GENERAL HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT, (continued 4)

Dancing, fishing, hunting, skating, and riding in sleighs on the ice, are all the amusements allowed in this colony.

Smuggling is rivetted in the constitution and practice of the inhabitants of Connecticut, as much as superstition and religion, and their province is a storehouse for the smugglers of the neighbouring colonies. They conscientiously study to cheat the King of those duties which, they say, God and Nature never intended should be paid. From the Governor down to the tithing-man, who are sworn to support the laws, they will aid smugglers, resist collectors, and mob informers. This being a popular Government, all the officers are appointed by the freeholders. There are very severe laws against bribery. The candidates are not suffered to give a dinner, or a glass of cider, on the day of the election, to a voter. Indeed, bribery is the next greatest crime to a breach of the Sabbath; yet open bribery, as established by custom immemorial in Rhode-Island, is more praiseworthy than the practice of Connecticut. I will give the reader some idea of the mode in which an election is managed in Connecticut.

All the voters in a township convene in the town meeting-house. One of the ministers, after prayers, preaches from some such text as, “Jabez was more honourable than his brethren.” The people keep their seats, while the constables take their votes in a box; and if a voter has not his vote written, the constable gives him one. So Jabez is elected; and the meeting is concluded with a prayer of thanks to the Lord God of Israel for “turning the hearts of his people against the enemies of Zion, and for uniting them in Jabez, the man after his own heart.” The manner in which the preacher treats his text will more particularly appear from the animadversion of a certain Quaker on one of these occasions. “Friend,” said he to the pedagogue, “I do thee no wrong in telling thee that thou hast prayed and preached against bribery, but forgot to keep thy tongue from speaking evil against thy neighbour. Dost thou think the Lord will regard thy preaching so much as the voters whom thou dost call freemen? If thou believest it, thou hast bribed not only the people, but the Lord also, to reject Ebenezer and Benjamin.” The preacher called upon the constable to take away this babbler and open the meeting; which was done, and Ebenezer and Benjamin were rejected by the voters.

The men in general throughout the province are tall, stout, and robust. The greatest care is taken of the limbs and bodies of infants, which are kept straight by means of a board—a practice learnt from the Indian women, who abhor all crooked people—so that deformity is here a rarity.

Another custom derived from the Indians is, to welcome a new-born infant into the world with urine and honey, the effects of which are wonderful; and hence it is that at groanings there are always a little hog and a rattle-snake’s skin, the latter of which prevents numbness and the cramp. The women are fair, handsome, genteel. They have, indeed, adopted various customs of the Indian women, but cannot learn, like them, how to support the pains of child-bearing without a groan. Naturalists and surgeons have not been able to assign the reason why a negro woman should have a hundred pains, a white woman ten, and an Indian none. Some have said that the fatigues and hardships which negroes endure are the cause; but the Indians undergo many more: others have said it was owing to the change of climate; but this is suppletory: while the enthusiastic divines attribute it to the sin of Eve, and to the curse laid on the Canaanites. The deists ask these divines if Eve was not the common mother of the white, black, and copper-coloured women, and how it appears that negroes are the descendants of Canaan? Their answer is, that all Nature is mystery.

The women of Connecticut are strictly virtuous, and to be compared to the prude rather than the European polite lady. They are not permitted to read plays; cannot converse about whist, quadrille, or operas, but will freely talk upon the subject of history, geography, and mathematics. They are great casuists and polemical divines; and I have known not a few of them so well skilled in Greek and Latin as often to put to the blush learned gentlemen.

Notwithstanding the modesty of the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak, before a lady, of a garter, knee, or leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to bundle—a custom as old as the first settlement in 1634. It is certainly innocent, virtuous, and prudent, or the puritans would not have permitted it to prevail among their offspring, for whom, in general, they would suffer crucifixion. Children brought up with the chastest ideas, with so much religion as to believe that the omniscient God sees them in the dark, and that angels guard them when absent from their parents, will not—nay, cannot—act a wicked thing. People who are influenced more by lust than a serious faith in God, who is too pure to behold iniquity with approbation, ought never to bundle. If any man, thus a stranger to the love of virtue, of God, and the christian religion, should bundle with a young lady in New-England, and behave himself unseemly towards her, he must first melt her into passion, and expel heaven, death, and hell, from her mind, or he will undergo the chastisement of negroes turned mad; if he escapes with life, it will be owing to the parents flying from their beds to protect him.

The Indians, who had this method of courtship when the English arrived among them in 1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world.

Concubinage and fornication are vices none of them are addicted to, except such as forsake the laws of Hobbomockow and turn christians. The savages have taken many female prisoners, carried them back three hundred miles into their country, and kept them several years, and yet not a single instance of their violating the laws of chastity has ever been known. This cannot be said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian or other women have fallen into their hands. I am no advocate for temptation, yet must say that bundling has prevailed 160 years in New-England, and, I verily believe, with ten times more chastity than the sitting on a sofa. About the year 1756, Boston, Salem, Newport, and New York, resolving to be more polite than their ancestors, forbade their daughters bundling on the bed with any young man whatever, and introduced a sofa, to render courtship more palatable and Turkish. Whatever it was owing to, whether to the sofa or any uncommon excess of the feu d’esprit, there went abroad a report that the raffinage produced more natural consequences than all the bundling among the boors with their rurales pendantes through every village in New-England besides.

In 1766, a clergyman from one of the polite towns went into the country and preached against the unchristian custom of young men and maidens lying together upon the same bed. He was no sooner out of the Church, than attacked by a shoal of good old women, with, “Sir, do you think we and our daughters are naughty because we allow bundling?” “You lead yourselves into temptation by it.” They all replied at once, “Sir, have you been told thus, or has experience taught you?” The Levite began to lift his eyes and to consider his situation, and, bowing, said, “I have been told so.” The ladies, una voce, bawled out, “Your informants, sir, we conclude, are those city ladies who prefer a sofa to a bed. We advise you to alter your sermon by substituting the word sofa for bundling, and, on your return home, preach to them: for experience has told us that city-folks send more children into the country without father and mother to own them, than are born among us; therefore, you see, a sofa is more dangerous than a bed.” The poor priest, seemingly convinced of his blunder, exclaimed, “Nec vitia nostra, nec remedia pati possumus,” hoping hereby to get rid of his guests; but an old matron pulled off her spectacles, and, looking the priest in the face like a Roman heroine, said, “Noli putare me hæc auribus tuis dares.” Others cried out to the priest to explain his Latin. “The English,” he said, “is this: Woe to me that I sojourn in Meseck, and dwell in the tents of Kedar!” One pertly replied, “Gladii decussati sunt gemina presbytericalvis.” The priest confessed his error, begged pardon, and promised never more to preach against bundling, or to think amiss of the custom; the ladies generously forgave him, and went away.

