John Rae - Life of Adam Smith

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He who leads up the van is stout Thomas the tall,
Who can make us all laugh, though he laughs at us all;
But _entre nous_, Tom, you and I, if you please,
Must take care not to laugh ourselves out of our fees.

Then we remember what Jeffrey says of "the magical vivacity" of the
conversation of Professor John Millar.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Add. MSS., 6856.

[66] Carlyle's _Autobiography_, p. 73.

[67] Fleming's _Scottish Banking_, p. 53.

[68] Oswald's _Correspondence_, p. 229.

[69] _Caldwell Papers_, ii. 3.

[70] _Wealth of Nations_, Book II. chap. ii.

[71] _Notices and Documents illustrative of the Literary History of
Glasgow_, p. 132.

[72] Strang's _Clubs of Glasgow_, 2nd ed. p. 314.

[73] Ramsay's _Scotland and Scotsmen in Eighteenth Century_, i. 468.

[74] Smiles's _Lives of Boulton and Watt_, p. 112.

CHAPTER VIII

EDINBURGH ACTIVITIES

During his residence in Glasgow Smith continued to maintain intimate
relations with his old friends in Edinburgh. He often ran through by
coach to visit them, though before the road was improved it took
thirteen hours to make the journey; he spent among them most part of
many of his successive vacations; and he took an active share, along
with them, in promoting some of those projects of literary,
scientific, and social improvement with which Scotland was then rife.
His patron, Henry Home, had in 1752 been raised to the bench as Lord
Kames, and was devoting his new-found leisure to those works of
criticism and speculation which soon gave him European fame. David
Hume, after his defeat at Glasgow, had settled for a time into the
modest post of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, and was writing
his _History of England_ in his dim apartments in the Canongate. Adam
Ferguson, who threw up his clerical calling in 1754, and wrote Smith
from Groningen to give him "clerical titles" no more, for he was "a
downright layman," came to Edinburgh, and was made Hume's successor in
the Advocates' Library in 1757 and professor in the University in
1759. Robertson did not live in Edinburgh till 1758, but he used to
come to town every week with his neighbour John Home before the latter
left Scotland in 1757, and they held late sittings with Hume and the
other men of letters in the evening. Gilbert Elliot entered
Parliament in 1754, but was always back during the recess with news of
men and things in the capital. The two Dalrymples--Sir David of
Hailes, and Sir John of Cousland--were toiling at their respective
histories, and both were personal friends of Smith's; while another,
of whom Smith was particularly fond--Wilkie, the eccentric author of
the _Epigoniad_--was living a few miles out as minister of the parish
of Ratho. Wilkie always said that Smith had far more originality and
invention than Hume, and that while Hume had only industry and
judgment, Smith had industry and genius. His mind was at least the
more constructive of the two. A remark of Smith's about Wilkie has
also been preserved, and though it is of no importance, it may be
repeated. Quoting Lord Elibank, he said that whether it was in learned
company or unlearned, wherever Wilkie's name was mentioned it was
never dropped soon, for everybody had much to say about him.[75] But
that was probably due to his oddities as much as anything else. Wilkie
used to plough his own glebe with his own hands in the ordinary
ploughman's dress, and it was he who was the occasion of the joke
played on Dr. Roebuck, the chemist, by a Scotch friend, who said to
him as they were passing Ratho glebe that the parish schools of
Scotland had given almost every peasant a knowledge of the classics,
and added, "Here, for example, is a man working in the field who is a
good illustration of that training; let us speak with him." Roebuck
made some observation about agriculture. "Yes, sir," said the
ploughman, "but in Sicily they had a different method," and he quoted
Theocritus, to Roebuck's great astonishment.

