Of the affairs of his country Mr. Smith was not an idle spectator. No man delights in liberty and independence more than an Irishman, and no nation is more sensitive of its rights than “sweet Ireland.” When British oppression showed its hydra head to the colonists, although advanced in age, James Smith took a terrible dislike to the beast and was for making fight unless it withdrew its visible deformity forthwith. His heart beat high for his adopted country, and he at once came boldly forward in its defence. At that time he was a resident of York and extensively engaged in iron works as well as in professional business, having become a very distinguished lawyer. He had never consented to fill public stations, and nothing but the purest patriotism and the importance of the threatened crisis, could have induced him to enter the public arena. In the language of Josiah Quincy, he had become convinced that—“We must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend—we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have combined against us—we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy and insatiable revenge, which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosoms, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest—sharpest conflicts; to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations and popular vapour will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue—let us look to the end.” Mr. Smith was a man that looked at both the beginning and the end. He was a man who examined closely causes, effects, and results. He also understood human nature and knew well the disposition of the colonists. He was convinced the bone and sinew of the land would never yield to the tyranny of mother Britain without a “sharp conflict.” For that conflict he was prepared. The first step taken in Pennsylvania relative to the existing oppressions, was the assembling of a convention of delegates from each county, in order to ascertain the feelings of the people generally relative to the course proposed by the patriots of New England, where the revolutionary storm had already commenced its precursory droppings. Of this convention Mr. Smith was a delegate, and was one of the committee that prepared the instructions to the members of the next general assembly of the province, recommending, among other things, the appointment of delegates to the general Congress to be convened at Philadelphia, with instructions from which the following is an extract, sufficient to inform the reader of the grievances most particularly complained of at that early period.