“Dear Sir,—The time now drawing near when the Duke of Buccleugh intends to go abroad, I take the liberty of renewing the subject to you: that if you should still have the same disposition to travel with him I may have the satisfaction of informing Lady Dalkeith and his Grace of it, and of congratulating them upon an event which I know that they, as well as myself, have so much at heart. The Duke is now at Eton; he will remain there till Christmas. He will then spend some short time in London, that he may be presented at Court, and not pass instantaneously from school to a foreign country, but it were to be wished he should not be long in Town, exposed to the habits and companions of London, before his mind has been more formed and better guarded by education and experience.

“I do not enter at this moment upon the subject of establishment, because, if you have no objection to the situation, I know we cannot differ about the terms. On the contrary, you will find me more solicitous than yourself to make the connection with Buccleugh as satisfactory and advantageous to you as I am persuaded it will be essentially beneficial to him.

“The Duke ... has sufficient talents; a very manly temper, and an integrity of heart and reverence for truth, which in a person of his rank and fortune are the firmest foundations of weight in life and uniform greatness. If it should be agreeable to you to finish his education and mould these excellent materials into a settled character, I make no doubt that he will return to his family and country the very man our fondest hopes have fancied him.

“I go to Town next Friday, and should be obliged to you for your answer to this letter.—I am, with sincere affection and esteem, dear sir your most faithful and most obedient humble servant,

C. Townshend.

Adderbury, 25th October 1763.”

The offer was accepted, and an arrangement concluded, in a pecuniary point of view certainly “satisfactory and advantageous.” Smith was to have a salary of £300 a year with travelling expenses, and a pension of £300 a year for life. He was thus to enjoy, as Mr. Rae says, twice his Glasgow income, and to have it assured till death. Altogether, Smith drew more than £8000 from his three years’ tutorship. On November 8th, “Dr. Smith represented,” so runs the record of the Faculty, “that some interesting business would probably require his leaving the College some time this winter”, and he was thereupon granted leave of absence for three months.

For some time, however, Smith heard nothing more. In the middle of December, when he wrote to tell Hume of Townshend’s letter, he was still in uncertainty. But a few days afterwards it was arranged that they should start early in the new year, and on January the 9th Smith told the Faculty that he should make use of his leave of absence, that he should pay his deputy his half-year’s salary commencing from October the 10th, and that he had returned all his students’ fees. This last act of liberality he was only able to carry out by a display of violence at the end of his last lecture. The scene has luckily been reproduced with unusual animation by the pen of Tytler, Lord Kames’s pedestrian biographer. After concluding his last lecture, and describing the arrangements he had made for them, “he drew from his pocket the several fees of the students, wrapped up in separate paper parcels, and beginning to call up each man by his name, he delivered to the first who was called the money into his hand. The young man peremptorily refused to accept it, declaring that the instruction and pleasure he had already received was much more than he either had repaid or ever could compensate; and a general cry was heard from every one in the room to the same effect. But Mr. Smith was not to be bent from his purpose. After warmly expressing his feelings of gratitude and the strong sense he had of the regard shown to him by his young friends, he told them this was a matter betwixt him and his own mind, and that he could not rest satisfied unless he performed what he deemed right and proper. ‘You must not refuse me this satisfaction; nay, by heavens, gentlemen, you shall not’; and seizing by the coat the young man who stood next to him, he thrust the money into his pocket and then pushed him from him. The rest saw it was in vain to contest the matter, and were obliged to let him take his own way.”[21]

Scotch professors at that time often continued to hold their chairs during a temporary appointment like a travelling tutorship, and paid their salaries to a substitute until they returned. But Smith was no friend of absenteeism. The interest of the College was his chief anxiety, and accordingly in the following month he sent his formal letter of resignation to the Lord Rector, immediately on his arrival in Paris. “I never was,” he writes, “more anxious for the good of the College than at this moment; and I sincerely wish that whoever is my successor may not only do credit to the office by his abilities, but be a comfort to the very excellent men with whom he is likely to spend his life, by the probity of his heart and the goodness of his temper.” (February 14, 1764.)

In accepting his resignation the Senate added a few words which may fittingly conclude our account of what Smith always regarded as the most fruitful and honourable period of his life:—“The University cannot help at the same time expressing their sincere regret at the removal of Dr. Smith, whose distinguished probity and amiable qualities procured him the esteem and affection of his colleagues; whose uncommon genius, great abilities, and extensive learning did so much honour to this society; his elegant and ingenious Theory of Moral Sentiments having recommended him to the esteem of men of taste and literature throughout Europe. His happy talents in illustrating abstracted subjects, and faithful assiduity in communicating useful knowledge, distinguished him as a professor, and at once afforded the greatest pleasure and the most important instruction to the youth under his care.”

CHAPTER VII
THE TOUR IN FRANCE, 1764-66

“Everything I see appears the throwing broadcast of the seed of a revolution,” wrote Voltaire to Chauvelin, a few weeks after Smith landed in France. While the poor grew poorer, administration worse, taxes more oppressive, that thick cloud of conventional darkness which had so long shrouded misgovernment was dispersing, irradiated by the fierce glare of an intellectual illumination such as the world had never seen before. Already the mind of France was undimmed. Voltaire’s search-light had shown the nakedness of Church and State. Diderot’s great lamp was fixed; Rousseau waved his fiery torch, beaconing oppressed civilisation back to the freedom of its cradle. Quesnai was at his patient calculations in the Royal Palace. The great Encyclopædia itself was on the eve of completion.

This gigantic work—in thirty-five folio volumes, of which the first appeared in 1751—was doubly English; for it was inspired by Lord Bacon’s plan for a universal dictionary of sciences and arts, and it began as a mere translation of the Cyclopædia which Ephraim Chambers had published in 1727.