of unique commercial enterprise and expansion.  We can easily believe Gibson, the historian of Glasgow, when he states that after 1750 “not a beggar was to be seen in the streets,” and “the very children were busy”; and we can as easily understand Smith when, contrasting Glasgow and Edinburgh among other places, he says the residence of a few spirited merchants is a much better thing for the common people of a place than the residence of a court.

Now it was those spirited merchants who had then so much to do with the making of Glasgow that had also something to do with the making of Adam Smith.  Plain business men of to-day sometimes smile at the “Virginian Dons” and “tobacco lords” of last century as they picture them gathering to the Glasgow Plainstanes at the hour of Change in the glory of scarlet cloaks, cocked hats, and gold-headed canes, and the plain citizens of that time all making way for their honours as they passed.  But there was much enlightenment and sagacity concealed under that finery.  Mrs. Montagu, who visited Glasgow in 1767, wrote Sir A. Mitchell, the Ambassador, that she was more delighted with it than with any other commercial town she had seen, because gain did not usurp people’s whole attention, but “the sciences, the arts, and the love of agriculture had their share."[65] Their fortunes were small compared with the present standard.  Sir John Dalrymple, speaking of three of the foremost merchants of Glasgow (one of them, John Glassford, the richest man in the city), computes that they had a quarter of a million between the three, and Dr. Reid, explaining the anxiety caused in Glasgow by the American troubles in 1765, says Glasgow owners possessed property in the American plantations amounting to L400,000.  But these figures meant large handling and large dealings in those times, and perhaps more energy, mind, and character than the bigger figures of the present day; and we are told that commercial men in Glasgow still look back to John Glassford and Andrew Cochrane as perhaps the greatest merchants the Clyde has seen.

Andrew Cochrane was Smith’s particular friend among them, and Dr. Carlyle tells that “Dr. Smith acknowledged his obligations to this gentleman’s information when he was collecting materials for his Wealth of Nations; and the junior merchants who have flourished since his time and extended their commerce far beyond what was then dreamt of, confess with respectful remembrance that it was Andrew Cochrane who first opened and enlarged their views."[66] Dr. Carlyle informs us, moreover, that Cochrane founded a weekly club in the “forties”—­political economy club—­of which “the express design was to inquire into the nature and principles of trade in all its branches, and to communicate knowledge and ideas on that subject to each other,” and that Smith became a member of this club after coming to reside in Glasgow.  This was probably the first political economy club in the world, for Carlyle was in Glasgow in 1743, and it is of that period he speaks when he says, “I was not acquainted with Provost Cochrane at this time, but I observed that the members of this society had the highest admiration of his knowledge and talents.”