[Part V:] of the Laws of Nations

It is to be observed that the rules which nations ought to observe, or do observe with one another, cannot be treated so accurately as private or public law. We find the rules of property pretty exactly established in every nation. The extent of the sovereign’s power, as well as the duty of the subject, so far as justice is concerned, are pretty uniform everywhere. But with respect to the laws of nations, we can scarce mention any one regulation which is established with the common consent of all nations, and observed as such at all times. This must necessarily be the case, for where there is no supreme legislative power nor judge to settle differences, we may always expect uncertainty and irregularity.

The laws of nations are such as take place either in peace or war. Those that take place in times of peace have been formerly explained, where it was shown with respect to aliens that they are entitled to security as to their persons and effects, but that they have no power to make a will, but all goes to the sovereign at their death. The laws or rules observed in time of war shall be considered in the following order:

First, what is a just cause of war, or according to the Latin phrase, quando liceat bellare?

Secondly, what it is lawful for one nation to do to another in time of war, or quantum liceat in bello, and upon this head we shall consider the differences between the ancient and modern governments, and the great modifications of the latter.

Thirdly, what is due to neutral nations from the belligerent powers.

Fourthly, the rights of ambassadors between different nations.

First, quando liceat bellare? In general whatever is the foundation of a proper law suit before a court of justice may be a just occasion of war. The foundation of a law suit is the violation of some perfect right whose performance may be extorted by force, and is so extorted in a rude society, but in modern times is decided by the magistrate, lest the society should be disturbed by every one taking justice at his own hands. When one nation encroaches on the property of another, or puts to death the subjects of another, imprisons them, or refuses them justice when injured, the sovereign is bound to demand satisfaction for the offence, as it is the intention of the government to protect its several members from foreign enemies, and if redress be refused, there is a foundation for war. In the same manner breach of contract, as when a debt is due by one nation to another, and payment refused, is a very just occasion of war. If, for example, the king of Prussia should refuse to pay the money advanced for him by the British nation in the time of the last war, a declaration of war against him would be just and reasonable. Every offence of the sovereign of one country against the sovereign of another, or of the sovereign against the subject, or of the subject of one country against the subject of another, without giving reasonable satisfaction, may be the cause of a war.

There seems to be only one exception to the general rule, that everything that is the subject of a law suit may be a cause of war, and that is with respect to quasi-contracts. In this case, indeed, it is difficult to determine whether a war would be reasonable or not, and we find no instance of a war declared upon the violation of this right. It must be allowed that the introduction of quasi-contract was the highest stretch of equity, and except in the Roman law it was never perfected nor introduced. In England, if you repair a man’s house in his absence, you must trust to him for the payment of it, for you have no action by law. In the same manner, if a Russian do a piece of service to an English merchant, which, if he had not done, the merchant would have suffered extremely, and afterwards demand satisfaction for his trouble, if he be refused it and apply to the courts of justice, they will tell him that he must depend on the honour of the merchant for payment. Excepting this, everything which is the foundation of a proper law suit, will also make war just and reasonable.

[Second,] quantum liceat [in] bello? How far a nation may push the resentment of an injury against the nation which has injured them, is not easy to determine. The practice of ancient and modern nations differs extremely. In general, when an injury is clearly and distinctly done, or when it is plainly intended and satisfaction refused, resentment is necessary and just. There are a few cases in which it is lawful even without satisfaction being demanded. If a robber was plainly intending to kill you, it would be quite lawful in you to do all you could to prevent him. The injury is plain. In the same manner, when one nation seems to be conspiring against another, though it may have done no real injury, it is necessary that it should be obliged to declare its intentions, and to give security when this demand would not subject it to inconveniences. Though this satisfaction be not demanded, when the King of Prussia saw his dominions about to be overwhelmed by the Elector of Saxony and the Queen of Hungary, it was quite right in him to be beforehand with them, and to take possession of their territories, and nothing would have been more absurd than for him to have told them that he was going to attack them. On the other hand, if it be only a debt that is due, it would be as unreasonable to go to war without demanding satisfaction, and it is only upon the dilatory and evasive manner of giving satisfaction that a war in this case becomes lawful.

But to consider a little more particularly what is lawful in war, suppose a subject of any government is injured, they who have injured him become natural objects of resentment, and also the government which protects him if it refuse satisfaction, but the greater part of the nation is perfectly innocent, and knows nothing about the affair. In the late war with France, not one out of twenty, either of the French or us, knew anything of the offences done. Upon what principle or foundation of justice therefore do we take their goods from them, and distress them in all possible ways? This can by no means be founded upon justice and equity, properly so called, it must be upon necessity, which, indeed, in this case, is a part of justice.

Mr. Hutcheson indeed very ingeniously accounts for this, but if we examine his opinion thoroughly, we shall find that he has not built his reasoning on a proper foundation. Every nation, says he, maintains and supports the government for its own good. If the government commit any offence against a neighbouring sovereign or subject, and its own people continue to support and protect it, as it were, in it, they thereby become accessory and liable to punishment along with [it]. As by the Roman law, if any of those slaves which every private person kept for his own advantage, had done any damage to another, one of these two things was to be done, he must either keep the slave no longer, or pay the damage, in like manner a nation must either allow itself to be liable for the damages, or give up the government altogether. It is to be observed that in this reasoning, though excessively ingenious, the cases are not in the smallest degree parallel. A man can do with his slave as he pleases, he can either put him away, or pay what damages he has occasioned, but a nation in most cases can neither do the one nor the other. A government is often maintained, not for the nation’s preservation, but its own. It was never the doctrine of any public law that the subjects had a right to dispose of the sovereign, not even in England, where his right has been so much contested. How then comes it that a nation should be guilty of an injury which was not in its power?

The real cause why the whole nation is thought a reasonable object of resentment is that we do not feel for those at a distance as we do for those near us. We have been injured by France, our resentment rises against the whole nation instead of the government, and they, through a blind indiscriminating faculty natural to mankind, become the objects of an unreasonable resentment. In a war between France and us, a Dane would naturally enter into the same sentiments that we do, and would involve together without distinction both the guilty and the innocent. This is however quite contrary to the rules of justice, observed with regard to our own subjects. We would rather choose that ten guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer. Another cause is that it is often very difficult to get satisfaction from a subject or from a sovereign that may have offended. They are generally in the heart of the country, and perfectly well secured. If we could get at them no doubt they would be the first objects of our resentment, but as this is impossible, we must make reprisals some other way. We have suffered unjustly on account of our connexions, let them also suffer unjustly on account of theirs. In war there must always be the greatest injustice, but it is inevitable.

The practice of ancient and modern nations differs widely with regard to the length to which the outrages of war may be carried. Barbarians, if they do not kill those taken in war, may dispose of them as they please. As all who made war were considered as robbers and violators of the peace of society, such punishments were by no means thought inadequate. Even among the Romans, if the battering ram had once struck the walls, no agreement nor capitulation was allowed, but everything fell into the hands of the conquerors, and they were at liberty to use it as they pleased. So much was this the case in Cicero’s time that he represents it as the greatest stretch of humanity that a capitulation was allowed after the ram had once struck the walls. But though force and fraud were in former periods the great virtues of war, modern manners have come to a greater degree of refinement, both with respect to persons and effects. Captives in war are now by no means made slaves or liable to oppression: an officer is set free upon his parole or word of honour; and in the war between France and us, they generally treated our wounded prisoners better than their own wounded soldiers. Indeed, there is no nation that pushes this point of gallantry farther than we do. When the sixpence a day which was allowed the French prisoners at Edinburgh and elsewhere, was thought insufficient to maintain them on account of the diminution it sustained before it came to their hands by sub-contracts, &c., a collection of £10,000 was generously made for them. In general prisoners of war are now as well treated as other people.

In the same manner cartel treaties, by which soldiers and sailors are valued at so much, and exchanged at the end of every campaign, the nation which has lost most prisoners paying the balance, is an evidence of our refinement in humanity. In the late war indeed, we refused to enter into any such treaty with France for sailors, and by this wise regulation soon unmanned their navy, as we took a great many more than they. It was the want of humanity no doubt which rendered ancient towns so obstinate, for it was better to sustain the most terrible hardships than to surrender, but now the besieged know very well how they will be treated before they capitulate, and will run no great risk before they do so.

This superior degree of humanity was introduced during the time of Popery. We never find it among the Greeks and Romans, notwithstanding all their attainments. The Pope was considered as the common father of Christendom, the clergy were under his subjection, and he had intercourse by his legates with all the courts of Europe. By this they were more nearly connected, and he obliged them to treat one another with more humanity. The Holy War too, which at that time was undertaken by most of the princes in Europe, made them turn their arms against all those of a different religion, who they thought deserved to be treated in the most cruel manner, but when they came to be engaged in a war among themselves, as they had all been on one side in that common cause, and as they thought that Christians should not be treated in the same manner with infidels, a greater degree of humanity was introduced. From these causes, moderns behave differently from the ancients with regard to the persons of prisoners.

It is more from motives of policy than humanity that the effects of enemies are secured. When a French army invades Germany, the general makes a law that all the people who will live quietly, and do not rise against him, shall be secure in their persons and possessions, and he will punish a soldier as severely for injuring the peasants of his enemy’s country as those of his own. But this is not the case in a sea war. An admiral seizes and plunders all the merchant ships he can get. Many of the merchants have done as little harm as the peasants; why then this distinction? It is the interest of the general not to rob the peasants, because it would be difficult to march an army carrying all its provisions through the country of an enemy. But by engaging them to stay he is supplied without any other expedient. By this means war is so far from being a disadvantage in a well cultivated country, that many get rich by it. When the Netherlands is the seat of war all the peasants grow rich, for they pay no rent when the enemy are in the country, and provisions sell at a high rate. This is indeed at the expense of the landlords and better sort of people, who are generally ruined on such occasions. This is so much the case that all the poor people who are abroad, whenever they hear of a war, will not stay from their native country. It is quite otherways in a sea war. Every ship carries its own provisions, and has no dependence for them upon the ships which it meets.

Another cause of modern refinement is that courtesy, or rather gallantry, which takes place between hostile nations, by which even ambassadors are kept at their several courts. Anciently it was the greatest gallantry to kill the general of an army, but nothing could make a person more infamous at present than such a practice. When the king of France in person besieged a certain castle, the governor sent to know in what part of the camp the king lodged, that he might not cannonade it. The king of Prussia indeed did not grant the princes of Saxony this request, when they informed him where the royal tent stood, but this was because he was assured that the chief magazine was there. Now if there be any in a nation who have injured more than others, they are the king and generals. How comes it then that it is not now thought lawful to kill them as well as formerly? The plain reason is that monarchies, whose interest it always is to show respect to those in authority, set the example at present, but republics, whose interest lies in adopting the opposite maxim, formerly led the fashion.

The same policy which makes us not so apt to go to war makes us also more favourable than formerly, after an entire conquest. Anciently an enemy forfeited all his possessions, and was disposed of at the pleasure of the conquerors. It was on this account that the Romans had often to people a country anew, and sent out colonies. It is not so now, a conquered country in a manner only changes masters, they may be subjected to new taxes and other regulations, but need no new people. The conqueror generally allows them the possession of their religion and laws, which is a practice much better than the ancient. Modern armies too, are less irritated at one another, because fire arms keep them at a greater distance. When they always fought sword in hand, their rage and fury were raised to the highest pitch, and as they were mixed with one another the slaughter was vastly greater.

Third, we are next to show what is due to neutral nations from the belligerent powers.

The rule of justice with respect to neutral nations is, that as they have offended no party, they should suffer no injury. In a war between France and England the Dutch should have the liberty of trading to both countries, as in the time of peace, as they have injured neither party. Unless when they carry contraband goods, or are going to a town that is besieged, they can trade to any part of the country without molestation. A neutral bottom will not, however, protect the goods of the enemy, nor does the hostility of the bottom, so to speak, forfeit the goods of the neutral power. There is some difference between the practice of ancient and modern nations with respect to the ius postliminii, or the recovery of what was lost. The maxim in time of war anciently was, we are always in the right, and our enemies always in the wrong; whatever is taken from the enemy is justly taken, whatever is taken from us is unjustly taken. On this account, if a Carthaginian had sold to a Roman a Roman ship taken in war, the former owner, whenever he had an opportunity, took it back, as on the above principle it was unjustly taken from him. Now it is quite otherways; we consider everything done in war as just and equitable, and neither demand, nor would take back any captures made in it. If an English ship be taken by the French and sold to the Dutch, and come to a British harbour, the former owner pretends no claim to her, for he had lost all hopes of it when it had gone into the possession of the enemy.

It is to be observed that there is a very great difference in the conduct of belligerent nations towards one that is neutral, in a land war, from what [it] is in a sea war, which is more the effect of policy than humanity. When an army retreats, and the conqueror pursues into a neutral nation, unless it have power to hold out both, it becomes the seat of war, as is often the case, and little or no satisfaction is given for damages; but in a sea war, a ship taken from the most inconsiderable neutral power is always restored. The reason commonly assigned, that it injures their commerce more to take their ships than anything else, is unsatisfactory, for a land war hurts commerce more than it does. The real reason is that a small country has it not in its power to assert its neutrality in a land war, but the smallest is able to do it in a sea war. A small fort can oblige of the greatest nation to respect the neutrality of its harbour.

Four[th], we are in the last place to consider the rights of ambassadors between different nations.

When nations came to have a great deal of business one with another, it was found necessary to send messengers betwixt them, who were the first ambassadors. Anciently, as there was little commerce carried on between different nations, ambassadors were only sent on particular occasions, and were what we now call ambassadors extraordinary, who returned home after their business was transacted. We find nothing like resident ambassadors in Rome or Greece; their whole office was on particular occasions to conclude peace, make alliances, &c. The first time that resident ambassadors were employed, was in the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Ferdinand, King of Spain. Even the word ambassador comes from the Spanish verb, ambassare, to send. The Pope, indeed, from the earliest times had residents, or legates, at all the courts of Europe. The very same reason that makes embassies now so frequent, induced the Pope formerly to fall upon this method. He had business in all the countries of Europe, and a great part of his revenue was collected from them, and as they were continually attempting to infringe the right he claimed, he found it necessary to have a person constantly residing at their courts, to see that his privileges were preserved. The Pope from this custom derived several advantages.

