The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume II, by John Hill Burton.

The following letter, which is not, however, written in a spirit of entire earnestness or sobriety, has some reference to his views on the American question.

It has already been said, that Hume appears to have suspected that his nephew, David, was imbibing republican principles. It is well worthy of remark, that he does not appear to have considered the training of his young nephews, in political opinions different from his own, as at all to be deprecated; and David, to whom the following letter is addressed, was boarded with Professor Millar, afterwards author of the "Historical View of the English Government," who had even then shown himself as one of the most powerful antagonists of Hume's constitutional doctrines. It must be regretted that the letter is much mutilated; but enough of it is preserved to show how lightly Hume's political opinions hung on him—how little they possessed the character of a creed—how tolerant he was of any system of politics which bore the air of philosophy, and how curiously he could let his reason vibrate between opinions of the most opposite character in practical politics.

Hume to his Nephew.

"Edinburgh, 8th December, 1775.

"Dear Davy,—All your letters, both to me and to your father, have [given] great satisfaction, particularly your last; and, in return, I must give you [the] satisfaction of telling you, that Mr. Millar is very well pleased with you, [ ] no less than you with him. He complains only of one thing, which [is not the] usual complaint of tutors against their pupils; to wit, that he is afraid you [apply too] close, and may hurt your health by too assiduous study. I should not men[tion this] if I had the least apprehension that a hint of this nature would m[ake you] relax too much. But I cannot forbear saying, that every day, fair or foul, [you] ought to use some exercise. Relaxation from [for?] amusement, you may use, [or not,] as you fancy; but that, for health, is absolutely necessary. When I was [of your] age, I was inclined to give in to excesses of the same kind; and I remember [an anecdote] told me by a friend, the present Lord Pitfour. A man was riding, with [great] violence, and running his horse quite out of wind. He stopt a moment to [ask when] he might reach a particular place. In two hours, replied the countryman, [if you] will go slower; in four if you be in such a hurry. Bad health, be[sides other] inconveniencies, is the greatest interrupter to study in the world.

"I cannot but agree with Mr. Millar, that the republican form of government is by far the best. The ancient republics were somewhat ferocious and torn [ ] by bloody factions; but they were still much preferable to the monarchies or [aristocracies] which seem to have been quite intolerable. Modern manners have corrected this abuse; and all the republics in Europe, without exception, are so well governed that one is at a loss to which we should give the preference. But what is this general subject of speculation to our purpose? For, besides that an established government [ ] without the most criminal imputation, be disjointed from any speculation, [ ] is only fitted for a small state; and any attempt towards it can, in our [ ] produce only anarchy, which is the immediate forerunner of despotism [ ] tell us what is that form of a republic which we must aspire to? Or [ ]stion be afterwards decided by the sword. [One] great advantage of a commonwealth over our mixed monarchy, is, that it [would consid]erably abridge our liberty; which is growing to such an extreme as to be incom[patible wi]th all. Such fools are they who perpetually cry out liberty, [and think to] augment it by shaking off the monarchy.

"I have not heard from Josey for some time, which, you may believe, has produced [ ] reflections in some of your friends. But to show you that you are not forgotten [ ] I showed Mr. Millar's letter to your mother. I am afraid, said she, that [ ] some symptoms of a consumption in poor Davy.

"[I a]m far from thinking Mr. Millar's demands in point of money unreas[onable.] On the contrary, I believe that I never laid out money to better purpose.

"[Ha]rrington is an author of genius, but chimerical. No laws, however rigorous, [would ma]ke his Agrarian practicable. And as the people have only a negative, the [ ] would perpetually gain ground upon them. You remember that Montesquieu says, that Harrington establishing his "Oceana" in opposition to the English constitution, is like the blind men who built Chalcedon on the opposite [ ] to the seat of Byzantium. I ask your pardon for not writing to you [sooner,] but beg the continuance of your correspondence. My compliments to [Mr. Millar,] to whom I owe a letter. I am, your affectionate uncle."[482:1]

The following letter exhibits a feeling of impatience for the appearance of the long promised "Wealth of Nations." It shows, in discussing some questions in political economy, that, with his usual sagacity, Hume predicted that the loss of British supremacy over America, would not have that dire effect on our commercial prosperity, which had been anticipated.

