time very agreeably here; though somewhat too much dissipated for one of my years and humour."[201:1]
"Paris, 23d April, 1764.
"I was very much surprised with what you tell me, that you had made a new edition in quarto, of my History of the Tudors, and might probably do the same with that of the Stuarts. I imagined that the octavo edition would for a long time supersede the necessity of any quarto edition; and I wonder that of the ancient history did not first become requisite. You were in the wrong to make any edition without informing me; because I left in Scotland a copy very fully corrected, with a few alterations, which ought to have been followed. I shall write to my sister to send it you, and I desire you may follow it in all future editions, if there be any such. I shall send you from here the alterations, which my perusal of King James's Memoirs has occasioned; they are not many, but some of them, one in particular, is of importance. I have some scruple of inserting it, on your account, till the sale of the other editions be pretty considerably advanced. You have not yet informed me how many you may have upon hand. I suppose a very considerable number. Father Gordon of the Scots College, who has an exact memory of King James's Memoirs, was so kind as to peruse anew my History during the Commonwealth, and the reigns of the two brothers; and he marked all the passages of fact, where they differed from the Memoirs. They were surprisingly few; which gave me some satisfaction; because as I told you, I take that prince's authority for a plain fact to be very good.
"I never see Mr. Wilkes here but at chapel, where he is a most regular, and devout, and edifying, and pious attendant; I take him to be entirely regenerate. He told me last Sunday, that you had given him a copy of my Dissertations, with the two which I had suppressed;[202:1] and that he, foreseeing danger, from the sale of his library, had wrote to you to find out that copy, and to tear out the two obnoxious dissertations. Pray how stands that fact? It was imprudent in you to intrust him with that copy: it was very prudent in him to use that precaution. Yet I do not naturally suspect you of imprudence, nor him of prudence. I must hear a little farther before I pronounce."[202:2]
Millar, writing on 5th June, gives the following account of his conduct as to the suppressed dissertations.
"I take Mr. Wilkes to be the same man he was,—acting a part. He has forgot the story of the two dissertations. The fact is, upon importunity, I lent to him the only copy I preserved, and for years never could recollect he had it, till his books came to be sold; upon this I went immediately to the gentleman that directed the sale, told him the fact, and reclaimed the two dissertations which were my property. Mr. Coates, who was the person, immediately delivered me the volume; and so soon as I got home, I tore them out and burnt them, that I might not lend them to any for the future. Two days after, Mr. Coates sent me a note for the volume, as Mr. Wilkes had desired it should be sent to him to Paris; I returned the volume, but told him the two dissertations, I had torn out of the volume and burnt, being my property. This is the truth of the matter, and nothing but the truth. It was certainly imprudent for me to lend them to him."
The interest taken by Hume, as by all his contemporary fellow-countrymen, in the Douglas cause, has already been noticed. As the inquiry which had taken place in France had not been long concluded, and was the object of discussion in the Court of Session, the adherents of the exiled royal house, and other Scottish families residing in Paris, naturally took such a deep interest in the proceedings, as the following letter explains.
Hume to Baron Mure.
"Paris, 22d June, 1764.
"My Dear Baron,—A few days ago I dined with the Duchess of Perth, which was the first time I had seen that venerable old lady, who is really a very sensible woman. Part of our conversation was upon the Douglas affair.