Nota bene: Last month (see here), I mentioned that I would begin two new series on Adam Smith. I have already completed my first series on “Adam Smith and the ‘Absurd Prescriptions’ of Doctors“; now, as promised, it’s time to start my other series: “Adam Smith: Bureaucrat“.
In an ironic twist of fate, Adam Smith, the champion of free trade, was somehow appointed to the post of Commissioner of Customs(!) in November of 1778 — two years after the publication of his free-market manifesto, The Wealth of Nations — a position he held from February 1778 until his death in July of 1790. Smith was thus a pro-mercantilist, protectionist bureaucrat for as many years as he was a professor and moral philosopher at the University of Glasgow, but what was the promoter of perfect liberty actually doing during this final incongruous phase of his life?
To shed light on this lesser-known side of Smith’s biography, I have been patiently conducting some time-consuming and meticulous archival research in my spare time: collecting, reading, transcribing, and summarizing more than 1,100 letters signed by Smith in his official capacity as customs commissioner. Let’s begin by taking a closer look at a batch of customs letters corresponding to the middle period of Smith’s 12-year stint as customs official, i.e. from the middle of September 1784 to the beginning of March 1785.
In summary, during this precise period of time (14 September 1784 to 9 March 1785) Smith signed a total of 34 separate letters and orders in his capacity as Commissioner of Scotland’s Board of Customs. What do these almost-three dozen pieces of customs correspondence teach us? Some of the letters involve core customs-enforcement actions, such as seizures of contraband and prosecutions of smugglers, while others concern internal accounting or administrative matters, such as employee reprimands and reimbursements of expenses. Starting tomorrow, then, I will survey each of these letters (four or five at a time) in greater detail to reveal this unsung side of Smith’s biography: his life as a British bureaucrat.
