That is the title of my latest work in progress, which I wrote up these last few days during my stay at my college alma mater UCSB (the campus is pictured below) and which I just posted to SSRN (see here). Below is the abstract of my paper:

“Did Adam Smith’s academic superiors at Balliol College, Oxford conspire to search his private rooms, and was the young scholar then reprimanded by them for the heresy of reading David Hume? Although this 18th-century conspiracy story has been retold many times, its veracity has never been corroborated. This paper thus contributes to the Adam Smith literature in three ways: by assembling in one place the original reports of the Oxford conspiracy, by showing how this oft-told Adam Smith conspiracy story has evolved over the years, and by subjecting these accounts to lawyerly scrutiny.”

Enjoy!