It may seem very strange to find this custom of bundling in bed attended with so much innocence in New-England, while in Europe it is thought not safe, or scarcely decent, to permit a young man or maid to be together in private anywhere. But, in this quarter of the Old World, the viciousness of the one and the simplicity of the other are the result merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one whenever an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the New World. It is egregiously absurd to judge of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal, and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East-Indies, lust; in New-England, superstition. These four blind deities govern Jews, Turks, christians, infidels, and heathen. Superstition is the most amiable. She sees no vice with approbation, but persecution, and self-preservation is the cause of her seeing that. My insular readers will, I hope, believe me, when I tell them that I have seen in the West-Indies naked boys and girls, some fifteen or sixteen years of age, waiting at table and at tea, even when twenty or thirty virtuous English ladies were in the room; who were under no more embarrassment at such an awful sight in the eyes of English people who have not travelled abroad, than they would have been at the sight of so many servants in livery. Shall we censure the ladies of the West-Indies as vicious above their sex on account of this local custom? By no means; for long experience has taught the world that the West-Indian white ladies are virtuous prudes. Where superstition reigns, fanaticism will be minister of state; and the people, under the taxation of zeal, will shun what is commonly called vice with ten times more care than the polite and civilized christians who know what is right and what is wrong from reason and revelation. Happy would it be for the world, if reason and revelation were suffered to control the minds and passions of the great and wise men of the world, as superstition does that of the simple and less polished! When America shall elect societies for the promotion of chastity in Europe, in return for the establishment of European arts in American capitals, then Europe will discover that there is more christian philosophy in American bundling than can be found in the customs of nations more polite.

I should not have said so much about bundling had not a learned divine (Dr. Burnaby) of the English Church published his Travels through some parts of America, wherein this remarkable custom is represented in an unfavourable light, and as prevailing among the lower class of people. The truth is, the custom prevails among all classes, to the great honour of the country, its religion, and ladies. The virtuous may be tempted; but the tempter is despised. Why it should be thought incredible for a young man and young woman innocently and virtuously to lie down together in a bed with a great part of their clothes on, I cannot conceive. Human passions may be alike in every region; but religion, diversified as it is, operates differently in different countries. Upon the whole, had I daughters now, I would venture to let them bundle upon the bed, or even on the sofa, after a proper education, sooner than adopt the Spanish mode of forcing young people to prattle only before the lady’s mother the chit-chat of artless lovers. Could the four quarters of the world produce a more chaste, exemplary, and beautiful company of wives and daughters than are in Connecticut, I should not have remaining one favourable sentiment for the province. But the soil, the rivers, the ponds, the ten thousand landscapes, together with the virtuous and lovely women which now adorn the ancient kingdoms of Connecticut, Sassacus, and Quinnipiog, would tempt me into the highest wonder and admiration of them, could they once be freed of the skunk, the moping-owl, rattle-snake, and fanatic christian.

My readers will naturally be desirous of information in what manner the people of Connecticut conduct themselves in regard to the Stamp Act, which has proved the subject of so much speculation and controversy both in America and Europe. I will, therefore, give a particular account of their proceedings concerning it, which will, perhaps, appear to have been of far greater consequence than is generally supposed in England.

The American colonists were no sooner extricated from all danger of Gallic depredations by the peace of 1763, than they began to manifest symptoms of ingratitude and rebellion against their deliverers. Connecticut, on several accounts, particularly that of its free constitution in Church and State, which prevented every interruption from a King’s Governor, was fixed upon as the fittest site for raising the first-fruits of jealousies and disaffection. Nor did the hatred which kept the province at eternal strife within itself on all other occasions, prevent its political coincidence upon this. In 1764, delegates from every dissenting association in America convened at Newhaven and settled the plan of operations. They voted that the American Vine was endangered by the encroachment of the English Parliament and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; that episcopacy was established in Nova-Scotia, and missionaries maintained by the English Government, while New-England and other American States were taxed to support that same Government; that a league and covenant ought to be made and signed by all good protestants against the machinations of their enemies, and in defence of their civil and religious liberties; that it was the duty of all good protestants to stand upon their guard, and collect and send every kind of interesting intelligence to the Moderator at Hertford, whose business would be to communicate the same in his circular letters to the true friends of protestant liberty. In my opinion, whoever does not perceive the spirit of civil as well as religious independence in this convention, and these resolutions of dissenting divines, must be politically blind. Whilst Mr. Grenville was exerting his fanatical faculties for the relief of the Mother Country; ready to sink under the load of expense brought upon her by that war which had opened an avenue to highest exaltation for her American offspring, Connecticut was early advertised by merchants, divines, and ladies, in England, that the Parliament was about to give the colonies a specimen of English burthens. The Consociation ordered a fast, to deprecate the threatened judgments. This fast was served up with sermons pointing out the reigns of wicked kings, lords, and bishops, in the last century; and concluded with, “One woe is past, and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter!”

A requisition having been made, in 1763, that each colony in America should raise a revenue to assist Great Britain in discharging the national debt, which had been partly incurred at their request and for their preservation, the General Assembly was instructed by Dr. Franklin and others how to act. Accordingly, the Assembly resolved not to raise any money towards the national debt, or any national expenses, till the Parliament should remove the Navigation Act, which, they said, was advantageous to Great Britain and disadvantageous to America; and, therefore, Great Britain, in defraying the whole of the national expense, did nothing more than justice required, so long as that act should be continued. Such were the arguments and resolutions of the General Assembly, although their agent in England had informed them that, if they refused to comply with the requisition of the minister, the Parliament would tax them.

The agent’s intelligence proved to be well founded. In 1765 the Stamp Act passed, because the colonies had refused to tax themselves. News so important soon arrived in America, and the Consociation of Connecticut appointed another fast, and ordered the angels to sound their trumpets, and great plagues followed. Thomas Fitch, the Governor, shewed some dislike to the proceedings of the Consociation, but was given to understand that Christ’s ministers acted by an authority superior to that of the Governor or a king. The episcopalians, and many sects, saw no reason for keeping the fast; but the Governor observed it with a view of securing his election the next year, and was successful. The episcopalians were rewarded for their disobedience with what is called “a new religious comic Liturgy,” which was printed and circulated through the colony as the performance of Doctor Franklin, and acted in many towns by the young people on evenings by way of sport and amusement. The litany was altered in many places, especially in the paragraphs respecting the King, nobility, &c.; and instead of “We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!” was substituted, “We beseech thee, O Cromwell, to hear (our prayers) us.” “O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity!” was altered thus, “O Chatham, Wilkes, and Franklin, have mercy upon us!” “From plague, pestilence, famine,” &c. was followed by “O Cromwell, deliver us!” An episcopal clergyman had courage enough to complain of these blasphemous proceedings, and the Grand Jury indicted the comic actors; but the magistrate to whom the complaint was made refused to grant a warrant, using worse maledictions against the King than were contained in the ludicrous litany. Hereupon the Grand Jury indicted the magistrate for high treason; but no magistrate could be found of resolution enough to grant a warrant against the traitor. However, the comic liturgy was acted but privately afterwards, and, upon the repeal of the Stamp Act, was suppressed as far as they could do it.

This second fast was sanctified with preaching on this and similar texts, “And there arose a new king in Egypt who remembered not Joseph,” and with praying God to grant the King a heart of flesh, and to remove popery out of the British Parliament.

