end the difficulties I
should have in leaving the University before the beginning
of April, and begged to know if my attendance upon his Grace
would be necessary before that time. I have yet received no
answer to that letter, which, I suppose, is owing to this,
that his Grace is not yet come from Eton, and that nothing
is yet settled with regard to the time of his going abroad.
I delayed answering your letter till I should be able to
inform you at what time I should have the pleasure of seeing
you....--I ever am, my dearest friend, most faithfully
yours,

ADAM SMITH.[137]

After the Duke reached London, however, at the Christmas recess, it
seems to have been quickly settled to send him out on his travels
without more delay, and on the 8th of January 1764 Smith intimated to
the Faculty of Glasgow College that he was soon to leave that city
under the permission granted him by the Dean of Faculty's meeting of
the 8th of November, and that he had returned to the students all the
fees he had received that session. He likewise acquainted the meeting
that he proposed to pay his salary as paid by the College for one
half-year, commencing the 10th of October previous, to the person who
should teach his class for the remainder of the session. Mr. Thomas
Young, student of divinity, was, on Smith's recommendation, chosen for
this purpose. A committee was appointed to receive from Smith the
private library of the Moral Philosophy class; next day at a meeting
of Senatus he was paid the balance due to him on his accounts as
Quaestor, and was entrusted with a copy of Foulis's large _Homer_,
which they asked him to carry to London and deliver, in their name, to
Sir James Gray, as a present to his Sicilian majesty, who had shown
them some favour; and the Senate-room of Glasgow knew him no more.

His parting with his students was not quite so simple. They made some
difficulty, as he seems to have anticipated, about taking back the
fees they had paid him for his class, and he was obliged to resort
almost to force before he succeeded in getting them to do so. The
curious scene is described by Alexander Fraser Tytler (Lord
Woodhouselee) in his _Life of Lord Kames:_ "After concluding his last
lecture, and publicly announcing from the chair that he was now taking
a final leave of his auditors, acquainting them at the same time with
the arrangements he had made, to the best of his power