Among Smith's chief Edinburgh friends at this period was one of his
former pupils, William Johnstone--son of Sir James Johnstone of
Westerhall, and nephew of Lord Elibank--who was then practising as an
advocate at the Scotch bar, but ultimately went into Parliament,
married the greatest heiress of the time, Miss Pulteney, niece of the
Earl of Bath, and long filled an honoured and influential place in
public life as Sir William Pulteney. He was, as even Wraxall admits, a
man of "masculine sense" and "independent as well as upright"
character, and he devoted special attention to all economic and
financial questions. It was Pulteney who in his speech on the
suspension of cash payments by the Bank of England in 1797--in which
he proposed the establishment of another bank--quoted from some
unknown source the memorable saying which is generally repeated as if
it were his own, that Smith "would persuade the present generation and
govern the next." He quoted the words as something that had been "well
said." Between him and Smith there prevailed a warm and affectionate
friendship for more than forty years, and we shall have occasion again
to mention his name. But I allude to him at present because a letter
still exists which was given him by Smith at this period to introduce
him, during a short stay he made in London, to James Oswald, then
newly appointed to office at the Board of Trade. This is the only
letter that happens to be preserved of all the correspondence carried
on by Smith with Oswald, and while both the occasion of it and its
substance reveal the footing of personal intimacy on which they stood,
its ceremonious opening and ending indicate something of the reverence
and gratitude of the client to the patron:--

SIR--This will be delivered to you by Mr. William Johnstone,
son of Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, a young gentleman
whom I have known intimately these four years, and of whose
discretion, good temper, sincerity, and honour I have had
during all that time frequent proofs. You will find in him
too, if you come to know him better, some qualities which
from real and unaffected modesty he does not at first
discover; a refinement and depth of observation and an
accuracy of judgment, joined to a natural delicacy of
sentiment, as much improved as study and the narrow sphere
of acquaintance this country affords can improve it. He had,
first when I knew him, a good deal of vivacity and humour,
but he has studied them away. He is an advocate; and though
I am sensible of the folly of prophesying with regard to the
future fortune of so young a man, yet I could almost venture
to foretell that if he lives he will be eminent in that
profession. He has, I think, every quality that ought to
forward, and not one that should obstruct his progress,
modesty and sincerity excepted, and these, it is to be
hoped, experience and a better sense of things may in part
cure him of. I do not, I assure you, exaggerate knowingly,
but could pawn my honour upon the truth of every article.
You will find him, I imagine, a young gentleman of solid,
substantial (not flashy) abilities and worth. Private
business obliges him to spend some time in London. He would
beg to be allowed the privilege of waiting on you sometimes,
to receive your advice how he may employ his time there in
the manner that will tend most to his real and lasting
improvement.

I am sensible how much I presume upon your indulgence in
giving you this trouble; but as it is to serve and comply
with a person for whom I have the most entire friendship, I
know you will excuse me though guilty of an indiscretion; at
least if you do not, you will not judge others as you would
desire to be judged yourself; for I am very sure a like
motive would carry you to be guilty of a greater.

I would have waited on you when you was last in Scotland had
the College allowed me three days' vacation; and it gave me
real uneasiness that I should be in the same country with
you, and not have the pleasure of seeing you. Believe it, no
man can more rejoice at your late success,[76] or at
whatever else tends to your honour and prosperity, than
does, Sir, your ever obliged and very humble servant,

ADAM SMITH.

Glasgow, _19th January 1752_, N.S.[77]

Pulteney abandoned the law in which Smith prophesied eminence for him,
but he was happily not cured entirely of his sincerity by his
subsequent experience, for it was greatly from that quality that he
derived the weight he enjoyed in the House of Commons. His
contemporary in Parliament, Sir John Sinclair, says Pulteney's
influence arose from the fact that he was known to be a man who never
gave a vote he did not in his heart believe to be right. Having no
taste for display, he lived when he had L20,000 a year about as simply
as he did when he had only L200, and on that account he is sometimes
accused of avarice, though he was constantly doing acts of signal
liberality.

