Note 51 — Chapter XI · LAST YEARS (1776-1790)

In his Defence of Usury, “Letter XIII. to Dr. Smith,” Bentham had written: “Instead therefore of pretending to owe you nothing, I shall begin with acknowledging that, as far as your trade coincides with mine, I should come much nearer the truth were I to say I owed you everything.” Mr. Rae (Life of Adam Smith, p. 424) quotes a letter from George Wilson to Bentham, in the Bentham MSS., British Museum. I may add to this the following note which I find in Bentham’s Rationale of Reward (1825), p. 332, in chapter xvi. of Book IV., on Rates of Interest. “Adam Smith, after having read the letter upon Projects, which was addressed to him, and printed at the end of the first edition of the Defence of Usury, declared to a gentleman, the common friend of the two authors, that he had been deceived. With the tidings of his death Mr. Bentham received a copy of his works, which had been sent to him as a token of esteem.”