Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/421

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History of the University of Pennsylvania.
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force of this urgency among the contributors generally, it will be found in the sequel that the only official request made of the Trustees by their friends the Commissioners was an assurance that the institution should forever be carried on in the same "liberal plan " as it had been framed in. Dr. Peters, on behalf of the Trustees, responded to this warm appeal of Dr. Smith with a degree of spirit which testified to their sense of being misapprehended if not mistrusted, and wrote him 12 November, 1763 : The Trustees conceived that the assurances they gave the publick in your commission under their Seal, ' that whatever should be contributed to the good end therein set forth should be faithfully applied upon the same liberal and pious plan wherein the College was first founded ' would have satisfied the Commissioners appointed by the King, so that they might safely pay to you the Money collected to be remitted to us ; otherwise we would have given you before this fresh assurances and as strong as could be made. But as you inform us that further assurances are expected, I am now requested and authorized by the Trustees to let you know that all the money drawn for which is ^1500 sterling was forthwith let out upon an interest of 6 p ct on a double security, that is, on a Mortgage of Lands accompanied with a Bond and Judgment from the Mortgagor which is the very best security that can be devised, being the same that the Trustees of the General Loan Office of this province take for the monies lent by them to private Borrowers, and that the same method will be observed punctually and faithfully with respect to every sum that shall come into their hands out of the Monies collected and paid to you for the use of their College.

  • * * Lest you should be absent or set out for America, I have said

as much as this in my Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to Mr Penn, and as the latter has a perfect knowledge of the Trustees, their characters and their whole Conduct in the Management of their Trust, we hope there will be no hesitation in ordering the payment of the monies collected to be made to you. 10 10 When just prior to Dr. Smith's leaving England on his return home, five of the Commissioners under the Brief, namely the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Chandler, and Thomas Penn, gave Dr. Smith their power of attorney dated 13 April, 1764, "to see and take care in conjunction with the Trustees, that the share of the Collection that has arisen or may arise to the same be laid out upon sufficient security; and preserved as a Capital to produce an Annual Revenue for the Benefit of the said Seminary agreeable to the meaning of the said Letters Patent and our express Intention in this our Letter of Attorney declared" And requiring him "to transmit them an account properly vouched and certified of the manner in which the whole monies * * * * is disposed or laid out * * with an account of the Securities taken and the amount of the annual Revenue which the monies so laid out may produce."