and are not made." A popular error prevails that a large endowment, an extended curriculum, and an imposing array of Professors, are all that is necessary to insure the permanent success of a newly-founded College. Such an opinion is contradicted by universal experience. Both in Europe and in this country, institutions of learning which have gained reputation and success have all had their day of small things, and their present strength is only the natural development of a slow but steady and healthy growth. There have been thousands of failures, where the greatest zeal, aided by large endowments, has established Colleges. Defects in the most brilliant projects have been brought to light by experience, or the soil in which they were planted has not proved kindly to their nurture. Such was the case with the short-lived

"University of the State of Pennsylvania."

He must indeed have been a bold and sanguine man who thought it possible to establish, with any chance of success, a new College in this State in the year 1779. In the very crisis of the Revolution, with the fortune of every man who had been engaged in trade ruined by the worthlessness of the currency, with the cost of living increased in the proportion of sixty to one, with every nerve strained to keep up the sinking fortunes of the war, with dissensions among the best men in the State more bitter than their hatred of the common enemy; with the belief among nearly all who had been real supporters of learning that the Charter had been taken away from party malice, and that the new institution would be managed in such a way as to subserve party ends; above all, with the ever-present consciousness that the money they were using did not belong to them in law or morals, it is not to be wondered at that the projectors of the new establishment soon found that they had been building upon the sand. There was certainly but one man living in this State, at that time, who could have carried even an old College successfully through the dangers which threatened the interests of learning during the Revolution, and for ten years afterwards, and that was the very man whom a blind party-zeal had driven from his post. When we consider what Dr. Smith did for those interests during the twenty-five years in which they had been in his special charge, we may form some estimate of the loss sustained, both by the College and the State, by the forced employment of the remaining twenty-five years of his life in other pursuits.

As the removal of Dr. Smith was, no doubt, the great object aimed at in the abrogation of the Charter, so he was the chief victim of that measure. He had to mourn not merely, in common with all his friends, that the work he had been so long painfully building up was in ruin, and that the pledges which he had given as to the management of the funds which he had collected were shamefully violated, but he was ejected from his office, and without the means of supporting his family. But it was not in the man's nature to despond. Feeling that

he could hope for no redress in Pennsylvania, as its Government was then constituted, he went to Chestertown, in Maryland, and became Rector of a church there. He found at that place an Academy with a few pupils. He was made Principal of it, and in a short time one hundred and forty scholars were in attendance. He then applied to the Legislature of Maryland for a Charter, erecting this Academy into a College, modelled upon the plan of the College of Philadelphia, to be called "Washington College." The charter was granted in the spring of 1782, and within one year from that time this indefatigable man collected, principally from the planters of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, nearly ten thousand three hundred pounds towards its endowment. General Washington contributed fifty guineas, and General Cadwalader headed the Maryland subscriptions. This was, of course, before the close of the Revolutionary war, and it is very evident that these gentlemen did not hold the opinion entertained by the party in power in Pennsylvania in regard to Dr. Smith's disaffection to the American cause.

But that party ceased to reign in 1783, and Dr. Smith lost no time in seeking justice at the hand of those who took its place. At the September session, 1784, the Trustees and Dr. Smith presented their petition to the Assembly, asking that so much of the Act of 1779, which took away their estates and franchises, should be repealed. The Committee to whom the matter was referred made a report favoring the application, and brought in a bill granting it. But when the bill was about to pass, the minority left the House (in modern phrase, "bolted"), and thus dissolved the Assembly. The matter lingered for several years, and until March 6, 1789, when the Assembly passed the bill, the preamble to it stating as the reason for its action that the Act of 1779 was "repugnant to justice, a violation of the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and dangerous in its precedent to all incorporated bodies, and to the rights and franchises thereof."

But of all this I shall speak at the proper time.

The act of confiscation, which the Provost Stillé describes, has been justly considered a stigma upon the Revolutionary Legislature of Pennsylvania, and still more so upon the name-now much better remembered than are those of most in the Legislature-of General Joseph Reed, the President of the State. Along with his much-suspected disloyalty to his Commander-in-Chief, and his being charged by that patriotic man, General Cadwalader, in a printed pamphlet-of a disregard of truth, that offence which ends the character of a gentleman, and which, truly considering, was the gist of Cadwalader's accusation-this his conduct in regard to

the old College of Philadelphia conspired to bring about that condition of feeling towards him described by Mr. Binney in his "Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia,”* in which tract the author, speaking of President Reed's inability to do to one of his young protégés of the bar any great professional service, says:

President Reed's political ardor during his term of office, and an embittered opposition to him which had been kindled among men of business and of importance in Philadelphia, did not make his return to the Bar in 1781 very easy or agreeable; nor, as I have heard Mr. Ingersoll say, did his mind return willingly to the pursuits of the law. The patron, therefore, must have been more willing than able to assist him, and in a short time Mr. Reed's health gave way, and after visiting England, in 1783, he returned towards the close of 1784, and, without attempting to resume his profession, died on the 5th of March, 1785.

