254 LIFE AND CORRESPOXDENCE OF THE [l/^Z 



Mrs. Smith to her son Charles. 



Chestertown, Md., March 12, 1786. 



My Dear Son : I have had a melancholy time since last I 



saw you. Our dear Mrs. Cadwalader, since July last, has buried two 

 sons; but had that been all, a surviving son and daughter, as lovely 

 children as ever were born, would have enabled her to bear the loss with 

 patient resignation. A much severer blow was to be submitted to — her 

 worthy husband departed this life the loth of last month. At all these 

 scenes I was a sorrowing witness. 



Your poor Aunt Ridgely too has lost a most tender and indulgent 

 husba'd. But in his children she is blessed. Nicholas practices the 

 law at Dover and pays her every attention; and Charles lives with her. 



Your dear Aunt Bond is really a woman of sorrow. This last stroke 

 must be almost too much for her to bear. My heart bleeds for her. 

 Do, my dear son, if anything is in your power, relating to her affairs, 

 do for her as I am sure you would do for me; and depend upon it a 

 blessing will attend your righteous endeavor. Cruel fate has separated 

 her from the only son.* She was ever a mother to him ; and such a 

 son, oh my dear child, when I think of him I offer up my ardent prayers 

 to the throne of mercy, and as one of the greatest blessings ask X.\\a.t you 

 may prove, what I ever thought him. 



Say for me to your dear wife, to her sweet little ones, and to your ever 

 worthy imcle (Judge Thomas Smith) that while I have life they will be 

 remembered with affection by their ever most tender and anxious friend, 



Your mother, 



Rebecca Smith. 

 To Charles Sm'ith, 



Student at Law, Carlisle. 



On the 27th of May, 1787, another Convention of the Church 

 in Maryland was held at Chestertown, Dr. Smith being chosen to 

 preside. Seven of the clergy and five laymen assisted. Beyond 

 the appointment of Dr. Smith as a clerical deputy to attend the next 

 General Convention — the one held at Philadelphia in 1789 — I 

 know of nothing worthy of special record. Two months after- 

 wards his diary contains this record : 



July — . My dear wife's kinsman, Richard Channing Moore, was this 

 day ordained by Bishop Provoost, of New York. 



This gentleman was the person afterwards well known as Bishop 

 Moore, of Virginia. 



I find no very various evidences of Dr. Smith's activity during 



* Phineas Bond, afterwards British Consul at Philadelphia. 



