Life of Adam Smith | Page 4

Cadell on new
edition, 362. Dr. Swediaur, 362. The additional matter, 363.
CHAPTER XXV
SMITH INTERVIEWED
Reminiscences in the Bee, 365. Opinion of Dr. Johnson, 366; Dr.
Campbell of the Political Survey, 366; Swift, 367; Livy, 367;
Shakespeare, 368; Dryden, 368; Beattie, 368; Pope's Iliad, Milton's
shorter poems, Gray, Allan Ramsay, Percy's Reliques, 369; Burke, 369;
the Reviews, 370. Gibbon's History, 371. Professor Faujas Saint Fond's
reminiscences, 372. Voltaire and Rousseau, 372. The bagpipe
competition, 372. Smith made Captain of the Trained Bands, 374.
Foundation of Royal Society of Edinburgh, 375. Count de
Windischgraetz's proposed reform of legal terminology, 376.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE AMERICAN QUESTION AND OTHER POLITICS
Smith's Whiggism, 378. Mackinnon of Mackinnon's manuscript treatise

on fortification, 379. Letter from Smith, 380. Letter to Sir John Sinclair
on the Armed Neutrality, 382. Letter to W. Eden (Lord Auckland) on
the American Intercourse Bill, 385. Fox's East India Bill, 386.
CHAPTER XXVII
BURKE IN SCOTLAND
Friendship of Burke and Smith, 387. Burke in Edinburgh, 388. Smith's
prophecy of restoration of the Whigs to power, 389. With Burke in
Glasgow, 390. Andrew Stuart, 391. Letter of Smith to J. Davidson, 392.
Death of Smith's mother, 393. Burke and Windham in Edinburgh, 394.
Dinner at Smith's, 394. Windham love-struck, 395. John Logan, the
poet, 396. Letter of Smith to Andrew Strahan, 396.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE POPULATION QUESTION
Dr. R. Price on the decline of population, 398. Dr. A. Webster's lists of
examinable persons in Scotland, 399. Letter of Smith to Eden, 400.
Smith's opinion of Price, 400. Further letter to Eden, 400. Henry Hope
of Amsterdam, 401. Letter to Bishop Douglas, introducing Beatson of
the Political Index, 403.
CHAPTER XXIX
VISIT TO LONDON
Meeting with Pitt at Dundas's, 405. Smith's remark about Pitt, 405.
Consulted by Pitt, 406. Opinion on Sunday schools, 407. Wilberforce
and Smith, 407. The British Fisheries Society, 408. Smith's
prognostication confirmed, 409. Chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow
University, 410. Letter to Principal Davidson, 411. Installation, 412. Sir
John Leslie, 412. Letter of Smith to Sir Joseph Banks, 413. Death of
Miss Douglas, 414. Letter to Gibbon, 414.

CHAPTER XXX
VISIT OF SAMUEL ROGERS
Smith at breakfast, 416. Strawberries, 417. Old town of Edinburgh, 417.
Loch Lomond, 417. The refusal of corn to France, 417. "That Bogle,"
418. Junius, 429. Dinner at Smith's, 420. At the Royal Society meeting,
421. Smith on Bentham's Defence of Usury, 422.
CHAPTER XXXI
REVISION OF THE "THEORY"
Letter from Dugald Stewart, 426. Additional matter in new edition of
Theory, 427. Deletion of the allusion to Rochefoucauld, 427.
Suppressed passage on the Atonement, 428. Archbishop Magee, 428.
Passage on the Calas case, 429.
CHAPTER XXXII
LAST DAYS
Declining health, 431. Adam Ferguson's reconciliation and attentions,
433. Destruction of Smith's MSS., 434. Last Sunday supper, 434. His
words of farewell, 435. Death and burial, 435. Little notice in the
papers, 436. His will and executors, 436. His large private charities,
437. His portraits, 438. His books, 439. Extant relics, 440.
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS AT KIRKCALDY
1723-1737
Adam Smith was born at Kirkcaldy, in the county of Fife, Scotland, on
the 5th of June 1723. He was the son of Adam Smith, Writer to the
Signet, Judge Advocate for Scotland and Comptroller of the Customs
in the Kirkcaldy district, by Margaret, daughter of John Douglas of

Strathendry, a considerable landed proprietor in the same county.
Of his father little is known. He was a native of Aberdeen, and his
people must have been in a position to make interest in influential
quarters, for we find him immediately after his admission to the Society
of Writers to the Signet in 1707, appointed to the newly-established
office of Judge Advocate for Scotland, and in the following year to the
post of Private Secretary to the Scotch Minister, the Earl of Loudon.
When he lost this post in consequence of Lord Loudon's retirement
from office in 1713, he was provided for with the Comptrollership of
Customs at Kirkcaldy, which he continued to hold, along with the
Judge Advocateship, till his premature death in 1723. The Earl of
Loudon having been a zealous Whig and Presbyterian, it is perhaps
legitimate to infer that his secretary must have been the same, and from
the public appointments he held we may further gather that he was a
man of parts. The office of Judge Advocate for Scotland, which was
founded at the Union, and which he was the first to fill, was a position
of considerable responsibility, and was occupied after him by men,
some of them of great distinction. Alexander Fraser Tytler, the
historian, for example, was Judge Advocate till he went to the bench as
Lord Woodhouselee. The Judge Advocate was clerk and legal adviser
to the Courts Martial, but as military trials were not frequent in
Scotland, the duties of this