Note 874 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

William Smith, Jr. was born in New York city in June, 1728; he graduated at Yale College in 1745; was appointed clerk of the Court of Chancery in 1748, and admitted to the Bar in 1750. Through the influence of his father, then attorney-general of the province, the revision of the provincial laws was intrusted to him and his law partner, William Livingston. In 1757 he published his History of New York. The breaking out of the Revolution found him a member of the council and a faithful adherent of the Crown. After some tribulation, he was allowed to proceed to New York city, whence he finally went to England, and thence to Canada, where he died as chief-justice in 1793. [Cf. the estimate of Smith in Mr. Stevens’s chapter in Vol. III.—Ed.]