PREFACE. IX 



. Upon my return to this country at the 

 opening of the Session, I read over the Life of Adam 

 Smith, and the Analysis of his great work, which had 

 been written last autumn, at a time when I never 

 could have expected the present practical discussion 

 of the Corn Laws to come on before the work should 

 be published. The observations delivered on that 

 question, and the whole doctrine of Free Trade, 

 were, therefore, prepared without any view to the 

 controversy now going on; and I fear their tenor 

 will not give much satisfaction to any party. My 

 opinion is well known upon the subject; and that I 

 neither expect any thing like the good which some 

 hope, nor apprehend any thing like the evil which 

 others dread, from the proposed alterations in the 

 law, while of those alterations I highly approve. 

 But I have resolved to publish the Life and the 

 Analytical View, without the least alteration or 

 addition, exactly as it was written during the calm 

 of the last year ; giving it as a treatise upon a sub- 

 ject of science, composed with only the desire to dis- 

 cover or to expound the truth, and without any view 

 to the interests of any Party. 



I am truly happy to announce my hope that a 

 fuller Life of Sir J. Banks, being in such excellent 

 hands as those of Mr, Dawson Turner, of Great 

 Yarmouth, will be finished by that much and justly 

 respected gentleman. 



London, March 2lst, 1846. 



