( 368 ) 
of claims to compensation for such losses, they sought to 
distinguish the claim of the College as a Scientefic Institution 
from that of ordinary claims ; and, therefore, in 1805 and 1806 
‘they ask permission to enquire whether the circumstance 
of its being the good of the State in science which on 
this occasion yielded to its good in other things, does not 
put their case out of the range of ordinary claims, and 
entitle them to some other remuneration than has been 
allowed hitherto.” * 
But the distinction was disallowed and the petition was 
rejected. 
The principal passages in that petition referring to the 
Vermont lands are as follows: 
«* Had war revered science; had the benefactions of indi- 
viduals survived the struggle for independence, and had not 
the exigencies of the State since the peace required enormous 
sacrifices of property in Vermont, the Trustees would have 
been spared the pain of this address.” 
After referring to the injury to its buildings by fire and the 
pillaging of its library during the war and its loss of bonded 
capital by the depreciation of paper currency, it continues: 
«Still, the College might have emerged with new lustre 
had it been able to retain the lands which it held in Vermont 
by a double grant from New York and New Hampshire, and 
which were surrendered by this State in the adjustment of her 
controversy with Vermont. ‘The Trustees cannot refrain 
from expressing to your Poneianic body, that this b/ow, which 
deprived them of more than one hundred thousand acres of 
valuable land, which long before now would have commanded 
a market, cut off their best hope that the college in a short 
time would be venerated by the lovers of knowledge and 
reflect dignity upon the American name. They are aware 
that the «ound was inflicted by the hand of wecess/ty, but 
they ask permission to enquire whether the circumstance of 
its being the good of the State in Science,” etc., etc., as above. 
There were numerous other land-claimants, as before stated, 
in the same situation as Columbia College. The State could 
* Assembly Papers, ‘Colleges’? (State Library), Albany, pp. 75. IT3- 
he ‘t remuneration’’ doubtless referred to the fund of $30,000, paid by Ver- 
mont (ante, pp. 24-25). 
a! 
