14 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE {.^779 



" Pupils," says Dr. Stille, " soon flocked to the schools ; though 

 the greater portion of them was in the lower departments." 



Political spirit, of course, still ran high. Arnold was in com- 

 mand of the city, and under his permission the worst portion of a 

 party, downright and profligately Tory, was insolently asserting 

 itself Such a nest brought discredit and insult from the common 

 people to a very different class of persons, and, indeed, to some 

 degree to all who had ever belonged to the ancient proprietary 

 party. Any man who had not been violent in denouncing George 

 III., and equally violent in approving of the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence, exactly as and when made, was a target for the arrows of 

 every illiterate and malignant fellow. Dr. Smith came in for a 

 good share. He had hardly got back to the city before an igno- 

 ramus, named Cress, who, as Xhcjin-at showed, was unable to write 

 his name, published in the newspapers an affidavit as follows : 



Deposition of Petsr Cress. 



Pennsylvania ss. 



Before me, Plunket Fleeson, Esquire, one of the Justices of the Peace, 

 &c., comes Peter Cress of the City of Philadelphia, Saddle and Harness 

 maker, and being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, That on the day on 

 which the attack was made by the Vigilant on the fortification at Mud 

 island, Doctor William Smith, Provost of the college of Philadelphia, 

 with a number of other people of the City of Philadelphia, was on the 

 banks near the mouth of the river Schuylkill, viewing the attack with a 

 large Spy-Glass or Telescope. That after the firing from the Round 

 Tops of the Vigilant began and was returned from the fort, he, the said 

 Peter Cress, was standing behind and very near the said Doctor Smith, 

 and heard him, the said Doctor Smith, say, that " if they (the men in 

 the Fort meaning) do not surrender they ought every man of them to 

 be put to the Sword," or words to this effect. And further the deponent 

 saith not. his 



PETER X CRESS, 

 mark 



Sworn before me at Philadelphia this twentieth day of March, A. D. 

 1779. PLUNKET FLEESON. 



Dr. Smith replied to this by a publication in the same paper, in 

 which he denied ever having spoken the words alleged against 

 him, or that he had said anything that could be construed as mean- 

 ing what they did. Of course nothing came of the matter except 

 to show that " Peter Cress, of the City of Philadelphia, Saddle and 

 Harness maker," was a super-serviceable ass. 