When commerce was introduced into Europe, and the privileges of every country, with the duties payable on goods in another, were settled, the merchants of one country had constant claims on those of another. They themselves were strangers in those countries, and would very readily be injured, and oftener think themselves so. It became necessary, therefore, to have one of their countrymen constantly residing at the courts of different nations to protect the rights of his fellow-subjects. Anciently, as was observed, there was little intercourse with different nations, and therefore no occasion for resident ambassadors, but now, as there is something almost every day to adjust betwixt dealers, it is necessary that there should be some person of weight and authority who has access to the court, to prevent any occasion of quarrel betwixt them. We have already observed that it was Ferdinand of Spain who established this practice. At first it gave great jealousy to the neighbouring nations to keep ambassadors residing at their courts. He, indeed, pretended to have no right to do this, but by sending an ambassador upon a certain occasion, and starting different questions, he found means of keeping him there. This practice was soon imitated, and it immediately became the universal custom of the European princes, and was so far from being taken amiss that it was reckoned a great affront not to send one. Grotius, whose opinions are founded on the practice of ancient nations, declares against resident ambassadors, and calls them resident spies, but if he had lived in the present age, he would have found that extensive commerce renders it impossible to preserve peace a month, unless grievances be redressed by a man of authority, who knows the customs of the country, and is capable of explaining what injuries are really done. The custom of sending ambassadors preserves peace, and by giving intelligence, prevents one country from being invaded by another without timeous notice. When any kind of dispute happens and the ambassador is recalled, you can have intelligence by your communication with other courts, your ambassador there being informed, for ambassadors in general are acquainted with all the business in Europe.

Though one country might attain some kind of preeminence by the influence and assiduity of its ambassador, no attention was for a long time given to it, and that balance of power which has of late been so much talked of, was never then heard of. Every sovereign had enough to do within his own dominions, and could bestow little attention on foreign powers. Before the institution of residents they could have little intelligence, but ever since the beginning of the sixteenth century the nations of Europe were divided into two great alliances. On the one hand were England, Holland, Hungary, Muscovy, &c., on the other France, Spain, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, &c. In this manner a kind of alliance was kept up, sometimes one leaving the one side, and another joining it, as at present Prussia is with England, and Hungary on the other side. A system of this kind was established in Italy about [the] fifteenth century among the great families there. The resident ambassadors of these nations hinder any one country from domineering over another, either by sea or land, and are formed into a kind of council not unlike that of the Amphictyons in ancient Greece. They have power to advise and consult concerning matters, but not to determine any, and by combining together can threaten any one country pretending to superiority, or making an unreasonable demand. Post offices, too, are of great importance for procuring intelligence, as communication is open through all these countries, both in peace and war, which makes commerce easy, and gives notice of every movement.

An ambassador’s person must be sacred, and not subject to any of the courts of justice in the country where he resides. If he contract debts, or do any injury, a complaint must be made to his country. When the Dutch arrested the Russian ambassador in the year 1718, it was complained of as a violation of the laws of nations. The goods which an ambassador buys are not subject to any custom. As a sovereign would be exempted from taxes, so must his ambassador who represents him. When an ambassador makes any attempt to disturb the peace by entering into conspiracies or the like, he may be imprisoned. By way of compliment, and to keep up the dignity of an ambassador, his house is considered as an asylum for offenders. He must be cautious, however, of this privilege, and extend his authority only to the protection of debtors and small delinquents, for the right will be broken through if he harbour those guilty of capital crimes. The servants of ambassadors, too, are entitled to some considerable privileges; if indeed they have contracted debts, they may be arrested, but this is never done voluntarily.

All the words that signify those persons employed by one court at another are derived from the Spanish language. The Spanish court was then the most ceremonious in the world, and Spanish dress was everywhere affected. As ambassadors were obliged to keep up much ceremony, they were hindered in the prosecution of their business. A man that has to negociate matters of the highest importance could not allow so much time to be spent in the endless ceremony of paying and returning visits. Envoys were therefore sent, to whom less ceremony was due, and who could be addressed on any occasion; their dignity, too, soon advanced, and incapacitated them to transact business. As they continued for some time, they were called resident ambassadors ordinary, being of an inferior order to the ambassadors extraordinary. Below this rank is the minister, who resides in the country on account of his own business, and has power to transact any little business of the country to which he belongs.

A consul is a particular magistrate who is a judge of all matters relating to the merchants of his own country, and takes care to do them justice in those places where it may not be very accurately administered.

These are the names and offices of the several persons employed in the foreign affairs of the nation, occasioned by the introduction of commerce, and now become absolutely necessary.

Thus we have considered both the laws of nature and the laws of nations.

oxford: printed at the clarendon press

by horace hart, printer to the university

Vol. iii. pt. i. p. 61.

Essays on Philosophical Subjects by the late Adam Smith, LL.D., to which is prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Dugald Stewart, F.R.S.E. p. xv.

Biographical Memoirs of Adam Smith, LL.D., of William Robertson, D.D., and of Thomas Reid, D.D., read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Now collected into One Volume, with some Additional Notes, p. 12.

Dugald Stewart, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 131; in Adam Smith’s Essays, p. lxxxviii; in Biographical Memoirs, p. 109, note.

See Essays, pp. iii. iv., and Adam Smith’s will in Bonar, Catalogue of Adam Smith’s Library, pp. xvi, xvii.

P. W. Clayden, Early Life of Samuel Rogers, p. 167.

See his Historical View of the English Government, p. 528, and Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 43, 53.

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 61-63; Essays, pp. xvi-xviii; Biographical Memoirs, pp. 12-15.

Allan Maconochie, born 1748, called to the bar 1770, Professor of Public Law in the University of Edinburgh 1779, appointed to the bench with the title of Lord Meadowbank 1796, died 1816.

Alexander Maconochie, eldest son of the above, born 1777, called to the bar 1799, Solicitor-General 1813, Lord Advocate 1816, appointed to the bench with the title of Lord Meadowbank 1819, assumed the additional surname of Welwood 1854, died 1861.

Allan Alexander Maconochie-Welwood, eldest son of the above, born 1806, called to the bar 1829, Professor of Civil Law in the University of Glasgow 1842, died 1885.

Below, p. 181, .

MS. reads ‘me,’ evidently a copyist’s error.

P. 12, .

MS. reads ‘shop.’

P. 200.

P. 75, lines 8 to 32.

P. 76, line 19, ‘The reason,’ to p. 77, line 5, ‘her husband.’

Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 64. See Blair’s preface to Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 1783.

Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 46, 169.

Pp. 27, 32, 268, cf. p. 271.

P. 182, .

Red wheat is quoted at 33s.—35s. in the London Chronicle on Jan. 28, 1763, and at 33s.—36s. on Oct. 20 and 27, Nov. 3 and 10, 1763. The other weekly prices during the academical session of 1762-1763, and October to December, 1763, are somewhat lower.

P. 207.

Pp. 63-4.

The MS. usually spells ‘naturally,’ ‘generally,’ and similar words, with only one l, but occasionally they appear with two. ‘Woemen,’ ‘cannon law,’ ‘seperate,’ ‘arsine’ (arson) all occur. In a very few cases the incorrect or archaic spelling of the manuscript has been retained for special reasons. To alter ‘Puffendorf’ or ‘Wittenagemot,’ for example, seemed obviously undesirable. The Index too has been left unaltered except for the necessary adaptation of the numbers of the pages.

The manuscript of course has no head-lines at the top of the pages. It is always legible, except that ‘those’ is usually indistinguishable from ‘these.’

Below, p. 124.

‘Tout ce qu’il y a de vrai dans ce livre estimable, mais pénible à lire, en deux gros volumes in-4°, se trouve dans les Réflexions de Turgot sur la formation et la distribution des richesses; tout ce qu’Adam Smith y a ajouté manque d’exactitude et même de fondement.’ Quoted in Schelle, Du Pont de Nemours et l’École physiocratique, 1888, p. 159.

Ibid., loc. cit.

Schelle, Pourquoi les ‘Réflexions’ de Turgot ne sont-elles pas exactement connues? in the Journal des Économistes for July, 1888, pp. 3-5.

Catalogue of the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, pt. ii. 1776.

Catalogue of Adam Smith’s Library, 1894.

Professor Thorold Rogers, indeed, after stating in the preface to his edition of the Wealth of Nations, that ‘in the First Book, particularly, passages will be found which are almost transcripts from Turgot’s divisions and arguments’ (p. xxiii), quotes Turgot seven times in the notes to Book I. In one case (p. 14) the text bears a remote resemblance to the passage quoted from Turgot, but an infinitely closer resemblance to passages in earlier English writers quoted below, p. 162, . In the other six cases there is not the smallest resemblance between the text and the passage quoted.

The whole of this passage from the beginning of the paragraph reappears without much alteration in W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. pp. 12-14. Locke had said: ‘’Tis not barely the ploughman’s pains, the reaper’s and thresher’s toil, and the baker’s sweat [that] is to be counted into the bread we eat; the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being seed to be sown to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour.’ Civil Government, § 43. Mandeville had wondered ‘what a number of people, how many different trades, and what a variety of skill and tools must be employed’ to produce the ‘thick parish gown’ of the pauper (Fable of the Bees, pt. i. Remark P. 2nd ed., 1723, p. 182), and ‘what a bustle is there to be made in several parts of the world before a fine scarlet or crimson cloth can be produced, what multiplicity of trades and artificers must be employed! Not only such as are obvious, as wool-combers, spinners, the weaver, the cloth-worker, the scourer, the dyer, the setter, the drawer and the packer; but others that are more remote and might seem foreign to it, as the mill-wright, the pewterer, and the chemist, which yet are all necessary, as well as a great number of other handicrafts, to have the tools, utensils, and other implements belonging to the trades already named’ (ibid. ‘A Search into the Nature of Society,’ pp. 325, 326). A shorter reference to the number of operations requisite to provide a coat occurs in Harris, Essay of Money and Coins, pt. i. § 12.

Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 13, 14, 411.

W. of N. bk. ii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 318.

Tableau Oeconomique, by François Quesnay, 1894.

Below, p. 181.

In the Introduction to Book II, an attempt to combine the old and the new view is observable.

‘Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People.’

Cannan, History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848, 1893, p. 186.

Ibid. p. 188.

Appended to this Introduction (pp. xxxv-xxxix) is a table of parallel passages in the lectures and the Wealth of Nations. The total number of pages occupied in Rogers’ edition by each chapter are given in order to facilitate reference to other editions.

P. W. Clayden, Early Life of Samuel Rogers, p. 167.

He describes himself in 1787 as a regular attendant. Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 411.

Letter to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, first published in the Athenaeum, December 28, 1895, and reprinted in the Economic Journal, March, 1896, pp. 165, 166.

Moral Sentiments, ad fin.

Lib. ii. cap. i. § 2.

Neither the works of Heinrich, Freiherr von Cocceii, nor those of his son Samuel are wholly comprised in five folio volumes. The volumes referred to are probably Henrici de Cocceii sacrae regiae maiestati borussicae quondam a consiliis secretioribus Grotius illustratus, Wratislaviae, 1744, 1746, 1747 and 1752, 4 vols. folio, published with observations by Samuel Freiherr von Cocceii long after his father’s death, and Samuelis L. B. de Cocceii summi regni borussici cancellarii ministri status intimi . . . Introductio ad Henrici L. B. de Cocceii Grotium illustratum, Halae, 1748, 1 vol. folio. These and no other folio works of either author appear in the 1776 catalogue of the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library, and all except vol. iv of Grotius illustratus are in Bonar, Catalogue of Adam Smith’s Library. Dissertations X and XI in the Introductio deal with ‘some German systems,’ and the very lengthy Dissertation XII ‘treats of laws.’

The reference is to Roman or Scotch law, not English.

Scil. ‘involuntarily,’ i.e. if I find a man’s money and keep it till I discover the owner. See Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, 1747, p. 224.

E.g. Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, was published early in 1759 (see John Rae, Life of Adam Smith, 1895, pp. 141-146) in one octavo volume of 551 pages. This edition contains much less matter than the sixth (1790), which would occupy considerably more than 800 similar pages.

Moral Sentiments, 1759, pt. i. sect. 4. ch. ii. ‘Of the origin of ambition, and of the distinction of ranks.’

‘An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is generally disagreeable, and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us from heartily sympathizing with his joy.’ Moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 86. ‘Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.’ W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. p. 296.

The four things reappear in W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. pp. 294-6, and are there more fully treated.

Hume, ‘Of the Parties of Great Britain,’ ad init., Essays, 1741, pp. 119, 120.

Adam Smith’s master, Hutcheson, taught the doctrine. See his Introduction to Moral Philosophy, 1747, p. 285, and his posthumous System of Moral Philosophy, 1755, vol. ii. pp. 225 sqq.

‘These connexions are always conceived to be equally independent of our consent, in Persia and China; in France and Spain; and even in Holland and England wherever the doctrines above mentioned have not been carefully inculcated,’ Hume, ‘Of the Original Contract,’ Essays, 1748, p. 293.

‘Can we seriously say that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his own country when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day by the small wages he acquires? We may as well assert that a man by remaining in a vessel freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep.’ Hume, Essays, 1748, p. 299.

Viz. emigration coupled with renunciation of allegiance. Hume notices that colonists peopling an uninhabited region are still claimed by their sovereign. Essays, 1748, p. 300.

‘Yet is his allegiance, though more voluntary, much less expected or depended on than that of a natural born subject.’ Hume, Essays, 1748, p. 300.

See below, p. 65, .

