It is almost certain that the journey was not in 1773, for Shelburne would hardly have thought of himself as so young at that date, six years after he had been Secretary of State, and besides he had probably cast off his prejudices by that time, and was already (as we shall presently find) receiving instruction from Smith on colonial policy in 1767; and whether it was 1761 or 1763, it in either case shows at what a long period before the appearance of the Wealth of Nations Smith was advocating those broad principles which struck Shelburne at the time for their “novelty,” and were only fully comprehended and accepted by him a few years afterwards.

Of Smith’s visit to London on this occasion we know almost no particulars, but I think the notorious incident of his altercation with Johnson at the house of Strahan the printer must be referred to this visit.  The story was told by Robertson to Boswell and Allan Ramsay, the painter, one evening in 1778, when they were dining together at the painter’s house, and Johnson was expected as one of the guests.  Before the doctor arrived the conversation happened to turn on him, and Robertson said, “He and I have always been very gracious.  The first time I met him was one evening at Strahan’s, when he had just had an unlucky altercation with Adam Smith, to whom he had been so rough that Strahan, after Smith was gone, had remonstrated, and told him that I was coming soon, and that he was uneasy to think that he might behave in the same way to me.  ‘No, no, sir,’ said Johnson, ‘I warrant you Robertson and I shall do very well.’  Accordingly he was gentle and good-humoured and gracious with me the whole evening, and he has been so on every occasion that we have met since.  I have often said laughing that I have been in a great measure indebted to Smith for my good reception."[121]

Now this incident must have occurred years before 1778, the date of Ramsay’s dinner-party at which it was related, for Robertson speaks of having met Johnson many times between; and it probably occurred before 1763, because in 1763 Boswell mentions in his journal having told Johnson one evening that Smith had in his lectures in Glasgow expressed the strongest preference for rhyme over blank verse, and Johnson alludes in his reply to an unfriendly meeting he had once had with Smith.  “Sir,” said he, “I was once in company with Smith, and we did not take to each other, but had I known that he loved rhyme so much as you tell me he does I should have hugged him."[122] This answer seems to imply that the meeting was not quite recent—­not in 1763—­and if it occurred before 1763, it must have been in 1761.