Smith probably remained most of the year 1777 in London, for, as we have seen, one of his reasons for being there was to see the second edition of his work through the press, and the second edition of his work did not appear till 1778.  But he was back in Kirkcaldy again before December, and while there he received from Lord North the appointment of Commissioner of Customs in Scotland, vacant through the death of Mr. Archibald Menzies.  The offence he unexpectedly gave to the world’s religious sensibilities by his account of Hume’s last days had not interfered, as he feared such an offence would, with his prospects of employment in the public service, nor, what is quite as remarkable, had his political opinions.  For he was always a strong Whig, and the preferment was bestowed by a Tory ministry.  It is usually attributed to the influence of the Duke of Buccleugh and Henry Dundas, then a member of the ministry as Lord Advocate for Scotland, and their word may no doubt have helped; but there is reason to believe that the appointment was really a direct reward to the author of the Wealth of Nations for the benefit Lord North, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as Prime Minister, derived from that book in preparing the budgets for the years 1777 and 1778.  Smith himself, in a letter to Strahan which will presently appear (p. 323) attributes the appointment largely to the favour of Sir Grey Cooper, who had been Secretary to the Treasury since 1765, and was naturally Lord North’s right-hand man in the preparation of his budgets.  At the time the Wealth of Nations appeared the English Chancellor of the Exchequer was at his wits’ end for fresh and convenient and easy means of increasing the revenue to carry on the American war, and the book was a mine of suggestions to him.  He imposed two new taxes in 1777, of which he got the idea there,—­one on man-servants, estimated by him to bring in L105,000, though in the event it yielded only L18,000, and the other on property sold by auction, which was to bring in L37,000; but in the budget of 1778, which he would have under consideration at the very moment of Smith’s appointment, he introduced two new taxes recommended by Smith,—­the inhabited house duty, estimated to yield L264,000, and the malt tax, estimated to yield L310,000.  Under those circumstances Smith’s appointment to the Commissionership of Customs is to be regarded not as a private favour to the Duke of Buccleugh, but as an express recognition on the part of the Premier of the public value of Smith’s work, and the more honourable because rendered to a political opponent who had condemned important parts of the ministerial policy—­their American policy, for example—­in his recent work.