William Smith (chief justice)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Smith (June 25, 1728 – November 3, 1793) was a lawyer, historian, speaker, loyalist, and eventually Chief Justice of the Province of New York from 1763 to 1782 and Chief Justice of the Province of Quebec, later Lower Canada, from 1786 until his death. He was the son of Judge William Smith of New York and the brother of Joshua Hett Smith, the supposed “dupe” of Benedict Arnold and Major John André.

During the American Revolution, he was referred to as “the weathercock” because his contemporaries were not able to understand which side he was on. Basically, though, he was neither friend to American or Loyalist and was one of the main reasons that the loyalists themselves declared that they did never trust the family of Smith.

He, along with his brother Joshua Hett Smith, escaped prosecution and probable execution by the Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies in the State of New York in 1778 for the crime of treason due to the memory of their father's influence upon the Justice system: the elder William Smith had, despite the efforts of friends and relatives, refused his own appointment to the Office of Chief Justice of the Province of New York in 1760, which his son William had accepted.

His brother, Doctor Thomas Smith, was the owner of the “treason house” in Haverstraw, Orange County, New York that was being occupied by his other brother, Joshua Hett Smith, at the time that Benedict Arnold and Major John André planned their conspiracies.

Smith returned to England in 1783 and then came to Quebec City in 1786, when he was named Chief Justice for the province and also named to the legislative council. In 1791, he became chief justice for Lower Canada and was appointed to the Legislative Council of Lower Canada, serving as its first speaker. He died in Quebec City in 1793.

He published The history of the Province of New York from its Discovery in 1532,... in London in 1757.