the decision
against Mr. Douglas which the House of Lords now reversed, he feels he
can give free vent to his disappointment. Brougham, in publishing the
letters, calls the opinion Smith gives not only "very strong" but
"very rash," and his impeachment of the impartiality of the two great
English judges--Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield--cannot seem
defensible. But David Hume, though a Tory and an Under Secretary of
State, is not a whit less sparing in his denunciation of those two law
lords and in his contempt for the general body of the peers than
Smith. "To one who understands the case as I do," he writes to Dr.
Blair, "nothing could appear more scandalous than the pleading of the
two law lords. Such curious misrepresentation, such impudent
assertions, such groundless imputations, never came from that place;
but they were good enough for the audience, who, bating their quality,
are most of them little better than their brothers the Wilkites of the
streets." Hume, having lost his place with a change of ministry,
returned to Edinburgh for good in August 1769, and presently wrote
Smith inviting him over:--

JAMES'S COURT, _20th August 1769_.

DEAR SMITH--I am glad to have come within sight of you, and
to have a view of Kirkaldy from my windows, but as I wish
also to be within speaking terms of you, I wish we could
concert measures for that purpose. I am miserably sick at
sea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the
great gulf that lies between us. I am also tired of
travelling as much as you ought naturally to be of staying
at home. I therefore propose to you to come hither and pass
some days with me in this solitude. I want to know what you
have been doing, and purpose to exact a rigorous account of
the method in which you have employed yourself during your
retreat. I am positive you are in the wrong in many of your
speculations, especially when you have the misfortune to
differ from me. All these are reasons for our meeting, and I
wish you would make me some reasonable proposal for that
purpose. There is no habitation on the island of Inchkeith,
otherwise I should challenge you to meet me on that spot,
and neither of us ever to leave the place till we were fully
agreed on all points of controversy. I expect General Conway
here to-morrow, whom I shall attend to Roseneath, and I
shall remain ther