It is not perhaps uncharitable to suppose, that the following eulogium would have been more warm, had the person it was addressed to not been one of "the barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames."

Hume to Gibbon.

Edinburgh, 18th March, 1776.

Dear Sir,—As I ran through your volume of history with a great deal of avidity and impatience, I cannot forbear discovering somewhat of the same impatience in returning you thanks for your agreeable present, and expressing the satisfaction which the performance has given me. Whether I consider the dignity of your style, the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness of your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object of esteem; and I own, that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance, from an Englishman in our age, would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment; but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them. I know it will give you pleasure (as it did me,) to find that all the men of letters in this place concur in their admiration of your work, and in their anxious desire of your continuing it.

When I heard of your undertaking, (which was some time ago,) I own I was a little curious to see how you would extricate yourself from the subject of your two last chapters. I think you have observed a very prudent temperament; but it was impossible to treat the subject so as not to give grounds of suspicion against you, and you may expect that a clamour will arise. This, if any thing, will retard your success with the public; for in every other respect your work is calculated to be popular. But, among many other marks of decline, the prevalence of superstition in England, prognosticates the fall of philosophy and decay of taste; and though nobody be more capable than you to revive them, you will probably find a struggle in your first advances.

I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. You are certainly right in so doing. It is, indeed, strange, that any men of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all European nations; the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions, and their national prejudices. You are, therefore, over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation.

I must inform you, that we are all very anxious to hear that you have fully collected the materials for your second volume, and that you are even considerably advanced in the composition of it. I speak this more in the name of my friends than in my own; as I cannot expect to live so long as to see the publication of it. Your ensuing volume will be more delicate than the preceding, but I trust in your prudence for extricating you from the difficulties; and, in all events, you have courage to despise the clamour of bigots. I am, with regard, &c.[485:1]

At length appeared the long looked for work, in which the parent of the first elucidations of political economy was to see his own offspring eclipsed; and to see it with pride. One must be familiar with the unenvious friendship which Hume ever bestowed, on the fellow countrymen who joined him in the noble path of philosophical inquiry, to appreciate the genuine satisfaction with which he thus hailed the appearance of "The Wealth of Nations."

In April, 1776, the disease of which Hume subsequently died, had made alarming progress. The little autobiographical sketch, called "my own Life," was finished on the eighteenth of that month; and he there speaks of the rise and progress of his disorder, and of his feelings under the expectation of a speedy termination of his life, in the following terms:—

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name the period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this latter period. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I knew that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.

It was probably early in the year, and before the disease had made such progress, as to make his friends in general anticipate its fatal conclusion, that Dr. Black wrote the following undated letter on the subject to Smith:—

"I write at present, chiefly to acquaint you with the state of your friend David Hume's health, which is so bad that I am quite melancholy upon it, and as I hear that you intend a visit to this country soon, I wish if possible to hasten your coming, that he may have the comfort of your company so much the sooner. He has been declining several years, and this in a slow and gradual manner, until about a twelvemonth ago, since which the progress of his disorder has been more rapid. One of his distresses has been a sensation of excessive heat, chiefly in the night time, and which was only external, for it occasioned no internal distress, or anxiety, or thirst."

Black then proceeds to describe with more minuteness, than would be either pleasing or instructive to unscientific readers, a series of symptoms from which he infers that the most serious part of his patient's disorder, is a hemorrhage in the upper part of the intestines.[488:1] He continues,—

"His mother, he says, had precisely the same constitution with himself, and died of this very disorder; which has made him give up any hopes of his getting the better of it." He concludes by saying,—

"Do not, however, say much on this subject to any one else; as he does not like to have it spoke of, and has been shy and slow in acquainting me fully with the state of his health."