While speaking thus of President Reed's malevolence towards those politically opposed to him, and of the want of sincerity which distinguished his character, I am not insensible to his many endearing domestic traits, to his considerable abilities, and to his not less considerable accomplishments. We may concede, too, that both by wisdom in council and conduct in action he promoted essentially the Revolution in America; and his want of success in the great struggle of life, after much labor, many privations, and many misfortunes, give, too, to his memory a title to our pathetic regard. But with all this, and after all the efforts that his grandson and biographer has brought to redeem his reputation,† I look upon the judgment of those who were among the most intelligent of his contemporaries as true-that his talents were more than equal to his integrity; and that in few acts of his life did this unenviable preponderance appear more manifest than in the transaction that the Provost Stillé above describes. Of few political events of the Revolution did the late Bishop White speak with more emphatic disapprobation. It roused the indignation of the whole Episcopal Church, and was followed at once by the establishment of the Episcopal Academy; an institution still existing in honor, after a century of useful labors. The biographer of the President-one of his grandsons-while defending every act that

* Page 84.

Life and Correspondence of President Reed, by his Grandson, William B. Reed, 2 vols., 8vo. Phila., 1847.

was defensible in his ancestor's public life, and one which was much the reverse, glosses over this, but defends it not; indeed, while palliating, is compelled to condemn it.* I do not, of course, forget that the times in which President Reed chiefly figures were times of revolution; that party-spirit had risen to a great height and exhibited itself in scenes of violence; that in the very Congress of the country there were, at this same date, men who, like Rush, Conway, Gates, Lovell, and others, seemed to hate Washington and his friends as fully as they did the common enemy. The best excuse for President Reed is found in his own language in the last letter which he ever wrote, "I was thrown into turbulent times, which did not leave me at liberty to speculate, was obliged to act, and too often without time to consider or advice to guide me."t

CHAPTER XXXIX.

DR. SMITH INTERESTS HIMSELF IN HAVING GENERAL WASHINGTON MADE A GRAND MASTER OVER ALL THE MASONIC LODGES FORMED OR TO BE FORMED IN THE UNITED STATES.

WE have noted in our former volume, as a feature of Dr. Smith's mind, and one tending to prove its high order, that no matter in what troubles he might be involved or in what exciting scenes engaged, his mental faculties and his power to use them seemed always undisturbed. Even in such trials as we have described in the preceding chapter, when his very means of living were taken or about to be taken from him, he interests himself vividly in the affairs of the Masonic Society, and in an endeavor to have General Washington elected a Grand Master over all the Grand Lodges formed or to be formed in these United States. We give some of his correspondence on this subject:

Dr. Smith to Joseph Webb, Esq.

PHILADELPHIA, August 19th, 1780. SIR: I do myself the honor to address you, by order of the Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons, regularly constituted in the City of

* Life and Correspondence of President Reed, by his Grandson, William B. Reed. Vol. II., pp. 169–172.

† Id. p. 417.

Philadelphia. This Grand Lodge has under its jurisdiction in Pennsylvania and the States adjacent, thirty-one different regular Lodges, containing in the whole more than one thousand brethren. Enclosed you have a printed abstract of some of our late proceedings, and by that of January 13th last, you will observe that we have, so far as depends on us, done that honor which we think due to our illustrious Brother, General Washington, viz., electing him Grand Master over all the Grand Lodges formed or to be formed in these United States, not doubting of the concurrence of all the Grand Lodges in America to make this election effectual.

We have been informed by Col. Palfrey that there is a Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons in the State of Massachusetts, and that you are Grand Master thereof; as such, I am, therefore, to request that you will lay our proceedings before your Grand Lodge, and request their concurrent Voice in the appointment of General Washington, as set forth in the said Minute of January the 13th, which, as far as we have been able to learn, is a Measure highly approved by all the brethren, and that will do honor to the Craft.

I am, etc.,

TO JOSEPH WEBB.

WILLIAM SMITH, Grand Secretary.

Reply to the Preceding Letter.

BOSTON, September 4th, 1780. SIR: Your agreeable favor of the 19th ult., I duly received the 31st, covering a printed abstract of the proceedings of your Grand Lodge. I had received one before, near three months, from the Master of a travelling Lodge of the Connecticut line, but it not coming officially, did not lay it before the Grand Lodge, but the evening after I received yours, it being Grand Lodge; I laid it before them and had some debate on it, whereupon it was agreed to adjourn the Lodge for three weeks, to the 22d instant, likewise to write to all the Lodges under this jurisdiction to attend themselves if convenient by their Master and Wardens, and if not, to give instructions to their proxies here concerning their acquiescence in the proposal.

I am well assured that no one can have any objections to so illustrious a person as General Washington to preside as Grand Master of the United States, but at the same time it will be necessary to know from you his prerogative as such; whether he is to appoint sub-grand or Provincial Grand Masters of each State: if so, I am confident that the Grand Lodge of this State will never give up their right of electing their own Grand Masters and other officers annually. This induces me to write to you now, before the result of the Grand Lodge takes place, and must beg an answer by the first opportunity, that I may be enabled to lay the same before them. I have not heard of any State except yours and this that have proceeded as yet since the Independence to elect their officers, but have been hoping that they would.