‘In the first state of man, viz. that of hunting and fishing, there obviously is no place for government.’ Lord Kames, Historical Law Tracts, 1758, vol. i. p. 78 note. ‘Strictly speaking they [the aboriginal Americans] seem to have no government, no laws, and are only cemented by friendship and good neighbourhood.’ William Douglass, Summary, historical and political, of the first planting, progressive improvements, and present state of the British Settlements in North America, 1760, vol. i. p. 160. See W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. p. 274.

Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux mœurs des premiers temps, 1724, 4to, tom. i. p. 490 sqq.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. p. 297.

‘Government has no other end but the preservation of property.’ Locke, Civil Government, § 94. In W. of N. a qualification is introduced: ‘Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor’ (bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. p. 298).

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. pp. 294, 295.

‘La puissance législative’; ‘la puissance exécutrice’; ‘la puissance de juger.’ Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xi. ch. vi.

I.e. ‘of few kinds,’ not ‘infrequent.’ Cf. pp. 18, 19.

I.e. is not now dependent on the will of the accused.

Montesquieu attributes success in passing the ordeal of fire or boiling water to the callous nature of the skin of people accustomed to arms and labour. Esprit des lois, liv. xxviii. ch. xvii.

John Dalrymple, Essay towards a General History of Feudal Property in Great Britain, third edition, 1758, p. 312.

Brady, quoting from Tacitus, Germ. cap. 12, says, ‘Every one of these princes had a hundred of the common people their assessors, from whom they had advice and authority, which were called comites.’ Complete History of England, 1685, p. 55.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 3, art. 2, vol. ii. pp. 361, 362.

Douglass, British Settlements in North America, vol. i. p. 183, note.

Probably a reporter’s or copyist’s mistake for ‘Arabia.’ This paragraph reappears without important alteration in W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 1, vol. ii. pp. 275, 276.

Different reasons for the same proposition are given by Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xvii. ch. vi.

E.g. Iliad, I. 154, XI. 670.

The reporter may have omitted some qualifying phrase such as ‘to market’ or ‘in time of war.’

MS. reads ‘his’ after ‘become.’

It was the single ‘regent’ or archon who held office at first for life and afterwards for ten years; when his duties were divided among nine archons, the office became an annual one. The confusion in the text might easily be made by any one trying to follow John Potter, Archaeologia Graeca, 1706. The phrase ‘continued them in their government only for ten years’ occurs in that work, vol. i. p. 13.

Potter, Archaeologia Graeca, vol. i. pp. 14, 16.

Livy, Hist., lib. iv. cap. 25.

The word is used (as always by Adam Smith) in its old and more literal sense, not in its modern sense of ‘persons who employ others to make things by machinery.’

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 1, vol. ii. pp. 276-279.

Scil. ‘compared with those of Greek states.’

No siege of Athens of such long duration appears to be known to historians.

The facts are more shortly dealt with in W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 1, vol. ii. p. 290.

Suetonius, Nero, 15, sqq.; Domitianus, 8.

Enlistment or recruiting without leave or licence from the crown was felony under 9 Geo. II, cap. 30. In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, an act (29 Geo. II, cap. 17) was passed to prevent his Majesty’s subjects from serving as officers under the French king; for the better enforcing of the act 9 Geo. II, cap. 30; ‘and for obliging such of his Majesty’s subjects as shall accept commissions in the Scotch Brigade, in the service of the States General of the United Provinces, to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration.’

The term ‘Romans’ might be correctly applied to the Romanized population of Britain, but it is probably used here merely by mistake for ‘Britons,’ since a little lower down we find the phrase ‘the old inhabitants’ employed in the case of Gaul in order to avoid the ambiguity of ‘Romans.’

A mistake for ‘the patrician Aetius.’ An easily-made error in transcription will account for ‘Ælias.’ ‘Patricius’ may possibly be due to phrases in Jornandes De Getarum origine, such as ‘Ætius ergo Patricius tunc praeerat militibus fortissimorum Moesiorum stirpe progenitus’ (cap. 34), ‘tanta Patricii Ætii providentia fuit’ (cap. 36). Patricius, thus printed with a capital initial letter, as it is in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum scriptores, tom. i. pars i, might easily mislead any one who did not happen to be very familiar with the technical use of the term in the later Roman Empire. Aetius was later than Honorius. The influential barbarian under Honorius was Stilicho, whose name was very probably mentioned in the lecture and omitted by the reporter.

For a Frank 200 sous, for a Roman serf 45; Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxviii. ch. iii; liv. xxx. ch. xxv.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 413.

MS. reads ‘result.’

I.e. commune concilium totius regni (Spelman, English Works, 1723, pt. ii. p. 61), not ‘assembly composed of the whole people.’

Hume, History of England from Julius Caesar to Henry VII, 1762, vol. i. pp. 151, 152.

Hume, History of England from Julius Caesar to Henry VII, 1762, vol. i. p. 399.

Reference to Smith’s authority shows that the plural ‘feuda’ is correct in spite of the context properly requiring the singular. Dalrymple, in his Feudal Property, pp. 198, 199, says that when the grants of land were held at will they ‘were properly called Munera. . . . Soon afterwards they were granted for life, and they were then called Beneficia. . . . But . . . it was accounted hard, after the father’s death, that the sons should not have the possession of what they had formerly had a share in the enjoyment of; it occurred likewise readily to superiors that a man would venture himself less in battle, when the loss of his life was to be attended with the ruin of his family; from these considerations the grants were extended to the vassal and his sons; and they were then, and not till then, properly styled Feuda.’

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, pp. 44, 45.

Ibid. pp. 45-47.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, pp. 49-59.

Ibid. pp. 66-67.

This should, of course, read ‘for redeeming him when taken prisoner, or on the knighting of his eldest son.’

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 61.

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. i. p. 400.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 414.

Canmore.

Lord Kames, Essays upon British Antiquities, 1747, pp. 11-17; Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 25.

MS. reads ‘them’ between ‘held’ and ‘of them.’

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. i. p. 404.

This is ascribed to Henry II, probably only because it is mentioned in Glanvill, De legibus Angliae, lib. v. cap. 5. Brady, Complete History of England, pref. p. xxvii, quotes from Glanvill. In W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iii. vol. i. p. 405, the phrase is ‘at that time.’

Madox, Firma burgi, ch. i. § 8, pp. 21-23.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iii. vol. i. p. 400.

‘King John’ appears to be a mistake for ‘Henry III,’ the reference apparently being to the Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. III, cap. 6, ‘As touching lords which marry those that they have in ward to villains or other, as burgesses, where they be disparaged . . . the lord shall lose the wardship.’

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, pp. 325, 326, says that Domesday shows that there were 700 immediate vassals of the crown in the time of the Conqueror, and then mentions that ‘all who held of the king in capite sat in parliament.’ Cp. Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. i. p. 407.

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. p. 88.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iii. vol. i. p. 404.

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. pp. 92, 93; Carte, History of England, 1750, vol. ii. p. 451.

I.e. ownerless; a Scotch form of ‘waif.’

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. p. 88.

‘Forty thousand’ is probably a mistake for the thirty thousand mentioned in W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 411. See Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. pp. 361, 362.

Andrew Fletcher, Political Works, 1737, pp. 11-16; Hume, History of England under the House of Tudor, 1759, vol. i. p. 63.

In W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 508, the whole of this argument is rather contemptuously rejected.

4 Hen. VII. c. 24; Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 166; Hume, History of England under the House of Tudor, vol. i. p. 63.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 168; Hume, History of England under the House of Tudor, vol. ii. p. 729.

MS. reads ‘120,000.’

At the Restoration, Rapin, History of England, translated by Tindal, 1743, vol. ii. p. 621.

In addition to the annual malt-tax mentioned under the second head, there was a perpetual malt-tax.

I.e. the surplus remaining after the interest on the debt has been paid out of the produce of the mortgaged taxes. See Thos. Mortimer, Every Man his own Broker, fifth edition, 1762, pp. 205-207.

This should read, ‘cannot stay the proceedings by pardoning them.’

Twenty days is the outside limit. The same mistake occurs again below, Div. iii. § 11.

It was the rule to finish every criminal trial on the day on which it began; Lecky, History of England, vol. vi. 1887, p. 252.

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. p. 122.

Hume, History of England (Caesar to Henry VII), vol. ii. p. 68; but the amount should be 100,000 marks.

There is some confusion or omission, as the process described is that followed under a ‘bill of Middlesex,’ not a ‘writ of error.’

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. 2, vol. ii. pp. 302, 303.

This should be ‘Edward I.’

Stat. Westm. II, 13 Ed. I. cap. 24; Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 316.

The reporter’s or copyist’s mistake for some other word, possibly ‘deceits.’

Scotch term for the accused.

This and the preceding sentence appear hopelessly corrupt.

Gilbert, Treatise on the Court of Exchequer, 1758, p. 8.

MS. reads ‘retains.’

Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 241; Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. v. § 19; Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. vii. cap. ii. § 18.

According to Marcianus (in Digest. lib. xlviii. tit. iv. 5), ‘non contrahit crimen maiestatis qui statuas Caesaris vetustate corruptas reficit, nec qui, lapide iactato incerto, fortuito statuam attigerit, crimen maiestatis commisit; et ita Severus et Antoninus Iulio Cassiano rescripserunt.’ It is natural to infer that it was treason to throw a stone at the emperor’s statue on purpose.

Cod. lib. ix. tit. viii. 5.

I.e. by 25 Ed. III. st. 5. cap. 2.

Compassing or imagining the death of the king or queen, or of their eldest son.

Eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king’s eldest son.

Under 25 Ed. III, st. 5. cap. 2, it was high treason to take, not merely to attempt, the life of a judge on the bench. Adam Smith may have had authority for believing that before that statute an attempt was high treason, in which case ‘taking’ should be read for ‘attempting’ and ‘Edward III’ for ‘Edward I, however.’

Men convicted were drawn and hanged, but not disembowelled and quartered. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, 3rd ed. 1762, bk. ii. ch. xlviii. § 4.

Under 13 Eliz. cap. 2, it was high treason to introduce a bull, but to bring in or receive an agnus dei only subjected offenders to the pains of praemunire. Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xvii. § 75; ch. xix. § 24.

It was treason under 27 Eliz. cap. 2, for a lay person to remain at a foreign popish seminary in defiance of a proclamation; but only praemunire to send money to such seminaries. Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xvii. § 80; ch. xix. § 26.

Concealment of popish priests was only punishable by fine and imprisonment under 27 Eliz. cap. 2; but the offence is dealt with in Hawkins’ chapter on high treason, P. C. bk. i. ch. xvii. § 81.

‘Speak’ should be ‘write or print.’ Mere speaking was only praemunire (4 Ann. cap. 8; and 6 Ann. cap. 7). Both offences are dealt with in Hawkins’ chapter on high treason, § 85.

7 Ann. cap. 21, § 3.

A mistake for ‘his wife her dower.’

Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xviii.

7 Ann. cap. 25.

An erroneous inference from an incorrect statement in Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xviii. § 2. Though still prohibited, exportation had not been felony since 1573. See Hale, History of the Pleas of the Crown, 1736, vol. i. pp. 654-656.

18 & 19 Car. II. cap. 5.

By 15 Car. II. cap. 7, exportation of foreign bullion was permitted. English coin was then melted down into ingots resembling Spanish ingots. This practice was forbidden under a penalty of £500, by 6 & 7 Will. III. cap. 17, which is probably the act referred to. It does not declare the practice felony, but it is included in Hawkins’ chapter on ‘Felonies against the King,’ P. C. bk. i. ch. xviii. §§ 1-3.

5 Hen. IV. c. 4; repealed however by 1 W. & M. cap. 30.

31 Eliz. cap. 4.

3 Hen. VII. cap. 14, and 9 Ann. cap. 16.

‘Touching the etymology of this word (Praemunire) thus affirmeth Sir Tho. Smith, “that it is so-called of Praemuniting and fortifying and strengthening the Crown by the former statutes, against the usurpation of foreign and unnatural power:” which opinion may receive some ground from the statute an. 25 Ed. III, Stat. 6. c. 1; or to grow from the verb praemonere, that is to forewarn, as it were a forewarning to any, lest he fall by such attempt into a Praemunire, being barbarously turned for praemonere, which corruption is taken from the rude interpreters of the civil and canon laws, who indeed do use the effect (Praemunire) many times for the efficient cause (Praemonere) according to our proverb: He that is well warned, is half armed. And of this I gather reason from the form of a writ, which is thus conceived in the Old Nat. Br. fol. 143. Praemunire facias praedictum praepositum, et I. R. procuratorem, &c., quod tunc sint coram nobis, &c. For these words can be referred to none but parties charged with the offence.’ Minshaeus, The Guide into Tongues, 1626, p. 572. Coke, Inst. pt. iii. ch. 53 says he that is praemonitus is praemunitus.’

Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xix. § 23; cf. ch. xvii. § 72.

A mistake for ‘negative.’ Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xx. §§ 1-6.

A mistake for ‘positive.’ Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xx. § 7.

This is altogether erroneous. Under 1 Mar. sess. 2. cap. 6, it was high treason to forge any foreign coin current by consent of the crown; and under 14 Eliz. cap. 3, it was misprision of treason to forge foreign coin which was not current. Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xvii. § 59; ch. xx. § 7.

Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xxi. ad init.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. xxi. §§ 1-15.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. xxii.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. xxiii.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. xxiv.

Either ‘sufficient security’ (13 & 14 Car. II. cap. 12) or a certificate from the parish where he was last legally settled (8 & 9 W. III. cap. 30), W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. vol. i. pp. 146, 147.

MS. reads ‘estates.’

