Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/386

382 the promised annuity practically continued the sum formerly granted the Provost, for which Mr. Penn recognized that the Perkasie gift was not an equivalent. This was read at the meeting of 9 November, 1762, and the Trustees in considering the handsome and kind Manner in which the Proprietary had expressed his favourable Sentiments of the Trustees and their Con- duct, and the fresh Instances he had given of his Generosity, declared unanimously their Satisfaction with the Proprietary's Determination and good Pleasure, though he had not been pleased to favour their request.

But we must now return to Dr. Smith's visit to England, where we have seen that he arrived early in the month of March, 1762, bearing letters and instructions to aid him in his collections on behalf of the College, whose funds were proving inadequate to its proper maintenance and its further reputation. The rep- resentative of no other College would have been so well received in England as one from an institution which attracted to itself so powerful an influence at home, and no one better fitted for such representation than the young Scotch Provost whose native trait of loyalty, now that he was in the orders of the State Church, made him an Englishman of Englishmen. Harvard, and Yale, and Princeton, were perhaps more self reliant, being without those Home relations which were so promising to the Colleges in Philadelphia and New York when their Appeals were presented. King's College had turned its face at this time and with the same end to England, and Dr. Smith on his arrival found that the field was not his own ; but with his ready adaptability to circumstances, he prepared himself to work in partnership as well as he could single handed. The meeting of the Trustees held on 15 December, 1761, at which these Letters and Instructions were approved