ABSTRACT
Adam Smith attended his first meeting of the Board and took the appropriate oath as a Commissioner in Scotland on 3 February 1778, the day after receiving his commission. Whatever the state of Smith's health, the main reason for the visit of 1782 was to forward his own work, but he was not allowed to escape entirely from the work of the Board of Customs. Details of Smith's record of attendance show the extent of the commitment which the Board required of him and whether he was in Edinburgh at certain times. In a letter to Thomas Cadell, dated on 15 March 1788, Smith told him that he had taken four months leave to enable him to press on with the revision of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith was about to leave London for Edinburgh, but, bad correspondent and all as he was, he managed to write Edmund Burke twice within a week.
