original ideas which you seem to suppose that they contain.  I am not very certain whether I understand what you hint obscurely in your former letter, but it seems to me as if you had some fear that some person might anticipate you, and claim the merit of your discoveries by publishing them as his own.  From the character of the gentleman to whom your property has been communicated, I should hope there is no danger of this.  But to prevent the Possibility of the Public being imposed upon in this manner, your Papers now lie sealed up in my writing Desk, superscribed with directions to my executors to return them unopened to you or your heirs as their proper owners.  In case of my death and that of Mr. M’Kinzie, the production of these papers under my seal and superscribed by my hand will be sufficient to refute any plagiarism of this kind.  While we live our evidence will secure to you the reputation of whatever discoveries may be contained in them.  I return you the five Pound note, in hopes that you will not insist upon this publication, at least for some time; at any rate, I shall always be happy to advance a larger sum upon your account, though I own I could wish it was for some other purpose.  I have not shown your Papers to Smellie.  It will give me great pleasure to hear from you, and to be informed that you forgive the freedom I have used in offering you, I am afraid, a disagreeable advice.  I can assure you that nothing but the respect which I think I owe to the character of a person whom I know to be a man of worth, delicacy, and honour, could have extorted it from me.—­I ever am, dear sir, most faithfully yours,

     ADAM SMITH.

     CUSTOM HOUSE, EDINBURGH,

     21st August 1782.

     If you should not chuse that your Papers should remain in my
     custody, I shall either send them to you or deliver to whom
     you please.[323]

While one Highland laird was planning to save his country by an improved system of fortification, another was conceiving a grander project of saving her by continental alliances.  The moment was among the darkest England has ever passed through.  We were engaged in a death-struggle against France, Spain, and the American colonies combined.  Cornwallis had just repeated at Yorktown the humiliating surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga.  Elliot lay locked in Gibraltar.  Ireland was growing restive and menacing on one side, and the Northern powers of Europe on the other—­the Armed Neutrality, as they were called—­sat and watched, with their hands on their sword-hilts and a grudge against England in their hearts.  Now Sir John Sinclair believed that these neutral powers held the key of the situation, and wrote a pamphlet in 1782, which he proposed to translate into their respective tongues for the purpose of persuading them to join this country in a crusade against the House of Bourbon, and “to emancipate the colonies both in the West Indies and on the continent