prior probability

Did you know that on this day (June 14) in 2002 the planet Earth almost collided with a near-Earth asteroid known as “2002 MN“. The asteriod missed us by a mere 75,000 miles (121,000 km), only about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Among other things, on this day (June 13) in 1774, Rhode Island became the first of Britain’s North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves, and on this day in 1525, Martin Luther, the rebel priest who ignited the Protestant Reformation when he nailed his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, married Katharina von Bora. (Pictured below are three portraits of von Bora.)

On this day (June 11) in 2010 the first African FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa.

I have posted a revised and corrected version of “Adam Smith in the City of Lights (Part 1 of 2)” on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), though I will be making further revisions next week.

Now that we have reviewed all the entries in which Adam Smith is mentioned in Horace Walpole’s 1765-66 Paris travel journal, it’s time to wrap up my multi-part “Smith in the City” series. Specifically, were Adam Smith’s travels in France and his stay in Paris a mere intellectual detour? After all, “Smith was already working on ideas that would form the backbone of [The Wealth of Nations] almost immediately after publishing the first edition of [The Theory of Moral Sentiments] ….”[1] Or did his travels play a pivotal role in his intellectual transformation from a virtue-centric moral philosopher into a modern political economist? Five years before embarking on his Grand Tour of Europe, Smith had announced his next great work in the last paragraph of the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759):

"I shall in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law."[2]

Smith never published this promised tome on law and government; instead, he wrote about the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Why did Smith abandon his law book and turn toward political economy? Why did he write a different book? Using Horace Walpole’s Paris journal, I have reconstructed the first eight weeks of Adam Smith’s fateful stay in Paris and identified the people he may have met during this time–from February 15, 1766, the day he arrived at the Hotel du Parc Royal, to April 17, 1766, the day Walpole left Paris.

Alas, Walpole left Paris on the afternoon of April 17, 1766, so we lose our primary witness and source of Smith’s whereabouts in Paris in early 1766. Nevertheless, despite this unfortunate development, using alternative primary sources–such as the correspondence of such contemporaries as Colbert de Castle-Hill, Madame du Deffand, David Hume, Andre Morellet, Madame Riccoboni, and others–as well as the letters of Adam Smith himself–I will next attempt to reconstruct the remainder of Smith’s Paris sojourn, from his first introduction to Madame Riccoboni in May of 1766 to his sudden departure in October of 1766. (I will present the second part of “Smith in the City of Lights” at the annual meeting of the Southern Economic Association in November 2022.)

Adam Smith appears one last time in Horace Walpole’s travel journal on Wednesday, April 9, which reads: “Lord Edward Bentick and Mr Smith came.”[1]

“Lord Edward Bentick” most likely was Lord Edward Charles Cavendish-Bentinck (1744–1819), whose portrait is pictured below (right), along with the 3rd Duke of Portland (left).[2] At the time of Smith’s 1766 visit to Paris, Bentick was on the last leg of his three-year Grand Tour (1764-66) to France, Holland, and Germany.[3] Later that year, upon his return to England, he would be elected to the House of Commons (Dec. 27, 1766), and he would remain an MP for the next 36 years.[4] Despite his long parliamentary career (1766-1802), and despite his family connections–he was the only brother of Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland–, he never held ministerial office.

Did Bentick and Smith’s pupil, Henry Scott, befriend each other in Paris? Both milords were close in age: Bentick was born in March of 1744; Duke Henry, in September of 1746. And both were experiencing their first grand tours of Europe. Regardless whether they became friends or not, however, the presence of such young men as Lords Bentick and Duke Henry in the French capital reminds us of the original reason why Adam Smith was in Paris in the first place. His primary responsibility at the time was the education and cultivation of his pupils, Duke Henry and the duke’s younger brother Hew Campbell Scott. On the social side of things, Smith–perhaps with the help of Walpole–, had now introduced his students to le monde, Parisian high society. But what about the intellectual side? Did Smith, for example, assign his students any articles from the monthly Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce et des finances, a scholarly journal where the leading économistes of Europe were publishing their work? Did Smith himself get to meet Mirabeau, Quesnay, or Turgot? If so, when, and what did they talk about?

As it happens, something remarkable was occurring in the kingdom of France at this very moment in history–what can only be described as one of the most massive and extraordinary “natural experiments” in history. Although the King had recently deregulated the sale of grain, France’s most important agricultural staple, in Paris the old police regulations still applied to the grain trade. The people of France thus became guinea pigs in a real-time natural experiment, with Parisians serving as the control group. I will turn to this aspect of Smith’s visit and preview my next paper, “Adam Smith in the City of Lights: Part 2” in my next post.

The next-to-last time Adam Smith appears in Horace Walpole’s travel journal is in the entry for Monday, April 7, which states: “Supped at Lady Mary Chabot’s with Lady Browne, Mme de Bouzols, Mr Smith and Chevalier de Barfort.”[1] What is most notable about this collection of eclectic individuals attending this late-night souper is that they were all, with the exception of Smith and Walpole, Roman Catholics.

“Lady Browne,” for example, most likely refers to Margaret Cecil, Lady Brown (1692-1782), the widow of Sir Robert Brown who became Walpole’s neighbor in Twickenham later that year (1766).[2] Walpole himself once referred to her as “the merry Catholic.”[3] The other guests at this souper, Bouzols and Barfot, were also most likely Roman Catholics. “Mme de Bouzols,” for example, may refer to Laure Anne FitzJames (1713-1766), the widow of Timoleon Joachim Louis de Montagu-Beaune, the Marquis de Bouzols.[4] She was a dame du palais, a lady of the Queen’s palace, until 1762, and she died in December of 1766.[5] For his part, the “Chevalier de Barfot” may refer to the Chevalier Charles Jermingham, an English Catholic with strong French connections.[6]

The hostess of this souper was “Lady Mary Chabot,” who most likely refers to Lady Mary Apollonia Scholastica de Rohan Chabot (1721-1769), the widow of Guy Augustus de Chabot-Rohan (1683-1760), known as the comte de Chabot.[7] Although Lady Mary was English–she was the eldest daughter of William Stafford Howard, the 2nd Earl of Stafford[8]–and is buried in St. Edmund’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey,[9] she was married in France and became the Countess de Rohan when she married Guy Augustus de Chabot-Rohan in 1744. (The family shield of the house of Rohan-Chabot is pictured below.)

For his part, Adam Smith refers to the Catholic religion in various parts of The Wealth of Nations. There are, in fact, 10 references in all to Catholics and the Catholic Church in Smith’s magnum opus. By contrast, there are only two references to Catholics in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.[10] In Chapter 1 of Book 5, for example, in the subsection titled “Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Instruction of People of all Ages,” Smith notes how “[i]n some parts of Switzerland, … where, from the accidental union of a Protestant and Roman Catholic country, the conversion has not been so complete, both religions are not only tolerated but established by law.”[11] And in Chapter 7 of Book 1, in the section titled “Causes of Prosperity of New Colonies,” Smith writes:

"The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America, and established there the four governments of New England. The English Catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of Maryland; the Quakers, that of Pennsylvania. The Portuguese Jews, persecuted by the Inquisition, stripped of their fortunes, and banished to Brazil, introduced by their example some sort of order and industry among the transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar-cane. Upon all these different occasions it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments which peopled and cultivated America."[12]

In other words, Smith not only avoids a dogmatic tone when writing about Catholics and other religions “dissenters” of his time; he appears to be downright sympathetic to their plight.