Among Hume's friends in early life, we find James Oswald of Dunnikier, who is mentioned in the foregoing letter--a name pretty well known in the political history of Scotland. He was elected member for the Kirkaldy district of burghs in 1741. He filled successively the situations of Commissioner of the Navy, Member of the Board of Trade, Lord of the Treasury, and Treasurer of Ireland. He was well read in the sources of literary information, and brought to his official duties a sagacious, practical understanding, which made him infinitely serviceable to the speculative labours of his two illustrious friends, Hume and Smith. "I know," says Hume, "you are the most industrious and the most indolent man of my acquaintance; the former in business, the latter in ceremony."[157:1] We have occasional glimpses of philosophical rambles, not unmixed with a little conviviality, in which Oswald sometimes embarked with his speculative friends. "You will remember," he says, writing to Henry Home in 1742, "how your friend David Hume and you, used to laugh at a most sublime declamation I one night made, after a drunken expedition to Cupar, on the impotency of corruption in certain circumstances; how I maintained, that on certain occasions, men felt, or seemed to feel, a certain dignity in themselves, which made them disdain to act on sordid motives: and how I imagined it to be extremely possible, in such situations, that even the lowest of men might become superior to the highest temptations."[157:2] The political course which he afterwards adopted, however, was not precisely of this soaring cast, but savoured more of the school of practical expedients founded by Sir Robert Walpole. We shall afterwards have occasion to see his intercourse with Hume illustrated at greater length.
The following letter to Mure, contains a pretty sagacious division of the prominent political movements of the day, into those which a supporter of the court party would advocate, and those which he would oppose. Hume seems to have had some dread lest the spirit of what was then termed patriotism, might sway an inexperienced, young, and aspiring politician into devious paths, inconsistent with the straight road of duty and devotion to an adopted party. But Mure seems to have been a sagacious steady-minded man, not likely to be seduced out of the path he had chosen. He was subsequently much relied on by Lord Bute, and rose to eminence and distinction as a Tory politician. The letter exhibits a playful practice of talking of his correspondents as his pupils, which Hume adopted sometimes with those who had least sympathy with his principles, unless they were clergymen, or otherwise likely to take the familiarity in bad part.