‘Si cum gente aliqua neque amicitiam, neque hospitium, neque foedus amicitiae causa factum habemus, hi hostes quidem non sunt; quod autem ex nostro ad eos pervenit, illorum fit, et liber homo noster ab iis captus servus fit et eorum. Idemque est, si ab illis ad nos aliquid perveniat.’ Pomponius in Digest. lib. xlix. tit. xv. 5. The words are quoted in Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xv. § 5, but neither Grotius nor Cocceius mention Pomponius or give the reference to the Digest. Montesquieu (Esprit des lois, liv. xxi. chap. 14) however, in quoting the passage, attributes it to Pomponius, and gives the reference as ‘Leg. 5, § 2, ff. de capitivis,’ which may account for the phrase ‘a law of Pomponius.’

‘Ipsa vox hostis veteri Latio nihil nisi externum significabat.’ Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xv. § 15.

The Litchfield was wrecked on 29 Nov. 1758, and the crew were ransomed for 225,000 hard dollars in April 1760. See Gentleman’s Magazine, 1760, pp. 200, 391; and 1761, pp. 359-63.

I.e. the nations mentioned a few lines higher up.

The judges decided that a merchant might hold a lease of a house. Coke, Littleton, 2 b. The ‘particular statute’ is 32 Hen. VIII. c. 16, which prohibits a ‘tradesman’ (i.e., as usual in Adam Smith, an artificer or handicraftsman) from holding a lease of a house. The ‘whimsical principle’ is enunciated in the preamble, which denounces the ‘infinite number of strangers and aliens of foreign countries and nations which daily do increase and multiply within his grace’s realm and dominions in excessive numbers, to the great detriment, hindrance, loss and impoverishment of his grace’s natural true lieges and subjects of this his realm, and to the great decay of the same.’

The act, which has been already somewhat obscurely referred to on p. 13 above, is 1 Geo. I. cap. 4, which provides that ‘no person shall hereafter be naturalised unless in the bill exhibited for that purpose there be a clause or particular words inserted to declare that such person shall not thereby be enabled to be of the privy council, or a member of either house of parliament, or to take any office or place of trust either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the crown to himself or to any other person in trust for him; and that no bill of naturalisation shall hereafter be received in either house of parliament, unless such clause or words be first inserted or contained therein.’ The provision was often repealed by special act (see Hargrave’s Coke upon Littleton, 1788, p. 129 a. note).

A mistake as regards alien friends in England (see Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. i. p. 372). Matthew Bacon in his New Abridgement of the Law, 1736, which Adam Smith possibly followed in this account of aliens, says nothing about the matter, s.v. ‘aliens.’ As to Germany, Vattel, Droit des gens, 1758, liv. ii. ch. viii. § 112, does not clearly decide the point.

‘Le droit d’aubaine est établi en Saxe; mais le souverain juste et équitable n’en fait usage que contre les nations qui y assujetissent les Saxons.’ Vattel, Droit des gens, liv. ii. ch. viii. § 112.

The spelling of the MS. is preserved here and ten lines lower down, as it apparently represents a careful though unsuccessful attempt to reproduce law-French. Elsewhere in the MS., ‘enemy’ is spelt in the ordinary way.

Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxviii. ch. xxvii.

The particular information contained in this sentence appears to be taken from Florus, Epitome rerum Romanarum, lib. iv. cap. xii. 30-38. It is not all to be found either in Tacitus or in Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xix. ch. ii, where the Germans’ saying to the Roman advocates, ‘Viper, cease to hiss,’ is erroneously attributed to Tacitus instead of Florus.

Locke, Civil Government, §§ 138-140, as quoted by Hume, ‘Of the Original Contract,’ Essays, 1748, p. 307.

E.g. Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. viii. cap. v. § 9; Cocceius on Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. i. cap. iii. § 12; Vattel, Droit des gens, liv. i. ch. i. § 17; Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 297-299.

See below, p. 118.

A slip for ‘Bill of Rights.’

He ‘sullenly told them that for the future he would not do them the honour to ask their advice.’ Rapin, History of England, transl. by Tindal, vol. ii. p. 768. But the rest of the account of the causes of the Revolution appears to be founded on Burnet, History of his Own Time, vol. i. pp. 621-714, rather than Rapin.

Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 149.

Locke, Civil Government, §§ 79, 80; Hume, ‘Of Polygamy and Divorces,’ Essays, 1748, p. 249.

Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 257; System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 150, 161.

Scil. ‘to exercise the power of divorce.’ Heineccius, Antiquitatum Romanarum iurisprudentiam illustrantium syntagma (in Opera omnia, 1744-8, vol. iv), lib. i. adp. § 45; Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xvi. ch. xvi.

Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages amériquains, tom. i. p. 477.

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. x. § 1.

MS. reads ‘exemption’ here and below, p. 79.

‘Deductio domi’ should be ‘deductio in domum.’ This was an incident of all kinds of marriage. The ‘new kind of marriage’ is thus described by Heineccius: ‘Si itaque uxor nollet in manum convenire: instrumenta quidem dotalia conficiebantur, et domum deducebatur, sed dabat illa operam ut saltim tres noctes a marito abesset.’ Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. x. § 14.

Perhaps a rash inference from Heineccius’ statement, ‘Contracto sine uno horum rituum matrimonio, uxor non conveniebat in manum mariti, neque adeo fiebat materfamilias, sed matrona.’ Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. x. § 14.

‘Nobiles feminae non consulum numero sed maritorum annos suos computant.’ Seneca, De benef. lib. iii. cap. xvi, quoted in Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. adp. § 46.

The text appears to be corrupt. It should perhaps read, ‘It is to be observed that the laws made by clergymen are not altogether unfavourable to women. They considered the infidelity of the husband and wife were to be equally punished; he had no more power to divorce than she.’ Cp. Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxvi. ch. viii.

MS. reads ‘exemption’ as on p. 76 above.

See above, p. 77, .

MS. reads ‘contractu presenti.’

The report is unduly condensed. What ‘the late Marriage Act’ (26 Geo. II. cap. 33) did was to make contracts of matrimony no longer enforceable in the ecclesiastical courts.

MS. reads ‘laws.’

MS. reads ‘he.’

Relation d’un voyage du Levant, 1718, tom. ii. pp. 27, 28, quoted in Hume, ‘Of Polygamy and Divorces,’ Essays, 1748, p.253.

Esprit des lois, liv. xvi. ch. iv; liv. xxiii. ch. xii.

Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xvi. ch. iv. note (b), quotes from Kaempfer, History of Japan (transl. by J. G. Scheuchzer, 1727, p. 199), an enumeration of 182,072 males and 223,573 females, and gives ‘le voyage de Guinée de M. Smith, partie seconde, sur le pays d’Anté’ as his authority for the statement that more girls than boys are born in Africa. He does not refer to ‘Dutch authors’ nor give the figures 50 to 1. But, as is remarked by J. Green, the editor of A new general collection of Voyages and Travels, 1745-7, vol. ii. p. 464, much of William Smith’s New Voyage to Guinea, 1744, is taken from Bosman, New and accurate description of the Coast of Guinea, 1705, a work originally written in Dutch. Bosman (pp. 211, 344) and Smith (pp. 200, 224) following him, say that the women continue longest unmarried because their number greatly exceeds that of the men, and also that men commonly have forty or fifty wives. These two statements taken together would justify any one in concluding that there must be about fifty women to one man. It is true that they do not apply to exactly the same part of the Gold Coast; but minute accuracy in ridiculing travellers’ tales would not appear necessary to Adam Smith.

Montesquieu fails to distinguish between the proportion of males to females born, and the proportion of males to females living. In the text above the two things are kept separate. The remarks about Guinea and Japan refer to persons living, the ‘thirteen men to twelve women, or seventeen to sixteen’ refer to persons born, and ‘the number’ to the number living. Dr. John Arbuthnot, whom Montesquieu quotes as an authority for the statement that the number of boys born in England exceeds that of girls, gave some London statistics on the subject in Philosophical Transactions, 1710, pp. 186-90, and remarked that the greater number of boys was necessary in order to make up for their greater liability to ‘external accidents’ in consequence of their having to ‘seek their food with danger.’

MS. reads ‘30,’ which is inconsistent with the context and Esprit des lois, liv. xvi. ch. ii: ‘Les femmes sont nubiles dans les climats chauds à huit, neuf et dix ans: ainsi l’enfance et le mariage y vont presque toujours ensemble. Elles sont vieilles à vingt: la raison ne se trouve jamais chez elles avec la beauté.’

A free translation from the first paragraph of Esprit des lois, liv. xvi. ch. ii.

I.e. the custom of the people in the warm climates spoken of by Montesquieu.

Villani says that Constance of Sicily was ‘d’anni 50 o più’ at the birth of Frederick II (Historie Fiorentine, lib. v. cap. xvi. in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum scriptores, tom. xiii. p. 140 B). Possibly ‘fifty-four’ is a reporter’s mistake for ‘fifty or more.’

That girls are married at an early age, and become old and withered at twenty.

This should obviously read either ‘in her power’ or ‘in the power of each.’

Of Rome.

Scil. ‘for her life.’

A mistake for ‘dower.’

Of course with the qualification indicated in above as regards land, and with the qualification ‘if there be children’ as regards personal estate, since if there are no children the widow takes half.

Rather, ‘heirs.’

The argument is the same as that of Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxvi. ch. xiv.

Uterine.

‘Habebat in matrimonio sororem suam germanam nomine Elpinicem, non magis amore quam patria more ductus, nam Atheniensibus licet eodem patre natas uxores ducere.’ Cornelius Nepos, Cimon.

This was decided in 1669 in the case of Thomas Harrison and Jane Abbot. Vaughan, Reports, pp. 206-250.

A mistake for ‘consanguinity’ or ‘consanguinity and affinity.’

Doubtless owing to a slip on the part of the lecturer, ‘canon’ and ‘civil’ have changed places throughout this exposition of the two different methods of computing the degrees of relationship. The case is exactly the opposite of what is stated in the text.

Scil. ‘if he die childless.’

See above, p. 86 and notes.

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. x. §§ 23-28.

A free rendering of ‘decuriones.’

‘Quum enim naturales liberi non essent in patria potestate sed sui iuris, poterant profecto a parente naturali adrogari.’ Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. x. § 27.

Presumably in 1235-6, when the earls and barons refused the request of the bishops that the law should be altered. Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. III. cap. 9.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. viii. vol. i. p. 76.

Dion. Hal. Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. cap. xxvii. quoted in Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. ix. § 6.

Digest. lib. xxiii. tit. ii. cap. 19.

MS. reads ‘& has’ for ‘to have,’ but ‘has’ is written over ‘have.’

‘The late resolution of the quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their negro slaves may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great.’ W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 391.

This story is to be found in Seneca, De ira, lib. iii. cap. 40, and in Dio Cassius, Hist. lib. liv. cap. 23, but neither of these authorities says that all Pollio’s slaves were manumitted. Seneca says, ‘Motus est novitate crudelitatis Caesar et illum quidem mitti, crystallina autem omnia coram se fringi iussit, complerique piscinam.’ Dio Cassius says nothing of manumission. After describing the destruction of Pollio’s valuable goblets, his account of the matter, in the words of the Latin translation probably used by Adam Smith (ed. H. S. Reimarus, 2 vols. fol. Hamburg, 1750-2), proceeds, ‘Quod visum etsi indigne ferebat Vedius, quia tamen neque propter unicum poculum, respectu tantae eorum, quae perierant, multitudinis, amplius irasci, neque poenas eius rei quam et Augustus fecisset, a servo exigere poterat, vel invitus conquievit.’ In W. of N. bk. iv. chap. vii. pt. 2, vol. ii. p. 168, Vedius is said to have been commanded ‘to emancipate immediately not only that slave, but all the others that belonged to him,’ so that the mistake cannot be ascribed to the reporter.

Scil. ‘at Rome’; ‘a house’ should be ‘his house.’ Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 174, quotes a case from Tacitus, Ann. lib. xiv. cap. 42-45, where four hundred slaves were put to death.

Seneca, as quoted by Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, pp. 164, 165, mentions the case of a man who turns night into day, so that regularly about the third hour of the night, his neighbours hear the noise of whips and lashes. ‘This is not remarked,’ says Hume, ‘as an instance of cruelty, but only of disorder, which, even in actions the most usual and methodical, changes the fixed hours that an established custom had assigned for them.’

‘A chained slave for a porter was usual in Rome, as appears from Ovid and other authors:’ Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 164. The reference is to Amor. lib. i. eleg. 6, ‘Ianitor (indignum!) dura religate catena.’

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. i. tit. iii. § 8 n: ‘Sic et ruri quidam vincti faciebant opus; Columella, De re rust. I. ult.; Plin. Hist. nat. xviii. 3; Seneca, De benef. vii. 10’. ‘Manured’ is of course used in its old sense of ‘cultivated.’

In the Tiber: Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 163.

Ibid. p. 223.

Kalm, En Resa til Norra America, 1753-61, tom. ii. (1756), p. 480, makes a statement to this effect, but his work was not translated into English till 1770-71. Adam Smith may however have come across a quotation from the German version (1754-1764).

Humane.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. viii. vol. i. p. 85.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 393.

I.e. the half of the product which the tenants used to hand over to the landlord, and now kept for themselves in addition to the other half, was of more value to them than any money rent they were likely to pay instead of it.

In W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 393, Alexander III is mentioned as the author of a bull for the general emancipation of slaves.

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. chs. xli, xlii.

Ibid. ch. xliii, under 1 Jac. I. cap. 11.

MS. reads ‘punishes.’

Hawkins, P.C. bk. i. ch. xxxii, bk. ii. ch. xlviii. § 6. This was nominally the woman’s punishment in all cases of treason, but the practice was to strangle her before burning her. See Lecky, History of England, vol. i. p. 506.

‘His’ should be ‘her,’ since ‘the same is the punishment’ would of course only be true if the servant was a woman. A man-servant’s punishment was to be drawn and hanged (see Hawkins, P. C. bk. ii. ch. xlviii. § 5). ‘Or makes an attempt’ is simply erroneous. Hawkins, P. C. bk. i. ch. xxxii.

Instit. lib. ii. tit. i. § 13. Cp. Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 154; Locke, Civil Government, § 30; Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. vi. § 10.

