Many economic questions such as pauperism, slavery, hiring, banking, export bounties on linen, rent, leases, highways, the relative advantages of large and small farms, were discussed by a society which, in Stewart’s words, contributed so much to the fame and improvement of Scotland. A year after its foundation Hume wrote to Allan Ramsay that it had grown to be a national concern. “Young and old, noble and ignoble, witty and dull, laity and clergy, all the world are ambitious of a place amongst us, and on each occasion we are as much solicited by candidates as if we were to choose a member of Parliament.” The society did more than debate. Adam Smith and eight others were appointed managers to carry out a scheme for the promotion of Scottish arts, sciences, manufactures, and agriculture. Executive committees were formed. Contributions poured in; and prizes and premiums large in those days were offered and awarded for every subject under the sun. From the researches of Mr. Rae we learn, for example, that twenty-six prizes were offered in the first year (1755), including three gold medals for the best discovery in science, the best essay on taste, and the best on vegetation. Six silver medals were given, including one for the best and most correctly printed book, another for the best imitation of English blankets, and a third for the best hogshead of strong ale. Four years later the number of prizes given had increased to 142, and they included one for the person who cured most smoky chimneys. The society sank as suddenly as it rose. After only a decade of brilliant usefulness, the meteor fell, and expired, it is said, in a flash of Townshend’s wit. “Why,” he asked, after listening to a debate rich in eloquence, but unintelligible to a southern ear, “why can you not learn to speak the English language as you have already learned to write it?” So the society died, and Thomas Sheridan, father of the statesman, came to Edinburgh with a course of lectures on English elocution, which he delivered to about three hundred eminent gentlemen in Carrubber’s Close. Upon the ashes of this famous society arose an equally patriotic but perhaps less beneficent organisation. The Poker Club, as its name indicated, was intended to be an instrument for stirring opinion. The cause to be agitated was the establishment of a Scotch Militia on national lines, to be followed, as some of its radical members hoped, by a parliamentary reform which would “let the industrious farmer and manufacturer share at last in a privilege now engrossed by the great lord, the drunken laird, and the drunkener bailie.”