Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/180

 or ironically applauded as they left the hall; indignation meetings were held in Holden Chapel, whence the huzzas of the rioters “could be heard in the town”; “unlawful” resolutions were passed; and the favorite threat of leaving College was freely indulged in. The ringleaders, Asa Dunbar, Daniel Johnson, and Thomas Hodgson, all seniors, refused to confess or apologize. At length the Corporation, at their wits’ end, had recourse to the unprecedented and humiliating step of invoking the aid of the Royal Governor, Sir Francis Bernard, as chairman of the Overseers, ‘‘to read the Overseers’ resolutions to the students in chapel, and enforce them as he shall think proper.” That must have been a tense moment in chapel! If the Governor should fail, nothing but the King in Council, for aught that could be seen, would stand between Harvard College and perdition. But the courtly Sir Francis rose to the occasion, and the rebels saw the light—or enough of it to refrain thenceforward from any “remarkable disorders.”

This rebellion was the first real test between the scholars and the governing bodies—what the lawyers term a case of novel impression. As such, in spite of its ridiculous cause, it was treated by both parties with preternatural gravity, and brought forth a mass of documents on each side. The one gleam of humor that illuminates them came, as might be expected, from the