The Stamp Act was to take place in November, 1765; some months before which the stamp-master, Jared Ingersoll, Esq. who had been the colony’s agent in England, arrived at Newhaven in Connecticut. In September a special Assembly was convened at Hertford, for the purpose of considering what steps to take. As if to avoid the supremacy of the British Parliament, they determined not to apply themselves for the repeal of the act, but secretly encouraged a number of lawyers, merchants, and divines to meet, by their own authority, at New-York, for that purpose. In the mean time three mobs were raised, under Durgy, Leach, and Parsons, who by different routes marched into Newhaven to seize the stamp-master. They succeeded; and, having brought their prisoner before the Assembly-house at Hertford, they gave him the alternative to resign or die. Mr. Ingersoll appealed several times by confidential messengers to the Assembly then sitting, but, finding them inclined to countenance the mob, he was forced to resign, and authenticate the same by whirling first his hat, and next his wig, three times round his head, and then into the air; whilst the General Assembly and Consociation (which last venerable body never fails to be ready with its counsel and assistance on all salutary occasions) shouted with the multitude, from their windows, at the glorious achievement.

This special Assembly, having sufficiently manifested the part they wished the colony to take, broke up, leaving further proceedings to the mob, who continued to act up to the specimen already given, and the Congress of New York, which met then accordingly, agreed upon and transmitted to England a petition for a repeal of the obnoxious act.[39]

The October session of the General Assembly is always holden at Newhaven: there and then they were informed by Mr. Dyer,[41] who had made one of the petitioners at New York, that it was recommended by the Congress for the colonial governors to take the oath prescribed by the Stamp Act.

The General Assembly, however, voted that the Governor of Connecticut should not take it; and, moreover, determined to continue Mr. Fitch in his office, notwithstanding the disfranchisement incident on his refusal, if he would be guided by their advice: the Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Devotion, one of the Representatives, and Eliphalet Dyer (above mentioned), one of the Council, offered to pay the imposed fine of 1,000l. However, the Governor presented himself before the Council, whose business it was to administer the oath, but which, it is thought, Mr. Fitch presumed would be denied, and therefore artfully devised this means at once of avoiding the oath and shifting the penalties from himself upon them. Seven out of the twelve, suspecting the Governor’s design, put their fingers in their ears, shuffled their feet, and ran groaning out of the house; the other five stayed, and administered the oath, with a view to saving themselves and the Charter and direct the wrath of the people against the Governor; but in this they were mistaken, incurring in common with him the odium of the patriots. The Stamp Act having thus gained footing, the Assembly broke up. Legal proceedings also were discontinued, and the courts of justice shut. The Consociations and Associations kept frequent fasts of their own appointment, prayers, and preaching against Roman Catholic rulers, Arminian governors, and false-hearted councillors and episcopizing curates. Hereupon the mobs became outrageous; sedition was law and rebellion gospel. The stamp-master was called a traitor to his country, and the episcopalians enemies to Zion and liberty.

The fastings, prayers, and riots brought about a revolution in the colony. Fitch, who had taken, and the five assistants who had administered, the oath, as well as many officers, both civil and military, who declined to take a rebellious part, were dismissed from their posts; and a new Governor, other councillors, &c. were chosen, and the people fitted for every kind of mischief—all, however, under the pretence of religion and liberty. The patriotic Mr. Dyer distinguished himself by furnishing the fasting ministers with proper materials to inflame the minds of the people against the just demands of the King. One of his Machiavellian dogmas was, that the King claimed the colonies as his patrimony, and intended to raise a revenue in each province; and that, having gained this point, his purpose was to govern England by America and America by England, and thereby subvert liberty and establish tyranny in both, as the kings of France had done by means of the various parliaments in that country. Mr. Dyer declared he had this information from the best authority in England, and added, that the liberties of both countries depended on America resisting the Stamp Act, even unto blood. These and such like reveries supplied the ministers of the Gospel with a great body of political divinity, and the mob with courage to break Churchmen’s windows, and cry out, “No bishops! no popery! no kings, lords, and tyrants!” Everything but decency and order overran the colony. Indeed, the General Assembly kept up their meetings, but it was only to transact such business as was not affected by the Stamp Act. The mobs of the fasting ministers continued their lawless proceedings, without further interruption and impediment than what they met with from the strenuous exertions of the King’s friends, who had repeatedly saved the lives of the stamp-master, Governor Fitch, the five rejected councillors, the episcopal clergy, and many good subjects, at the hazard of their own, though they could not preserve them from daily abuse and insult.

The mob, having been spirited up and trained to violence and outrage for several months, began to make some alarm even to the instigators, especially as they were hitherto disappointed in their expectations of the act being repealed. The Governor and Council, therefore, directing their attention to the dangerous consequences of the lawless state and refractory temper the people were in, and being struck with the foresight of their own perilous situation, resolved, early in 1766, to open the courts of law under the Stamp Act, if the very next packet did not bring certain advices of its repeal; and all parties who had causes depending in any court were to be duly notified by the Governor’s proclamation. This determination was no less mortifying to the mob than gratifying to the King’s friends, who were convinced that the Stamp Act ought, both in policy and justice, to be enforced, and therefore had risked their lives, fortunes, characters, and colonial honours in its support. The patriots, now apparently sickened with licentiousness, became very complaisant to the loyalists, declaring that, in all their opposition to the Stamp Act, they had meant nothing personal, and desiring to have past animosities buried in oblivion. All things thus settled, tranquillity seemed to be returning; when, lo! the packet arrived with the fatal news of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Then a double portion of madness seized the patriots, who, in their excess of joy “that victory was gained over the beast, and over his mark,” utterly forgot their late penitential and tranquil professions, branding the King’s friends with the appellations of tories, Jacobites, and papists. The Gospel ministers left off their fastings, and turned mourning into joy and triumph. “Now we behold,” they said in their pulpits, “that Great Britain is afraid of us; for the Stamp Act is repealed, even upon the petition of an illegal body of men. If, therefore, we stand fast in the liberties wherein Christ has made us free, we need not fear in future the usurpations of the kings, lords, and bishops of England.” The accompanying claim of Parliament to the power of binding America in all cases whatsoever was, indeed, a thorn which galled them much; but they found a salvo in ordering a copy of the repeal to be burnt under the gallows by the common hangman. The General Assembly also stepped forward, and voted the populace several barrels of powder, and puncheons of rum, together with 100l. in money, to celebrate the festival. A tremendous mob met together at Hertford and received their present. The powder was placed in a large brick school, and the rum on the common square. While each one was contending for his share, the powder took fire and blew up the school, killing fifteen or sixteen persons, and wounding many. This disaster shook the house where the Consociation was sitting; upon which they resolved that Heaven did not approve of their rejoicings because the repeal was but partial! They therefore ordered a new fast, to do away the iniquities of that day, and to implore the Supreme to direct them in what manner to guard against the machinations of “the locusts who had a king over them, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek Apollyon!”

