time. I feel myself, however, extremely happy, comfortable,
and contented. I never was perhaps more so in all my life.

You will give me great comfort by writing to me now and
then, and by letting me know what is passing among my
friends at London. Remember me to them all, particularly to
Mr. Adams's family and to Mrs. Montagu.[204]

What has become of Rousseau? Has he gone abroad because he
cannot contrive to get himself sufficiently persecuted in
Great Britain?

What is the meaning of the bargain that your ministry have
made with the India Company? They have not, I see, prolonged
their charter, which is a good circumstance.[205]

The rest of the sheet is torn.

Hume replies on the 13th that Sarsfield was a very good friend of his
own, whom he had always great pleasure in meeting, as he was a man of
merit; but that he did not introduce him, as Smith desired, to Sir
Gilbert Elliot, because "this gentleman's reserve and indolence would
make him neglect the acquaintance"; nor to Oswald, because he found
his intimacy with Oswald, which had lasted more than a quarter of a
century, was broken for ever. He goes on to describe his quarrel with
Oswald's brother the bishop; and concludes: "If I were sure, dear
Smith, that you and I should not some day quarrel in some such manner,
I should tell you that I am yours affectionately and sincerely."[206]
Count de Sarsfield seems to have gone on to Scotland to pay Smith a
visit, for on the 14th of July Hume writes Smith, enclosing a packet,
which he desires to be delivered to the Count.

Smith did not reply to either of these letters till the 13th of
September, when he writes from Dalkeith House, where he has gone for
the home-coming of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh. After expressing
his mind in the plainest terms about the bishop with whom Hume had the
tussle--"He is a brute and a beast," says Smith--he goes on to bespeak
Hume's favour for a young cousin of his who happened to be living in
the same house with Hume in London, Captain David Skene, afterwards of
Pitlour, who was in 1787 made inspector of military roads in Scotland.

Be so good (he says) as convey the enclosed letter to the
Count de Sarsfield. I have been much in the wrong for having
delayed so long to write both to him and you.

There is a very amiable, modest, brave, worthy young
gentleman who lives in the same house with yo