David Hume, De Unione Tractatus Secundus

Abstract

• THE description of MS. Royal, 12 A.53 in the British Library catalogue states that 'it does not appear to have been printed'. Indeed it was not; but two letters in the Public Record Office indicate that it did very nearly achieve publication in France in 1610, some five years after its composition. These letters, written by David Home, a Scottish minister at Duras, to the King and to Robert Cecil, not only shed light on the history of the British Library manuscript itself, but also more generally on the course of the debate about Anglo-Scottish Union.