ld
L264,000, and the malt tax, estimated to yield L310,000. Under those
circumstances Smith's appointment to the Commissionership of Customs
is to be regarded not as a private favour to the Duke of Buccleugh,
but as an express recognition on the part of the Premier of the public
value of Smith's work, and the more honourable because rendered to a
political opponent who had condemned important parts of the
ministerial policy--their American policy, for example--in his recent
work.

The appointment was worth L600 a year,--L500 for the Commissionership
of Customs and L100 for the Commissionership of the Salt Duties; and
Smith still retained his pension of L300 from the House of Buccleugh.
When he obtained this place he thought himself bound in honour to give
up his Buccleugh pension, possibly because of the assistance he may
have believed the Duke to have given in securing it; but he was
informed that the pension was meant to be permanent and unconditional,
and that if he were consulting his own honour in offering to give it
up, he was not thinking of the honour of the Duke of Buccleugh. Smith
now settled in Edinburgh accordingly with an assured income of L900 a
year, and L900 a year was a comparatively princely revenue in the
Scottish capital at a time when a Lord of Session had only L700 a
year, and a professor in the best chair in the University seldom made
as much as L300.

Though the appointment was made probably in November 1777, Smith did
not receive the Commission till January 1778, and there were still
fees to pay and other business to transact about the matter, which he
got Strahan to do for him. That occasioned the following letters:--

DEAR SIR--The last letter I had the pleasure of receiving
from you congratulated me upon my being appointed one of the
Commissioners of Customs in Scotland. You told me at the
same time that you had dined that day with Sir Grey Cooper,
and that you had both been so good as to speak very
favourably of me. I have received from London several other
congratulations of the same kind. But I have not yet
received, nor has the office here received, any official
information that any such appointment had been made. It is
possible that the Commission is not made out on account of
the fees. If this is the case, you may either draw upon me
for the amount, which I understand to be about L160, or you
may write to me, and I sh