Smith), graduated in 1761 or thereabouts, embraced the principles of
the Unitarians, joined their ministry, and crossed over to England;
being successively pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, at
Marshfield in Gloucestershire, and at Maidstone.  At Wisbech he
married Grace Loftus, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer.  Of the
many children granted to them but three survived infancy.  William,
the youngest of these, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, on April
10, 1778.  From Maidstone the family moved in 1780 to Bandon, Co.
Cork; and from Bandon in 1783 to America, where Mr.  Hazlitt preached
before the new Assembly of the States-General of New Jersey,
lectured at Philadelphia on the Evidences of Christianity, founded
the First Unitarian Church at Boston, and declined a proffered
diploma of D.D.  In 1786-7 he returned to England and took up his
abode at Wem, in Shropshire.  His elder son, John, was now old enough
to choose a vocation, and chose that of a miniature-painter.  The
second child, Peggy, had begun to paint also, amateurishly in oils.
William, aged eight--a child out of whose recollection all memories
of Bandon and of America (save the taste of barberries) soon faded--
took his education at home and at a local school.  His father
designed him for the Unitarian ministry.