This fast was cooked up with a favourite text in New-England, viz. “He reproved even kings for their sake.” From these words the preachers proved that the King’s power lay in his mouth, and in his tail, which, like “a serpent, did hurt for a month and a year;” and that God would protect his people against “the murderers, the sorceries, the fornication, the thefts” of bishops, popes, and kings, “and make nations angry, and give them power to judge and destroy those who would destroy his prophets and his saints.” In this day of great humiliation the prophets entertained the saints with a spice of rejoicing, because “victory was gotten over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.” “Therefore,” said they, “rejoice, O inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, because we can get, buy, and sell, without the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

This bombastic declamation against the authority of Great Britain raised the passions of a great portion of this multitude higher than was intended. They had lately been tutored to form high notions of their own consequence, had been intoxicated with a life of confusion in a lawless country, and had now no relish for a government of any kind whatever; accordingly, inflamed by the rhapsodies of the preachers, they set themselves against that of the colony; arguing that if the Lord would reprove kings, lords, and bishops, for their sake, he would also reprove governors, magistrates, and consociations, for their sakes.

This revolt of a part of the people was encouraged and strengthened by the adherents of Governor Fitch, the five discarded councillors, and the loyalists; so that very formidable bodies soon appeared in divers towns, threatening destruction to the General Assembly, Consociation, Associations, executive courts, &c. &c. Colonel Street Hall, of Wallingford, a loyalist, was appointed governor over these supreme multitudes. They soon acquainted the General Assembly and Consociation that, by the authority that England had been reformed, by the same authority should Connecticut be reformed; and Mr. Hall sent a letter to the Judges of the County Court, then sitting at Newhaven, purporting that it was not agreeable to the people for them to continue their proceedings, or that any executions should be granted, and concluding thus: “Ye that have ears to hear, hear what is said unto you; for we shall quickly come.” The judges, without hesitation or adjournment, ran out of court and went home as privately as possible. The merchants, the Gospel ministers, the lawyers, and judges, who had with great zeal inculcated the divine right of the people to resist kings, found themselves in a starving condition under the exercise of their boasted right. The General Assembly and Association, however, again convened, and, after much fasting and prayer, resolved that the conduct of Street Hall, Esq. and his associates, was seditious and treasonable; and ordered the Attorney-General, Colonel Elihu Hall, to indict his nephew, Street Hall, for treasonable practices. The Attorney-General refused to comply with this mandate, whereupon he was dismissed, and James Hillhouse, Esq. appointed in his place, who indicted Street Hall; but no sheriff dared serve the warrant. Street Hall ordered his people to prepare for battle and to be ready at a minute’s warning, and rode about with one servant, in defiance of the General Assembly, who likewise prepared to support their power. It is most likely that Street Hall would have prevailed had an engagement taken place; for the episcopalians, and all the friends of Mr. Fitch and the five dismissed councillors, would have supported Mr. Hall. But a battle was prevented by the interposition of the Consociation, with this curious Gospel axiom, viz. that it was legal and politic in the people to oppose and resist the foreign power which was unjustly claimed by the King of Great Britain; but it was neither politic nor right to oppose the magistrates and laws made by themselves. They prevailed on Street Hall to condescend to write to the General Assembly to this effect: “That he was a friend to the laws and constitution of the colony, and wished to support both; and should do it, on condition that they would rescind their vote, and that no one should be prosecuted for what had been done by him and his associates.” The Assembly very gladly voted this overture of Street Hall to be satisfactory; and thus peace was re-established between the Assembly and Street Hall. Nevertheless, Mr. Hall was greatly censured by his partisans for this compromise; and he lived in constant expectation of their hanging him, till he softened them by this remarkable address in vindication of his conduct: “We have done,” said he, “everything in our power to support the authority of the British Parliament over the colonies. We have lost our property, local reputations, and all colonial offices and respect among our countrymen, in defence of that King and Parliament who have not shed a tear for our sufferings, nor failed to sacrifice their own dignities and their best friends to please a party that never will be easy until another Oliver arise and extirpate kings, lords, and bishops. By heavens!” added Street Hall, with great energy, “I will rest my life upon this single question, Who would stand up in defence of a king who prefers his enemies to his friends? If you acquit me, I shall more fully declare my principles.”

The mob, after much consideration, declared their approbation of Mr. Hall’s conduct; upon which he resumed his address nearly as follows:

“Gentlemen, we have once been betrayed and forsaken by the King and Parliament of Great Britain; no dependence, then, ought henceforth to be placed upon either. It is plain to me, that if we had extirpated the General Assembly and all the avowed enemies of the constitution of Great Britain, yet that very Parliament would have been the first of all the creation to honour us with a gallows for our reward. I therefore swear by Him who controls the wheels of time, that in future I will support the laws and dignity of the colony, and never more put any confidence in princes or British Parliament. The Saviour of the world trusted Judas but once; and it is my opinion that those who betray and forsake their friends ought to experience the wrath and indignation of friends turned enemies. In this case, baseness is policy, ingratitude loyalty, and revenge heroic virtue!”

Colonel Street Hall spoke with great vehemence, and might be censured for rashness by people who were not in America at the time; but his sentiments reached the hearts of half of the King’s friends there; for the repeal of the Stamp Act had fixed in their breasts an everlasting hatred to the fickle temper of Britons.

Few people, hereafter, will advance a sixpence in support of any acts of the Parliament of Great Britain over her colonies. Prior to the year 1766 such a public spirit prevailed in America over private interest as would naturally have led the people to conform to any acts of the British Parliament, from a deep-rooted confidence that the requisitions of Britain would be no other than the requisitions of wisdom and necessity. Two-thirds, I may say with safety, of all the people in America thought there was wisdom and justice in the Stamp Act, and wished to have it continued: first, because they were sensible of being greatly indebted to the generosity and protection of Britain; secondly, because they had rather be subject to the control of Parliament in regard to a revenue, than have it raised by the authority of their own Assemblies, who favour the rich and oppress the poor; and thirdly, because the Stamp Act would have prevented innumerable suits at law, the costs of which, in Connecticut, have during the last forty years amounted to ten times as much as all others for war, gospel, physic, the poor, &c. &c. It is impossible to describe the disappointment and mortification they suffered by the repeal of that act; it exposed them to calumny, derision, and oppression; it disheartened all, and occasioned the defection of many, while their adversaries triumphed in the encouragement it had given them to prosecute their malicious schemes against the Church, King, laws, and commerce of England. However, in regard to the question of raising a revenue in America, I have never met with one American who would not allow (though unwillingly) the reasonableness of it, with certain conditions and provisos.

Thus: 1. The judges and lawyers required the tax to be imposed by the General Assembly of each province. 2. The merchants, whose conscience is gain, and who commonly constitute more than half of the Assembly, declared that, before any revenue was raised, the Navigation Act should be repealed, and the East India Company, and all the monopolies, dissolved. 3. The Gospel ministers, whose power in New-England is terrible to flesh and spirit, would contribute to a revenue after the King and Parliament had dropped their claim to supreme authority over America, and secured the American Vine against the domination and usurpations of bishops. To these sources may be traced all the objections made against a revenue in America, which sprung from three orders of men of the least real benefit to the country, and whose proportion to all others there is not one to a hundred; though they have had the art and address, by imposition and delusion, to involve them in their tumultuous contentions and ruinous projects and undertakings. Indeed, the clergy, lawyers, and merchants of European countries have been represented as the worst enemies of society—the great promoters of discord, war, insurrections, and rebellions; but the heathen have not yet given us an example how depraved mankind would be without them. However, supposing the crimination to have foundation, there is one good reason to be offered in palliation of it. Most governments are too apt to adopt the maxim of rewarding prosperous opposing zealots, whilst the exertions of oppressed friends are passed over, if not with contempt at least with silent neglect. Hence, men will naturally be induced, in defiance of law and gospel, to head parties, to become consequential in the world.