In preparation for the event, which could not be far distant, he had executed a settlement of his estate, so early as the 4th of January. He left the bulk of his fortune to his brother, or, in the case of his predeceasing him, to his nephew David, burdened in the latter case with special legacies to his other nephews and his nieces. He left his sister £1200. Along with some legacies to a few obscure private friends and to his servants, he left £200 to D'Alembert, and the same sum to Adam Ferguson.[489:1] He appointed Smith his literary executor, in the following terms:[490:1] "To my friend Dr. Adam Smith, late Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow, I leave all my manuscripts without exception, desiring him to publish my 'Dialogues on Natural Religion,' which are comprehended in this present bequest; but to publish no other papers which he suspects not to have been written within these five years, but to destroy them all at his leisure. And I even leave him full power over all my papers, except the Dialogues above mentioned; and though I can trust to that intimate and sincere friendship, which has ever subsisted between us, for his faithful execution of this part of my will, yet, as a small recompense of his pains in correcting and publishing this work, I leave him two hundred pounds, to be paid immediately after the publication of it."

Smith subsequently refused to receive payment of the legacy; and it was the cause of a long friendly discussion with Mr. Home of Ninewells, who, in opposition to his argument, that it was bequeathed as a remuneration for editorial labours, which by a subsequent alteration of the bequest did not require to be performed, urged such pleas as this, "My brother, knowing your liberal way of thinking, laid on you something as an equivalent, not imagining you would refuse a small gratuity from the funds it was to come from, as a testimony of his friendship."[490:2] But he pleaded in vain; and Smith continued to refuse the bequest, with all the firmness of his unmercenary nature.

Previous to his journey to Bath, which has to be presently narrated, Hume appears to have informed Smith of the desire expressed in his will, that he should undertake the publication of the "Dialogues on Natural Religion." The intimation was probably verbal, as it does not form part of any letter among Hume's papers. Elliot was opposed to the publication of this work. Blair pleaded strongly for its suppression; and Smith, who had made up his mind, that he would not edit the work, seems to have desired that the testamentary injunction laid on him might be revoked. Hume, however, before his death, took effectual steps to guard against its suppression.

Thus, after having good-naturedly abstained, for nearly thirty years, from the publication of a work, which might give pain and umbrage to his dearest friends; at the close of life, and when the lapse of time since it was written might have been supposed to render him indifferent to its fate,—because there appeared some danger of its final suppression, he took decided and well pondered steps to avert from it this fate. Such was the character of the man!

The "ostensible letter" which was to serve as Smith's justification, if he should decline to follow the injunctions of the will, is as follows:—

Smith did not absolutely refuse to edit the "Dialogues," but Hume saw pretty clearly that it was a task that would not be performed by him. That he was correct in this supposition, appears by a letter from Smith to Strahan after Hume's death, where he says:

"I once had persuaded him to leave it entirely to my discretion either to publish them at what time I thought proper, or not to publish them at all. Had he continued of this mind, the manuscript should have been most carefully preserved, and upon my decease restored to his family; but it never should have been published in my lifetime. When you have read it, you will perhaps think it not unreasonable to consult some prudent friend about what you ought to do."[494:1]

By a codicil to his will, dated 7th August, he thus altered the arrangement referred to in these letters. "In my later will and disposition, I made some destinations with regard to my manuscripts: All these I now retract, and leave my manuscripts to the care of Mr. William Strahan of London, member of Parliament, trusting to the friendship that has long subsisted between us, for his careful and faithful execution of my intentions. I desire that my 'Dialogues concerning Natural Religion' may be printed and published, any time within two years after my death." After making the bequest to John Home which is mentioned farther on, leaving to Blair, Smith, Home, and Edmondstoune, "all of them persons very dear to me, and whose affection to me I know by repeated proofs to have been mutual," each a copy of the new edition of his works, and to Miss Ord, ten guineas to buy a ring, "as a memorial of his friendship and attachment to so amiable and accomplished a person," the codicil is signed. There is then a new paragraph appended as follows:

"I do ordain that if my 'Dialogues,' from whatever cause, be not published within two years and a half after my death, as also the account of my life, the property shall return to my nephew, David, whose duty in publishing them, as the last request of his uncle, must be approved of by all the world."[494:2]

Both Hume and Smith seem to have thought that Strahan would undertake the publication as a mere matter of business. But this book, like the little hunchback in the "Arabian Nights," was a commodity which every one seemed anxious to transfer to his neighbour. Strahan declined to undertake the task, and the "Dialogues" did not appear until 1779, when they were published by their author's nephew.

