me of making
acquaintance with Mr. Herbert, who appears to me a very
promising young man. I set up a chaise in May next, which
will give me the liberty of travelling about, and you may be
sure a journey to Glasgow will be one of the first I shall
undertake. I intend to require with great strictness an
account how you have been employing your Leisure, and I
desire you to be ready for that purpose. Wo be to you if the
Ballance be against you. Your friends here will also expect
that I should bring you with me. It seems to me very long
since I saw you.--Most sincerely,

DAVID HUME.

EDINBURGH, _28th March 1763_.[128]

This long-meditated visit was apparently never accomplished, the
chaise, notwithstanding. Only a few months more pass and the scene
completely changes; the two friends are one after the other
transported suddenly to France on new vocations, and their first
meeting now was in Paris.

Hume writes Smith from Edinburgh on the 9th of August 1763 intimating
his appointment as Secretary to the English Embassy at Paris, and
bidding him adieu. "I am a little hurried," he says, "in my
preparations, but I could not depart without bidding you adieu, my
good friend, and without acquainting you with the reasons of so sudden
a movement. I have not great expectations of revisiting this country
soon, but I hope it will not be impossible; but we may meet abroad,
which will be a great satisfaction to me."[129]

Smith's reply has not been preserved, but it seems to have contained
among other things a condemnation, in Smith's most decisive style, of
the recent proceedings of his friend Lord Shelburne in connection with
various intrigues and negotiations set agoing by the Court and Lord
Bute with the view of increasing the power of the Crown in English
politics. That appears from a letter Hume writes Smith from London on
13th September, wanting information about his new chief's eldest son,
Lord Beauchamp, regarding whom he had once heard Smith mention
something told by "that severe critic Mr. Herbert," and to whom Hume
was now to act in the capacity of tutor in conjunction with his
official duties as Secretary of Legation. Then after relating the
story of Bute's negotiations with Pitt through Shelburne, and stating
that Lord Shelburne resigned because he found himself obnoxious on
account of his share in that negotiation, he says: "I see you are much
incensed with