This gentleman was educated in the university of Aberdeen,[267] in Scotland, where he graduated as Master of Arts. He soon after obtained clerical orders, in the Church of England; and, in the year 1759, he was honoured with the degree of Doctor in Divinity, from the University of Oxford, on the recommendation of the archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of Durham, Salisbury, Oxford and St. Asaph.[268] About the same time, he received a similar degree from the University of Trinity-College, Dublin. Dr. Smith died the 14th of May, 1803, at the age of seventy-six years. ----- Footnote 267: This University was founded in the year 1480; it consists of two colleges, called the Marischal and the King’s College, under the name of the University of King Charles. The library belonging to this ancient university is large; and in both the colleges, the languages, mathematics, natural philosophy, divinity, &c. are taught by able professors. Footnote 268: These prelates were, respectively, the Doctors—Secker, Trevor, Thomas, Hume, and Egerton. ----- On the 10th of April, 1792, an act was passed by the general assembly of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of enabling the governor to incorporate a company for opening a canal and water-communication between the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill: and by this act, David Rittenhouse, William Moore, Eliston Perot, Cadwallader Evans, jun. and Francis Johnston, Esquires, were appointed commissioners to receive subscriptions of stock, for constituting a fund for this purpose. Thus, after having been engaged in the course of eleven years, at a prior period, in the improvement of a great natural highway of his native country, he was again employed, in conjunction with others, by the legislative body of that country, after a lapse of nineteen years from the time of his first appointment to a similar duty, in forwarding the great design of uniting more intimately, and more beneficially for the purposes of agriculture and commerce, the waters of the beautiful stream near whose banks he was born, with those of the majestic Delaware.