He executed his plate of the Public Ledger, which proved most popular, and was followed by his mezzotints of Edwin the Minstrel (a portrait of Thomas Haden)[1] after Wright of Derby, and Mercury Inventing the Lyre, after Barry.

[3] Reynolds painted all Society, but Smith's mezzotints of Mrs Carnac (1778) and Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton (1782) are outstanding examples of famous Georgians.

Tarleton's reputation as a ruthless cavalry officer in the American campaign was illustrative of Smith's enduring family links to the New World.

[citation needed] Adding to his artistic pursuits an extensive connexion as a print-dealer and publisher, he would soon have acquired wealth had it not been for his dissipated habits.

[2] Smith knew the theatre, having a keen eye for the dramatic flourish, with a sense of stagecraft, a Promenade at Carlisle House, followed by a mezzotint exhibited in 1782 at the Free Society of Artists.

He was a boon companion of George Morland, whose excellent figure-pieces included mezzotints repository at the British Museum, and frequent exhibitions throughout his career at the Society of Artists.

In the intervening periods he showed oils, chalk and pastels at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly, for example his mezzotint of 1785 of the Credulous Lady and Astrologer.

Other portraits were of important radicals and whigs Horne Tooke,[citation needed] Sir Francis Burdett and the group of the duke of Devonshire and family support his claims as a successful draughtsman and painter.

Upon the decline of his business as a printseller he made a tour through the north and midland counties of England, producing much hasty and indifferent work, and settled in Doncaster.