Smith cheerfully agreed to undertake the superintendance of the new edition of his friend's works, then at press. They appear to have been all in a state of very finished preparation for the press, and an edition of the "Inquiries" and the miscellaneous essays was published in 1777, from a copy in which the author had completed that removal of passages of a democratic tendency, which has been so frequently alluded to.

By the entreaties of several friends, who believed that travelling might have a favourable influence on his health, Hume undertook a journey to London towards the end of April. At Morpeth he met with Adam Smith and John Home, on their way from London, to visit him in Edinburgh, in consequence of a letter which the former had received from Ferguson, who says, "David, I am afraid, loses ground. He is cheerful and in good spirits as usual; but I confess that my hopes, from the effects of the turn of the season towards spring, have very much abated."

Smith proceeded to Edinburgh, but Home went back to London with his friend, and fortunately preserved a diary of the journey, so very interesting, and containing so lively a picture of Hume's state of mind and habits, that, though already published,[495:1] the reader would not excuse its omission on this occasion.

Note by Mr. John Home.

Soon after Mr. Home received the letter from Dr. Ferguson, he left London, and set out for Scotland with Mr. Adam Smith. They came to Morpeth on the 23d of April, 1776, and would have passed Mr. David Hume, if they had not seen his servant, Colin, standing at the gate of an inn. Mr. Home thinks that his friend, Mr. David Hume, is much better than he expected to find him. His spirits are astonishing: he talks of his illness, of his death, as matters of no moment, and gives an account of what passed between him and his physicians since his illness began, with his usual wit, or with more wit than usual.

He acquainted Mr. Adam Smith and me, that Dr. Black had not concealed the opinion he had of the desperateness of his condition, and was rather averse to his setting out. "Have you no reason against it," said David, "but an apprehension that it may make me die sooner?—that is no reason at all." I never saw him more cheerful, or in more perfect possession of all his faculties, his memory, his understanding, his wit. It is agreed that Smith shall go on to Scotland, and that I should proceed to Bath with David. We are to travel one stage before dinner, and one after dinner. Colin tells me that he thinks Mr. Hume better than when he left Edinburgh. We had a fine evening as we went from Morpeth to Newcastle. David seeing a pair of pistols in the chaise, said, that as he had very little at stake, he would indulge me in my humour of fighting the highwaymen. Whilst supper was getting ready at the inn, Mr. Hume and I played an hour at picquet. Mr. David was very keen about his card-playing.

Newcastle, Wednesday, 24th April.

Mr. Hume not quite so well in the morning—says, that he had set out merely to please his friends; that he would go on to please them; that Ferguson and Andrew Stuart, (about whom we had been talking,) were answerable for shortening his life one week a-piece; for, says he, you will allow Xenophon to be good authority; and he lays it down, that suppose a man is dying, nobody has a right to kill him. He set out in this vein, and continued all the stage in his cheerful and talking humour. It was a fine day, and we went on to Durham—from that to Darlington, where we passed the night.

In the evening Mr. Hume thinks himself more easy and light, than he has been any time for three months. In the course of our conversation we touched upon the national affairs. He still maintains, that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain; and laments that the two most civilized nations, the English and French, should be on the decline; and the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals of Germany and Russia, should be rising in power and renown. The French king, he says, has ruined the state by recalling the parliaments. Mr. Hume thinks that there is only one man in France fit to be minister, (the Archbishop of Toulouse,) of the family of Brienne. He told me some curious anecdotes with regard to this prelate; that he composed and corrected without writing; that Mr. Hume had heard him repeat an elegant oration of an hour and a quarter in length, which he had never written. Mr. Hume, talking with the Princess Beauvais about French policy, said that he knew but one man in France capable of restoring its greatness; the lady said she knew one too, and wished to hear if it was the same. They accordingly named each their man, and it was this prelate.[497:1]

Thursday, 25th.

