hat 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.

Both boards of trustees assembled. The old board turned out Judge Woodward,
their secretary, who was a friend to Wheelock and secretary also of the new
board, and, receiving a thousand dollars from a friend of one of the
professors, resolved to fight. President Brown refused to obey the summons
of the new trustees, who expelled the old board by resolution. Thereupon
the old board brought suit against Woodward for the college seal and other
property, and the case came on for trial in May, 1817. Mr. Mason and Judge
Smith appeared for the college, George Sullivan and Ichabod Bartlett for
Woodward and the state board. The case was argued and then wen