The volatile Charles Townshend made him tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, through whom Smith not only secured comparative affluence for the rest of his days, but also a French tour in which he met at its best the most brilliant society in Europe.

The germ of his _Wealth of Nations_ already lay hidden in those Glasgow lectures which Mr.Cannan has so happily recovered for us; and it was in a moment of leisure in France that he set to work to put them together in systematic fashion.

Not, indeed, that the Frenchmen whom he met, Turgot, Quesnay and Dupont de Nemours, can be said to have done more than confirm the truths he had already been teaching.

When he returned to Scotland and a competence ten years of constant labor were necessary before the _Wealth of Nations_ was complete.

After its publication, in 1776, Adam Smith did little save attend to the administrative duties of a minor, but lucrative office in the Customs.