# Smith is appointed a Commissioner of Customs in Scotland

Date: 1778

## The fact

Britannica and Glasgow heritage print the 1778 customs post. Enforcing duties is a fiscal-extraction office even when the same man criticises some taxes in WN. The dated public instrument is stored under 1778-01-01. [Adam Smith](/people/adam-smith) did not operate this later page as a civil-registry autograph.

It is one event.

## Context

Shared institutions, unnamed crews, and later editors remain in the record and do not erase a documented heading.

Adam Smith Shared work with other named actors remains in the record.

Adam Smith’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional years are 1723–1790. Dated instruments are later Glasgow/Liberty Fund editions, Gutenberg TMS and WN, Glasgow and NLS pages.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

Britannica — Adam Smith and University of Glasgow — Smith professorship heritage independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Britannica — Adam Smith (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-Smith; Encyclopaedia Britannica).

## Significance

Britannica and Glasgow heritage print the 1778 customs post. Enforcing duties is a fiscal-extraction office even when the same man criticises some taxes in WN.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Adam Smith.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `fiscal-policy-sustainability` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Adam Smith did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct.

## People

- Adam Smith: https://factrail.ai/people/adam-smith

## Drivers

- Fiscal-Policy Sustainability: https://factrail.ai/drivers/fiscal-policy-sustainability

## Sources

- https://www.gla.ac.uk/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-Smith

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/asm-customs-commissioner