Left Darlington about nine o'clock, and came to Northallerton. The same delightful weather. A shower fell that laid the dust, and made our journey to Boroughbridge more pleasant. Mr. Hume continues very easy, and has a tolerable appetite; tastes nothing liquid but water, and sups upon an egg. He assured me, that he never possessed his faculties more perfectly; that he never was more sensible of the beauties of any classic author than he was at present, nor loved more to read. When I am not in the room with him he reads continually. The post-boys can scarcely be persuaded to drive only five miles an hour, and their horses are of the same way of thinking! The other travellers, as they pass, look into the chaise, and laugh at our slow pace. This evening the post-boy from Northallerton, who had required a good deal of threatening to make him drive as slow as we desired, had no sooner taken his departure to go home, than he set off at full speed. "Pour se dédommager," said David.

Friday, 26th, Boroughbridge.

Mr. Hume this morning not quite so well. He observes, and I see it, that he has a good day and a bad one. His illness is an internal hemorrhage, which has been wasting him for a long time. He is so thin that he chooses to have a cushion under him when he sits upon an ordinary chair. He told me to-day, that if Louis XV. had died in the time of the regency, the whole French nation were determined to bring back the King of Spain to be King of France,—so zealous were they for preserving the line of succession. This evening Mr. Hume not quite so well, and goes to bed at a more early hour than he used to do.

Ferrybridge, Sunday, 28th.

Mr. Hume much better this morning. He told me, that the French nation had no great opinion of Cardinal Fleury; that the English had extolled him, in opposition to their own minister Sir Robert Walpole; but that Fleury was a little genius, and a cheat. Lord Marischal acquainted Mr. Hume with a piece of knavery which his lordship said nobody but a Frenchman and a priest could have been guilty of. The French ambassador at Madrid came to Lord Marischal one day, and told him, that he had a letter from the French minister at Petersburgh, acquainting him that General Keith was not pleased with his situation in Russia, and wished to return to the Spanish service, (where he had formerly been;) that it would be proper for Lord Marischal to apply to the court of Spain. Lord Marischal said nothing could be more agreeable to him than to have his brother in the same country with him; but that, as he had heard nothing from himself, he could not make any application in his name. The French minister still urged him to write to the Spanish minister, but in vain. When the brothers met, several years after, they explained this matter. Keith had never any intention of coming into the Spanish service again; and if Lord Marischal had applied to the court of Spain, measures were taken to intercept the letter, and send it to the court of Russia. General Keith, who commanded the Russian army in the field against the Swedes, would have been arrested, and sent to Siberia; and the moment he had left the army, the Swedes were to attack the Russians. Mr. Hume told me, talking of Fleury, that Monsieur Trudent,[499:1] who was his eléve, acquainted him with an anecdote of that minister and the late French king, which he, Mr. Hume, believes Trudent had never ventured to tell to any body but him; and he (David) had never told it to any body but me. Now, since Fleury, Trudent, and Lewis, are all dead, it may be told. Trudent took the liberty of observing to Fleury, that the king should be advised to apply a little more to business, and take some charge of his own affairs. Fleury, the first time Trudent spoke to him upon this subject, made him no answer; but upon his speaking again on the same subject, he told him, that he had entreated the king to be a man of business, and assured him that the French did not like an inactive prince; that in former times, there had been a race of indolent princes who did nothing at all, and were called Les Rois Fainéants; that one of them had been put into a convent. The king made no reply; but some time afterwards, when Fleury resumed the subject, the king asked him, whether or no the prince that was put into the convent had a good pension allowed him?[499:2]

Mr. Hume this day told me, that he had bought a piece of ground; and when I seemed surprised that I had never heard of it, he said it was in the New Church-yard, on the Calton Hill, for a burying-place; that he meant to have a small monument erected, not to exceed in expense one hundred pounds; that the inscription should be

David Hume.