Instit. lib. ii. tit. i. § 15.

Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. iv. § 6.

Locke, Civil Government, § 38, of Abraham: Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 91, of North America.

The reference is to salmon fishing in Scotland: MacDouall, Institute of the Laws of Scotland, 1751-3, vol. i. p. 574.

Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. vii. § 12.

‘Nihil tritius ea sententia nemo debet ex alterius damno lucrum capere.’ Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. xiii. § 6.

‘Res ergo immobiles Romae biennio, mobiles anno usucapiebantur. Sed Iustinianus . . . res . . . immobiles inter praesentes decennio, inter absentes vicennio usucapi voluit.’ Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. tit. vi. §§ 2, 9.

I.e. kings seldom allow their claims ever to prescribe.

E.g. Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. vii. § 3, and Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. xi. § 1.

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. tit. x. § 5.

‘Veteres Romani in successione intestatorum non id agebant ut heredes essent, quos defunctus reliquis cariores habuisse videretur, (quod principium postea Iustiniano placuit) sed ut facultates penes familiam manerent.’ Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. iii. tit. i. § 1.

Ibid. § 6.

MS. reads ‘wives.’

The meaning of this possibly corrupt passage is not easy to conjecture.

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. iii. tit. iii.

Ibid. lib. ii. tit. ix. § 2.

Ibid. lib. iii. tit. ii. § 3.

To the ‘gentiles’ or members of the clan; ibid. § 7.

Ibid tit. v. § 5.

I.e. Scotch.

Cp. above, p. 35.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 33.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iv. vol. i. pp. 413, 414, where, however, the jurisdiction is said to be allodial, not feudal.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 199. See above, p. 37, n. 2.

This paragraph is a summary of pp. 36-39 above.

‘Non minus agitatum etiam bellis et pugnis singularibus, an nepos ex filio priore filio posteriori sit praeferendus.’ Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. vii. § 30.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, pp. 229-231.

‘Conquest that falls to the heir of conquest is all heritable rights whereupon infeftment did or might follow, acquired by the deceased upon singular titles, i.e. to which he did not succeed as heir praeceptione hereditatis or otherwise.’ MacDouall, Institute of the Laws of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 297.

This sentence is evidently corrupt. See Craig, Ius feudale, ed. J. Baillie, 1732, pp. 334-336.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 386-389.

Ibid. p. 388.

It is not Pufendorf but Leibnitz, quoted by him (De iure naturae et gentium, lib. iv. cap. x. § 4), who gives this explanation. Pufendorf says ‘quod autem comminiscitur auctor novae methodi iurisprudentiae p. m. 56 id nescio an cordati sint adprobaturi.’

Lord Kames, Law Tracts, vol. i. pp. 186-7; Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 152; Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. tit. x. § 2.

Dalrymple, Feudal Property, p. 154.

Above, p. 113.

This too absolute assertion is probably a rash inference from Dalrymple’s history of the alienation of land-property by will in Feudal Property, ch. iii. sect. 3, pp. 149-162.

A mistake. The pupil must be a descendant in the power of the testator.

MS. reads ‘popular succession.’

Above, p. 77.

Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. tit. xxiii. §§ 2-4.

MS. reads ‘for.’

The Roman origin of entails is denied in W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 388.

MS. reads ‘Theodosius Valentinus.’ It is difficult to account for the statement in the text, which exaggerates enormously the powers of the ecclesiastics. Justinian considered it manifestly absurd that they should attempt to meddle with wills; Cod. lib. i. tit. iii. § 40 (41).

Perhaps a rash inference from statements to the effect that anciently the probate of wills was in the county court, where the bishop and sheriff sat together, and that William the Conqueror divided the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction: see Bacon, New Abridgement of the Law, s.v. Courts ecclesiastical, vol. i. p. 618.

I.e. Scotland.

Stat. Westm. II, 13 Ed. I. cap. i. De donis conditionalibus.

‘In the present state of Europe . . . nothing can be more completely absurd [than entails]. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died perhaps 500 years ago.’ W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 388. ‘Absurd’ occurs twice, as in the text above.

De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. viii. § 25.

Scil. ‘in the same county.’

This should probably read ‘as the feoffment and giving livery was anciently done in presence of the county court.’ See Bacon, Abridgement, s.v. Feoffment, vol. ii. p. 492; Coke, Littleton, p. 253 a.

In Scotland. The ‘late statute’ is 20 Geo. II. cap. 50.

Of the Lancastrians and Yorkists.

By a slip of the lecturer or the reporter, ‘directum’ and ‘utile’ have been transposed. The text should read ‘the dominium utile, not the dominium directum.’ Dalrymple, Feudal Property, pp. 200, 238.

Bacon, Abridgement, s.v. Bailment, vol. i. p. 239.

I.e. the practice of the courts. Bacon, Abridgement, vol. iii. p. 654.

MS. erroneously reads ‘not’ here.

No such case appears to have occurred in 1701. In 1677, however, a case (King’s Advocate v. Rankin) was tried which is possibly the one referred to. The frigate Nightingale pursued a Dutch privateer which was taking home three French prizes (England and France being then in alliance against Holland). When she returned from the pursuit, she found that Rankin, in command of a Scotch privateer, had captured one of the prizes. The court held that Rankin’s action was injurious ‘otherways than to assist the first attacter, unless it had been proven that the prize would have escaped’ if he had not stopped her. W. M. Morison, Decisions of the Court of Session, 1811, pp. 11930-11936.

This appears to be an exaggerated or misreported account of the old rule, ‘that wherever a defendant is under a moral obligation, or is liable in conscience and equity to pay, that is a sufficient consideration.’ Cowper, Reports, p. 294. So a man may make himself liable for otherwise irrecoverable debts contracted when he was a minor, and a liability barred by the statute of limitations may be similarly revived.

Bacon, Abridgement, s.v. Execution, vol. ii. pp. 330-332.

Instit. lib. iii. tit. xiv.

‘Nuda pactio obligationem non parit, sed parit exceptionem.’ Digest, lib. ii. tit. xiv. § 7.

‘No contracts were’ should be ‘some cases of breach of faith were not.’

MS. reads ‘common.’

Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. vii. § 6.

The date in the MS. is not clearly written and might be 1703, 1705, or 1706. The probability is that the reference is to the recoinage of 1708-9 mentioned in Melon, Essai politique sur le commerce, 1734 (in Daire’s Économistes financiers, p. 721), and Dutot, Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, 1738 (in the same collection, p. 797), though on that occasion the augmentation was only 25 per cent.

See below, Part ii. Div. ii. § 8.

‘Nam qui solvendi animo pecuniam dat, in hoc dare videtur, ut distrahat potius negotium quam contrahat.’ Instit. lib. iii. tit. xxvii. § 6.

13 and 14 Car. II. cap. 18.

The preamble of 7 and 8 W. III. cap. 28, quoted in W. of N. bk. iv. ch. viii. vol. ii. p. 232, says that owing to the severity of the penalty under 13 and 14 Car. II. cap. 18, ‘the prosecution of offenders hath not been so effectually put in execution.’

Lafitau, Mœurs des sauvages Amériquains, tom. i. pp. 486, 487, 490. See above, p. 15.

‘Appeal is a word used in our law for the removal of a cause from an inferior court or judge to a superior; but more commonly for the accusation of a murderer, by a party who had interest in the person killed, or of a felon by one of his accomplices.’ G. Jacob, New Law Dictionary, 8th ed. 1762, s.v. Appeal.

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. ii. ch. xxiii. §§ 36-43.

Ibid. §§ 103-125.

Jacob, New Law Dictionary (s.v. Appeal of Robbery), says, ‘Appeals of rape and robbery are now much out of use, but the appeal of murder still continues, and is often brought.’

MS. reads ‘felony and.’

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. chs. xxviii-xxxi.

‘As by intended homicide we mean not only that which is premeditated and the consequence of malice preconceived, but also that which is instantly conceived in the very encounter, so as to comprehend all slaughter where the intention to kill is antecedent even to the very blow; it follows that the homicide which is committed in Rixa or Tulzie will be construed by us to be intended homicide,’ Alex. Bayne, Institutions of the Criminal Law of Scotland, 1748, pp. 33, 34.

‘And forasmuch as when any person is convicted for any felony within the benefit of clergy, upon his prayer to have the benefit thereof allowed to him it hath been used to administer a book to him to try whether he can read as a clerk, which by experience is found to be of no use, be it therefore enacted’ that such person ‘shall not be required to read, but without any reading shall be allowed, taken, and reputed to be and punished as a clerk convict.’ 5 and 6 Ann. cap. 6 (6 Ann. cap. 9 in Statutes of the Realm). The indulgence had already been extended to women (who were of course incapable of obtaining benefit of clergy) by 3 W. and M. cap. 9. The account of the origin of benefit of clergy in the text is far from accurate.

Not quite accurately put. See Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. xxix. § 25.

This is erroneous, as nothing annexed to the freehold could be deodand. Probably ‘house’ is a copyist’s error for ‘horse.’

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. xxvi.

The term ‘mayhem’ or ‘maim’ was properly applied only to such injuries. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. xliv. § 1.

22 and 23 Car. II. cap. 1.

‘The Prince of Wales’ is an extraordinary mistake for ‘the king’s son,’ i.e. Monmouth. Rapin’s account is that the attack on Sir John ‘was, by the king’s order, committed to the Duke of Monmouth, his natural son, and the Duke had employed some other persons, who after the deed retired to his house.’ History of England, translated by Tindal, vol. ii. p. 658. Sir John’s nose was slit.

In 1721 Arundel Cooke or Coke, an attorney, was tried at the Suffolk assizes with John Woodburne, his hired accomplice, for lying in wait for and disfiguring his brother-in-law, who had just been supping with him. Attempt to murder was not at that time a capital offence, and there is no doubt that Cooke did intend to murder his brother-in-law, and not merely to maim him. Yet both criminals were condemned, as stated in the text, and executed. State Trials, 1730, vol. vi. pp. 212-228.

‘Forty’ should be ‘not in any case more than twenty;’ see above, p. 46, .

I.e. of course, prosecuted.

Some words, possibly ‘the Greek,’ have evidently dropped out.

Tacitus, Ann. lib. i. cap. 72.

The term ‘wilful fire-raising’ is used for arson in Scotch law books. Bayne, Institutions of the Criminal Law of Scotland, p. 26.

‘It seems that at the common law a man disseised of any lands or tenements (if he could not prevail by fair means) might lawfully regain the possession thereof by force.’ Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. lxiv. § 1.

5 Ric. II, cap. 7; 15 Ric. II, cap. 2; 8 Hen. VI, cap. 9; Hawkins, P.C., bk. i. ch. lxiv. §§ 6, 7.

31 Eliz. cap. 11; Hawkins, P.C., bk. i. ch. lxiv. § 8.

But Heineccius, Antiq. Rom. lib. iv. tit. i. § 12, says they borrowed it ‘ex iure Attico.’

‘One circumstance in the offender, namely, his being a landed man, formerly made the punishment of this crime [theft] to be that of high treason.’ Bayne, Institutions of the Criminal Law of Scotland, p. 46.

No sum was specified, many circumstances besides value being taken into account.

2 Geo. III, cap. 29, or more probably an error for ‘late statutes.’ MacDouall, Institute, vol. i. p. 594; Bacon, Abridgement, s.v. ‘Game.’

‘A husband his wife’ should be ‘a wife her husband.’

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. xxxv. § 10, says that some hold that ‘if a man meeting another going with his goods to market in order to sell them, compel him to sell them to him against his will, he is guilty of robbery, though he give for them more than they are worth.’

Ibid. ch. xxxvii.

1 Ann. st. 2, cap. 9.

Among ‘certain offences which will not fall under the definition of theft, which however have been so called because they were declared to be punishable as theft,’ Bayne mentions ‘cutting and destroying the gear belonging to the plough.’ Institutions of the Criminal Law of Scotland, p. 47.

Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. i. ch. lvii.

Ibid. chs. lviii, lxx.

Ibid. ch. lxix.

This applies only to appeals of death. See Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, bk. ii. ch. xxiii. § 48.

Ibid. ch. xxvi. § 41.

Three years, under 7 & 8 W. III, cap. 3.

This was Charles Ratcliffe, who claimed to be Earl of Derwentwater in succession to his brother James. Both were condemned to death in 1716, but Charles escaped from prison. In 1745 he was captured on board a vessel said to be going to the assistance of the rebels, and was arraigned and executed in London without another trial. He had resided abroad, not in Scotland as stated in the text. Howell’s State Trials, 1813, vol. xviii. p. 430 sqq.

Dr. Archibald Cameron, Lochiel’s brother, was executed in London in 1753 on the strength of a bill of attainder passed against him in 1746. Ibid. vol. xix. p. 734 sqq. ‘Suffered in Scotland’ is probably a mistake of the reporter for ‘suffered after being captured in Scotland,’ or some equivalent phrase.

Johnson (Dictionary, 1755) describes ‘police’ as of French origin, and mentions πολιτεία as the original of ‘policy.’ He defines ‘police’ as ‘the regulation and government of a city or country, so far as regards the inhabitants;’ and ‘policy’ as ‘the art of government, chiefly with respect to foreign powers.’

Hume, History of England under the House of Tudor, vol. ii. p. 735. Cp. above, p. 35.

In W. of N. bk. ii. ch. iii. vol. i. pp. 338-340, the want of industry in towns where courts and parliaments reside is attributed to the fact that the inhabitants are not employed by capital.

I.e. the nobility of England and Scotland as well as the nobility of Paris and London.

The cheapness of water on account of its abundance is an ancient commonplace. Barbeyrac on Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. i. § 4, quotes Plato, Euthydem. 304 B, τὸ γὰρ σπάνιον, ὦ Εὐθύδημε, τίμιον· τὰ δὲ ὕδωρ εὐωνότατον ἄριστον ὂν ὡς ἔϕη Πίνδαρος. The low value of useful water arising from its plentifulness is contrasted with the high value of useless diamonds arising from their scarcity by Law, Money and Trade considered, 1705, ch. i, and by Joseph Harris, Essay on Money and Coins, 1757, pt. i. § 3.