APPENDIX.

The preceding sheets bring the “History of Connecticut” to its latest period of amity with Great Britain, agreeable to the plan upon which it was begun. I propose laying before my readers, in an Appendix, a summary account of the proceedings of the people of Connecticut immediately leading to their open hostilities against the Mother Country, not only because some events are not at all, or erroneously, known here, but also because they will form a supplement necessary in several instances to what has been already related. Another reason that induces me to make the proposed addition is, the contradictions that have so frequently appeared regarding the statements made by the author of the “History,” as to acts and laws that were in force in the colony of Connecticut during its early settlement, and which had been handed down to their posterity by the Sober Dissenters, as they called themselves, many of which laws remained in force up to the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Mr. James Hammond Trumbull, a descendant of Governor Trumbull, so frequently spoken of in this work and notes, in a book lately published by him, entitled “The True Blue Laws of Connecticut and Newhaven, and the False Blue Laws invented by the Rev. Samuel Peters,” has taken unnecessary pains to show that the Blue Laws represented in the “History” were never published in the colony, and consequently must be factitious. The author of the “History” himself mentions that they never were published; and had Mr. Trumbull referred to the action of the meeting of the planters in Quinnipiack, the 4th of June, 1639, he would have seen that the general resolutions then and there adopted were to be their laws, and that no laws were enacted. (See Note on pages 44-47.)

Many writers have endeavoured to point out the motive which prompted the Americans to the wish of being independent of Great Britain, who had for a century and a half nursed and protected them with parental tenderness; but they have only touched upon the reasons ostensibly held up by the Americans, but which are merely a veil to the true causes. These, therefore, I shall endeavour to set before the reader.

In the first place: England, as if afraid to venture her Constitution in America, had kept it at an awful distance, and established in many of her colonies republicanism, wherein the democratic absorbs the regal and aristocratic part of the English Constitution. The people naturally imbibed the idea that they were superior to kings and lords, because they controlled their representatives, governors, and councils. This is the infallible consequence of popular governments.

Secondly: The English had, like the Dutch, adopted the errors of ancient Rome, who judged that her colonies could be held in subjection only by natives of Rome; and therefore all emoluments were carefully withheld from all natives of the colonies.

Thirdly: The learned and opulent families in America were not honoured by their King like those born in Britain.

Fourthly: The Americans saw themselves despised by the Britons, “though bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh.” They felt and complained of, without redress, the sad effects of convicts, the curses of human society and the disgrace of England, taken from the dungeons, jails, and gibbets, and poured into America as the common sewer of England, to murder, plunder, and commit outrage upon the people “whom the King did not delight to honour.”

Hence the rebellion. Human nature is always such that men will never cease struggling for honour, wealth, and power, at the expense of gratitude, loyalty, and virtue.

Indignation and despair seized the gentlemen in America, who thought, like Haman, that their affluence and ease was nothing worth so long as they lay under the sovereign’s contempt. They declared that the insult reached the whole continent, in which were to be found only two Baronets of Great Britain, while all the other inhabitants were held beneath the yeomanry of England. They added: “Let Cæsar tremble! Let wealth and private property depart, to deliver our country from the injuries of our elder brethren!” How easily might the rebellion have been averted by the granting of titles! With what reason faction and discontent spring up in South-America, may be learned from the dear-bought wisdom of Spain, who transported to her colonies her own Constitution in Church and State, rewarded merit in whatever part of her territories it appeared, sent bishops to govern and ordain in every church in South-America, and they, together with the native noblesse, promoted harmony, the offspring of justice and policy; while North-America abounded with discord, hatred, and rebellion, entirely from want of policy and justice in their party-coloured charters, and of the honours and privileges of natural-born subjects of Great Britain.

It appears that the British Government, in the last century, did not expect New-England to remain under their authority; nor did the New-Englanders consider themselves as subjects, but allies, of Great Britain. It seems that England’s intent was to afford an asylum to the republicans, who had been a scourge to the British Constitution; and so, to encourage that restless party to emigrate, republican charters were granted, and privileges and promises given them far beyond what any Englishman in England was entitled to. The emigrants were empowered to make laws in Church and State, agreeable to their own will and pleasure, without the King’s approbation; they were excused from all quit-rents, all Government taxes, and promised protection without paying homage to the British King, and their children entitled to the same rights and privileges as if born in England. However hard this bargain was upon the side of England, she had performed her part, except in the last respect—indeed, the most material in policy and in the minds of the principal gentlemen of New-England. The honour of nobility had not been conferred on any of them, and therefore they had never enjoyed the full privileges and liberties of the Britons, but, in a degree, had ever been held in bondage under their chartered republican systems, wherein gentlemen of learning and property attain not to equal power with the peasants. The people of New-England were rightly styled republicans; but a distinction should be made between the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the poor. The latter formed a great majority; therefore the minority were obliged to wear the livery of the majority, in order to secure their election into office. These very republican gentlemen were ambitious, fond of the power of governing, and grudged no money or pains to obtain an annual office. What would they not have given for a dignity depending not on the fickle will of a multitude, but on the steady reason and generosity of a king? The merchants, lawyers, and clergy, to appearance were republicans, but not one of them was really so. The truth is, they found necessity on the one hand, and British neglect on the other, to be so intolerable, that they rather chose to risk their lives and fortunes to bring about a revolution, than continue in the situation they were. As to the multitude, they had no cause of complaint: they were accuser, judge, king, and subjects, only to themselves.

The rebellion sprung not from them, but from the merchants, lawyers, and clergy, who were never inimical to the aristocratic branch of the Government, provided they were admitted to share in it according to their merits. It is true, they, like Calvin, the author of their religion, maintained that no man can merit anything of the Great Eternal; nevertheless, they thought they had merited the aristocratic honours which emanate from earthly kings; while kings and nobles of the earth imagine themselves to have merited more than they yet enjoy—even heaven itself—only because they happen to enjoy the honour of being descendants of heroic ancestors.

