Burke could not help feeling strengthened, as he says he was in his letter, by the approval of a man like Smith, who was not only a profound political philosopher, but a thorough and loyal Whig.  Notwithstanding his personal friendship with Lord Shelburne, Smith never seems to have trusted him as a political leader.  We have already seen him condemning Shelburne at the time of that statesman’s first collision with Fox—­the “pious fraud” occasion—­and now nineteen years later he shows the same distrust of Shelburne, and doubtless for the same reason, that he believed Shelburne was willing to be subservient to the king’s designs, and to increase the power of the Crown, which it had ever been the aim of the Whigs to limit.  Shelburne’s acceptance of office, after the king’s positive refusal to listen to the views of the Rockinghams themselves regarding the leadership of their own party, was probably regarded by Smith as a piece of open treason to the popular cause, and open espousal of the cause of the Court.

In those critical times the thoughts of even private citizens brooded on the arts of war.  An Edinburgh lawyer who had never been at sea invented the system of naval tactics which gave Rodney his victories, and here is a Highland laird, who had spent his days among his herds in Skye, writing Smith about a treatise he has composed on fortification, which he believes to contain original discoveries of great importance, and which he sends up to Smith and Henry Mackenzie, with a five-pound note to pay the expenses of its publication.  The author was Charles Mackinnon of Mackinnon, the chief of his clan, who fell into adverse circumstances shortly after the date of this correspondence, and parted with all the old clan property, and the treatise on fortification itself still exists among the manuscripts of the British Museum.  It is certainly a poor affair, from which the author could have reaped nothing but disappointment, and Smith, who seems to have held Mr. Mackinnon in high esteem personally, strongly dissuades him from giving it to the press.  This opinion is communicated in the following candid but kind letter:—­

DEAR SIR—­I received your favour of the 13th of this month, and am under some concern to be obliged to tell you that I have not only not got out of the press, but that I have not yet gone into it, and would most earnestly once more recommend it to your consideration whether upon this occasion we should go into it at all.  It was but within these few days that I could obtain a meeting with Mr. Mackinzie, who was occupied with the Exchequer Business.  I find he had seen your papers before, and was of the same opinion with me that in their present condition they would not do you the honour we wish you to derive from whatever work you publish.  We read them over together with great care and attention, and we both continued of our first opinion.  I hope you will pardon me if I take the liberty to tell you that I cannot discover in them those