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 £400,000. The mercantile people are for suspending the Stamp-act, and redressing the grievances of the colonists.… In what light the House of Commons will view this matter I don’t know, but it seems to me one of the most important matters that have come before them. I wish often an evening with you, such as we have enjoyed in the days of former times, to settle the important affairs of Church and State, of Colleges and Corporations. I have found this the best expedient to think of them without melancholy and chagrin. And I think all that a man has to do in the world is to keep his temper and to do his duty. Mrs. Reid is tolerably well just now, but is often ailing.'

In a letter to Dr. David, in March 1766, he refers to the death of his early friend, John Stewart, the Mathematical Professor in Marischal College, and his companion in the English tour thirty years before:—

'Mr. Stewart’s death affects me deeply. A sincere friendship, begun at twelve years of age, and continued to my time of life, without any interruption, cannot but give some pangs. You know his worth; yet it was shaded ever since you knew him by too great abstraction from the world. The former part of his life was more amiable and more social; but the whole was of a piece in virtue, candour, and humanity.… I have always regarded him as my best tutor, though of the same age with me. If the giddy part of my life was in any degree spent innocently and virtuously, I owe it to him more than to any human creature; for I could not but be virtuous in his company, and I could not be so happy in any other. But I must leave this pleasing melancholy subject. He is happy; and I shall often be happy in the remembrance of our friendship; and I hope we shall meet again.'

A minute account of Black’s theory of latent heat follows.

Later in the same year, Black was called to the Chair of Chemistry in Edinburgh, which he filled for nearly thirty