n any subject of
science whatever." But the researches the author now made in London
must have been much more important than he expected, and have
occasioned extensive alterations and additions, so that Hume, in
congratulating him on the eventual appearance of the work in 1776,
writes, "It is probably much improved by your last abode in London."
Whole chapters seem to have been put through the forge afresh; and on
some of them the author has tool-marked the date of his handiwork
himself.

A very circumstantial account of Smith's London labours at the book
comes from America. Mr. Watson, author of the _Annals of
Philadelphia_, says: "Dr. Franklin once told Dr. Logan that the
celebrated Adam Smith when writing his _Wealth of Nations_ was in the
habit of bringing chapter after chapter as he composed it to himself,
Dr. Price, and others of the literati; then patiently hear their
observations and profit by their discussions and criticisms, sometimes
submitting to write whole chapters anew, and even to reverse some of
his propositions."[232]

Franklin's remark may have itself undergone enlargement before it
appeared in print, but though it may have been exaggerated, there
seems no ground for rejecting it altogether. Smith became acquainted
with Franklin in Edinburgh in 1759, and could not fail to see much of
him in London, because some of the most intimate of his own London
friends, Sir John Pringle and Strahan, for example, were also among
the most intimate friends of Franklin. Then a considerable proportion
of the additions, which we know from the text of the _Wealth of
Nations_ itself to have been made to the work during this London
period, bear on colonial or American experience.[233] And as Smith
always obtained a great deal of his information from the conversation
of competent men, no one would be more likely than Franklin to be laid
under contribution or to be able to contribute something worth
learning on such questions. The biographer of Franklin states that his
papers which belong to this particular period "contain sets of
problems and queries as though jotted down at some meeting of
philosophers for particular consideration at home," and then he adds:
"A glance at the index of the _Wealth of Nations_ will suffice to show
that its author possessed just that kind of knowledge of the American
Colonies which Franklin was of all men the best fitted to impart. The
allusions to the Colonies may be counted by hundreds;