I shall be very happy to communicate to him not only that
book, but everything else I have upon the subject, both
printed and manuscript, and am, with the highest respect for
his character, his most obedient humble servant,

ADAM SMITH.

EDINBURGH, _24th November 1778_.[302]

The _Memoires_ was printed in 1768, but it may be reasonably inferred,
from Smith's account of the extreme difficulty of getting a copy, that
he only obtained his in 1774, on the advent of Turgot to power. If
that be so, much in the chapters on taxation in the _Wealth of
Nations_ must have been written in London after that date.

Sir John's biographer quotes a passage from another letter of Smith in
connection with his correspondent's financial studies. This
letter--which Archdeacon Sinclair describes as a "holograph letter in
six folio pages"--is no longer extant, but it concluded with the
following remarks on the taxation of the necessaries and luxuries of
the poor:--

I dislike all taxes that may affect the necessary expenses
of the poor. They, according to circumstances, either
oppress the people immediately subject to them, or are
repaid with great interest by the rich, _i.e._ by their
employers in the advanced wages of their labour. Taxes on
the _luxuries_ of the poor, upon their beer and other
spirituous liquors, for example, as long as they are so
moderate as not to give much temptation to smuggling, I am
so far from disapproving, that I look upon them as the best
of sumptuary laws.

I could write a volume upon the folly and the bad effects of
all the legal encouragements that have been given either to
the linen manufacture or to the fisheries.--I have the
honour to be, with most sincere regard, my dear friend, most
affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.[303]

FOOTNOTES:

[295] Stewart's _Works_, x. 46.

[296] _Ibid._, v. 256.

[297] Mrs. Drummond is Lord Kames's wife. She had succeeded to the
estate of her father, Mr. Drummond of Blair Drummond, and having along
with her husband assumed her father's surname in addition to her own,
was now Mrs. Home Drummond. It may perhaps be necessary to add that
the title of a Scotch judge is not extended, even by courtesy, to his
wife.

[298] Sinclair's _Memoirs of Sir John Sinclair_, i. 36.

[299] Smith, writing from memory and without the book at hand, makes a
verbal mistake in t