"To you, revered legislators! the writer submits the foregoing important considerations. He beholds, in your Honorable body, the sovereign of the State, holding, by the Constitution, and the very nature of sovereignty in all countries, the sacred right, with your duty and responsibility to God, to visit and oversee the literary establishments, where the manners and feelings of the young are formed, and grow up in the citizen in after life; to restrain from injustice, and rectify abuses in their management, and, if necessary, to reduce them to their primitive principles, or so modify their powers as to make them subservient to the public welfare. To your protection, and wise arrangements, he submits whatever he holds in official rights by the Charter of the seminary; and to you his invaluable rights as a subject and citizen. "He entreats your honorable body to take into consideration the state and concerns of the college and school, as laid before you. "And as the Legislature have never before found occasion to provide, by any tribunal, against the evils of the foregoing nature, and their ultimate dangers, he prays that you would please, by a committee invested with competent powers, or otherwise, to look into the affairs and management of the institution, internal and external, already referred to, and, if judged expedient in your wisdom, that you would make such organic improvements and model reforms in its system and movements, as, under Divine Providence, will guard against the disorders and their apprehended consequences. "He begs only to add the contemplated joys of the friends of man and virtue, in the result of your great wisdom and goodness, which may secure this seat of science, so that it may become an increasing source of blessings to the State, and to mankind of the present and succeeding ages, instead of a theatre for the purpose of a few, terminating in public calamity. "Whatever disposal your Honorable body may please to make of the subject now presented, the subscriber will never cease to maintain the most humble deference and dutiful respect. John Wheelock." * * * * * It would not be profitable, at the present time, to re-open the discussion of the subject matter of the various charges contained in the above document, which were so fully elaborated in the "Sketches," and so carefully considered in the subsequent "Vindication" by the Trustees. The prayer of the Memorial was granted by the Legislature, by the appointment of a committee of investigation. The following letter is worthy of careful attention in this connection: "Exeter, August 15, 1815.