Smith's chief friend in Edinburgh was David Hume. Though their first
relations were begun apparently in 1739, they could not have met much
personally before Smith's settlement in Glasgow. For when Smith came
to Edinburgh in 1748 Hume was abroad as secretary to General St. Clair
in the Embassy at Vienna and Turin, and though he left this post in
1749, he remained for the next two years at Ninewells, his father's
place in Berwickshire, and only settled in Edinburgh again just as
Smith was removing to Glasgow. He would no doubt visit town
occasionally, however, and before Smith was a year in Glasgow he had
already entered on that correspondence with the elder philosopher
which, beginning with the respectful "dear sir," grew shortly into the
warmer style of "my dearest friend" as their memorable and Roman
friendship ripened. Hume never paid Smith a visit in Glasgow, though
he had often promised to do so, but Smith in his runs to Edinburgh
spent always more and more of his time with Hume, and latterly at any
rate made Hume's house his regular Edinburgh home.

In 1752 Hume had already taken Smith as one of his literary
counsellors, and consulted him about the new edition of his _Essays,
Moral and Political_, and his historical projects, and I may be
permitted here and afterwards to quote parts of Hume's letters which
throw any light on Smith's opinions or movements.

On the 24th of September 1752 he writes--

DEAR SIR--I confess I was once of the same opinion with you,
and thought that the best period to begin an English History
was about Henry the Seventh, but you will please to observe
that the change which then happened in public affairs was
very insensible, and did not display its influence for many
years afterwards.... I am just now diverted for the moment
by correcting my _Essays, Moral and Political_ for a new
edition. If anything occur to you to be inserted or
retrenched, I shall be obliged if you offer the hint. In
case you should not have the last edition by you I shall
send you a copy of it.... I had almost lost your letter by
its being wrong directed. I received it late, which was the
reason you got not sooner a copy of _Joannes Magnus_.[78]

On the 17th of December 1754 Hume gives Smith an account of his
quarrel with the Faculty of Advocates, and his resolution to stay as
librarian after all, for the sake of the use of the books, which he
cannot do without, but to give Blacklock, the blind poet, a bond of
annuity for the salary. Three weeks later he writes again, and as the
letter mentions Smith's views on some historical subjects, it may be
quoted:--

EDINBURGH, _9th January 1755_.

DEAR SIR--I beg you to make my compliments to the Society,
and to take the fault on yourself if I have not executed my
duty, and sent them this time my anniversary paper. Had I
got a week's warning I should have been able to have
supplied them. I should willingly have sent some sheets of
the History of the Commonwealth or Protectorship, but they
are all of them out of my hand at present, and I have not
been able to recall them.[79] I think you are extremely in
the right that the Parliament's bigotry has nothing in
common with Hiero's generosity. They were themselves violent
persecutors at home to the utmost of their power. Besides,
the Huguenots in France were not persecuted; they were
really seditious, turbulent people, whom their king was not
able to reduce to obedience. The French persecutions did not
begin till sixty years after.

Your objection to the Irish massacre is just, but falls not
on the execution but the subject. Had I been to describe the
massacre of Paris I should not have fallen into that fault,
but in the Irish massacre no single eminent man fell, or by
a remarkable death. If the elocution of the whole chapter be
blamable, it is because my conceptions laboured most to
start an idea of my subject, which is there the most
important, but that misfortune is not unusual.--I am,
etc.[80]

In 1752 Smith was chosen a member of the Philosophical Society of
Edinburgh, which, after an interregnum caused by the rebellion, was
revived in that year, with David Hume for Secretary, and which was
eventually merged in the Royal Society in 1784. But we know of no part
he took, if he took any, in its proceedings. Of the Rankenian Society,
again--the famous old club in Ranken's Coffee-house, to which Colin
Maclaurin and other eminent men belonged, and some of whose members
carried on a philosophical controversy with Berkeley, and, if we can
believe Ramsay of Ochtertyre, were pressed by the good bishop to
accompany him in his Utopian mission to Bermuda--Smith was never even
a member, though it survived till 1774. But he took a principal part
in founding a third society in 1754, which far eclipsed either of
these--at least for a time--in _eclat_, and has left a more celebrated
name, the Select Society.

