Life of Adam Smith | Page 5

office took up but a minor share of the elder
Smith's time. His chief business, at least for the last ten years of his life,
was his work in the Custom-house, for though he was bred a Writer to
the Signet--that is, a solicitor privileged to practise before the Supreme
Court--he never seems to have actually practised that profession. A
local collectorship or controllership of the Customs was in itself a more
important administrative office at that period, when duties were levied
on twelve hundred articles, than it is now, when duties are levied on
twelve only, and it was much sought after for the younger, or even the
elder, sons of the gentry. The very place held by Smith's father at
Kirkcaldy was held for many years after his day by a Scotch baronet,
Sir Michael Balfour. The salary was not high. Adam Smith began in
1713 with £30 a year, and had only £40 when he died in 1723, but then
the perquisites of those offices in the Customs were usually twice or
thrice the salary, as we know from the Wealth of Nations itself (Book V.

chap. ii.). Smith had a cousin, a third Adam Smith, who was in 1754
Collector of Customs at Alloa with a salary of £60 a year, and who
writes his cousin, in connection with a negotiation the latter was
conducting on behalf of a friend for the purchase of the office, that the
place was worth £200 a year, and that he would not sell it for less than
ten years' purchase.[1]
Smith's father died in the spring of 1723, a few months before his
famous son was born. Some doubt has been cast upon this fact by an
announcement quoted by President M'Cosh, in his Scottish Philosophy,
from the Scots Magazine of 1740, of the promotion of Adam Smith,
Comptroller of the Customs, Kirkcaldy, to be Inspector-General of the
Outports. But conclusive evidence exists of the date of the death of
Smith's father in a receipt for his funeral expenses, which is in the
possession of Professor Cunningham, and which, as a curious
illustration of the habits of the time, I subjoin in a note below.[2] The
promotion of 1740 is the promotion not of Smith's father but of his
cousin, whom I have just had occasion to mention, and who appears
from Chamberlayne's _Notitia Angliæ_ to have been Comptroller of
the Customs at Kirkcaldy from about 1734 till somewhere before 1741.
In the _Notitia Angliæ_ for 1741 the name of Adam Smith ceases to
appear as Comptroller in Kirkcaldy, and appears for the first time as
Inspector-General of the Outports, exactly in accordance with the
intimation quoted by Dr. M'Cosh. It is curious that Smith, who was to
do so much to sweep away the whole system of the Customs, should
have been so closely connected with that branch of administration. His
father, his only known relation on his father's side, and himself, were
all officials in the Scotch Customs.
On the mother's side his kindred were much connected with the army.
His uncle, Robert Douglas of Strathendry, and three of his uncle's sons
were military officers, and so was his cousin, Captain Skene, the laird
of the neighbouring estate of Pitlour. Colonel Patrick Ross, a
distinguished officer of the times, was also a relation, but on which side
I do not know. His mother herself was from first to last the heart of
Smith's life. He being an only child, and she an only parent, they had
been all in all to one another during his infancy and boyhood, and after

he was full of years and honours her presence was the same shelter to
him as it was when a boy. His friends often spoke of the beautiful
affection and worship with which he cherished her. One who knew him
well for the last thirty years of his life, and was very probably at one
time a boarder in his house, the clever and bustling Earl of Buchan,
elder brother of Lord Chancellor Erskine, says the principal avenue to
Smith's heart always was by his mother. He was a delicate child, and
afflicted even in childhood with those fits of absence and that habit of
speaking to himself which he carried all through life. Of his infancy
only one incident has come down to us. In his fourth year, while on a
visit to his grandfather's house at Strathendry on the banks of the Leven,
the child was stolen by a passing band of gipsies, and for a time could
not be found. But presently a gentleman arrived who had met a gipsy
woman a few miles down the road carrying a child that was crying
piteously. Scouts were immediately despatched in the direction
indicated, and they came upon