Here are parts 1 (intro), 2 (Letter #109), and 3 (Letter #112). The next piece of official customs-house correspondence in my sample of Adam Smith letters from 1784-1785 is Letter #118. This letter, which is dated 1 November 1784, is an official administrative order issued by the Board of Customs Commissioners in Scotland and is signed by three of the commissioners: Adam Smith (top signature), Basil Cochrane (middle), and David Reid (bottom). The letter, which deals with a routine personnel matter, reads as follows:

“Having in pursuance of a Warrant of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury issued our Commission to Mr. Farquhar Macdonald to be a Landwaiter and Searcher in the room of John Ogilvie Superannuated. And when he has perfected the inclosed Bond with two Sureties (whose sufficiency you are to certify to the Examiner of Officers Securities) you are to admit him to his Employment taking care to administer to him the Oath of Office signifying at the same time that he must also take the said Oath de fideli before two Justices of the Peace as required by the Act 6th & 7th of William and Mary Cap. 1st Sec. 5th & 6th letting him know that he must likewise qualify himself within three Months as further directed by the 1st Geo. 1st Stat. 2d Cap. 13th and to send us Certificates &c. of his compliance with the directions of the said Acts and in your next List of Officers the time of his admission is to be certified.”

Before proceeding, notice how the first sentence of this order refers to a “Warrant of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury.” (Letter #118) This treasury warrant was a formal legal instrument instructing the Board of Customs to issue an official Commission to a specific person. (See Hoon 1968, pp. 196-197.) In other words, although the Commissioners of Customs (including Smith) in Edinburgh managed the day-to-day operations of Scottish customs, they did not have the authority to create positions or appoint individuals on their own authority. The appointment of customs officers was a power held solely by the Crown and exercised through the Treasury in London.

Here (Letter #118), the commissioners are instructing local customs officers to admit a new hire (“Mr. Farquhar Macdonald”) as a land-waiter and searcher — i.e. an official customs inspector responsible for examining and clearing landed cargo (see Hoon 1968, pp. 11-12) — to replace another employee, who has retired (“John Ogilvie Superannuated“), but for this replacement to become effective, the new hire must do two things first and he must do them within 90 days: (1) he must obtain insurance, i.e. an indemnity bond with two approved financial sureties, and (2) he must take an official oath of office in front of two magistrates (“Justices of the Peace”).

In the course of describing these requirements, the letter refers to two separate statutes or written laws, for these are statutory requirements. One is “Act 6th & 7th of William and Mary Cap. 1st Sec. 5th & 6th.” This law was enacted on 22 December 1694 and its full title was “An Act for granting to Their Majesties a Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage and other Sums of Money payable upon Merchandizes Exported and Imported.” (See here; scroll down to the Taxation (No. 2) Act 1694. Note: this law was repealed by Statute Law Revision Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 59).) Among other things, this law established revenue-collection guidelines and required customs officers and inspectors to take an explicit oath de fideli administratione (an oath of fidelity and faithful execution of office) before two local magistrates (“Justices of the Peace”) prior to assuming duties. Sections 5 and 6 spelled out the required procedure for swearing in port officers and recording their certificates of compliance.

The other statute is “1st Geo. 1st Stat. 2d Cap. 13th.” This law was enacted on 20 August 1715, shortly after the accession of King George I and the Jacobite rising of 1715, and was titled “An Act for the further security of His Majesty’s person and government, and the succession of the Crown in the heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales.” (See here, scroll down to the Security of the Sovereign Act. Note: this law was subsequently repealed by section 8 of the Universities Tests Act of 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 26).) This law required all civil and military officers to take — not one, not two, but three! — three separate oaths within three months of their appointment:

1. The Oath of Allegiance: Swearing loyalty to the reigning Hanoverian monarch.
2. The Oath of Supremacy: Denouncing the spiritual and temporal authority of any foreign prince, person, or papal jurisdiction within the realm.
3. The Oath of Abjuration: Explicitly renouncing any allegiance to the Jacobite Stuart pretenders to the throne.

Failure to take these statutory oaths within the specified three-month window rendered the appointment null and void and subjected the would-be officer to severe legal penalties. (See generally Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, Ch. 4 (Of Offences Against God and Religion), available here.) For his part, no doubt Adam Smith would have taken these three oaths after he was appointed a Commissioner of Customs in November of 1777, but might Smith have otherwise sympathized (perhaps secretly) with the lost cause of the Jacobites?