England had also been as careful to keep to herself her religion and bishops as her civil constitutions and baronies. A million of Churchmen in America had been considered as not worthy of one bishop, while eight millions in South-Britain were scarcely honoured with enough with twenty-six: an insult on common justice, which would have extinguished every spark of affection in America for the English Church, and created an everlasting schism, like that between Constantinople and Rome, had not the majority of the American episcopal clergy been possessed of less ambition than love and zeal. They had suffered on both sides of the Atlantic in name and property, for their endeavours to keep up a union between the Mother Country and her children; but all their arguments and persuasions were insufficient to convince their brethren that England would in future be more generous towards her colonies. One of the first fruits of the grand continental meeting of dissenting divines at Newhaven was a coalition between the republican and the minor part of the episcopal clergy, who were soon joined by the merchants, lawyers, and planters, with a view of procuring titles, ordination, and government, independent of Great Britain. Such were the real sources of the rebellion in America. The invasion of this or that colonial right, the oppression of this or that act of Parliament, were merely the pretended causes of it, which the ill-humour of a misgoverned people prompted them eagerly to hold up—causes which would never have found existence, whose existence had never been necessary, if a better system of American policy had been adopted; but, being produced, the shadow of complaint was exhibited instead of the substance, pretence instead of reality. Every republican pulpit resounded with invectives against the King, Lords, and Commons, who claimed a power to tax and govern the people of America—a power which their charters and ancestors knew nothing of. “Britons,” they said, “call our property theirs; they consider us as slaves—as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the descendants of those tyrants of Church and State who in the last century expelled and persecuted our fathers into the wilds of America. We have charters sacred as Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights.”

They declared that the liberties of America ought to be defended with the blood of millions; that the Attorney-General ought to impeach the Parliament of Great Britain, and all its abettors, of high treason, for daring to tax the freemen of America; that each colony was a palatinate, and the people a palatine; that the people of Connecticut had as much authority to issue a writ of quo warranto against Magna Charta, as the King had to order such a writ against the Charter of Connecticut.

By ravings of this kind did the Sober Dissenters manifest their discontents, when the various measures for raising a revenue in America were adopted by the British ministry. That of sending tea to America, in 1773, subject to a duty of three pence on the pound, payable in America, particularly excited their clamour, as designed, they said, to establish a precedent of British taxation in this country; and, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of the loyalists, who strenuously exerted themselves in removing vulgar prejudices and procuring a reconciliation with circumstances rendered unavoidable by the necessity cf the times, they effectually inflamed the minds of the populace by reading, in the meetings on Sunday, letters said to have been sent by Dr. Franklin, I. Temple, and others, representing the danger of paying any tax imposed by Parliament, and the evil protestantism was threatened with by a Roman Catholic King, by Jacobites, tories, and episcopal clergy in both countries, all enemies to liberty and the American Vine; and adding that, if the Americans paid the tax on tea, there were three hundred other taxes ready to be imposed upon them, one of which was “50l. for every son born in wedlock, to maintain the natural children of the lords and bishops of England.”

The moderate counsel of the loyalists had formerly been attended with some effect; but it was forced to give place to the ribaldry just mentioned, and an opposition much more resolute was determined upon against the tea-act than had been made to the Stamp Act.

A provincial congress, committee of correspondence, committee of safety, in every town, &c. &c. now started up for the purpose of setting the colony in an uproar against the Parliament of Great Britain. To this end contributed not a little the falsehoods and artifices of Mr. Handcock, and other Boston merchants, who had in their storehouses nearly 40,000 half-boxes of tea, smuggled from the Dutch; which would never have been sold had the Company’s teas been once admitted into America, as the latter were not only the better in quality, but, the duty being reduced from one shilling to three pence, would be also the much cheaper commodity. Mr. Handcock and his compatriots, therefore, were by no means wanting in endeavours to procure for the first teas which arrived in New-England the reception they met with in the harbour of Boston.

That famous exploit afforded them an opportunity of clearing their warehouses, which they prudently resolved to do as soon as possible, lest the reception of the Company’s tea in other provinces, or other possible circumstances, should afterwards put it out of their power. An idea began to prevail that a non-importation of tea was an advisable measure upon the present occasion; accordingly, they advertised that, after disposing of their present stock, they would not import or have any further dealings in tea for two years. This at once tended to fill their pockets, and exalt their characters as patriots.

The people, ignorant of the extent of such stock, and apprehensive of being deprived of an article they were so passionately fond of, eagerly furnished themselves with quantities sufficient for that time, mostly of about thirty, forty, and fifty pounds, notwithstanding the prices were advanced one shilling per pound, upon the pretence of raising money to pay for the tea destroyed, in order to secure the religion and liberty of America, which, under that idea, it was generally acknowledged ought to be done. When the tea was mostly disposed of, the people found that the extra price they had given for it was designed for the venders, instead of for the East-India Company, whose tea at the bottom of the harbour was not to be paid for. They murmured; whereupon the smugglers voted that they would not drink any more tea, but burn on the Common what they had left. Some tea was disposed of, and the public-spirited transaction blazoned in the newspapers. But this was not all: the smugglers sent letters to the leaders of mobs in the country, enjoining them to wait upon the purchasers of their tea, and compel them to burn it, as a proof of their patriotism. Those honourable instructions were obeyed, to the real grievance of the holders of the tea. “Let Mr. Handcock,” said they, “and the other merchant-smugglers, return us our money, and then you shall be welcome to burn the tea according to their orders.”

But it signified nothing to dispute the equity of the requisition; the cry was, “Join, or die!” Nor would the Sons of Liberty be satisfied with anything less than that each owner of tea should with his own hands bring forth the same and burn it, and then sign a declaration that he had acted in this affair voluntarily and without any compulsion, and, moreover, pay the printer for inserting it in the newspapers.

An act of Parliament for shutting up the port of Boston was the immediate consequence of the destruction of the East-India Company’s tea. It took place in June, 1774, and was considered by the Americans as designed to reduce the Bostonians “to the most servile and mean compliance ever attempted to be imposed on a free people, and allowed to be infinitely more alarming and dangerous to their common liberties than even the hydra, the Stamp Act.”

Due care had been taken to enforce it, by sending General Gage, as Governor, to Boston, where he arrived the preceding month with a number of troops. Determined, however, as Parliament seemed, on compulsion, the colonists were equally bent on resistance, and resolved on a Continental Congress to direct their operations. In the mean time, contributions for relieving the distressed people in Boston were voted by the colonies; and Connecticut, through the officiousness of Jonathan Trumbull, its Governor, had the honour of first setting the example, by having a meeting called in Hebron, the inhabitants of which remained loyal and refused to vote for the collection. Governor Trumbull imputed this to the influence of the Rev. Samuel Peters (of whom more will be said hereafter) and his family. Many were the attempts made to ruin his character, but unsuccessfully; he was too well beloved and befriended in the town.

Falsehoods and seditions had now for some time been every day increasing in the province; and men who were secret propagators of traitorous opinions, pretended in public to look up to the Consociation, the great focus of Divine illumination, for direction. After much fasting and praying, that holy leaven discovered an admirable method of advancing the blessed work of protestant liberty. The doors of prisons were opened, and prisoners became leaders of mobs composed of negroes, vagabonds, and thieves, who had much to gain and nothing to lose. The besom of destruction first cleared away the creditors of the renegades, and then the Sandemanians, presbyterians, and episcopalians. The unfortunate complained to the Governor and magistrates of the outrages of the banditti, begging the protection of the laws. The following was the best answer returned by the magistrates:

“The proceedings of which you complain are like the acts of Parliament; but be this as it may, we are only servants of the people, in whom all power centres, and who have assumed their natural right to judge and act for themselves.”

