as to hurt the interest of every single order
of men in the country. The dignity of the nobility was
undone by it. The greater part of the gentry who had been
accustomed to represent their own country in its own
Parliament were cut out for ever from all hopes of
representing it in a British Parliament. Even the merchants
seemed to suffer at first. The trade to the Plantations was,
indeed, opened to them. But that was a trade which they knew
nothing about; the trade they were acquainted with, that to
France, Holland, and the Baltic, was laid under new
embar(r)assments, which almost totally annihilated the two
first and most important branches of it. The Clergy, too,
who were then far from insignificant, were alarmed about the
Church. No wonder if at that time all orders of men
conspired in cursing a measure so hurtful to their immediate
interest. The views of their Posterity are now very
different; but those views could be seen by but few of our
forefathers, by those few in but a confused and imperfect
manner.

It will give me the greatest satisfaction to hear from you.
I pray you write to me soon. Remember me to the Franklins. I
hope I shall have the grace to write to the youngest by next
post to thank him, in the name both of the College and of
myself, for his very agreeable present. Remember me likewise
to Mr. Griffiths. I am greatly obliged to him for the very
handsom character he gave of my book in his review.--I ever
am, dear Strahan, most faithfully and sincerely yours,

ADAM SMITH.

GLASGOW,
_4th April 1760_.[119]

The Franklins mentioned in this letter are Benjamin Franklin and his
son, who had spent six weeks in Scotland in the spring of the previous
year--"six weeks," said Franklin, "of the densest happiness I have met
with in any part of my life." We know from Dr. Carlyle that during
this visit Franklin met Smith one evening at supper at Robertson's in
Edinburgh, but it seems from this letter highly probable that he had
gone through to Glasgow, and possibly stayed with Smith at the
College. Why otherwise should the younger, or, as Smith says,
youngest, Franklin have thought of making a presentation to Glasgow
College, or Smith of thanking him not merely in the name of the
College, but in his own? Strahan was one of Franklin's most intimate
private friends. Th