friend, most, faithfully yours,

ADAM SMITH.[148]

A few days after the date of that letter Smith writes Hume again,
introducing one of the English residents in Toulouse, Mr. Urquhart of
Cromartie, as Abbe Colbert describes him in one of his letters, a
descendant therefore probably of Sir Thomas. The letter is of no
importance, but it shows at least Smith's hearty liking for a good
fellow.

MY DEAR FRIEND--This letter will be delivered to you by Mr.
Urquhart, the only man I ever knew who had a better temper
than yourself. You will find him most perfectly amiable. I
recommend him in the most earnest manner to your advice and
protection. He is not a man of letters, and is just a plain,
sensible, agreeable man of no pretensions of any kind, but
whom you will love every day better and better.--My dear
friend, most faithfully yours,

ADAM SMITH.

TOULOUSE, _4th November 1764_.[149]

Smith and his two pupils made their proposed expedition to Montpellier
during the sittings of the States, for we find them visited there by
Horne Tooke,[150] then still parson of Brentford, who had been on a
tour in Italy, and stayed some time in Montpellier on his way back.
Tooke, it may be said here, was no admirer of Smith; he thought the
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_ nonsense, and the _Wealth of Nations_
written for a wicked purpose,[151] and this is the only occasion on
which they are known to have met.

The little provincial assembly which Smith had come to Montpellier to
see was at that period, it ought to be mentioned, attracting much
attention from all the thinkers and reformers of France, and was
thought by many of the first of them to furnish the solution of the
political question of that age. The States of Languedoc were almost
the only remains of free institutions then left in France. In all the
thirty-two provinces of the country except six the States had been
suppressed altogether, and in five of these six they were too small to
be important or vigorous; but Languedoc was a great province,
containing twenty-three bishoprics and more territory than the kingdom
of Belgium, and the States governed its affairs so well that its
prosperity was the envy of the rest of France. They dug canals, opened
harbours, drained marshes, made roads, which Arthur Young singles out
for praise, and made them without the _corvee_ under which the rest of
rural France was groaning. Th