280 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



it ultimately, except your actual lectures on the subject. None of 

 us will come up this year, that you may have time to study, so 

 study you must ; and don't you understand the old principle upon 

 which the whole of this nonsensical science hangs ? I assure you, 

 without jest, we all deeply feel the insult thus offered to you and 

 the party, and I cannot believe it will ever be carried through. My 

 hope is in Peel more than all the rest. Oh, for one dash of poor 

 Londonderry ! Ever yours faithfully, Pat. Robertson." 



"Board of Trade, Ibth June, 1825. 



" Sir : — I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 8th 

 instant, stating the grounds on which you conceive that the erec- 

 tion of a new professorship in the University of Edinburgh, for the 

 purpose of lecturing on Political Economy, would be an unfair in- 

 terference with the rights, and consequent duties, which belong to 

 the Chair of Moral Philosophy. 



" Without feeling it necessary to go into the question how far 

 the mode of lecturing on political economy which has hitherto pre- 

 vailed in the University of Edinburgh is the most desirable, and 

 exactly that in which I should concur, if the whole distribution of 

 instruction in that University were to be recast, I have no difficulty 

 in stating that every attention ought to be paid, in looking at the 

 present application, to the circumstances and consideration which 

 you have stated. 



" The state of this case, as far as I know, is this : — An applica- 

 tion has been made by memorial, from certain individuals, to the 

 Government, for the sanction of the Crown to establish a profes- 

 sorship of Political Economy in the University, the subscribers 

 offering to provide a permanent fund for fouuding the new Chair, 

 in like manner as has been done by a private gentleman (Mr. Drum- 

 mond) in the University of Oxford. 



"This memorial has been referred by Lord Liverpool to the 

 University of Edinburgh for their opinion, and no final decision 

 will be taken by the Government until that opinion shall be re- 

 ceived. Should the Senatus Academicus not recommend a compli- 

 ance with the prayer of the Memorial, I have every reason to be- 

 lieve that it will not receive the sanction of Government, and I 

 have conveyed that impression to the person who had put the me- 

 morial into my hands. 



