ioo HIS TORT of the SOCIEfK 



Account of made it of little confequence to himfelf to record in writing 

 what he heard or faw ; and from his anxiety before his death 

 to deftroy all the papers in his polTeffion, he feems to have wifh- 

 ed, that no materials mould remain for his biographers, but 

 what were furniflied by the lafting monuments of his genius, 

 and the exemplary worth of his private life. 



The fatisfaction he enjoyed in the converfation of Turgot 

 may be eafily imagined. Their opinions on the molt efTential 

 points of political ceconomy were the fame : and they were 

 both animated by the fame zeal for the beft interefts of man- 

 kind. The favourite ftudies, too, of both had directed their 

 enquiries to fubjecls on which the underftandings of the ablefl 

 and the beft informed are liable to be warped, to a great degree, 

 by prejudice and paffion \ and on which, of confequence, a 

 coincidence of judgment is peculiarly gratifying. We are told 

 by one of the biographers of Turgot, that after his retreat from 

 the miniftry, he occupied his leifure in a philofophical corre- 

 fpondence with fome of his old friends ', and, in particular, that 

 various letters on important fubjecls pafled between him and 

 Mr Smith. I take notice of this anecdote chiefly as a proof of 

 the intimacy which was underftood to have fubfifted between 

 them ', for, in other refpecls, the anecdote feems to me to be fome- 

 what doubtful. It is fcarcely to be fuppofed, that Mr Smith 

 would deftroy the letters of fuch a correfpondent as Turgot; and 

 ftill lefs probable, that fuch an intercourfe was carried on between 

 them without the knowledge of any of Mr Smith's friends. 

 From fome enquiries that have been made at Paris by a gentle- 

 man 



longer claffed with that of Mandeville. In the enlarged edition accordingly of 

 that work, publifhed a fhort time before his death, he has fupprefied his cenfure of 

 the author of the Maximes ; who feems indeed (however exceptionable many of his 

 principles may be) to have been actuated, both in his life and writings, by motives 

 very different from thofe of Mandeville. The real fcope of thefe maxims is 

 placed, I think, in a jiift light by the ingenious author of the notice prefixed to the 

 edition of them publifhed at Paris in 17^8. 



