It was my fortune, a week or two after, to sit next to Mr.
Bayard at a dinner given to Mr. Collins, by the American consuls
in Great Britain. I took occasion to tell him the story,
and he gave me the assurance, which he afterward so abundantly
and successfully fulfilled, of his powerful aid. I was compelled,
by the health of one of the party with whom I was travelling,
to go to the Continent almost immediately, and was disappointed
in the hope of an early return to England.
After looking at the volume and reading the records on the
flyleaf, I said: "My Lord, I am going to say something which
you may think rather audacious. I think this book ought to
go back to Massachusetts. Nobody knows how it got over here.
Some people think it was carried off by Governor Hutchinson,
the Tory Governor; other people think it was carried off by
British soldiers when Boston was evacuated; but in either
case the property would not have changed. Or, if you treat
it as booty, in which last case, I suppose, by the law of
nations ordinary property does change, no civilized nation
in modern times applies that principle to the property of
libraries and institutions of learning.
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