Public being imposed upon
in this manner, your Papers now lie sealed up in my writing
Desk, superscribed with directions to my executors to return
them unopened to you or your heirs as their proper owners.
In case of my death and that of Mr. M'Kinzie, the production
of these papers under my seal and superscribed by my hand
will be sufficient to refute any plagiarism of this kind.
While we live our evidence will secure to you the reputation
of whatever discoveries may be contained in them. I return
you the five Pound note, in hopes that you will not insist
upon this publication, at least for some time; at any rate,
I shall always be happy to advance a larger sum upon your
account, though I own I could wish it was for some other
purpose. I have not shown your Papers to Smellie. It will
give me great pleasure to hear from you, and to be informed
that you forgive the freedom I have used in offering you, I
am afraid, a disagreeable advice. I can assure you that
nothing but the respect which I think I owe to the character
of a person whom I know to be a man of worth, delicacy, and
honour, could have extorted it from me.--I ever am, dear
sir, most faithfully yours,

ADAM SMITH.

CUSTOM HOUSE, EDINBURGH,

_21st August 1782_.

If you should not chuse that your Papers should remain in my
custody, I shall either send them to you or deliver to whom
you please.[323]

While one Highland laird was planning to save his country by an
improved system of fortification, another was conceiving a grander
project of saving her by continental alliances. The moment was among
the darkest England has ever passed through. We were engaged in a
death-struggle against France, Spain, and the American colonies
combined. Cornwallis had just repeated at Yorktown the humiliating
surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Elliot lay locked in Gibraltar.
Ireland was growing restive and menacing on one side, and the Northern
powers of Europe on the other--the Armed Neutrality, as they were
called--sat and watched, with their hands on their sword-hilts and a
grudge against England in their hearts. Now Sir John Sinclair believed
that these neutral powers held the key of the situation, and wrote a
pamphlet in 1782, which he proposed to translate into their respective
tongues for the purpose of persuading them to join this country in