 1757. Smollett's History of England, ed. 1800, iv. 88.

[26.]Note 26. What ‘the epithet’ was is seen in the following extract from Strahan's letter:—’Poor Sir Andrew Mitchel!—my last Letter which was a very long one and in which I pressed his coming home very earnestly, was written the day after he died—Alas! little did I then think I was addressing myself to his Shade. I wish most heartily he had come to Britain, and enjoyed himself a few Years; for I have reason to think he was not very happy at Berlin for some years past. You know the Character of the Hero of that Country who perhaps has not his Equal in Europe—mayhap there never existed a greater Scoundrel.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Mitchell, a little more than a year before his death, makes the following complaint of a slight put on him by the King:—

Berlin, Dec. 23, 1769. ’Happening last Thursday morning, at the public levee, to stand near the French minister, the King of Prussia passed by me without speaking to me, which I the more particularly take notice of, as it is the first, and indeed the only time that this Monarch, during my very long mission at this Court, has behaved to me in this manner.’ Bisset's Memoirs of Sir A. Mitchell, ii. 389. A year later he writes:—’Dec. 29, 1770. Last Wednesday the King of Prussia, at his public levee, after kindly enquiring concerning the state of my health, asked me abruptly, Shall we have peace or war?’ Ib. p. 391. This was Mitchell's last despatch. Mr. Carlyle, writing of the year 1756, says:—’One wise thing the English have done: sent an Excellency Mitchell, a man of loyalty, of sense and honesty, to be their Resident at Berlin. This is the noteworthy, not yet much noted, Sir Andrew Mitchell; by far the best Excellency England ever had in that Court. An Aberdeen Scotchman, creditable to his Country: hard-headed, sagacious; sceptical of shows; but capable of recognising substances withal, and of standing loyal to them, stubbornly if needful; who grew to a great mutual regard with Friedrich, and well deserved to do so; constantly about him, during the next seven years; and whose Letters are among the perennially valuable Documents on Friedrich's History.’ History of Friedrich II, ed. 1864, iv. 537.

[4.]Note 4. In the proceedings in the House of Lords on the question of Literary Property, Lord Camden, on Feb. 22, 1774, arguing against a perpetuity, in fact almost against any copyright whatever, said:—’It was not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke instructed and delighted the world; it would be unworthy such men to traffic with a dirty bookseller for so much a sheet of a letter-press . . . Knowledge and science are not things to be bound in such cobweb chains; when once the bird is out of the cage . . . volat irrevocabile—Ireland, Scotland, America, will afford her shelter.’ Parl. Hist. xvii. 1000. How Scotland afforded her shelter I do not understand, for that country must have come under the Copyright Act of the eighth of Queen Anne. In fact in it provision is made for a Court of Arbitration composed of Englishmen and Scotchmen (post, Letter lxxiii). Ireland, I believe, was not included till the Act of 41 Geo. III. c. 107, in which protection is granted for books printed ‘in any part of the United Kingdom, or British European dominions.’ Provision is made at the same time for the delivery ‘of two copies of all books entered at Stationers’ Hall, for the use of the libraries of Trinity College and the King's Inns, Dublin.’ Statutes at Large, xliii. 316, 320. Up to that time an Irish bookseller could reprint for the Irish market a book published in Great Britain. In one respect he was at a disadvantage. Dean Swift writing to B. Motte, a London bookseller, on May 25, 1736, said:—’One thing I know, that the cruel oppressions of this kingdom by England are not to be borne. You send what books you please hither, and the booksellers here can send nothing to you that is written here. As this is absolute oppression, if I were a bookseller in this town, I would use all the safe means to reprint London books, and run them to any town in England that I could, because whoever offends not the laws of God, or the country he lives in, commits no sin.’ Swift's Works (ed. 1803), xx. 171. .

Gibbon, writing of the first volume of the Decline and Fall, published in 1776, says:—’The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin.’ Misc. Works, i. 223.

Hume having sold the copyright of his History to London booksellers could not publish a rival edition in Great Britain. In Ireland however he was outside the reach of the Act. There he could reprint his work with such great improvements, that ‘it would discredit the present edition.’ It would be smuggled into England to the great injury of Strahan and Cadell. The following undated letter to William Mure, most likely written in 1756 on the publication of the second volume of the History of Great Britain under the Stuarts, shows that Hume and his publishers were intending at that time to bring out a Dublin edition:—’The first Quality of an Historian is to be true and impartial; the next to be interesting. If you do not say that I have done both Parties justice, and if Mrs. Mure be not sorry for poor King Charles, I shall burn all my Papers, and return to Philosophy. . . . We shall make a Dublin Edition; and it were a Pity to put the Irish farther wrong than they are already. I shall also be so sanguine as to hope for a second Edition, when I may cor[rect]1.1 You know my Docility.’ M. S. R. S. E.

[1.]Mr. Justice Willes, in the case of Millar v. Taylor (post, Letter lxxiii, n. 1), said:—’In the case of Motte v. Falkner, 28th November, 1735, an injunction was granted for printing Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies. Many of these pieces were published in 1701, 1702, 1708.’ Burrow's Reports, iv. 2325.

[1]The MS. is here imperfect.