‘Les choses nécessaires à la vie sont la nourriture, le vêtement et le logement,’ Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, 1755, p. 163. Cf. Moral Sentiments, 1st ed., pt. i. sect. iv. ch. ii., 6th ed., pt. i. sect. iii. ch. ii.

‘Of the Imitative Arts,’ Essays, p. 137.

Johnson (Dictionary, 1755) gives as the first meaning of toy, ‘a petty commodity; a trifle; a thing of no value,’ and quotes from Abbot, ‘They exchange for knives, glasses, and such toys, great abundance of gold and pearl.’

The term ‘division of labour’ does not appear to be an old one. Mandeville, in part ii. (published in 1729) of the Fable of the Bees, Dialogue vi. p. 335, makes Cleomenes say that people enjoying quiet will soon learn ‘to divide and subdivide their labour,’ but Horatius does not understand the phrase without explanation. See too the index to part ii. s.v. Labour.

I.e. of course, American Indian. ‘A king of a large and fruitful territory there [America], feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day labourer in England.’ Locke, Civil Government, § 41.

W. of N. bk. i. chs. vi, viii. vol. i. pp. 50, 67, 68.

W. of N. Introduction, vol. i. p. 2.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. vi. pp. 50, 51.

I.e. who work harder.

MS. reads ‘two pence,’ the copyist probably having misread ‘½d.’

W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. pp. 6, 7. The fifth volume of the Encyclopédie, 1755, s.v. ‘Épingle,’ contains an elaborate description of the eighteen operations, contributed by ‘M. Delaire, qui décrivait la fabrication de l’épingle dans les ateliers même des ouvriers, . . . . tandis qu’il faisait imprimer à Paris son analyse . . . du chancelier Bacon,’ (p. 807). If Adam Smith had relied on an English authority, he might have mentioned a larger number. ‘Notwithstanding that there is scarce any commodity cheaper than pins, there is none that passes through more hands ere they come to be sold. They reckon twenty-five workmen successively employed in each pin between the drawing of the brass wire and the sticking of the pin in the paper.’ Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia, s.v. ‘Pin,’ vol. ii. 2nd ed. 1738, 4th ed. 1741.

This figure is not from the Encyclopédie, and the number produced per man in the small factory spoken of in W. of N. was 4800.

Ibid. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. pp. 7, 8.

In W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. p. 9, it is not the toys, but ‘the hardware and the coarse woollens of England’ which ‘are beyond all comparison superior.’

‘A fourth of’ is probably a mistake of the copyist for ‘4 times.’ The calculation is perhaps from Cantillon, who says that the labour of 25 adults is sufficient to procure for 100 others all the necessaries of life. Essai, pp. 113, 114.

According to the fashion of the time China is here regarded as a rich nation. See Cannan, History of the Theories of Production and Distribution, 1893, p. 12, note.

According to Defoe, Plan of the English Commerce, 1728, the manufactures of China, India, and other Eastern countries ‘push themselves upon the world by the mere stress of their cheapness’ (p. 65). A page or two further on he says that in China men get 2d. a day for towing boats from the canal banks, while in the American colonies five shillings a day and in Jamaica six or seven shillings a day are regular wages (pp. 66, 67).

And therefore will become cheaper, so that the same income in coin will indicate a larger amount of real opulence as time goes on.

I.e. ‘to return to our main subject again.’

W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. p. 9. The Encyclopédie, tom. i. 1751, s.v. ‘Art’ says, ‘Lorsqu’une manufacture est nombreuse, chaque opération occupe un homme différent. Tel ouvrier ne fait et ne fera de sa vie qu’une seule et unique chose; tel autre une autre chose: d’où il arrive que chacune s’exécute bien et promptement, et que l’ouvrage le mieux fait est encore celui qu’on a à meilleur marché.’

W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. p. 10, where, however, the example of the little rest between reading and writing is omitted.

Ibid. loc. cit., it is considered ‘unnecessary to give any example.’

‘If one will wholly apply himself to the making of bows and arrows, whilst another provides food, a third builds huts, a fourth makes garments, and a fifth utensils, they not only become useful to one another, but the callings themselves will, in the same number of years, receive much greater improvements than if all had been promiscuously followed by every one of the five.’ Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. ii. Dialogue vi. pp. 335, 336.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. i. vol. i. pp. 11, 12. Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. ii. Dialogue iii. pp. 152, 153, is much less favourable to the philosophers’ claim to be regarded as useful inventors.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. ii. heading.

Ibid. bk. iv. ch. ix. vol. ii. p. 266, where, however, Sesostris is not named, the reference being merely to Egypt and Hindostan.

‘To what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world?’ Moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 108.

This passage is absent from W. of N. bk. i. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 14.

Ibid. pp. 14-16. Mandeville says: ‘The whole superstructure is made up of the reciprocal services which men do to each other. How to get these services performed by others when we have occasion for them is the grand and almost constant solicitude in life of every individual person. To expect that others should serve us for nothing is unreasonable; therefore all commerce that men can have together must be a continual bartering of one thing for another.’ Fable of the Bees, pt. ii. Dialogue vi. p. 421.

The example of the bow and arrow maker is in the passage in Mandeville, quoted above, p. 167 note. In the parallel passage in W. of N. bk. i. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 16, Mandeville’s hut-maker also reappears.

This contradicts a passage in Harris’ Essay on Money and Coins, pt. i. § 11. ‘Men are endued with various talents and propensities which naturally dispose and fit them for different occupations; and are . . . under a necessity of betaking themselves to particular arts and employments from their inability of otherwise acquiring all the necessaries they want with ease and comfort. This creates a dependence of one man upon another, and naturally unites men into societies. In like manner, as all countries differ more or less, either in the kinds or goodness of their products, natural or artificial, particular men find their advantages, which extend to communities in general, by trading with the remotest nations.’ Hume, ‘Of the Original Contract,’ requires his readers to ‘consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, ‘ere cultivated by educacation.’ Essays, 1748, p. 291.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 16-18.

The steam engines of the time, used chiefly in draining mines, went by this name. Watt was working under the protection of the University of Glasgow, and on the eve of making his invention, when the lectures were delivered.

‘Limited by the extent of the market.’ W. of N. bk. i. ch. iii. heading.

In W. of N. bk. i. ch. iii. vol. i. p. 19, the ship only carries 200 tons and has six or eight men; the waggons have eight horses and two men, and carry four tons each.

‘Plus il y a de travail dans un État, et plus l’État est censé riche naturellement.’ Cantillon, Essai, p. 113.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. vii. heading. Pufendorf distinguishes ‘common or natural price’ from ‘legal price’ (‘pretium legitimum’) fixed by the magistrate (De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. i. § 8), thus including both Adam Smith’s kinds of price in ‘natural price.’ But he also says: ‘In regulating this natural price, regard is to be had to the labour and expense of the merchant in importing and taking care of his goods; . . . . his time, his study, his care in getting, preserving, and sorting his commodities, as also his servant’s wages, may fairly be rated by him. . . . But what sudden and frequent alterations the markets admit of, by reason of the plenty or scarcity of buyers, money, or commodities, is well known.’ Ibid. § 10, Kennet’s transl., 3rd ed. 1717.

‘People that have children to educate that must get their livelihood, are always consulting and deliberating what trade or calling they are to bring them up to, till they are fixed; and thousands think on this that hardly think at all on anything else. First, they confine themselves to their circumstances, and he that can give but ten pounds with his son must not look out for a trade where they ask an hundred with an apprentice: but the next they think on is always which will be the most advantageous.’ Mandeville, ‘Essay on Charity and Charity Schools’ in Fable of the Bees, pt. i. 2nd ed., p. 343; cp. Remark A, p. 45.

‘Le fils d’un laboureur, à l’âge de sept ou douze ans, commence à aider son père, soit à garder les troupeaux, soit à remuer la terre, soit à d’autres ouvrages de la campagne, qui ne demandent point d’art ni d’habileté.

Si son père lui faisait apprendre un métier, il perdrait à son absence pendant tout le temps de son apprentissage, et serait encore obligé de payer son entretien et les frais de son apprentissage pendant plusieurs années: voilà donc un fils à charge à son père et dont le travail ne rapporte aucun avantage qu’au bout d’un certain nombre d’années. La vie d’un homme n’est calculée qu’à dix ou douze années; et comme on en perd plusieurs à apprendre un métier, dont la plupart demandent en Angleterre sept années d’apprentissage, un laboureur ne voudrait jamais en faire apprendre aucun à son fils si les gens de métier ne gagnaient bien plus que les laboureurs. Ceux donc, qui emploient des artisans ou gens de métier, doivent nécessairement payer leur travail plus haut que celui d’un laboureur ou manœuvre; et ce travail sera nécessairement cher à proportion du temps qu’on perd à l’apprendre et de la dépense et du risque qu’il faut pour s’y perfectionner.’ Cantillon, Essai, pp. 23, 24.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. pt. i. vol. i. pp. 106, 107. Cf. ‘Scarcity enhances the price of things much oftener than the usefulness of them. Hence it is evident why those arts and sciences will always be the most lucrative that cannot be attained to but in great length of time, by tedious study and close application.’ Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. ii. Dialogue vi. p. 423.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. pt. i. vol. i. pp. 110, 111. Cf. ‘It is the hopes either of gain or reputation, of large revenues and great dignities, that promote learning; and when we say that any calling, art, or science is not encouraged, we mean no more by it than that the masters or professors of it are not sufficiently rewarded for their pains either with honour or profit.’ Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. ii. Dialogue vi. p. 414.

There is evidently a hiatus here, which may be supplied by the words ‘and sold at its natural price.’ Cf. W. of N. bk. i. ch. vii. 4th paragraph, vol. i. p. 57.

I.e. the proportion between the value of precious stones and iron.

The ‘Regent’ diamond, purchased for the King in 1717 for two million livres, according to Saint-Simon, who takes the credit of the purchase at a time of virtual bankruptcy to himself in conjunction with Law. Mémoires, ed. Chéruel et Regnier, tom. xiv. pp. 12-14.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. viii. vol. i. p. 90.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. viii. vol. i. pp. 90, 91. The reporter has evidently carried condensation to excess at this point.

I.e. of course, ‘lacks’ or ‘is without.’

W. of N. bk. iv. ch. iii. pt. ii. vol. ii. pp. 66-68.

See on the assize of bread, W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. ad fin.; vol. i. pp. 150, 151. See also bk. i. ch. vii. vol. i. pp. 64-66.

This should read, ‘upon coarse linen exported, when under eighteen pence a yard.’ In W. of N. bk. iv. ch. viii. vol. ii. p. 227, the statute 29 Geo. II, cap. 15, is referred to and the value correctly given.

A mistake for forty-eight. 1 W. & M. cap. 12. W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. vol. i. p. 208.

I.e. the bounty. MS. reads ‘but.’

W. of N. bk. ii. Introduction, vol. i. p. 273.

W. of N. Introduction, vol. i. pp. 2, 3.

‘The Government of King William . . . was in no condition to refuse anything to the country gentlemen, from whom it was at that very time soliciting the first establishment of the annual land-tax.’ W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. vol. i. p. 208.

In W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. vol. i. pp. 208-210, and bk. iv. ch. v. vol. ii. pp. 81-84, Adam Smith rejects the theory that the bounty had lowered the home price, and shows that by stimulating the foreign demand it must have rather tended to raise it. He even speaks of the ‘very moderate supposition’ that the bounty may have kept the price 4s. per quarter higher than it would otherwise have been. Having done this, he proceeds to argue that every alteration in the price of corn must be nominal and not real. He has therefore no need for the argument in the text above as to hay.

Glaucus and Diomedes, Iliad, vi. 236; W. of N. bk. i. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 24. The quotation is a stock one, occurring in Pliny, H. N. lib. xxxiii. cap. iii; Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. v. § 1; Martin-Leake, Historical Account of English Money, 2nd ed. 1745, p. 4; and (with a mistake as to the numbers) E. Chambers, Cyclopaedia, 2nd ed. 1738, s.v. ‘Money.’

The second meaning for ‘clever’ given by Johnson (Dictionary, 1755) is ‘just, fit, proper, commodious.’ He says: ‘This is a low word, scarcely ever used but in burlesque or conversation; and applied to anything a man likes, without a settled meaning.’ See the quotations in Murray, New English Dictionary.

Aristotle, Politics, 1257 a 38-41, quoted in Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. i. § 12. On the properties which have been observed in gold and silver coins, and have therefore been regarded as qualities necessary for a good measure of value and medium of exchange, see Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xii. § 17; Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, lib. v. cap. i. § 13; Locke, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, 2nd ed. 1696, p. 31; Law, Money and Trade considered, 1705, ch. i.; Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 211; Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxii. ch. ii; Cantillon, Essai, pp. 153, 355-357; Harris, Money and Coins, pt. i. §§ 22-27. Taken together, these passages include all the properties enumerated by Jevons (Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, 1875, ch. v.), viz. utility, portability, indestructibility, homogeneity, divisibility, stability of value, cognisability, and one in addition, the quality of not requiring to be fed like cattle. The five given in the text above are to be found in Harris. Divisibility, which he also mentions, reappears in W. of N. bk. i. ch. iv. vol. i. pp. 24, 25.

MS. reads ‘been.’

Harris, Money and Coins, pt. i. § 28.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 27.

Ibid. ch. v. vol. i. p. 41. Harris, Money and Coins, pt. i. §§ 34, 35.

In W. of N. bk. i. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 27, Adam Smith writes, ‘Troyes in Champaign’ and ‘Troyes weight.’

The spelling of the MS. is retained.

This account of the origin of avoirdupois weight may perhaps be the result of an inaccurate recollection of Martin-Leake. Historical Account of English Money, 2nd ed. 1745, pp. 30, 31. The original number of ounces in the pound avoirdupois is there given as fifteen.

