Reid came there in the beginning of
June. Moreover, his resignation was evidently an understood thing at
the University long before it was really sent in, for a good deal of
intriguing had already been going on for the place. The Lord Privy
Seal (the Hon. James Stuart Mackenzie, Lord Bute's brother), who was
Scotch Minister, writes Baron Mure on the 2nd February 1764, a
fortnight before Smith resigned, asking whether it was true the
University were to appoint Dr. Wight to succeed Smith, and mentions
incidentally having had some conversation with Smith himself
(apparently in London) on the subject, particularly with regard to the
possible claims of Mr. Young, his substitute, to the appointment.

It was not always necessary--nor, indeed, does it seem to have been
the more usual practice--for a Scotch professor to resign his chair on
accepting a temporary place like a travelling tutorship. Adam Ferguson
fought the point successfully with the Edinburgh Town Council when he
left England as tutor to Lord Chesterfield; and Dalzel, when Professor
of Greek in Edinburgh, went to live at Oxford as tutor to Lord
Maitland; but we have already seen, in connection with the case of
Professor Rouet, that Smith held strong views against the
encouragement of absenteeism and the growth of any feeling that the
University was there for the convenience of the professors, instead of
the professors being there for the service of the University.

Under these circumstances it was natural for Smith to resign his chair
on his acceptance of the tutorship; and although he only sent the
letter of resignation after his arrival in France, it is perhaps more
convenient to print it here in its natural connection with Glasgow
University affairs than to defer it to its more strictly chronological
place in the chapter describing his French travels. The letter is
addressed "To the Right Hon. Thomas Miller, Esq., His Majesty's
Advocate for Scotland," Lord Rector of Glasgow University at the time;
and it runs as follows:

MY LORD--I take this first opportunity after my arrival in
this place, which was not till yesterday, to resign my
office into the hands of your lordship, of the Dean of
Faculty, of the Principal of the College, and of all my
other most respectable and worthy colleagues. Into your and
their hands, therefor, I do hereby resign my office of
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow
and