Sir John's biographer quotes a passage from another letter of Smith in connection with his correspondent's financial studies. This letter--which Archdeacon Sinclair describes as a "holograph letter in six folio pages"--is no longer extant, but it concluded with the following remarks on the taxation of the necessaries and luxuries of the poor:-- I dislike all taxes that may affect the necessary expenses of the poor. They, according to circumstances, either oppress the people immediately subject to them, or are repaid with great interest by the rich, _i.e._ by their employers in the advanced wages of their labour. Taxes on the _luxuries_ of the poor, upon their beer and other spirituous liquors, for example, as long as they are so moderate as not to give much temptation to smuggling, I am so far from disapproving, that I look upon them as the best of sumptuary laws. I could write a volume upon the folly and the bad effects of all the legal encouragements that have been given either to the linen manufacture or to the fisheries.--I have the honour to be, with most sincere regard, my dear friend, most affectionately yours, ADAM SMITH.[303] FOOTNOTES: [295] Stewart's _Works_, x. 46. [296] _Ibid._, v. 256. [297] Mrs. Drummond is Lord Kames's wife. She had succeeded to the estate of her father, Mr. Drummond of Blair Drummond, and having along with her husband assumed her father's surname in addition to her own, was now Mrs. Home Drummond. It may perhaps be necessary to add that the title of a Scotch judge is not extended, even by courtesy, to his wife. [298] Sinclair's _Memoirs of Sir John Sinclair_, i. 36. [299] Smith, writing from memory and without the book at hand, makes a verbal mistake in the title. [300] Doubtless John Davidson, W.S., a well-known antiquary of the period, who is mentioned favourably in the preface to Robertson's _History of Scotland_ as a special authority on certain facts of the life of Mary Stuart. [301] Probably Lord Rosslyn, for Bentham, in writing to advise Lord Shelburne to procure a copy of this book, mentions that he knew Lord Rosslyn had a copy, which he had obtained from Mr. Anstruther, M.P., who happened to be in Paris when it was printed, and contrived to get a copy somehow there. [302] _Sir J. Sinclair's Correspondence_, i. 388. [303] Sinclair's _Life of Sir J. Sinclair_, i. 39. CHAPTER XXIII FREE TRADE FOR IRELAND 1779