Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/277

Rh document, the utterance of an appeal in behalf of their Provost to whom they were personally attached, resenting the several unjust and malicious insinuations lately appearing in the public papers and been spread through the city by the heat of Party against the Rev. William Smith, Provost of this College, [and thinking it] their duty in justice to the Character of our respected Tutor to certify to you that for near the space of two years last in which we have been under his immediate care, he never did in any of the lectures take occasion to introduce anything relating to the Parties now subsisting in this Province, or tending to persuade us to adopt the Principles of one side more than another. * * * We further beg leave to certify to you that in the whole course of his Lectures on Ethics, Government, and Commerce, he never advanced any other Principles than what were warranted by our standard authors Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke and Hutcheson, writers whose sentiments are equally opposite to those wild notions of Liberty, that are inconsistent with all government, and to those pernicious schemes of government which are destructive of true liberty, * * * as a sufficient proof of which we now lay our notes of the Lectures which he delivered upon the several Branches of Morality before the Trustees and any other persons willing to inspect the same. At a meeting held on 13 July with the same members except Messrs. Coleman and Syng, and adding Messrs. Turner, Cadwalader and Mifflin, the committee presented their report, " which being several times read and considered the Trustees were unanimously of opinion with the Committee on the several Matters reported by them, approved and agreed to their Report." In the course of this the Committee say: We have likewise at the request of the Trustees examined and inquired into the conduct of the Rev' d Mr Smith and do report that during his employment in his present Station as Provost of the said College and Academy, it has been becoming and satisfactory to us; his application, his abilities and Labours in the instruction of his Pupils have been attended with good success and approved by the Trustees and Audience, at the late public examination of the senior Philosophy class, who are now recommended for admission to their first Degree. * * * From these facts and our own personal knowledge of Mr Smith we are of opinion that he has discharged his Trust as a capable Professor and an honest man, and that he has given sufficient evidence of the goodness of his Principles. The action of the Trustees was accepted as his final discharge from the burden of these public insinuations, and an exoneration from all alleged injury to the institutions by his