Nota bene: Below is an excerpt from Chapter 9 of my forthcoming book with Salim Rashid, Das Adam Smith Problematic? Ethics, Economics and Society. (Footnotes are below the fold.)

“The first letter Adam Smith wrote after arriving in Paris in February of 1764 was his official letter of resignation.[1] Smith’s resignation letter is addressed to one of his former students, Thomas Miller,[2] who was the Lord Rector of University of Glasgow from 1762 to 1764.[3] In this letter, Smith does two things. First, he officially resigns his professorship for good, and secondly, he asks that the remainder of his salary go to Thomas Young, another former student of Smith’s, who had taken over the Scottish philosopher’s lectures at Glasgow when he (Smith) had first notified his academic colleagues in the fall of 1763 that something was afoot.[4] But why did Adam Smith decide to resign his prestigious professorship instead of just taking a temporary leave of absence?[5] After all, Smith, by all accounts, was supposed to be a cautious and prudent man. Why give up a permanent professorship to become a temporary tutor?

“We know that Duke Henry’s stepfather, the British politician Charles Townshend, had intended to offer Smith the opportunity of serving as the young duke’s travelling tutor. (Corr. No. 31) In the fall of 1763, Townshend wrote to Smith, informing him that his stepson’s grand tour was now imminent. (Corr. No. 76) Upon receiving this news, Smith had a delicate and time-sensitive choice to make: he could remain in Glasgow until the end of the academic year and risk losing this opportunity to travel overseas, or he could drop everything and begin a new chapter in his life. In the event, he chose to cross the Channel with Duke Henry. Why? Was this decision based purely on financial considerations? After all, Smith was offered a lucrative compensation package by Townshend: twice as much money as he was making as a professor, plus a generous pension for life. Or did Smith just have a burning desire to travel abroad? Or was it some other reason?

“Whatever Smith’s motives were, he and the young aristocrat left for France in January of 1764, and soon thereafter Smith formally resigned his professorship in a letter dated 14 February 1764, the day after his arrival in Paris.[6] Why did Smith make such a drastic decision on his first full day in the City of Light? What was going through his mind when he resigned his professorship? Smith had been the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow for over ten years, and 15 months previously (October of 1762), the university had conferred on him the title of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.). Also, if his Lectures on Jurisprudence from the 1762-63 academic year are any guide,[7] Smith was working on a new book on law and government. Why did Smith throw caution to the wind, so to speak, and put this ambitious project—as well as his academic career—on hold at this time?”

[1] Corr. No. 81.                                                     

[2] See Ross 1995, p. 148.                                      

[3] See Mossner & Ross 1987, p. 100 n.1; Corr. No. 81. Did Smith himself play a role in his former student’s appointment to the position of Lord Rector?                                                                 

[4] John Rae (1965, p. 167), for example, reports that on 8 November 1763, “according to the Faculty Records, Dr. Smith represented that some interesting business would probably require his leaving the College some time this winter ….”       

[5] As an aside, some of Smith’s biographers incorrectly assert that Smith had first taken a leave of absence before resigning his professorship in February 1764. Cf. Campbell & Skinner 1982, p. 124: “He [Smith] … did not immediately resign his Chair but sought [a] leave of absence.” See also Scott 1937, p. 220. It would be more accurate to say, however, that Smith had only put his Glasgow University colleagues on notice that something was afoot. See our previous footnote.                  

[6] See Scott 1937, pp. 220-221.

[7] See Meek 1978, p. 5.