The loyalists armed, to defend themselves and property against the public thieves; but the Liberty Boys were instantly honoured by the ministers, deacons, and justices, who caused the Grand Jury to indict, as tories and rioters, those who presumed to defend their houses, and the courts fined and imprisoned them.

Thus horridly, by night and day, were the mobs driven on by the hopes of plunder and the pleasure of domineering over their superiors. Having sent terror and lamentation through their own colony, the incarnate fiends paid a visit to the episcopalians of Great Barrington, whose numbers exceeded that of the Sober Dissenters. Their wrath chiefly fell upon the Rev. Mr. Bostwick and David Ingersoll, Esq. The former was lashed with his back to a tree, and almost killed; but on account of the fits of his wife and mother, and the screamings of the women and children, the mob released him upon his signing the eighteen articles, or their League or Covenant, as they called it, (which without doubt was the same as that drawn up and written by Governor Trumbull, which will be referred to hereafter.) As to Mr. Ingersoll, after demolishing his house and stealing his goods, they brought him almost naked into Connecticut upon the bare back of a horse, in spite of the distresses of his mother and sister, which were enough to melt the heart of a savage, though producing in the Sober Dissenters but peals of laughter that rent the skies.

Treatment so extremely barbarous did Mr. Ingersoll receive at their hands, that the sheriff of Litchfield County could not withhold his interposition, by which means he was set at liberty, after signing the league and covenant. The Grand Jury indicted some of the leaders in this riot, but the Court dismissed them, upon receiving information from Boston that Ingersoll had seceded from the House of Representatives, and declared for the King of England.

What caused this irruption of the mob into Great Barrington, follows: The laws of Massachusets-Bay gave each town a power to vote a tax for the support of the ministry, schools, poor, &c. The money, when collected, was deposited with the town treasurer, who is obliged to pay it according to the determination of the majority of the voters. The Sober Dissenters, for many years, had been the majority in Barrington, and had annually voted about two hundred pounds sterling for the ministry, above half of which was taken from the Churchmen and Lutherans, whose ministers could have no part of it, because separately the greatest number of voters were Sober Dissenters, who gave the whole to their minister. This was deemed liberty and gospel in New-England; but mark the sequel. The Lutherans and some other sects having joined the Church party, the Church gained the majority. Next year the town voted the money, as usual, for the ministry, &c.; but the majority voted that the treasurer should pay the share appointed for the ministry to the Church clergyman, which was accordingly done; whereupon the Sober Dissenters cried out, “Tyranny and persecution!” and applied to Governor Hutchinson, then the idol and protector of the Independents, for relief. His Excellency, ever willing to leave “Paul bound,” found a method of reversing the vote of the majority of the freemen of Barrington in favour of the Churchmen, calling it “a vote obtained by wrong and fraud.” The Governor, by law or without law, appointed Mayor Hawley, of Northampton, to be Moderator of the town-meeting in Barrington. The Mayor accordingly attended, but, after exerting himself for three days in behalf of his oppressed brethren, was obliged to declare that the episcopalians had a great majority of legal voters; he then went home, leaving matters as he found them.

The Sober Dissenters were always so poor in Barrington that they could not have supported their minister without taxing their neighbours; and when they lost that power, their minister departed from them, “because,” as he said, “the Lord had called him to Rhode-Island.” To overthrow the majority of the Church, and to establish the American Vine upon its old foundation, was the main intention of the Sober Dissenters of Connecticut in visiting Great Barrington at this time.

The warlike preparations throughout the colonies, and the intelligence obtained from certain credible refugees of a secret design, formed in Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, to attack the royal army, induced General Gage to make some fortifications upon Boston-Neck for their security. These, of course, gave offence; but much more the excursion of a body of troops, on the 19th of April, 1775, to destroy a magazine of stores at Concord, and the skirmishes which ensued. In a letter of the 28th of April from Mr. Trumbull, the Governor of Connecticut, to General Gage, after speaking of the “very just and general alarm” given the “good people” of that province by his arrival at Boston with troops, and subsequent fortifications, he tells the General that “the late hostile and secret inroads of some of the troops under his command into the heart of the country, and the violence they had committed, had driven them almost into a state of desperation.” Certain it is, that the populace were then so maddened by false representations and aggravations of events, unfortunate and lamentable enough in themselves, as to be quite ripe for the rebellion the Governor and Assembly were on the point of commencing, though they had the effrontery to remonstrate against the defensive proceedings of the General, in order to conceal their own treachery. Further on, in the same letter, Mr. Trumbull writes thus: “The people of this colony, you may rely upon it, abhor the idea of taking up arms against the troops of their sovereign, and dread nothing so much as the horrors of civil war; but, at the same time, we beg leave to assure your Excellency that, as they apprehend themselves justified by the principles of self-defence, so they are most firmly resolved to defend their rights and privileges to the last extremity; nor will they be restrained from giving aid to their brethren, if an unjustifiable attack is made upon them. Is there no way to prevent this unhappy dispute from coming to extremities? Is there no alternative but absolute submission or the desolations of war? By that humanity which constitutes so amiable a part of your character, for the honour of our sovereign, and by the glory of the British empire, we entreat you to prevent it, if it be possible. Surely, it is to be hoped that the temperate wisdom of the empire might, even yet, find expedients to restore peace, that so all parts of the empire may enjoy their particular rights, honours, and immunities. Certainly this is an event most devoutly to be wished for; and will it not be consistent with your duty to suspend the operations of war, on your part, and enable us, on ours, to quiet the minds of the people, at least till the result of some further deliberations may be known?” &c. &c.

From this letter, written, as it was, from the Governor of a province at the desire of its General Assembly, the people of England might have learned to think of the American as they did of the French sincerity. It is almost past credit that, amidst the earnest protestations it contains of a peaceable disposition in Mr. Trumbull and the rest of his coadjutors in the Government of Connecticut, they were meditating and actually taking measures for the capture of certain of the King’s forts, and the destruction of General Gage and his whole army, instead of quieting the minds of the people! Yet such was the fact. They had commissioned Motte and Phelps to draft men from the militia, if volunteers should not readily appear, for a secret expedition, which proved to be against Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and the treasurer of the colony, by order of the Governor and Council, had paid 1500l. to bear their expenses. Nay, even before the date of the above amiable epistle, Motte and Phelps had left Hertford on that treasonable undertaking, in which they were joined on the way by Colonels Allen and Easton. Nor was this the only insidious enterprise that they had to cover. The “good people” throughout the province, to the number of nearly 20,000, were secretly arming themselves, and filing off, to avoid suspicion, in small parties of ten and a dozen, to meet “their brethren” the Massachusets; not, however, with the view of “giving aid, should any unjustifiable able attack be made upon them,” but to “surprise” Boston by storm. In addition to the Governor’s letter, the mock-peacemakers, the General Assembly, had deputed Dr. Samuel Johnson, son of the Rev. Dr. Johnson, spoken of in this work, and Oliver Wolcott, Esq. both of the Council, which had ordered the 1500l. for the adventurers to Ticonderoga, to wait upon General Gage, the more effectually to amuse and deceive him into confidence and inaction. But happily, at a critical time, just before the intended storm and slaughter at Boston, the news of the success of the secret expedition reached the town, which fully discovered the true character and business of the two Connecticut ambassadors, and rendered it necessary for them, sans cérémonie, to retire from Boston, and General Gage immediately to render the fortifications at the Neck impregnable.

