ndas
and the Earl of Carlisle on the pressing and anxious question of
giving Ireland free trade. His answers still exist, and will appear
later on in this work.[254]

FOOTNOTES:

[244] _Hume MSS._, R.S.E.

[245] Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 487.

[246] Buckle's _History of Civilisation_, ed. 1869, i. 214.

[247] Butler's _Reminiscences_, i. 176.

[248] _Parliamentary History_, xxiii. 1152.

[249] _Parliamentary History_, xxix. 834.

[250] _Ibid._, xxx. 330, 334.

[251] Stewart's _Works_, x. 87.

[252] Cockburn's _Memorials of My Own Time_, p. 174.

[253] See Dowell's _Taxation_, ii. 169.

[254] See below, pp. 350, 352.

CHAPTER XIX

THE DEATH OF HUME

1776

After the publication of his book in the beginning of March, Smith
still dallied in London, without taking any steps to carry out his
plan of going to see Hume in Edinburgh and bring him up to London. But
some hope seems to have been entertained of Hume coming up even
without Smith's persuasion and escort. John Home, who was in London
and was in correspondence with him, thought so, but he at length
received a direct negative to the idea in a letter from Hume himself,
written on the 12th of April; and then Smith and John Home set out
together immediately for the northern capital, but when the coach
stopped at Morpeth, whom should they see standing in the door of the
inn but Colin, their friend's servant? Hume had determined to
undertake the journey to London after all to consult Sir John Pringle,
and was now so far on his way. John Home thereupon accompanied Hume
back to London, but Smith, having heard of his mother being taken ill,
and being anxious about her, as she was now over eighty years old,
continued his journey on to Kirkcaldy. At Morpeth, however, he and
Hume had time to discuss the question of the publication, in the event
of Hume's death, of certain of his unpublished works. Hume had already
on the 4th of January 1776 made Smith his literary executor by will,
leaving him full power over all his papers except the _Dialogues on
Natural Religion_, which he explicitly desired him to publish. It was
years since this work had been written, but its publication had been
deferred in submission to the representations of Sir Gilbert Elliot
and other friends as to the annoying clamour it was sure to excite.
Its author, however, had never ceased to cherish a peculiar paternal
pride in the work, and now that his serious illness forced hi