The Select Society was established in imitation of the academies which
were then common in the larger towns of France, and was partly a
debating society for the discussion of topics of the day, and partly a
patriotic society for the promotion of the arts, sciences, and
manufactures of Scotland. The idea was first mooted by Allan Ramsay,
the painter, who had travelled in France as long ago as 1739, with
James Oswald, M.P., and was struck with some of the French
institutions. Smith was one of the first of Ramsay's friends to be
consulted about the suggestion, and threw himself so heartily into it
that when the painter announced his first formal meeting for the
purpose on the 23rd of May 1754, Smith was not only one of the fifteen
persons present, but was entrusted with the duty of explaining the
object of the meeting and the nature of the proposed institution. Dr.
A. Carlyle, who was present, says this was the only occasion he ever
heard Smith make anything in the nature of a speech, and he was but
little impressed with Smith's powers as a public speaker. His voice
was harsh, and his enunciation thick, approaching even to
stammering.[81] Of course many excellent speakers often stutter much
in making a simple business explanation which they are composing as
they go along, and Smith always stuttered and hesitated a deal for the
first quarter of an hour, even in his class lectures, though his
elocution grew free and animated, and often powerful, as he warmed to
his task.

The Society was established and met with the most rapid and remarkable
success. The fifteen original members soon grew to a hundred and
thirty, and men of the highest rank as well as literary name flocked
to join it. Kames and Monboddo, Robertson and Ferguson and Hume,
Carlyle and John Home, Blair and Wilkie and Wallace, the statistician;
Islay Campbell and Thomas Miller, the future heads of the Court of
Session; the Earls of Sutherland, Hopetoun, Marchmont, Morton,
Rosebery, Erroll, Aboyne, Cassilis, Selkirk, Glasgow, and Lauderdale;
Lords Elibank, Garlies, Gray, Auchinleck, and Hailes; John Adam, the
architect; Dr. Cullen, John Coutts, the banker and member for the
city; Charles Townshend, the witty statesman; and a throng of all that
was distinguished in the country, were enrolled as members, and, what
is more, frequented its meetings. It met every Friday evening from six
to nine, at first in a room in the Advocates' Library, but when that
became too small for the numbers that began to attend its meetings, in
a room hired from the Mason Lodge above the Laigh Council House; and
its debates, in which the younger advocates and ministers--men like
Wedderburn and Robertson--took the chief part, became speedily famous
over all Scotland as intellectual displays to which neither the
General Assembly of the Kirk nor the Imperial Parliament could show
anything to rival. Hume wrote in 1755 to Allan Ramsay, who had by that
time gone to settle in Rome, that the Select Society "has grown to be
a national concern. Young and old, noble and ignoble, witty and dull,
laity and clergy, all the world are ambitious of a place amongst us,
and on each occasion we are as much solicited by candidates as if we
were to choose a member of Parliament." He goes on to say that "our
young friend Wedderburn has acquired a great character by the
appearance he has made," and that Wilkie, the minister, "has turned up
from obscurity and become a very fashionable man, as he is indeed a
very singular one. Monboddo's oddities divert, Sir David's (Lord
Hailes) zeal entertains, Jack Dalrymple's (Sir John of the _Memoirs_)
rhetoric interests. The long drawling speakers have found out their
want of talents and rise seldomer. In short, the House of Commons is
less the object of general curiosity to London than the Select Society
is to Edinburgh. The 'Robin Hood,' the 'Devil,' and all other speaking
societies are ignoble in comparison."[82]

