Abstract
Quod erat demonstrandum. The first anonymous translator of Turgot’s Réflexions into English had of necessity to be Adam Smith, in order that Adam Smith might make use of the many phrases he acquired in translating it, when he came to the writing of his master-work. What was also to be proved, is that the translator who wrote the “Eulogium” which proclaimed Adam Smith’s indebtedness was pointing to himself as boldly as he dared.
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References
D. Stewart, ed., The Works of Adam Smith, III, Book IV, chapter V, p. 290-303. J. E. T. Rogers, ed., II, 8on. Author of the “Tracts” was one Charles Smith, a miller. See also J. Bonar, A Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith (1932), p. 175, where the author is given as Charles Smith of Barking, Essex.
G. Schelle, Oeuvres de Turgot, II, p. 474-475, Circulaire aux Officiers de police des villes, of 15 February, 1766, which brings out the injustices objected to in the letter to Terray and in Adam Smith’s paragraph beginning, “When the government, in order to remedy the inconveniencies of a dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes a reasonable price…” (D. Stewart, op. cit., III, Book IV, p. 296). See Note 23, chapter 6, for the use Turgot made of this Circular Letter.
Schelle, op. cit., III, p. 271.
Stewart, op. cit., p. 297.
Ibid., IV, Book V, chapter I, p. 101-102. See also p. 96 for intendant.
One thus appreciates the more the finding of Adam Smith’s early draft manuscript on “the nature and causes of public opulence” for its value as a corrective, if nothing else, against attributing more to the Physiocrats or to Turgot than was their due. Cf. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor, p. 353, for Smith’s approximation to Turgot in “Of the Cultivation by Slaves,” beginning with the proposition, “That Land can never be cultivated to the best advantage by slaves…”
A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, “from the French of M. Gamier,” Introduction, p. iv. The heads of Balliol, visiting Smith’s room, “found him reading Hume’s newly published Treatise of Human Nature, which they confiscated.”
See Note 12, chapter 7.
Schelle, op. cit., II, p. 496n. Note appended to the baron’s name in Turgot’s letter to Hume of 23 July, 1766. This work by “Mirabaud” was on Smith’s bookshelf, along with a work by Helvétius. We now have three pseudonyms for this gentleman; see Note 14, chapter 7.
G. Brunet, Supplément: Dictionnaire des Oeuvres Anonymes, &c, Preface II, “… L’autorité fermait les yeux.” To save appearances, “it preferred that a work not exempt from reproach be made to seem to come from a foreign press.”
Schelle, op. cit., p. 512 and n.
G. Schelle, DüPont de Nemours et l’école Physiocratique, p. 386n.
A. Neymarck, Turgot et ses Doctrines, II, p. 272.
Ibid., p. 273.
E. Daire & H. Dussard, eds., Oeuvres de Turgot, II, p. 819.
Schelle, Oeuvres de Turgot, III, p. 640.
Daire-Dussard, op. cit., II, p. 814-818.
Société d’économie politique, Turgot, Le Ministre-L’Econome-L’Homme, Réunion 1906, p. 42.
Journal des Débats, 27 September, 1887, as cited in reference above.
Société d’économie politique, op. cit., loc. cit.
Ibid., idem.
Ernest Campbell Mossner, private letter, 14 April, 1958.
Neymarck, op. cit., II, p. 332-333 contains a long enumeration that includes Prof. Michel Chevalier, DuPont, Condorcet, Morellet, Monjean, and Blanqui.
Anon., Private Correspondence of David Hume with several distinguished Persons between the years 1761 and 1776, p. 183.
Stewart, op. cit., V, p. 512.
Ibid., p. 513n.
Ibid., p. 513-514n.
A. A. Delatour, Adam Smith, sa Vie, ses Travaux, ses Doctrines, p. 69.
Stewart, op. cit., p. 514n.
Ibid., p. 514-515n.
A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1786), “Advertisement to the Third Edition,” states, “The First Edition of the following Work was printed at the end of the year 1775, and in the beginning of the year 1776.”
Stewart, op. cit., V, p. 509. And, Stewart continues, “the state of his funds at the time of his death, compared with his very modest establishment, confirmed, beyond a doubt, what his intimate acquaintances had often suspected, that a large proportion of his annual savings was allotted to offices of secret charity.” So. He could, then, have expended a considerable sum in a cause no one near him knew of.
Ibid., p. 510.
Ibid., p. 410. Stewart says, “About this time [1748], too, he contracted a very intimate friendship, which continued without interruption till his death, with Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough…” We have eailier referred to this man’s prowess as a translator. See Notes 37 and 38, chapter 5, supra.
The last-mentioned served as a review of the French Encyclopédie.
See Note 31 supra.
J. A. Farrer, Adam Smith (1723–1790), unfolioed page facing title. This is the the source for No. 1-4, the list of Smith’s published works as it appears here.
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© 1964 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Lundberg, I.C. (1964). Enigma. In: Turgot’s Unknown Translator. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9592-8_11
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