To refuse legal tender was never felony.

The French understood by an augmentation without recoinage an increase of the number of livres (a money of account, not actual coins) which go to a coin of given weight, and by a diminution a decrease of this number. Melon gives an example in which a debtor who has borrowed 2400 livres in 100 louis d’or is obliged to repay 120 louis d’or of the same weight when there is a diminution of one-sixth and the number of livres equal to a louis d’or consequently reduced from 24 to 20. Essai politique 1734, ch. xii. in Daire’s Économistes financiers, p. 715.

‘Les diminutions favorisent le créancier, et les augmentations le débiteur; et tout le reste égal en matière d’Etat, c’est le débiteur qui doit être favorisé.’ Ibid. ch. xii. ad fin. Dutot criticizes the proposition and the historical examples adduced in support of it somewhat severely. Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, 1738, ch. i. (ibid. pp. 789, sqq.)

W. of N. bk. i. ch. iv. vol. i. pp. 28, 29, strongly condemns augmentations or debasements, but says nothing of diminutions.

Guineas were twenty-shilling pieces when first coined in 1663, but were soon taken at 21s., and later at 21s. 6d. Immediately before the great silver recoinage they passed at 30s. The act 7 and 8 Will. III, cap. 10, provided that they should not be taken at more than 26s., but prescribed no lower limit. Cap. 19 of the same year reduced this maximum to 22s. and the current value, which was recognized by the revenue officers, fell to 21s. 6d. in 1699, after the House of Commons had passed a resolution declaring that the act 7 and 8 Will. III, cap. 19, did not oblige any one to accept guineas at 22s. The maximum was reduced to 21s. by proclamation, Dec. 22, 1717, in pursuance of Newton’s Representation (in Select Tracts on Money, 1856, pp. 274-279). See Ruding, Annals of the Coinage, 1817, vol. ii. pp. 405-410, 427, 446; Snelling, View of the Gold Coin and Coinage of England, 1763, pp. 30-32; London Gazette, Dec. 21-4, 1717.

MS. reads ‘value.’

W. of N. bk. i. ch. v. vol. i. pp. 42-46; Harris, Essay on Money and Coins, pt. ii. §§ 25, 39; below, p. 203.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. v. vol. i. pp. 30-38.

Harris speaks of laying up ‘a kind of dead stock of the precious metals against any emergencies that might happen.’ Essay on Money and Coins, pt. i. § 51.

W. of N. bk. ii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 322.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 542.

MS. reads ‘banks.’

A mistake for 1672, the date given in W. of N. bk. iv. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 59, 61.

‘Soon after the bank was established.’ W. of N. bk. iv. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 61.

The ‘ingenious gentleman’ is Nicolas Magens (the ‘Mr. Meggens’ of W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. vol. i. pp. 218, 222). He says: ‘Now it is known that although Amsterdam has in proportion to its inhabitants more merchants than London; but as London contains four to one more people than Amsterdam, there are more merchants and men of business who keep accounts with the Bank. The utmost which appear in the London Directory are 2800, and most probably at Amsterdam not half so many; and although many have accounts with the Bank who are not resident in Amsterdam, it is the same in respect to London; and if it was even admitted that there were in Amsterdam 3000, and each of these to have on advance 10,000 guilders, the amount is 30,000,000 of guilders; and if 20,000, 60,000,000, which I am persuaded is much nearer the truth than what is asserted above’ [i.e. by Melon, eighty millions sterling, and by Davenant, thirty-six millions sterling]. Universal Merchant (anon.), edited by William Horsley, 1753, p. 33. The story of the scorched money is not taken from Magens. The description of the bank in W. of N. bk. iv. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 54-62, was obtained from Mr. Henry Hope, no printed account having ever appeared ‘satisfactory or even intelligible’ to Adam Smith, as he says in the Preface or ‘Advertisement’ to the 4th edition of W. of N.

No work attributed to Mun was published with the intention of showing the pernicious nature of banks and paper money, and as his principal work, England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, 1664, was reprinted at Glasgow in 1755, it is not likely that Adam Smith was criticizing it before he had seen it. The most plausible explanation is that he was using the proved utility of banks and paper money as an argument against the theory that the wealth of a country is represented by its stock of the precious metals. He would say that if the contention of writers like Mun and Gee were correct, paper money must be most pernicious, and the reporter would misunderstand him to mean that Mun and Gee held that paper money was pernicious. W. of N. bk. iv. ch. i. vol. ii. pp. 4-7 contains a correct summary of Mun’s argument and a nearly verbatim quotation from the fourth chapter of England’s Treasure.

I.e. according to the explanation suggested in the preceding note, ‘with the intention of insisting on the accumulation of treasure.’ Joshua Gee’s Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered, 1730, was reprinted at Glasgow in 1750 and 1755.

Chapters i-xii, xxxiv.

Hume, ‘Of the Balance of Trade,’ uses the same argument against Gee. Political Discourses, 1752, p. 81.

Gee’s ‘regulations’ (chs. xxiv-xxxiii.) are chiefly directed towards extracting wealth from the colonies by various encouragements and restrictions.

‘Of Money,’ ‘Of the Balance of Trade,’ in Political Discourses, 1752, and ‘Of the Jealousy of Trade’ in Essays and Treatises, 1758.

MS. reads ‘wherever.’

‘Of the Balance of Trade.’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 82 sqq.

Perhaps where he argues against paper money. ‘Of Money’ and ‘Of the Balance of Trade.’ Ibid. pp. 43-45, 89-91.

Cp. § 7 above.

The ‘Digression concerning the variations in the value of silver during the course of the four last centuries’ in W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. vol. i. pp. 187-227 deals with three periods—1350 to 1570, when silver rose; 1570 to about 1640, when it fell; and 1570 to 1766, when it remained nearly stationary.

It is difficult to discover any relation between this summary and Locke’s Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, 1691, or the other two tracts reprinted along with it in 1696 under the title of Several Papers relating to Money, Interest and Trade, &c. But as the summary agrees with that in W. of N. bk. iv. ch. i. vol. ii. pp. 2, 3, it is impossible in this case to suppose error on the part of the reporter. Adam Smith probably had in his mind pp. 17, 18 and 77-79 of Some Considerations (1696 edition), and perhaps also §§ 46-50 of Civil Government, where the indestructibility of money is insisted on.

‘Le commerce est l’échange des biens distribués par la nature en différents endroits, et que l’intérêt réciproque nous rend communs.

Tous ces biens se communiquent à nous en circulant d’un endroit à l’autre, jusqu’à ce que nos besoins satisfaits les aient consumés. La circulation est donc l’essence du commerce, la consommation en est la fin.’ Dutot, Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, 1738, ch. iii. art. 7 ad init. (p. 898 in Daire’s Économistes financiers); W. of N. bk. iv. ch. viii. vol. ii. p. 244.

‘The most exaggerated computation which I remember to have either seen or heard of’ W. of N. bk. iv. ch. i. vol. ii. p. 15.

MS. reads ‘corn.’

There is evidently an omission at this point which may perhaps be supplied by the words, ‘Till the Restoration, indeed, it had been unlawful to export any gold or silver.’ See 9 Ed. III, st. 2, cap. 1, 2 Hen. VI, cap. 6, and the summary in Hale, History of the Pleas of the Crown, 1736, vol. i. pp. 655, 656.

This probably refers to 15 Car. II, cap. 7, which allowed the exportation of foreign coin and bullion.

Free and gratuitous coinage was established by 18 & 19 Car. II, cap. 5. Above, p. 59; W. of N. bk. iv. ch. vi. vol. ii. p. 131.

To melt coin, though punishable, does not appear to have ever been felony. The act referred to is probably 6 & 7 Will. III, cap. 17, of which § 2 is directed against the practice of making ingots in imitation of the Spanish. For the explanation of the mistake see above, p. 59, .

Law, Money and Trade Considered, ch. ii. 2nd ed. pp. 21, 22.

The lecturer now returns from the digression contained in the last two paragraphs.

MS. reads ‘fourteen thousand pounds,’ which is obviously much too little. In Lord Liverpool’s Treatise on the Coins of the Realm, 1805, p. 75, the Mint charges are stated to have been £179,431 6s.

See above, p. 190 and notes.

W. of N. bk. iv. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 29.

Hume, ‘Of the Jealousy of Trade,’ in Essays and Treatises, 1758, passim.

MS. reads ‘exerted.’

And Holland, according to the Custom House accounts, which, however, Gee finds it convenient to reject as untrustworthy in this case. Trade and Navigation, chs. xii, xxxiv.

For the service of the year 1760 £19,616,119, and for that of 1761 £18,299,153, were voted, and these amounts were far in excess of the votes for any other year before Adam Smith left Glasgow (Sinclair, History of the Public Revenue, pt. iii. 1790, p. 69). Pitt resigned Oct. 5, 1761, but Newcastle continued in office till May, 1762, so that either 1760 or 1761 may be referred to. In W. of N. bk. iv. ch. i. vol. ii. p. 17, it is remarked that ‘the expense of 1761, for example, amounted to more than nineteen millions.’ ‘Levied’ should be ‘raised,’ as more than half the amounts were borrowed.

In Fable of the Bees, pt. i. Remark (L), Mandeville rather argues against the doctrine.

In W. of N. bk. iv. ch. i. vol. ii. pp. 18, 19, ‘the finer and more improved manufactures’ are said to be the best medium for defraying the expense of distant wars.

According to W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 523, the debt in 1764 amounted to £139,516,807.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 526-529.

Walpole took half a million from the Sinking Fund in 1733, but he does not appear to have contended that the debt was no inconvenience either in debate in the House of Commons on that occasion (see Historical Register, 1733, pp. 218, 219, 222, 223) or in his pamphlet, Some Considerations concerning the Public Funds, the Public Revenues, and the Annual Supplies, 1735. Hume, however, in the earlier editions of his Political Discourses, said that arguments in favour of ‘the new paradox, that public encumbrances are of themselves advantageous, independent of the necessity of contracting them,’ might naturally have passed for trials of wit among rhetoricians, ‘had we not seen such absurd maxims patronized by great ministers . . . And these puzzling arguments (for they deserve not the name of specious), though they could not be the foundation of Lord Orford’s conduct—for he had more sense—served at least to keep his partisans in countenance and perplex the understanding of the nation.’ ‘Of Public Credit,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 126. After 1768 this reference to Lord Orford was omitted (see Hume’s Essays, edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 1875, vol. i. pp. 362, 363).

A mistake for ‘1705.’ In the 2nd edition of Money and Trade, 1720, the bookseller requests the reader to receive favourably ‘the following pages, which consist of some heads of a scheme which Mr. Law proposed to the Parliament of Scotland in the year 1705.’ The year given in the text above was the date of Law’s Proposals and Reasons for Constituting a Council of Trade in Scotland.

I.e. Money and Trade Considered: with a Proposal for supplying the Nation with Money, 1705.

This paragraph appears to be intended as a summary of ch. vii. of Money and Trade.

MS. reads ‘years.’

‘Then’ refers not to 1714, but to the time when Law found sufficient favour to get liberty to erect a bank. Louis XIV died on Sept. 1, 1715. Orleans had seen Law, and spoken of him as ‘un homme de qui il pourrait tirer des lumières’ before that date (Saint-Simon, Mémoires, ed. Chéruel et Regnier, tom. xiii. p. 49).

Paris Duverney, Examen du livre intitulé Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, 1740, tom. i. p. 207.

Ibid. p. 210.

‘About that time’ apparently stands for ‘between 1715 and May, 1718.’ Dutot, Réflexions politiques sur les finances et le commerce, 1738, in Daire’s Économistes financiers, pp. 810, 847; and Duverney, Examen, tom. i. pp. 216, 217.

Above, p. 189.

‘En écus du poids et titre du jour.’ Duverney, Examen, tom. i. p. 209.

It must be remembered that in Adam Smith’s time the pound sterling was just as much a mere money of account as the French livre. Its practical identification with a particular coin is of later date, and even now that coin is not called a pound, but a sovereign. Raising our coin to double would mean halving the quantity of silver coined into twenty shillings or ‘£1.’ Law’s notes for écus of a certain weight and fineness resembled Drummond’s notes for guineas mentioned in W. of N. bk. i. ch. v. vol. i. p. 42.

There appears to be some mistake or omission here. A diminution of the coin, i.e. a reduction of the number of livres in an écu of a certain weight and fineness would obviously increase the bullion value of notes for livres. So, if the coin were diminished 50 per cent. and no change made as regards the notes, Law would be obliged to pay double, not half. It may, however, have been supposed that the notes would be arbitrarily reduced when the coin was diminished, as an edict was soon issued declaring that this would not under any circumstances take place. The next two sentences in the text above describe the natural effect of this edict (see Duverney, Examen, tom. i. pp. 235, 236), and do not at all follow from the statement that Law would not be obliged to pay above a half.

Dutot, in Daire’s Économistes financiers, p. 806, gives the amount as ‘deux milliards soixante-deux millions cent trente-huit mille une livres.’

Duverney, Examen, tom. i. p. 249. MS. reads ‘12 millions.’

Duverney, Examen, tom. i. p. 252.

Dutot, in Daire’s Économistes financiers, p. 805, mentions these terms, and says that the loan was obtained from foreigners on the credit of a private person and his friends, but does not specify Holland.

Duverney, Examen, tom. i. pp. 250, 273, 289.

Ibid. pp. 280, 281.

The original fixed interest was only 4 per cent., or 20 livres on the shares of 500 livres; but a general meeting of the company, held on Dec. 30, 1719, resolved that the dividend should be 40 per cent., or 200 livres per share. Ibid. pp. 215, 267, 268, 317.

‘Pour dégoûter les peuples des monnaies d’or et d’argent.’ Ibid. p. 316.

Viz. 500 livres. Duverney, Examen, tom. i. p. 335.

Ibid. pp. 320, 321.

