Frederick Smyth was Chief Justice of New Jersey.
From the description of Papers, 1756-1816. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122584274
Frederick Smyth (1732–1815) was the last royal chief justice of New Jersey. He was an outspoken opponent of the American Revolution who was particularly concerned with the importance of the law during this period of resistance to governmental authority. Smyth was one of Governor William Franklin’s most trusted allies. However, despite his unwavering loyalty to the British crown, the chief justice remained in the United States until the end of his life.
Frederick Smyth was born in the county of Norfolk, England, in 1732. In 1756 George II appointed him commissioner for taking oaths for court. Three years later he left England to serve as a barrister in Barbados. In 1762 he was appointed attorney general and notary public for the islands of Martinique. He returned to England in 1763, after a brief stay on Barbados.
In 1764 George III appointed Smyth as chief justice of New Jersey. At around the same time Smyth also became a member of the provincial council. The young lawyer – he was only thirty-two years old when he assumed these distinguished offices – soon became one of Governor William Franklin’s (1731-1813, APS 1768) closest confidents. Indeed, as one historian put it, “If Franklin was the captain of the New Jersey ship of state during the pre-Revolutionary era, Chief Justice Frederick Smyth was the first mate.” Smyth arrived in the province just as the imperial crisis began to take shape.
Throughout his life, Smyth remained a firm loyalist. However, this did not mean that he supported every colonial policy. For example, in 1765 Smyth met with members of the New Jersey bar to discuss possible responses to the Stamp Act. At a statewide meeting, the lawyers had pledged their commitment to a kind of passive resistance to the act by refusing to make use of the stamps. They also informed Smyth that it would be incompatible with the chief justice’s judicial duties to distribute the stamps, as the law required. Smyth, who not only personally disliked the Stamp Act but also sought to remain on good terms with the lawyers, made no effort to change the bar’s resolution, thus essentially rendering the act nugatory.
In 1768, only about three years after his arrival in North America, Smyth and Governor Franklin attended a meeting of British representatives and members of the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, New York, as representatives of the province of New Jersey. The proceedings resulted in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which established the boundary line between Indian lands and British colonial settlements.
In the late 1760s and early 1770s, as Smyth’s conservative views became increasingly unpopular even in the generally loyalist province of New Jersey, he repeatedly appealed to Britain for an increase in salary. The provincial assembly refused such a grant “unless he showed himself willing to hold his commission during good behavior.” In 1772 Lord North agreed to pay his salary which by then was apparently no longer covered by the local legislature.
That same year Smyth was one of several supreme court chief justices appointed to the Royal Commission of Inquiry that investigated the burning of the British revenue cutter Gaspée off the coast of Rhode Island. The vessel had been looted and burned by American patriots after she had run aground in pursuit of a smuggling vessel, near the town of Warwick, Rhode Island. The commission was charged with determining whether there was sufficient evidence for a trial of suspected culprits in England. However, faced with massive popular resistance and an almost complete lack of cooperation by local citizens, the justices ultimately declared in their report to London that they were unable to deal with the case.
On several occasions during the 1770s, Smyth lectured grand juries from the bench on the virtues of the British constitution and the importance of the law. Such was the case in November 1774, when a group of Americans expressed their opposition to the Tea Act by seizing and burning a cargo of tea in the little town of Greenwich, Cumberland County. The tea, which had been shipped on the British brig Greyhound, belonged to the East India Tea Company. The captain had secretly stored the cargo in the cellar of a local Tory. When local citizens found out about this, they planned and executed a Tea Party that was modeled after the Boston Tea Party of December 1773.
In his charge to the grand jury that was summoned to investigate the incident, Chief Justice Smyth warned that the “real tyranny” at their doors was more dangerous than the “ imaginary tyranny three thousand miles distant.” The grand jury disagreed; it issued a statement in which it severely rebuked the justice for aiding the “actual tyranny, at a distance of three thousand miles away.” Not surprisingly the jurors refused to find any bills of indictment. A second lecture by Smyth on the dangers of mob violence and wanton destruction of property failed to change their minds. They still refused to indict any of the participants.
By the spring of 1776, Smyth had emerged as the leading opponent of the American Revolution in New Jersey. In a speech to the Middlesex County grand jury in April 1776, Smyth stressed the importance of the law in time of Revolution and denounced the movement of secession from Britain. As a staunch defender of the British constitution he warned of the “artful designing Men,” who, “in the rage of faction, sedition and Licentiousness” worked “to alienate our minds from a love of, and veneration for our excellent constitution.” Generally, Smyth was not so much concerned with specific actions of discontent than with their implications for government and the law.
Smyth’s judicial service closed with the 1776 term. Two years later he inquired whether he should return to Britain; Henry Clinton (1730-1795), the British Commander-in-Chief for North America, recommended that he stay. In fact, Smyth subsequently moved to New York City, where he and Clinton were members of the so-called Carlisle Commission, a peace commission led by Frederick Howard, the 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825). The following year, Smyth was told that Loyalists could not be compensated by the Ministry for all of the losses they had sustained. However, Lord George Germain informed him that his allowance would be continued.
After the Revolution, Smyth relocated to Philadelphia. In 1784 he married Margaret Oswald, the daughter of James and Mary Oswald of Philadelphia. (Margaret’s sister Elizabeth was married to Benjamin Chew (1722-1810, APS 1768), Pennsylvania Chief Justice from 1774 to 1776.) He joined the Society of the Sons of St. George in 1791, and he was a supporter of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Smyth died in Philadelphia in 1815.
The Philadelphia city directories from 1795 to his death listed Smyth as a “gentleman.” His obituary in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser noted that he had “filled the station of Chief Justice, with fidelity to the old government, yet without making one personal enemy in the new.” He lived well in the new nation, spending his summers at his country seat, called “Roxborough,” near Germantown, in “elegant retirement, and liberal hospitality.” He was able to afford a comfortable lifestyle in part because the British Government never discontinued payment of his salary.
From the guide to the Frederick Smyth papers, 1756-1816, 1756-1816, (American Philosophical Society)
