and more inaccurate manner than either the English statutes or French ordinances of the same period; and Scotland seems to have been, even during this vigorous reign, as our historians represent it, in greater disorder than either France or England had been from the time of the Danish and Norwegian incursions.  The 5, 24, 56, and 85 statutes seem all to attempt a remedy to one and the same abuse.  Travelling, from the disorders of the country, must have been extremely dangerous, and consequently very rare.  Few people therefore would propose to live by entertaining travellers, and consequently there would be few or no inns.  Travellers would be obliged to have recourse to the hospitality of private families in the same manner as in all other barbarous countries; and being in this situation real objects of compassion, private families would think themselves obliged to receive them even though this hospitality was extremely oppressive.  Strangers, says Homer, are sacred persons, and under the protection of Jupiter, but no wise man would ever choose to send for a stranger unless he was a bard or a soothsayer.  The danger too of travelling either alone or with few attendants made all men of consequence carry along with them a numerous suite of retainers, which rendered this hospitality still more oppressive.  Hence the orders to build hostellaries in 24 and 85; and as many people had chosen to follow the old fashion and to live rather at the expense of other people than at their own, hence the complaint of the keepers of the hostellaries and the order thereupon in Act 85.

I cannot conclude this letter, though already too long, without expressing to your Lordship my concern, and still more my indignation, at what has lately passed both at London and at Edinburgh.  I have often thought that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom very much resembled a jury.  The law lords generally take upon them to sum up the evidence and to explain the law to the other peers, who generally follow their opinion implicitly.  Of the two law lords who upon this occasion instructed them, the one has always run after the applause of the mob; the other, by far the most intelligent, has always shown the greatest dread of popular odium, which, however, he has not been able to avoid.  His inclinations also have always been suspected to favour one of the parties.  He has upon this occasion, I suspect, followed rather his fears and his inclinations than his judgment.  I could say a great deal more upon this subject to your Lordship, but I am afraid I have already said too much.  I would rather, for my own part, have the solid reputation of your most respectable president, though exposed to the insults of a brutal mob, than all the vain and flimsy applause that has ever yet been bestowed upon either or both the other two.—­I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem and regard, my Lord, your Lordship’s most obliged and obedient servant,

     ADAM SMITH.[211]