Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/330

326 know not, but we can well judge that both his tongue and his pen were deemed strong weapons, which perhaps were more dreaded than respected. These were not entertained alone by the Quakers, as Smith always termed the Friends, although he appeared to lay at their door all the charges of enmity to him. In the Assembly which now passed judgment upon him there were three of his College Trustees, Leech, Masters, and Plum- sted, all Churchmen, and so far as we know they did not befriend him. Even good old Dr. Jenney, the Rector of Christ Church, had no warm thought for the young cleric-politician, for on 27 November of the same year he wrote to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury : What I am most concerned for and apprehensive of evil conse- quences from is the practice of some Clergymen here to intermix what is their true and real business with politics in civil affairs and being so zealous therein as to blame and even revile those of their Brethren who cannot approve of their conduct in this particular. I am very sorry to be forced to name one William Smith, who 'tis said is gone to England with this view, and without doubt will wait upon your grace. * * * He pre- tends to be a great intimate of the Hon'ble Mr. Thomas Penn, our Pro- prietor, and several other great men whose favour he boasts of, but I am in Hopes that no great man will support him in his misrepresentation of me without giving me an opportunity to clear myself. One element of opposition to him was found, probably, in a natural but unreasonable local prejudice against a new comer into the community engaging so heartily in provincial contests, for he had been a resident of Philadelphia but three years when he became a partisan of Judge Moore. His dislike of the Assembly, on account of its Quaker influences, was perhaps reciprocated on account of their repugnance to a minister of Christ who was so valorous for war ; but his opponents in the Assembly were not always these Quakers. Politics found in him a congenial adherent, and it was impossible with his peculiar temperament for him to keep out of the fray that was raging in the press around him. Had a contrary attitude prevailed, his influence on the side of peace and harmony would have been of great avail, but his pen was but adding fuel to the flames.