the white population, he laboured among the negroes with considerable success. In August 1823 his health broke down, and he was recommended by his doctor to leave the colony. On 18 Aug., however, a rising of the negroes took place, and three days later Smith was arrested for refusing to take up arms against the negroes. He was tried by court-martial on the charge of having promoted discontent among them. On the worthless evidence of terrorised slaves he was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. His execution was postponed until the pleasure of the home government should be known. But he was confined in the meantime in an unhealthy dungeon, and died there on 24 Feb. 1824. His wife Jane, whom he married about the time of his ordination, died in 1828 at Rye in Sussex. They had no children.
When the news of Smith's imprisonment reached England, popular interest was aroused. The publication of the documents connected with the case by the London Missionary Society intensified the excitement, and upwards of two hundred petitions on his behalf were presented to parliament in eleven days. On 1 June 1825 his trial was debated in the House of Commons. Lord Brougham brought forward a motion condemning the action of the Demerara government, and asserted that ‘in Smith's trial there had been more violation of justice, in form as well as in substance, than in any other inquiry in modern times that could be called a judicial proceeding.’ After an adjournment, however, the motion, which was opposed by government, was negatived by 193 to 146.
[Wallbridge's Memoirs of the Rev. John Smith; Gent. Mag. 1824, ii. 281; Speeches delivered in the House of Commons regarding the proceedings at Demerara, Edinburgh, 1824; Minutes of Evidence on the Trial of John Smith, London, 1824; Statement of the Proceedings of the Directors of the London Missionary Society in the case of Rev. John Smith; Missionary Chronicle, March 1824; The London Missionary Society's Report of the Proceedings against John Smith, London, 1824; The Missionary Smith, London, 1824; New Times, 11 April 1824; C. Buxton's Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, pp. 138–40; Edinburgh Review, xl. 244; Eclectic Review, 1848, ii. 728; Blackwood's Mag. June 1824.]
SMITH, JOHN (1749–1831), watercolour-painter, known as ‘Warwick’ Smith, was born at Irthington, Cumberland, in 1749, and educated at St. Bees. Becoming known as a skilful topographical draughtsman, he was employed upon Middiman's ‘Select Views in Great Britain,’ and obtained the patronage of the Earl of Warwick, with whom he visited Italy about 1783; hence he came to be styled ‘Warwick’ and ‘Italian’ Smith. In his subsequent works, which were largely views in Italy, he gradually abandoned the simple tinting to which watercolour work had hitherto been limited for a more effective mode of colouring, the novelty and beauty of which created much admiration. Smith joined the Watercolour Society in 1805, and was a large contributor to its exhibitions from 1807 to 1823, when he resigned his membership; he was elected president in 1814, 1817, and 1818, secretary in 1816, and treasurer in 1819, 1821, and 1822. Of his engraved works, which are numerous, the most important are: ‘Select Views in Italy,’ 1792–6; ‘Views of the Lakes of Cumberland,’ twenty aquatints by Merigot, 1791–5; and illustrations to Byrne's ‘Britannia Depicta,’ W. Sotheby's ‘Tour through Wales,’ 1794, and ‘A Tour to Hafod,’ 1810. Smith died in Middlesex Place, London, on 22 March 1831, and was interred in the St. George's burial-ground in the Uxbridge Road. Good examples of his work are in the British and South Kensington Museums.
[Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old Watercolour’ Society; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
SMITH, Sir JOHN (1754–1837), general, colonel-commandant royal artillery, was born at Brighton, Sussex, on 22 Feb. 1754. He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich on 1 March 1768, and received a commission as second lieutenant in the royal artillery on 15 March 1771. In 1773 he went to Canada. He was at Fort St. John when the American generals Schuyler and Montgomery attacked it in September 1775. The fort was garrisoned by some seven hundred men under Major Preston, who, after a gallant defence, surrendered it on 3 Nov. Smith, who had been twice wounded, became a prisoner of war.
Smith was exchanged in January 1777, and joined the army under the command of Earl Percy at Rhode Island, and shortly after was transferred to the army at New York under the command of Sir William Howe. He took part in the operations to draw Washington from his defensive position on the Rariton river. He accompanied Howe's force to the Delaware and Chesapeake, and was present at the battle of Brandywine on 11 Sept. 1777, at the capture of Philadelphia on 26 Sept., at the battle of Germanstown on the Delaware on 3 Oct., at the attack on Fort Island on 22 Oct., and at the siege of Mud Island and capture of it on 16 Nov. The last achieve-
