So, too, Hume dismissed the Mercantile theory with the contemptuous remark that it was trying to keep water beyond its proper level.

Tucker, as has been pointed out, was a free trader, and his opinion of the American war was that it was as mad as those who fought "under the peaceful Cross to recover the Holy Land"; and he urged, indeed, prophesied, the union with Ireland in the interest of commercial amity.

Nor must the emphasis of the Physiocrats upon free trade be forgotten.

There is no evidence now that Adam Smith owed this perception to his acquaintance with Quesnay and Turgot; but they may well have confirmed him in it, and they show that the older philosophy was attacked on every side.
Nor must we miss the general atmosphere of the time.

On the whole his age was a conservative one, convinced, without due reason, that happiness was independent of birth or wealth and that natural law somehow could be made to justify existing institutions.