On his release he devoted himself to the cause of law reform. Malesherbes had told him that the procedure of the Inquisitorial Courts was only equalled by the criminal procedure of France, and the great treatise of Beccaria translated by Morellet opened the eyes of his countrymen to the possibility of improvement. It is, however, to his works on Political Economy that the fame of Morellet is chiefly owing. To him, with Adam Smith, belongs the distinction of having popularized a study which had previously been wrapped in technical formulas, and of having brought it to bear on the politics of the day. At the instance of his friend M. Trudaine, he advocated the abolition of the Internal Customs Line which divided France into so many separate provinces. With greater success he attacked the monopoly of the French East India Company, and at the time of Shelburne's visit was engaged on a commercial dictionary, which, however, made but slow progress at a period when accurate statistics hardly existed, and those who asked for them were suspected of being either conspirators or spies.
It was at the house of M. Trudaine that Shelburne first met Morellet. Their acquaintance rapidly grew into friendship. They agreed to correspond, and in the following year Morellet visited Bowood, where in the company of Franklin and Garrick, and Barré and Priestley, he seems to have found almost the equivalent of the brilliant society he had left on the other side of the Channel.[1]
Shelburne often confessed that his connection with Morellet was the turning-point of his own career. In his own words, "Morellet liberalized his ideas," though some conversations with Hume had led the way.[2] Previous to this time there is no reason to suppose that his views on commercial questions were more enlightened than those of the other statesmen of the time. Burke alone had recognized the hollowness of the colonial system and of protective tariffs, but partly from his ingrained dislike to change,
