However, the lives of both were spared long enough for them to overcome this unhappy estrangement, and the survivor did large justice to his early and older friend, " his earliest friend in Pennsylvania," 15 in his Eulogy on Franklin in 1791. From West to East, by land and on the wide ocean, to the utmost extent of the civilized globe, the tale hath been told that the venerable sage of Pennsylvania, the patriot and patriarch of America is no more.
- * * * Yes, thou dear departed friend and fellow citizen ! Thou,
too, art gone before us thy chair, thy celestial car, was first ready. We must soon follow, and we know where to find thee. May we seek to follow thee by lives of virtue and benevolence like thine then shall we surely find thee, and part with thee no more forever. 16
Returning to the more agreeable topic of Dr. Smith's journeyings and collections in England, we find in the Minute of the King's Council of 12 August directing the issue of the Brief, the following recital : Whereas there was this day read to his Majesty at this Board the Joint Petition of William Smith, Doctor in Divinity, Agent for the Trustees of the College, Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia, in the Province of Pennsylvania, and Provost of that Seminary; and of James Jay, Doctor in Physic, Agent for the Governors of the College of the Province of New York, in the City of New York in America, Setting forth, That the great growth of these Provinces and the continued accession of People to them from the different parts of the World, being some years ago observed by sundry of his Majesty's good subjects there, they became seriously impressed with a view of the inconvenience like to arise among so mixt a multitude, if left destitute of the necessary means of instruction, differing in Language and Manners, unenlightened by Religion, uncemented by a common Education, Strangers to the human Arts, and to the just use of Rational Liberty. [And reciting the fears caused by the] amazing pains which Popish Emissaries were every day perceived to take for the propa- gation of their peculiar Tenets, and the many Establishments which they 15 Smith, ii. 345 16 Ibid, ii. 330, 343.
