SMITH ADAM (1723-1790). Économiste et philosophe écossais

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SMITH ADAM (1723-1790). Économiste et philosophe écossais
Signed autograph letter, signed « Adam Smith », Glasgow 29 October 1759, to « My Lord » [John Petty, Earl of SHELBURNE]; 4 pages in-4 format (pli un peu jauni au dernier feuillet); in English. Informative letter to the 1st Earl of Shelburne in which Smith discusses in some detail the expenses incurred by the Earl of Shelburne’s son. John Petty, Irish aristocrat, first Earl of SHELBURNE (1706- 1761), Member of Parliament, had entrusted his youngest son, Thomas FITZMAURICE (1742-1793), then student, to Adam Smith. The economist was a professor at the University of Glasgow “I have marked every receipt with a letter of the Alphabet. Your Lordship will find the same letter upon the back of the Account or accounts which correspond to it. Your Lordship will observe several receipts that have no accounts corresponding to them. It is always mentioned in the body of the receipt what the money was given for, but there is not always any discharged account from a third person vouching that it was actually so expended. He describes two trips made with him, one to Edinburgh: I was often obliged either to sup or dine at places where it was improper to carry him. When this happened to be the case, that I might be sure what company he was in in a very dissolute town, I ordered a small entertainment at our lodgings & invited two or three young lawiers to keep him company in my absence… Inverary is two days from Glasgow and we happened to be misinformed with regard to Dukes [sic] motions & came there two days before him during which time we stayed at a very expensive Inn...” Smith also gives Shelburne a meticulous account of Fitzmaurice’s pocket money: “Your Lordship will observe the first Article for Pocket to be four Pounds. He asked for it & as it was the beginning of my government I gave it. It was spent in less than a month, not upon any vitious pleasure, but upon prints & baubles of no great utility & a considerable portion of it upon nuts, apples a
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