Adam Smith, Commissioner (part 18)

The penultimate document [*] in my sample of signed Adam Smith letters is Order #144, which is dated 30 December 1784 and is signed by Basil Cochrane (top signature), Adam Smith (middle), and James Edgar (bottom). This order highlights the classic tension between “law” and “equity”, between strict enforcement and equitable discretion: “Having received your Report of the 23rd instant, on the Petition of Duncan Grant [,] Manufacturer in Forres, praying that the Duty may be remitted on a Cask of Flour Seed imported in the Friendship from Campvere in the Month of March last, which was omitted in the Report of the Master of the said Vessel; We upon considering the Circumstances of the Case, agree to the Duties on the said Flour Seed being exempted.” What is going on here? In summary, a manufacturer based in the town of Forres in the northeast of Scotland (see maps pictured below) had imported a cask of “Flour Seed” from the port of Veere in the Netherlands. (Veere was known in Scotland as…

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