The theory that Smith grew more protectionist as he grew older might be dismissed now that we have considered the lectures, and compared the first and third editions of the finished work. But it is possible that a very desperate casuist might still find one more plea to urge. He might say: granted that Smith remained to the last a theoretical free trader, yet he frankly admitted it to be a Utopian project, and he would not, as a responsible official, have advised its adoption. Did he not accept a Crown appointment under Lord North’s protectionist administration, and did he not spend the last years of his life as a principal instrument in collecting the proceeds of a highly protectionist tariff? Nay, further, did he not take a carnal satisfaction in the leaps and bounds by which the revenue under his charge was at that time advancing? In December 1785 he wrote to William Eden:— “It may perhaps give that gentleman [Mr. Rose of the Treasury] pleasure to be informed that the net revenue arising from the customs in Scotland is at least four times greater than it was seven or eight years ago. It has been increasing rapidly these four or five years past, and the revenue of this year has over-leaped by at least one half the revenue of the greatest former year. I flatter myself it is likely to increase still further.” Whatever force the _argumentum ad officium_ might have in a country (if such there be) where customs officials are sworn supporters of the commercial policy of the Government, it has none in reference to Great Britain, and less than none if regard be had to the circumstances of Smith’s appointment. There is no reason for supposing that Lord North had any particular liking for protection, though as the instrument of the king’s war policy he had an insatiable craving for revenue, and in pursuit thereof adopted, as we shall see, several taxes of a non-protective character suggested by Smith in the first edition of his treatise. Further, when the above letter was written Pitt was already, under the inspiration of this very customs official, initiating a free trade policy, and was actually preparing the great commercial treaty with France which he was to carry into effect a few months later. A patriotic Scotsman might well delight in his country’s rapid recovery from the disastrous effects of the war, and the author of Pitt’s policy would naturally anticipate an increase of prosperity with an expansion of imports and a growth of the revenues under his charge.