Note 20 — The Society Library

The British took possession of the City Hall and “they also plundered it of all the books belonging to the subscription library, and also of a valuable library which belonged to the corporation, the whole consisting of not less than sixty thousand volumes. This was done with impunity and the books publicly hawked about the town for sale by private soldiers” (“Lamb’s History of the City of New York,” vol. II, p. 134).