I have
just mentioned in which Smith was proving his early attachment to the
doctrines of economic liberty, and would naturally treat of
circumstances connected with the growth of his opinions. However that
may be, it is certain that Smith and Oswald must have been in
communication upon economic questions about that period, and Oswald's
views at that period are contained in the correspondence to which
reference has been made.

Early in 1750 David Hume sent Oswald the manuscript of his well-known
essay on the Balance of Trade, afterwards published in his _Political
Essays_ in 1752, asking for his views and criticisms; and Oswald
replied on the 10th of October in a long letter, published in the
_Caldwell Papers_,[25] which shows him to have been already entirely
above the prevailing mercantilist prejudices, and to have very clear
conceptions of economic operations. He declares jealousies between
nations of being drained of their produce and money to be quite
irrational; that could never happen as long as the people and industry
remained. The prohibition against exporting commodities and money, he
held, had always produced effects directly contrary to what was
intended by it. It had diminished cultivation at home instead of
increasing it, and really forced the more money out of the country the
more produce it prevented from going. Oswald's letter seems to have
been sent on by Hume, together with his own essay, to Baron Mure, who
was also interested in such discussions. The new light was thus
breaking in on groups of inquirers in Scotland as well as elsewhere,
and Smith was from his earliest days within its play.

Amid the more serious labours of these literary and economic lectures,
it would be an agreeable relaxation to collect and edit the scattered
poems, published and unpublished, of Hamilton of Bangour, the author
of what Wordsworth calls the "exquisite ballad" of "The Braes o'
Yarrow," beginning--

Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride,
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow,
Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride,
And think no more on the Braes o' Yarrow.

This ballad had appeared in Allan Ramsay's _Tea-Table Miscellany_ so
long ago as 1724, and it was followed by Hamilton's most ambitious
effort, the poem "Contemplation," in 1739, but the general public of
Scotland only seem to have awakened to their merits after the poet
espoused the Jacobite cause in 1745, and celebrated the victory of