I desired him to change the discourse. He did so; but seemed surprised at my uneasiness, which he said was very nonsensical. I think he is gaining ground; but he laughs at me, and says it is impossible; that the year ('76,) sooner or later, he takes his departure. He is willing to go to Bath, or travel during the summer through England, and return to Scotland to die at home; but that Sir John Pringle, and the whole faculty, would find it very difficult to boat him, (formerly an usual phrase in Scotland for going abroad, that is, out of the island, for health.) This day we travelled by his desire three stages, and arrived with great ease at Grantham.

Monday, 29th.

From the treatment Mr. Hume met with in France, he recurred to a subject not unfrequent with him—that is, the design to ruin him as an author, by the people that were ministers, at the first publication of his History, and called themselves Whigs, who, he said, were determined not to suffer truth to be told in Britain. Amongst many instances of this, he told me one which was new to me. The Duke of Bedford, (who afterwards conceived a great affection for Mr. Hume,) by the suggestions of some of his party friends, ordered his son, Lord Tavistock, not to read Mr. Hume's History of England; but the young man was prevailed upon by one of his companions (Mr. Crawford of Errol) to disobey the command. He read the History, and was extremely pleased with it.

Mr. Hume told me, that the Duke de Choiseul, at the time Lord Hertford was in France, expressed the greatest inclination for peace, and a good correspondence between France and Britain. He assured Lord Hertford, that if the court of Britain would relinquish Falkland Island, he would undertake to procure from the court of Spain the payment of the Manilla ransom. Lord Hertford communicated the proposal to Mr. Grenville, who slighted it. Lord Hertford told Mr. Hume the same day an extraordinary instance of the violence of faction. Towards the end of Queen Anne's reign, when the Whig ministers were turned out of all their places at home, and the Duke of Marlborough still continued in the command of the army abroad, the discarded ministers met, and wrote a letter, which was signed by Lord Somers, Lord Townshend, Lord Sunderland, and Sir Robert Walpole, desiring the duke to bring over the troops he could depend on, and that they would seize the queen's person, and proclaim the Elector of Hanover Regent. The Duke of Marlborough answered the letter, and said it was madness to think of such a thing. Mr. Horace Walpole, Sir R. Walpole's youngest son, confirmed the truth of this anecdote, which he had heard his father repeat often and often; and Mr. Walpole allowed Mr. Hume to quote him as his authority, and make what use he pleased of it. When George I. came to England, he hesitated whether to make a Whig or a Tory administration; but the German minister, Bernstorf, determined him to take the side of the Whigs, who had made a purse of thirty thousand guineas, and given it to this German. George I. was of a moderate and gentle temper.—He regretted all his life, that he had given way to the violence of the Whigs in the beginning of his reign. Whenever any difficulty occurred in parliament, he used to blame the impeachment of the Tories,—"Ce diable de impeachment," as he called it.

The Whigs, in the end of Queen Anne's reign, bribed the Emperor's ministers, not to consent to the peace, and to send over Prince Eugene with proposals to continue the war.

This anecdote from Lord Bath. Another anecdote Mr. Hume mentioned, but distrusted the authority, for it was David Mallet who told Mr. Hume, that he had evidence in his custody of a design to assassinate Lord Oxford.

Prior, after the accession, was reduced to such poverty by the persecution he met with, that he was obliged to publish his works by subscription. Lord Bathurst told Mr. Hume, that he was with Prior reading the pieces that were to be published, and he thought there was not enough to make two small volumes. He asked Prior if he had no more poems? He said, No more that he thought good enough.—"What is that," said Bathurst, pointing to a roll of paper. "A trifle," said Prior, "that I wrote in three weeks, not worthy of your attention or that of the public." Lord Bathurst desired to see it. This neglected piece was Alma .

