student in about 1763 which were later edited by E. Cannan (Lectures
on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, 1896), and from what Scott,
its discoverer and publisher, describes as "An Early Draft of Part
of The Wealth of Nations, which he dates about 1763.
At the end of 1763 Smith obtained a lucrative post as tutor to the
young duke of Buccleuch and resigned his professorship. From 1764-66
he traveled with his pupil, mostly in France, where he came to know
such intellectual leaders as Turgot, D'Alembert, AndrОMorellet,
HelvОtius and, in particular, Francois Quesnay, the head of the
Physiocratic school whose work he much respected. On returning home
to Kirkcaldy he devoted much of the next ten years to his magnum
opus, which appeared in 1776. In 1778 he was appointed to a
comfortable post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to
live with his mother in Edinburgh. He died there on July 17, 1790,
after a painfull illness. He had apparently devoted a considerable
part of his income to numerous secret acts of charity.
Shortly before his death Smith had nearly all his manuscripts
destroyed. In his last years he seems to have been planning two
major treatises, one on the theory and history of law and one on the
sciences and arts. The posthumously published Essays on
Philosophical Subjects (1795) probably contain parts of what would
have been the latter treatise.
