Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/190

During this period he was tutoring in London, and later entered the family of Josiah Martin, Esquire, the second son of Samuel Martin of Green Castle, as tutor to his two sons. With this family he came to New York in the spring of 1751, landing in New York i May. Mr. Martin's house known as the Hermitage, at Far Rockaway, Long Island, where Smith passed the next two years is yet standing and in excellent order. 3 Here Mr. Martin died in 1778; his eldest daughter married her cousin Josiah Martin, Governor of North Carolina in 1770, whose older brother Samuel was Member of Parliament for Camelford, Joint Secretary to the Treasury, and Treasurer to the Princess Dowager of Wales. While here, Mr. Smith, in his nearness to New York City must have been familiar with the efforts then prevailing to erect a College in that city, and in this connection may have been in communication with Dr. Johnson, but of correspondence between them there is none existing. The disputes in the Province of New York on the subject of a College were at their height when he arrived, and the questions of town or country for its location, and of its control by Episcopacy or Presbytery, were either of them sufficient to invite the young tutor of twenty-four years of age to note them and soon to take a part in the fray. Being a member of the Martin household, his intercourse with the leading men of the neighborhood was assured and easy. In 1752 he wrote time give foundation to consider, how proper he may be to support the important character he aims at in the conduct of the infant College at Philadelphia. I have great reason to think him a good man. He is a scholar and ingenious and what is of the highest consequence of a temper fitted as it seems to me to pursue a plan of Education upon the large and generous footing of aiming at the Publick Good, with no other Bias, or partiality but preserving his Duty to the Constitution of his Mother country, consistently with a warm regard to the service of the Colonies, and the universal benefit of the various People that compose them. I think I am not mistaken in him, and if I am not, his Youth may recommend him and he may become a very faithful and useful servant in a country in whose prosperity you have so strong an interest. You will please to interrogate him and I believe you will be pleased with the good sense and ingenuousness with which he will answer to your questions. I have the honorto be, Sir, You obliged Humble Servant, Tho. Cantuar. This autograph letter is in the Penn Papers in Pennsylvania Historical Society, private, vol. iv. This letter may have reached Philadelphia for Smith's personal presentation of it to Mr. Penn, ere he sailed for England, as it is supposed, on 13 October following. 3 And is the property of James A. Hewlett, Esq., of New York.