It is not unlikely, too, that they may pay him very well for having refused it, and that even he may have had in view this compensation. Your whole friends here wish you not to write,—the Baron, D’Alembert, Madame Riccoboni, Mademoiselle Riancourt, M. Turgot, etc. etc. M. Turgot, a friend every way worthy of you, desired me to recommend this advice to you in a particular manner as his most earnest entreaty and opinion. He and I are both afraid that you are surrounded with evil counsellors, and that the advice of your English _literati_, who are themselves accustomed to publishing all their little gossiping stories in newspapers, may have too much influence upon you. Remember me to Mr. Walpole, and believe me to be with the most sincere affection, ever yours, Adam Smith.” Within six months Hume was sorry that he had not taken this sage advice, and blamed himself for the “Succinct Exposure,” which had been followed of course by a cloud of pamphlets. We must be careful not to suppose from this letter that Smith really had a mean opinion of Rousseau. He had reviewed with warm but discerning praise the second discourse on the _Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Mankind_; and in later days he spoke with reverential emotion of the author of the _Social Contract_. Smith was now anxious to return home. To Millar, his publisher, he wrote early in the autumn:—“Though I am very happy here, I long passionately to rejoin my old friends, and if I had once got fairly to your side of the water, I think I should never cross it again. Recommend the same sober way of thinking to Hume. He is light-hearted, tell him, when he talks of coming to spend the remainder of his days here or in France.” Their return was precipitated by a tragedy. Hew Scott, the Duke’s younger brother, a lad of nineteen, was assassinated in the streets of Paris on October 19th. Smith and the Duke almost immediately left Paris, and were in London at the beginning of November. “We returned,” wrote the Duke to Dugald Stewart, “after having spent near three years together without the slightest disagreement or coolness, and on my part with every advantage that could be expected from the society of such a man. We continued to live in friendship till the hour of his death.” Besides the substantial advantages of independence, Smith, as we learn from many of his contemporaries, had gained vastly in manner, address, and knowledge of the world. Much of his awkwardness had disappeared. In the bustle of travel and society, he almost forgot how to be absent-minded.