308 LIFE AXD CORRESPONDEAXE OF THE [1782 



some inexplicable conduct of Bishop Provoost's, took place in 

 1789.* 



It was with feelings of a touching kind that Dr. Smith took 

 leave of his affectionate parish and devoted College at Chester- 

 town. He left the former in the possession of the Rev. Mr. 

 Robinson, of Virginia, as Rector, and the latter in that of the 

 Rev. Colin Ferguson as President. Both parish and college were 

 left in eood hands, but neither in hands like those which now sur- 

 rendered the possession. 



I may here perhaps insert a letter giving some facts in regard to 

 Washington College before I finally take leave of the subject, it 

 is from the venerable Peregrine Wroth, M. D., a well-known 

 physician of Maryland : 



Easton, Talbot Co., October 23d, 1872. 

 Horace Wemyss Smith, Esq. 



Dear Sir: .... I send you a view of the old College, the one 

 burnt down in 1827. It was rebuilt in 1846 m three separate buildings 

 — all of which are not equal in size to the old College. 



I should not forget to add that to the back of the common hall was 

 built (to tlie old College) a chapel sixty feet square, joined to the com- 

 mon hall and to the two wings — the whole building in front about one 

 hundred and twenty feet from end to end, and sixty feet wide. I'he 

 endowment was ^1,250 annually. And it was thus — about 1798-99 — 

 the State Legislature took away ^750 of the fund, and in 1800 or 1801 

 the- whole balance, leaving us to the tuition money of the students as our 

 only support. We at once were obliged to dismiss all our Professors but 

 one, and when the College was burnt we rented a house in town and 

 kept up the school there in name, but greatly fallen off. When the fmid 

 was first lessened by our State Legislature, Mr. Daniel McCurtin, Pro- 

 fessor of the Dead Languages, one day gave my class, then the head 

 class in his department, a history of the endowment of the College. 

 Before the Revolution, when Lord Baltimore was Lord Proprietor, he 



* Bishop Sealnny, with whom Dr. Smith's relations, as we have already said, were 

 then friendly, though^, indeed, that in defining the office and duties of a Bishop ("see 

 siLpra, p. 108) as St. Jerom defined them, my veneral)le ancestor had rather loo much 

 lowered them. But Dr. Smith knew the churchmen of Maryland better than did Dr. 

 Seabury. He raised them to as high a point as it was at that time possible to raise 

 them, and had lie attem]-)ted to force Dr. Seabury's high views upon them, there would 

 have been an utter collapse and break down in his beneficent efforts. lie laid a foun- 

 dation strong enough for the best superstructure; one which has sustained a church in 

 which Claggct and Kemp and Stone and Wuittingham have filled the highest 

 office. 



