inclosing a fee of twenty dollars, and asking him to appear before the committee.  Mr. Webster did not come, and Wheelock had to go on as best he could without him.  One of Wheelock’s friends, Mr. Dunham, wrote a very indignant letter to Mr. Webster on his failure to appear; to which Mr. Webster replied that he had seen Wheelock and they had contemplated a suit in court, but that at the time of the hearing he was otherwise engaged, and moreover that he did not regard a summons to appear before a legislative committee as a professional call, adding that he was by no means sure that the president was wholly in the right.  The truth was, that many of Mr. Webster’s strongest personal and political friends, and most of the leaders with whom he was associated in the control of the Federalist party, were either trustees themselves or closely allied with the trustees.  In the interval between the consultation with Wheelock and the committee hearing, these friends and leaders saw Mr. Webster, and pointed out to him that he must not desert them, and that this college controversy was fast developing into a party question.  Mr. Webster was convinced, and abandoned Wheelock, making, as has been seen, a very unsatisfactory explanation of his conduct.  In this way he finally parted company with Wheelock, and was thereafter irrevocably engaged on the side of the trustees.

Events now moved rapidly.  The trustees, without heeding the advice of Mr. Mason to delay, removed Wheelock from the presidency, and appointed in his place the Rev. Francis Brown.  This fanned the flame of popular excitement, and such a defiance of the legislative committee threw the whole question into politics.  As Mr. Mason had foreseen when he warned the trustees against hasty action, all the Democrats, all members of sects other than the Congregational, and all freethinkers generally, were united against the trustees, and consequently against the Federalists.  The election came on.  Wheelock, who was a Federalist, went over to the enemy, carrying his friends with him, and Mr. Plumer, the Democratic candidate, was elected Governor, together with a Democratic Legislature.  Mr. Webster perceived at once that the trustees were in a bad position.  He advised that every effort should be made to soothe the Democrats, and that the purpose of founding a new college should be noised abroad, in order to create alarm.  Strategy, however, was vain.  Governor Plumer declared against the trustees in his message, and the Legislature in June, 1816, despite every sort of protest and remonstrance, passed an act to reorganize the college, and virtually to place it within the control of the State.  The Governor and council at once proceeded to choose trustees and overseers under the new law, and among those thus selected was Joseph Story of Massachusetts.