APPENDIX. 95 



the publication of Mr Hume's political difcourfes in the year Account of 



i r -i r i ■ ' • l' f Dr Smith. 



1752, could not fail to confirm nun in thofe liberal views of 

 commercial policy which had already opened to him in the 

 courfe of his own enquiries. His long refidence in one of the 

 mo'ft enlightened mercantile towns in this ifland, and the ha- 

 bits of intimacy in which he lived with the molt refpeclable of 

 its inhabitants, afforded him an opportunity of deriving what 

 commercial information he flood in need of, from the beft 

 fources ; and it is a circumftance no lefs honourable to their 

 liberality than to his talents, that notwithstanding the reluc- 

 tance fo common among men of bufinefs to lifhen to the con- 

 clufions of mere fpeculation, and the direct oppofition of his 

 leading principles to all the old maxims of trade, he was able, 

 before he quitted his fituation in the Univerfity, to rank feme 

 very eminent merchants in the number of his profelytes *., 



Among the ftudents who attended his lectures, and whole 

 minds were not pre vioufly warped by prejudice, the progrefs 

 of his opinions, it may be reafonably fuppofed, was much 

 more rapid. It was this clafs of his friends accordingly that 

 firft adopted his fyftem with eagernefs, and difFufed a know- 

 ledge of its fundamental principles over this part of the king- 

 dom. 



Towards the end of 1763, Mr Smith received an invita- 

 tion from Mr Charles Townsend to accompany the Duke of 

 Buccleugh on his travels ; and the liberal terms in which the 

 propofal was made to him, added to the ftrong defire he had 

 felt of vifiting the Continent of Europe, induced him to refign 

 his office at Glafgow. With the connection which he was led 

 to form in confequence of this change in his fituation, he had 

 reafon to be fatisfied in an uncommon degree, and he always 

 fpoke of it with pleafure and gratitude. To the public, it was 

 not perhaps a change equally fortunate; as it interrupted that 



ftudious 



* I mention this fa£t on the refpe&able authority of James Ritchie, Efq; of .- 

 Glafgow, . 