Tuesday, 30th.

Last night, when Mr. Hume was going to bed, he complained of cold. One part of his malady had been a continual heat, so that he could not endure a soft or warm bed, and lay in the night with a single sheet upon him; he desired to have an additional covering. Colin observed to him, that he thought it a good symptom. Mr. Hume said he thought so too, for it was a good thing to be like other people. This morning he is wonderfully well; which is visible in his countenance and colour, and even the firmness of his step. Talking of the state of the nation, which he continually laments, he mentioned an anecdote of the former war. He was at Turin with General Sinclair, after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and, considering the superiority which the French arms had gained, he could not conceive why France granted such good terms to Britain. He desired General Sinclair to touch upon that subject with the King of Sardinia. That prince, who was very familiar with the General, said he was at a loss to give any account of that matter; but, many years after, when Hume was minister in France, and lived in great intimacy with Monsieur Puysieux, Secretary of State, who had negociated the peace of Aix, Mr. Hume asked him the reason of the conduct of France at that time? Puysieux told him, that it was the king's aversion to war; that he knew more of it than any man alive, for, the year before the peace, he was ordered by the king to propose pretty near the same terms. He remonstrated against making the offer; said that at least the proposal should come from England; and that there was always some advantage to be gained by receiving, rather than propounding terms. The king was impatient, and obliged Puysieux to write the letter, (which General Ligonier carried,) with those terms which next year were agreed to by the British court. Mr. John Home said he knew that the King of France promoted the peace of Paris from the aversion he had to war; and the peace was made at a time when it seemed impossible for Britain to carry on a war of such extent, and retain her scattered conquests. Mr. Hume mentioned another singular anecdote concerning the beginning of the last war. When a squadron of the English fleet attacked and took two French men of war, the Alcide and the Lys, Louis XV. was so averse to war, that he would have pocketed the insult; and Madame Pompadour said it was better to put up with the affront, than to go to war without any object but the point of honour. It is known, that neither the king nor the ministers of England wished for war. The French king abhorred the thought of war!—What then was the cause? Chiefly the fear of the popular clamour, and of the opposition, in the Duke of Newcastle's mind. Mr. Hume thinks Lord North no great minister, but does not see a better; cannot give any reason for the incapacity and want of genius, civil and military, which marks this period. He looks upon the country as on the verge of decline. His fears seem rather too great, and things are not quite so bad as he apprehends; but certainly the first show of statesmen, generals, and admirals, is, without comparison, the worst that has been seen in this country. I said to Mr. Hume, that I thought the great consideration to be acquired by speaking in Parliament, was the cause of that want of every other quality in men of rank: they do speak readily, but there are many orators who can neither judge nor act well.

Wednesday, 31st April.

Arrived in London, where we saw Sir John Pringle, who thought Mr. Hume much better than he expected to see him, and in no immediate danger. We staid a few days in London, and then set out for Bath.

In travelling from London to Bath, we had occasion frequently to make our observations on the passengers whom we met, and on those who passed us, as every carriage continued to do. Nothing occurred worthy the writing down, except Mr. David's plan of managing his kingdom, in case Ferguson and I had been princes of the adjacent states. He knew very well, he said, (having often disputed the point with us,) the great opinion we had of military virtues as essential to every state; that from these sentiments rooted in us, he was certain he would be attacked and interrupted in his projects of cultivating, improving, and civilizing mankind by the arts of peace; that he comforted himself with reflecting, that from our want of economy and order in our affairs, we should be continually in want of money; whilst he would have his finances in excellent condition, his magazines well filled, and naval stores in abundance; but that his final stroke of policy, upon which he depended, was to give one of us a large subsidy to fall upon the other, which would infallibly secure to him peace and quiet, and after a long war, would probably terminate in his being master of all the three kingdoms. At this sally, so like David's manner of playing with his friends, I fell into a fit of laughing, in which David joined; and the people that passed us certainly thought we were very merry travellers.