ection with him;
and on the 9th of July Smith laid the proposal before the Council of
the society, and, as is reported in the _Transactions_, "signified to
the meeting that although he entertained great doubt whether the
problem of the Count de Windischgraetz admitted of any complete and
rational solution, yet the views of the proposer being so highly
laudable, and the object itself being of that nature that even an
approximation to its attainment would be of importance to mankind, he
was therefore of opinion that the society ought to agree to the
request that was made to them. He added that it was his intention to
communicate his sentiments on the subject to the Count by a letter
which he would lay before the Council at a subsequent meeting."[320]
This letter was read to the Council on the 13th of December, and after
being approved, a copy of it was requested for preservation among
their papers, as the author "did not incline that it should be
published in the Transactions of the society."

Nothing further is heard of this business till the 6th of August 1787,
when "Mr. Commissioner Smith acquainted the society that the Count de
Windischgraetz had transmitted to him three dissertations offered as
solutions of his problem, and had desired the judgment of the society
upon their merits. The society referred the consideration of these
papers to Mr. Smith, Mr. Henry Mackenzie of the Exchequer, and Mr.
William Craig, advocate, as a committee to appraise and consider them,
and to report their opinion to the society at a subsequent meeting."
At length, on the 21st January 1788, Mr. Commissioner Smith reported
that this committee thought none of the three dissertations amounted
either to a solution or an approximation to a solution of the Count's
problem, but that one of them was a work of great merit, and the
society asked Mr. A. Fraser Tytler, one of their secretaries, to send
on this opinion to the Count as their verdict.[321]

FOOTNOTES:

[316] Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 464.

[317] Gibbon's _Miscellaneous Works_, ii. 255.

[318] Saint Fond, _Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides_,
ii. 241.

[319] Skinner's _Society of Trained Bands of Edinburgh_, p. 99.

[320] _Transactions_, R.S.E., i. 39.

[321] _Ibid._, R.S.E., ii. 24.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AMERICAN QUESTION AND OTHER POLITICS

Notwithstanding the patronage he received from Lord North and his
relations of friendship and obligation with the