[25]At Kirkcaldy George Drysdale, for some time Provost of the town and afterwards Collector of Customs, was a “steady and much esteemed friend.” His more distinguished brother, Dr. John Drysdale the minister, had been at school with Smith, and “among all his numerous friends and acquaintances,” says Dalzel, there was none “whom he loved with greater affection or spoke of with greater tenderness.” They often met in Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh. The death of James Oswald, who represented Kirkcaldy, early in 1769, was a serious loss to the little society, and particularly to Smith. [26]Steuart’s _Political Economy_, 1767. [27]The most important of these (in Book IV. chap, vii.) appear for the first time in the third edition (1784). [28]Letter to Cullen, London, 20th September 1774. [29]Mr. Macpherson’s recent abridgment is the only tolerable one I know of, and that solely because it carefully retains many of the finest chapters, and leaves the flesh on the bones. [30]A public pawnshop. [31]Charles Butler, the learned Catholic lawyer, once mentioned to Fox that he had never read the _Wealth of Nations_. “To tell you the truth,” said Fox, “nor I either. There is something in all these subjects which passes my comprehension; something so wide that I could never embrace them myself or find any one who did.” [32]See Book IV. chap. vii. [33]See Skarzinski’s _Adam Smith_ (1878), quoted by Oncken, _Economic Journal_, vol. vii. p. 445. [34]See Ruskin’s _Fors Clavigera_, letters 62 and 72. [35]Smith avoids the error so commonly committed in modern doctrines of international trade, of regarding a nation as a trading unit. [36]The second case is simple and uncontroversial. If there is an excise duty upon a home product, it seems reasonable, says Smith, that an equal tax should be imposed in the shape of an import duty upon the same product imported from abroad. [37]The author of _Douglas_. [38]Written from Kirkcaldy, November 9, 1776. [39]In the Budget of 1778 North adopted two more important recommendations: the inhabited house duty, which is still with us, and the malt tax, which was commuted for the beer duty by Mr. Gladstone in 1880. The house tax proved very productive, as taxes went in those days, its yield rising from £26,000 in 1779 to £108,000 in 1782. [40]Sir Gray Cooper was Secretary to the Treasury. [41]Rae’s _Life of Adam Smith_, p. 326. [42]See the _Life of Smith_ by William Smellie, a contemporary. [43]See Sinclair’s _Life of Sir John Sinclair_, vol. i. p. 39. [44]Edinburgh, 15th December 1783. The letter is printed in the _Journals and Correspondence of Lord Auckland_, vol. i. p. 64.