At the second regular meeting, which was held on the 19th of June
1754, Mr. Adam Smith was Praeses, and gave out the subjects for debate
on the following meeting night: (1) Whether a general naturalisation
of foreign Protestantism would be advantageous to Britain; and (2)
whether bounties on the exportation of corn be advantageous to trade
and manufactures as well as to agriculture.[83] Lord Campbell in
mentioning this circumstance makes it appear as if Smith chose the
latter subject of his own motion, in accordance with a rule of the
society whereby the chairman of one meeting selected the subject for
debate at the next meeting; and it would have been a not uninteresting
circumstance if it were true, for it would show the line his ideas
were taking at that early period of his career; but as a matter of
fact the rule in question was not adopted for some time after the
second meeting, and it is distinctly mentioned in the minutes that on
this particular occasion the Praeses "declared before he left the chair
the questions that were agreed upon by the majority of the meeting to
be the subject of next night's debate."[84] It is quite possible, of
course, that the subjects may have been of Smith's suggestion, but
that can now only be matter of conjecture. Indeed, whether it be due
to his influence or whether it arose merely from a general current of
interest moving in that direction at the time, the subjects, discussed
by this society were very largely economic; so much so that in a
selection of them published by the _Scots Magazine_ in 1757 every one
partakes of that character. "What are the advantages to the public and
the State from grazing? what from corn lands? and what ought to be
most encouraged in this country? Whether great or small farms are most
advantageous to the country? What are the most proper measures for a
gentleman to promote industry on his own estate? What are the
advantages and disadvantages of gentlemen of estate being farmers?
What is the best and most proper duration of leases of land in
Scotland? What prestations beside the proper tack-duty tenants ought
to be obliged to pay with respect to carriages and other services,
planting and preserving trees, maintaining enclosures and houses,
working freestone, limestone, coal, or minerals, making enclosures,
straightening marches, carrying off superfluous water to other
grounds, and forming drains? and what restrictions they should be put
under with respect to cottars, live stock on the farm, winter herding,
ploughing the ground, selling manure, straw, hay, or corn, thirlage to
mills, smiths or tradesmen employed on business extrinsic to the farm,
subsetting land, granting assignations of leases, and removals at the
expiration of leases? What proportion of the produce of lands should
be paid as rent to the master? In what circumstances the rents of
lands should be paid in money? in what in kind? and in what time they
should be paid? Whether corn should be sold by measure or by weight?
What is the best method of getting public highways made and repaired,
whether by a turnpike law, as in many places in Great Britain, by
county or parish work, by a tax, or by what other method? What is the
best and most equal way of hiring and contracting servants? and what
is the most proper method to abolish the practice of giving of
vails?"[85] The society had what may be termed a special agricultural
branch, to which I shall presently refer, and which met once a month
and discussed chiefly questions of husbandry and land management; and
the above list of subjects looks, from its almost exclusively agrarian
character, as if it had been rather the business of this branch of the
society merely than of the society as a whole. Still the same causes
that made rural economy predominate in the monthly work of the branch
would give it a large place in the weekly discussions of the parent
association. The members were largely connected with the landed
interest, and agricultural improvement was then on the order of the
day.

In this society accordingly, which Smith attended very frequently,
though he does not appear to have spoken in the debates, he had with
respect to agrarian problems precisely what he had in the economic
club of Glasgow with respect to commercial problems, the best
opportunities of hearing them discussed at first hand by those who
were practically most conversant with the subjects in all their
details. Of course the society sometimes discussed questions of
literature or art, or familiar old historical controversies, such as
whether Brutus did well in killing Caesar? Indeed, no subject was
expressly tabooed except such as might stir up the Deistic or Jacobite
strife--in the words of the rules, "such as regard revealed religion,
or which may give occasion to vent any principles of Jacobitism." But
the great majority of the questions debated were of an economic or
political character,--questions about outdoor relief, entail, banking,
linen export bounties, whisky duties, foundling hospitals, whether the
institution of slavery be advantageous to the free? and whether a
union with Ireland would be advantageous to Great Britain? Sometimes
more than one subject would be got through in a night, sometimes the
debate on a single subject would be adjourned from week to week till
it was thought to be thrashed out; and every member might speak three
times in the course of a debate if he chose, once for fifteen minutes,
and the other twice for ten.