Ibid. tom. ii. pp. 6-8.

Above, p. 195.

Duverney, Examen, tom. ii. p. 11.

In December, 1720. Ibid. p. 132.

Not till 1729.

In W. of N. bk. ii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 318, Adam Smith declines to give any account of the ‘different operations’ of Law’s scheme because they have been so fully and clearly explained by Duverney.

In W. of N. bk. ii. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 357, the common opinion is attributed to Locke, Law, Montesquieu, and ‘many other writers,’ and it is remarked that ‘this notion, which at first sight seems so plausible, has been so fully exposed by Mr. Hume, that it is perhaps unnecessary to say anything more about it.’ See Locke, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, 2nd ed., 1696, pp. 6, 10, 11; Law, Money and Trade Considered, 2nd ed., p. 17, and Mémoires sur les banques in Daire’s Économistes financiers, p. 518; Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxii. ch. vi; Hume, ‘Of Interest,’ Political Discourses, 1752, pp. 61-78.

Above, pp. 36, 37; W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 389, 390.

Ibid. bk. ii. ch. iv. vol. i. p. 354.

W. of N. bk. ii. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 327, 328.

W. of N. bk. ii. Introduction, vol. i. pp. 273-275.

Twenty millions is the estimate mentioned in W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. i. vol. ii. p. 411.

W. of N. bk. ii. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 386-390.

Ibid. pp. 390-392.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 397.

As in the English North American colonies. Ibid. bk. iv. ch. vii. pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 152.

Above, pp. 100, 101.

I.e. ‘nor, if he had possessed any stock.’

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 393.

Apparently a mistake for ‘James II,’ who, with the act of 1449, is mentioned in W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 395.

Ibid. p. 394 gives the more exact date ‘about the 14th of Henry VII,’ for which see Bacon, Abridgement, s.v. Ejectment, vol. ii. p. 160, and cp. Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. iii. p. 201.

This objection is not made in W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. ii. art. 1, vol. ii. p. 422, where rents in kind are condemned along with rents in service.

Ibid. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. pp. 396, 397.

I.e. ‘because every one who holds land to the value of 40s. a year for life has a vote for a member of parliament, in consequence of which fact he is secure from oppression if, instead of being content with his own property, he rents a farm.’ Cf. W. of N. bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 394.

Above, p. 124.

Scotch for ‘investigating title.’

W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. pt. i. vol. i. p. 159, and bk. iii. ch. ii. vol. i. p. 398.

‘Third book’ is a mistake. The passage referred to, which is given in full in W. of N. bk. i. ch. xi. pt. i. vol. i. p. 159, occurs in the last chapter of lib. ii.

Above, pp. 181, 182.

‘On peut, par la commodité des machines que l’art invente ou applique, suppléer au travail forcé qu’ailleurs on fait faire aux esclaves. Les mines des Turcs, dans le bannat de Témeswar, étaient plus riches que celles de Hongrie; et elles ne produisaient pas tant, parce qu’ils n’imaginaient jamais que les bras de leurs esclaves.’ Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xv. ch. viii. In W. of N. bk. iv. ch. ix. vol. ii. p. 269, Montesquieu is named as the authority for the statement, and ‘neighbourhood’ replaces the ‘opposite sides of the same range of mountains,’ which must have been obtained from some other source.

Odyssey, ix. 252-255. Thucydides (i. 5), who is quoted by Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xv. § 5, refers to this and similar passages as evidence of the honourable character of piracy, but not as evidence of the despicable character of commerce.

W. of N. bk. iii. ch. iii. vol. i. pp. 399, 400.

See above, pp. 132, 133, for the order in which the different kinds of contracts became enforceable.

MS. reads ‘were.’

‘Bartholomew fair at London for lean and Welsh black cattle.’ Postlethwayt, Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, 1751, s.v. Fair.

Scil. ‘exported.’ The next sentence possibly refers not to Calais in particular, but to staple towns in general, since if ‘such a distance’ applies to Calais it would seem to indicate a belief that all wool, whether for foreign or domestic consumption, had to be carried there.

See John Smith, Memoirs of Wool, 1747, ch. vii. esp. §§ 15, 16.

W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. pt. ii. vol. i. pp. 125-130.

Above, p. 16.

He recommends that half the private property should be near the city, and the other half on the border, and that each citizen should have one lot in each portion. Politics, 1330 a 14-23.

MS. reads ‘amounts.’

Above, p. 224.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. ii. art. 2, vol. ii. p. 442.

‘By what is called the land tax in England it was intended that stock should be taxed in the same proportion as land . . . the greater part of the stock of England is, perhaps, scarce rated at the fiftieth part of its annual value.’ W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. 2, art. 2, vol. ii. pp. 443, 444.

Ibid. art. 1, vol. ii. p. 418.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. ii. art. 4, vol. ii. pp. 481-484.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. ii. art. 1, vol. ii. p. 418.

Ibid., with, however, the qualification that the owner of a portion only of a parish may find his land tax very slightly increased in consequence of his improvements.

‘The French system of taxation seems in every respect inferior to the British.’ Ibid. art. 4 ad fin., vol. ii. p. 504.

The amount paid into the treasury ‘did not amount to fifteen millions sterling’ in 1765, and the amount levied must have been about double. W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. ad fin., vol. ii. p. 504.

Ibid. pp. 499-504.

‘Our state is not perfect, and might be mended, but it is as good or better than that of most of our neighbours.’ Ibid. p. 497.

‘I have found ministers and others, both in their conversation and writings, maintain the erroneous maxim that high duties are to be laid upon commodities exported, because foreigners pay them; and, on the contrary, very moderate ones on such as are imported, because his majesty’s subjects are at the charge of them.’ Uztariz, Theory and Practice of Commerce and Maritime Affairs, transl. by John Kippax, 1751, vol. ii. p. 52; cp. vol. i. p. xiii.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. ii. pt. ii. art. 4, vol. ii. pp. 495, 496.

MS. reads ‘occasions.’

I.e. the mortgaged taxes or funds. ‘The funds’ originally meant nothing but the aggregate produce of certain taxes.

I.e. the stockholder’s claim to his perpetual annuity from the mortgaged funds could be extinguished by repaying the capital borrowed from him. A detailed account of the early funds is given in W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 513-517.

Mortimer talks of ‘the inconveniencies that might arise to contributors from being obliged to keep their money constantly in the hands of the government.’ Every Man his own Broker, 5th ed., 1762, p. 12.

Details are given in W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 515, 516.

The ‘irredeemables’ of this period were terminable annuities. They were never so largely used as the arithmetical example in the text suggests. Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 516, 517.

On March 3, 1763, 3 per cent. consols were quoted at 95⅛. They had steadily risen in thirteen months from 62¼. See the London Chronicle for Feb. 3, 1762, and March 3, 1763.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. pp. 518, 519.

MS. reads ‘sinks.’

Mortimer, Every Man his own Broker, 5th ed., pp. 31, 37-40.

Ibid. p. 45, note. ‘A Bull is the name by which the gentlemen of ’Change Alley choose to call all persons who contract to buy any quantity of government securities without an intention or ability to pay for it, and who consequently are obliged to sell it again either at a profit or a loss before the time comes when they have contracted to take it. . . . If he is asked a civil question, he answers with a surly look, and by his dejected, gloomy aspect and moroseness he not badly represents the animal he is named after.’

Ibid. p. 47, note. ‘A Bear in the language of ’Change Alley is a person who has agreed to sell any quantity of the public funds more than he is possessed of, and often without being possessed of any at all, but which nevertheless he is obliged to deliver against a certain time; before this time arrives he is continually going up and down seeking . . . whose property he can devour.’ But see Murray, New English Dictionary, s.v. Bear.

7 Geo. II, cap. 8. ‘An act to prevent the infamous practice of stock-jobbing.’

Under 9 Ann. cap. 14, securities for sums over £10 lost at play were void, and if paid, such sums could be recovered from the winner.

‘A name given in ’Change Alley to those who refuse to fulfil their contracts . . . The punishment for non-payment is banishment from Jonathan’s, but they can still act as brokers at the offices.’ Mortimer. Every Man his own Broker, 5th ed., p. 57, note.

MS. reads ‘In.’

‘They make use of their skill and their wit to take advantage of other men’s ignorance and folly they deal with; are great exacters where the law is in their own hands: in other points, where they deal with men that understand like themselves, and are under the reach of justice and laws, they are the plainest and best dealers in the world; which seems not to grow so much from a principle of conscience or morality, as from a custom or habit introduced by the necessity of trade among them, which depends as much upon common honesty as war does upon discipline, and without which all would break up, merchants would turn pedlars, and soldiers thieves.’ Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, in Works, 1757, vol. i. p. 154.

W. of N. bk. iv. ch. ii. vol. ii. p. 41 contrasts a legislator governed by general principles with ‘that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuation of affairs.’

In W. of N. bk. i. ch. x. pt. ii. vol. i. p. 134, the superiority of the countryman over the townsman is not said to be ‘generally acknowledged,’ but only ‘well known to every man whom either business or curiosity has led to converse much with both.’

The eighteen operations mentioned on p. 164 above include putting the pins in paper. He who does this does not make part of a pin, so that the ‘seventeenth part’ here is consistent with the eighteen operations.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. iii. art. 2, vol. ii. pp. 365-367.

Scotland.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. iii. art. 2, vol. ii. p. 369.

‘Those who are concerned in the manufactories of this kingdom know by experience that the poor do not labour upon an average above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear. . . . When wheat and other provisions are at a low price . . . idleness and debauchery generally take place.’ Considerations on Taxes as they are supposed to affect the Price of Labour in our Manufactories: also some reflections on the general behaviour and disposition of the Manufacturing Populace of this kingdom; showing by arguments drawn from experience that nothing but necessity will enforce labour, &c., 2nd ed. 1765, pp. 12, 13.

Probably the Barrier fortresses. The removal of the dykes would not make Holland an easy prey.

In 1672, not at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Hume, History of Great Britain, vol. ii. 1757, p. 226. It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that six pages earlier Hume uses the words ‘would prove an easy prey’ in speaking of the northern provinces of the Netherlands.

‘According to modern custom, armies are made up of the very dregs of a people, fellows too dissolute and worthless for any other occupation.’ Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, p. 324. ‘Our common soldiers are such a low, rascally set of people.’ Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 188. Cp. with the whole section, W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. i. vol. ii. pp. 274-281; and see above, pp. 26-29.

W. of N. bk. v. ch. i. pt. i. vol. ii. p. 290; and above, pp. 29, 30.

‘Vix ullum ius reperitur extra ius naturale . . . omnibus gentibus commune.’ Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. i. cap. i. § 14.

Above, p. 65, where see .

‘Ac plane quot actionum forensium sunt fontes, totidem sunt belli; nam ubi iudicia deficiunt incipit bellum.’ Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. i. § 2.

In 1756.

MS. reads ‘Hutchinson.’

Hutcheson, Introduction to Moral Philosophy, pp. 276-277, 336. Cf. Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xxi. §§ 2, 7.

I.e. an impartial foreigner would consider it quite natural that ‘we’ (the whole English and the whole French nation) should be enraged at each other.

‘At Cicero (Off. i. 11) non tam quid fiat, quam quid natura aequum sit respiciens, sic ea de re pronuntiat: et cum iis, quos vi deviceris consulendum est, tum ii qui armis positis ad imperatorum fidem confugiunt quamvis murum aries percusserit, recipiendi.’ Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. iii. cap. xi. § 14.

See e.g. Gentleman’s Magazine, Jan., 1759, p. 42.

‘The only cartel I remember in ancient history is that betwixt Demetrius Poliorcetes and the Rhodians; when it was agreed that a free citizen should be restored for 1000 drachmas, a slave bearing arms for 500.’ Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 191. The London Chronicle for March 5, 1763, mentions £1,200,000 as the balance due for the maintenance, &c., of French prisoners. W. of N. bk. v. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 524 gives £670,000 as the ‘composition for French prisoners.’ The practice of ransoming prisoners did not die out before 1780. See W. E. Hall, International Law, 4th ed., 1895, p. 428, note 1.

See Considerations on the Exchange of Seamen Prisoners of War, 1758, a pamphlet on the other side.

Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. iii. cap. xii. § 8; Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 190.

Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. iii. cap. iv. § 18.

‘Le comte de Croui, qui était gouverneur de la ville [Lille] . . . envoya complimenter le Roi, et le supplier de le faire avertir de quel côté il camperait, pour empêcher qu’on ne tirât sur son quartier: Louis XIV le remercia de sa politesse, et lui fit dire que son quartier serait dans tout le camp de son armée.’ Histoire de Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne Vicomte de Turenne, 1735, tom. i. p. 416.

This remark has already occurred above, pp. 55, 56.

W. of N. bk. iv. ch. vii. pt. i. vol. ii. pp. 136, 137.

Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,’ Political Discourses, 1752, p. 189.

Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. iii. cap. vi. § 3, cap. ix. § 15.

‘Le mot d’Ambassadeur, Ambasiadore, ou Embaxador tire son origine de l’espagnol embiar, qui signifie envoyer.’ Wicquefort, L’Ambassadeur et ses fonctions, 1681, p. 4.

Grotius, De iure belli et pacis, lib. ii. cap. xviii. § 3, says ‘optimo iure reiici possunt quae nunc in usu sunt legationes assiduae, quibus quam non sit opus docet mos antiquus cui illae ignoratae,’ but does not call permanent ambassadors resident spies. Cocceius’ note on the passage, however, quotes Wicquefort, Memoires touchant les Ambassadeurs, La Haye, 1677, p. 438, who there mentions acting as a spy as one of the functions of a resident ambassador.

It is probable that two, or possibly three, cases are here confused by the reporter. The Dutch arrested Goertz, the Swedish minister, in 1717; the English arrested the Russian ambassador for debt in 1708; the French arrested the Spanish ambassador in 1718.

Eighteenth century London local rating acts commonly provide that rates on houses let to ambassadors shall be paid by the landlords.