Smith was doubtless informed from time to time of the boy’s progress, but we hear no more of the subject for four years. In the early part of 1763 he invited Hume to pay a visit to Glasgow. Hume was then in Edinburgh; he had just brought out two volumes of his _History_, and was drinking the nectar of general applause. At the end of March he replied with a bantering reference, perhaps, to his friend’s economic studies: “I set up a chaise in May next, which will give me the liberty of travelling about, and you may be sure a journey to Glasgow will be one of the first I shall undertake. I intend to require with great strictness an account how you have been employing your leisure, and I desire you to be ready for that purpose. Woe be to you if the Balance be against you. Your friends here will also expect that I should bring you with me. It seems to me very long since I saw you.” But in the summer Lord Hertford was appointed Ambassador to the Court of France, and Hume accepted the post of Secretary to the British Embassy at Paris, “with great prospects and expectations.” He told his friend not to expect him back for some time; “but we may meet abroad.” And so they did; for, a couple of months later, Smith received the following letter:— “Dear Sir,—The time now drawing near when the Duke of Buccleugh intends to go abroad, I take the liberty of renewing the subject to you: that if you should still have the same disposition to travel with him I may have the satisfaction of informing Lady Dalkeith and his Grace of it, and of congratulating them upon an event which I know that they, as well as myself, have so much at heart. The Duke is now at Eton; he will remain there till Christmas. He will then spend some short time in London, that he may be presented at Court, and not pass instantaneously from school to a foreign country, but it were to be wished he should not be long in Town, exposed to the habits and companions of London, before his mind has been more formed and better guarded by education and experience. “I do not enter at this moment upon the subject of establishment, because, if you have no objection to the situation, I know we cannot differ about the terms. On the contrary, you will find me more solicitous than yourself to make the connection with Buccleugh as satisfactory and advantageous to you as I am persuaded it will be essentially beneficial to him. “The Duke ... has sufficient talents; a very manly temper, and an integrity of heart and reverence for truth, which in a person of his rank and fortune are the firmest foundations of weight in life and uniform greatness. If it should be agreeable to you to finish his education and mould these excellent materials into a settled character, I make no doubt that he will return to his family and country the very man our fondest hopes have fancied him.