The Select Society was, however, as I have said, more than a debating
club; it aimed besides at doing something practical for the promotion
of the arts, sciences, manufactures, and agriculture, in the land of
its birth, and accordingly, when it was about ten months in existence,
it established a well-devised and extensive scheme of prizes for
meritorious work in every department of human labour, to be supported
by voluntary subscriptions. In the prospectus the society issued it
says that, after the example of foreign academies, it had resolved to
propose two subjects for competition every year, chosen one from
polite letters and the other from the sciences, and to confer on the
winner some public mark of distinction in respect to his taste and
learning. The reward, however, was not in this case to be of a
pecuniary nature, for the principle of the society was that rewards of
merit were in the finer arts to be honorary, but in the more useful
arts, where the merit was of a less elevated character, they were to
be lucrative. On the same principle, in the arts the highest place was
allowed to be due to genius, and therefore a reward for a discovery or
invention was set at the very top of the tree, but still it was of a
purely honorary character, a pecuniary recognition being thought
apparently unsuitable to the dignity of that kind of service. "The art
of printing," the prospectus goes on to say--with a glance of
satisfaction cast doubtless at the Foulis Press--"the art of printing
in this country needs no encouragement, yet as to pass it by unnoticed
were slighting the merit of those by whose means alone it has attained
that eminence, it was resolved that the best printed and most correct
book which shall be produced within a limited time be distinguished by
an honorary reward." On the other hand, the manufacture of paper was a
thing that required encouragement in Scotland, because the Scotch at
that time imported their paper from abroad, "from countries," says the
prospectus, "which use not half the linen that is here consumed"; and
"to remove this defect, to render people more attentive to their own
interest as well as to the interest of their country, to show them the
consequence of attention to matters which may seem trivial, it was
resolved that for the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parcels
of linen rags gathered within a limited time a reward be assigned in
proportion to the quantity and goodness of each parcel." In other
cases manufactures were already well established in the country, and
the thing that still needed to be encouraged by prizes was improvement
in the workmanship. For example, "manufactures of cotton and linen
prints are already established in different places of this country; in
order to promote an attention to the elegance of the pattern and to
the goodness of the colouring, as well as to the strength of the
cloth, it was resolved that for the best piece of printed linen or
cotton cloth made within a certain period a premium should be
allotted." The art of drawing, again, "being closely connected with
this art and serviceable to most others, it was resolved that for the
best drawings by boys or girls under sixteen years of age certain
premiums be assigned." Then there was a considerable annual
importation into Scotland of worked ruffles and of bone lace and
edging which the Select Society thought might, under proper
encouragement, be quite as well produced at home; and it was therefore
resolved to give both honorary and lucrative rewards for superior
merit in such work, the honorary for "women of fashion" who might
compete, and the lucrative for those "whose laudable industry
contributes to their own support." Scotch stockings had then a great
reputation for the excellence of their workmanship, but Scotch
worsted, to make them with, was not so good, and consequently a
premium was to be offered for the best woollen yarn. There was a great
demand at the time for English blankets, and no reason why the Scotch
should not make quite as good blankets themselves out of their own
wool, so a premium was proposed for the best imitation of English
blankets. Carpet-making was begun in several places in the country,
and a prize for the best-wrought and best-patterned carpet would
encourage the manufacturers to vie with each other. Whisky-distilling,
too, was established at different places, and Scotch strong ale had
even acquired a great and just reputation both at home and abroad; but
the whisky was "still capable of great improvement in the quality and
taste," and the ale trade "might be carried to a much greater height,"
and these ends might be severally promoted by prizes for the best tun
of whisky and the best hogshead of strong ale.

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