It would be injustice to the memory of Dr. Cooper not to add, that far from betraying anything like mortification or resentment, he uniformly treated his youthful antagonist with good humor and even respect.-Analectic Mag., v. 14, p. 96.

It may justly be regarded as a proof of the influence which liberal studies exercise upon the minds of youth, in awakening a love of liberty-a spirit intolerant of tyranny, injustice, and oppressionthat, notwithstanding the political principles of those who administered the government of King's College, and especially of Dr. Cooper; and although the talents and popularity of the President might seem likely to recommend his opinions to his pupils, yet a large proportion of them were so far from adopting his tory principles, as to be among the foremost champions of liberty, in the cabinet and the field. "There were early found Jay and Livingston, Morris and Benson, Van Cortlandt and Rutgers, and Troup and Hamilton.”—Verplanck's Address, delivered before the Philolexian and Peithologian Societies of Col. Coll. p. 13.

The name of Hamilton (whom the College has always insisted on reckoning as one of her alumni), stands conspicuous among those of students matriculated in 1774. Had the circumstances of the college and those eventful times allowed him to complete his academic course, it would, no

doubt, considering his ardor and activity of mind, have been a brilliant one even within the college walls; but the voice of his country called him to a higher and more extended sphere of action. Abandoning the studious retirement of academic shades, to take part in the struggles of the battle-field, or the deliberations of the cabinet, he has made his name the property of the historian, and the theme of a loftier praise than any that these pages are able to award.

The boldness with which Dr. Cooper maintained, in his writings and his conversation, principles and sentiments highly offensive to a most numerous party, at a time of great popular excitement, at length so roused the indignation of his political opponents, that on the night of May 10th, 1775, his lodgings in the college were forcibly entered by a mob, to the fury of which, had he been found there, he would probably have fallen a victim. A few days previous, had been published a letter, dated Philadelphia, April 25, 1775, addressed to Dr. Cooper and four other obnoxious gentlemen of this city, ascribing to them, and to their assurances of the defection of New York, all the hostile proceedings of England-the blood of their fellowsubjects who had fallen in Massachusetts-towns in flames—a desolated country-butchered fathers, weeping widows and children, with all the horrors

of a civil war. They are denounced as parricides, and told that the Americans, reduced to desperation, will no longer satisfy their resentment with the execution of villains in effigy; and the letter concludes:

Fly for your lives, or anticipate your doom by becoming your own executioners.-THREE MILLIONS."—Amer. Archives, 4th Series, vol. 2. col. 389.

If those of the three millions who sought Dr. Cooper on this occasion, were animated by the wrathful spirit which breathes through this epistle, we may easily imagine the treatment he would have received from them. But their design was frustrated by one of his former pupils, who, preceding the throng of several hundred men, admonished him of his danger just in time to save him. He escaped, only half-dressed, over the college fence; reached the shore of the Hudson, and wandered along the river bank till near morning, when he found shelter in the house of his friend Mr. Stuyvesant, where he remained for that day, and during the night following took refuge on board the Kingfisher, Captain James Montagu, an English ship of war at anchor in the harbor, in which soon afterwards he sailed for England.

On the 16th of May, or six days after this narrow escape of the President, the Rev. Benjamin

Moore, an alumnus of the college, who a few months previous had returned from England in holy orders, was appointed by the Governors Præses pro tempore; it being supposed that Dr. Cooper might, which he never did, return.

In consequence of Dr. Cooper's absence there was no public commencement held this year; but the degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred on seven students, and that of Master of Arts on two alumni of the college; and eight students were admitted.

On the 6th of April, in the following year, 1776, the Treasurer of the College received from the Committee of Safety a message, desiring the Governors to prepare the College within six days, for the reception of troops. The students were in consequence dispersed, the library and apparatus were deposited in the City Hall, or elsewhere, and the college edifice was converted into a military hospital. Almost all the apparatus, and a large proportion of the books belonging to the college, were wholly lost to it in consequence of this removal; and of the books recovered, six or seven hundred volumes were so, only after about thirty years, when they were found, with as many belonging to the N. Y. Society Library, and some belonging to Trinity Church, in a room in St. Paul's Chapel, where, it seemed, no one but the sexton had been

aware of their existence, and neither he nor anybody else could tell how they had arrived here.

Previous to this dispersion of the college library, it contained, besides books purchased by the Governors and those bequeathed by Dr. Bristowe and by Mr. Murray, many valuable works given by the Earl of Bute and other individuals, and from the University of Oxford, a copy of every work printed at the University Press..

This forcible seizure of the college building, for as such, in fact, we may regard it, was perhaps suggested by the same feeling of political animosity that had been manifested with such violence in the attempt to seize on Dr. Cooper's person. The Committee of Safety, when they aimed this blow at an obnoxious institution, which they looked upon as a mere hot-bed of Toryism, were little aware of the fruits their country was about to reap from plants that had been reared in it.

An eminent jurist has remarked “that until the foundation of King's college, little more than twenty years before the Declaration of Independence, there were no seminaries within the colony, in which any other than a very indifferent education could be procured. The influence of that institution on the literary character of the State was truly wonderful; for though the whole num