"I showed our correspondence to
Dr Smith the
Day after I received your last letter. He read it and hesitated not
to advise my acceptance. He is not well satisfied with his present
situation, as he informed me before I left him. He looked at the plan chosen
for the buildings on
Chapel hill & went so far, as to say that he would be
ready to relinquish his establishment & prospects here &
remove to your
University, if the
trustees or those in
whose power it should be, would give up the disposition and direction of
affairs into his hands, the ordering of the buildings in their structure and
situation, of the environs of the
University, the choice of the
Library &c, &c. He thought that by the additional expense of
a few thousand dollars more than what the present plan will require, the
University might be made superior in elegance
as well as convenience to any thing in our country. It is an undeniable
truth that
Dr Smith is a man of superior cultivation and
taste. These are so far from being superficial, that they are entirely of
the solid and substantial kind. His reputation as a man of genius, of
science, and of talents peculiarly fitted for instruction and
Page 5
discipline are too well known to you &
to the people of the
U. States to need any explanation. He has a family that must be
expensive any where, but particularly in such a place as this; where the
inhabitants with whom he is obliged to be in habits of ceremony, affect to
be of what themselves would call the highest order. Being on a road which is
travelled more than any other in the
U. States, his disposition inclines him, and
his situation obliges him to receive and entertain, with much expense,
visitors at all times. It is by no means necessary for me to inform you that
the inhabitants of this place were never agreeable to him nor he to them. As
to his health, he declares that he is seriously apprehensive of the effects
of the next winter upon it. He has filled the office of president with more
mildness than he did that of vice president. The trustees of this place
would certainly be very unwilling to part with him.