The Sober Dissenters, chagrined at being disappointed in their hostile project against Boston, readily embraced the opportunities which afforded of wreaking their vengeance upon New-York. At the instance of the rebel party there, who found themselves too weak to effect their purpose of subverting the Constitution of the province, a large body immediately posted to their assistance, delivered “their brethren” from the slavery of regal government, and invested them with the liberty of doing that which was fit in their own eyes, under the democratic administration of the immaculate Livingstons, Morris, Schuyler, &c. As seemed necessary to the furtherance of their pacific views, frequent irruptions were made afterwards, in which many loyalists were disarmed and plundered, and some of them taken prisoners. Among these last were the Rev. Dr. Seabury and the Mayor of New-York. Governor Tryon happily escaped their fury; as also did the Rev. Miles Cooper, LL.D., who was leaving his house through a back window when a party of ruffians burst into his chamber and thrust their bayonets into the bed he had just quitted. Mr. Rivington was one of the sufferers by the loss of his property.

These “good people” of Governor Trumbull’s, who dreaded nothing so much as a civil war, with the reverse of reluctance, plundered his house of all printing materials and furniture, and carried the type to Newhaven, where they were used in the service of Congress.

The King’s statue, however, maintained its ground till after General Washington, with the Continental army, had taken possession of the city; when it was indicted for high treason against the Dominions of America, found guilty, and received a quaint sentence of this kind, viz. That it should undergo the act of decollation; and, inasmuch as it had no bowels, its legs should be broken, and that the lead of it should be run into bullets, for the destruction of the English bloody-backs, and the refuse cast into the sea. The sentence was immediately carried into execution, amidst the huzzas and vociferations of “Praise ye the Lord!”

This insult upon his Majesty, General Washington, to his credit, thought proper thus to notice in his general orders of the next day. He was sorry, he said, that his soldiers should in a riotous manner pull down the statue of the King of Great Britain.

While General Washington remained in possession of New-York, Connecticut served as a prison for those persons who had the misfortune to fall under his suspicion as disaffected to the cause of freedom. He was himself, however, at length obliged to evacuate it by General Howe, to the great relief of such royalists as remained.

In April, 1777, some magazines having been formed by the Americans at Danbury and Ridgfield, Major-General Tryon was sent with 1800 men to carry off or destroy them.

They reached the places of their destination with little opposition; but the whole force of the country being collected to obstruct their return, the General was obliged to set the stores on fire, by which means those towns were unavoidably burnt. David Wooster, the rebel general, Benedict Arnold’s old friend and acquaintance, and mobbing confederate, received a fatal ball through his bladder as he was harassing the rear of the royal troops, of which, after being carried forty miles to Newhaven, he died, and was buried by the side of the grave of David Dixwell, one of the Judges of Charles the First.

In the summer of 1779 Sir Henry Clinton sent General Tryon, with a large party of soldiers, for the relief of the loyalists in Connecticut. They landed at Newhaven after much opposition, and, having accomplished their object, sailed to Fairfield, which town they were necessitated, by the opposition of the rebels, to set fire to, before the loyalists could be released from prison. General Tryon then repaired to Norwalk, where, having by proclamation enjoined the inhabitants to keep within their houses, he ordered sentinels to be stationed at every door to prevent disorders—a tenderness, however, they insulted, by firing upon the very men thus appointed to guard them. The consequence was, destruction to themselves, and the whole town, which was laid in ashes.

I have now mentioned the principal proceedings by which the people of Connecticut had distinguished themselves in bringing on and supporting the rebellion in America, and that, I believe, in a manner sufficiently particular to show their violence and deceit.

It is very observable that a peculiar characteristic resolution appeared to possess the people of Connecticut. As, on the one hand, rebellion had erected her crest in that province with more insolence and vigour than in the rest, so, on the other hand, loyalty had there exhibited proofs of zeal, attachment, perseverance, and fortitude, far beyond example elsewhere to be found in America. In particular, the episcopal clergy had acquired immortal honour by their steady adherence to their oaths and firmness under the “assaults of their enemies;” not a man among them all, in this fiery trial, having dishonoured either the King or Church of England by apostacy. The sufferings of some of them I cannot pass over in silence.

Among the greatest enemies to the cause of the Sober Dissenters, and among the greatest friends to that of the Church of England, the Rev. Samuel Peters stood conspicuous. A descendant of one of the first settlers in the colony, greatly venerated and beloved by the inhabitants of Hebron, where he was born in 1735, and being a man of such truth and integrity as to command great weight in all that concerned the benefits of the colony, it may not be out of place to give a slight sketch of the treatment he received at the commencement of the war, and the cause that drove him from his native country.[42]

In the year 1758 Dr. Peters went to England for the purpose of being ordained. He had been in ill health for some time previous to this, but was most anxious for his ordination on account of the church in Hebron being vacant. He remained in England, very feeble, for some time, and refused a living there because he wished to return to his numerous relations and friends in New-England, and especially to Hebron, where he had left his mother, whom he highly loved and venerated for her maternal tenderness, wisdom, and piety, and for the sake of the episcopal church in that town, erected in 1785, which never had a resident clergyman, though they had sent four candidates to London for holy orders, and all perished in going or returning, viz. The Rev. B. Dean, in returning, the ship and crew were lost in a storm; the Rev. Jonathan Cotton, returning, died at sea with the smallpox; the Rev. —​— Feveryear, died on returning in the West-Indies; Mr. James Usher, A. M., in going out, was taken by the French and carried into Bayonne, dying there with the smallpox.

These four deaths manifested the want of a bishop in North-America, which was owing to bad policy, and not religion, and was one great reason of the separation of the two countries, as clearly now appears by bishops being now established in many States without any offence to other protestant sects of christians.

His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord-Bishop of London willingly gratified the wish of Dr. Peters, appointing him Rector of Hebron and Hertford. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts appointed him their itinerant missionary in New-England, and his Majesty George the Second granted him his letters-patent of protection to all governors, admirals, generals, and officers by sea and land, to protect him against all insults and abuse, and to support him at all times in his sacred office.

Dr. Peters returned to Hebron in 1760, and was received with much joy and gratitude by the people of all denominations, with whom he had lived fourteen years in love, peace, and harmony, without knowing an enemy, until the tea belonging to the East-India Company was destroyed in Boston. The news, reaching Hertford, caused great surprise and sorrow, and the people condemned the illegal and violent action of the mob in Boston.

The news soon reached England, and the Government sent General Gage and Admiral Graves to block up the harbour of Boston and demand payment for the teas destroyed. Soon after their arrival at Boston a report was spread through the country that General Gage had shut up the town of Boston, and the people must perish with hunger; whereupon Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, pretending to credit the report, sent his circular letter to every clergyman in the colony, requiring it to be read on the Sabbath-day to their respective congregations, and to urge the selectmen to warn town-meetings to appoint a general contribution for the support of the poor people in Boston, shut up to starve by General Gage and Admiral Graves.

The Governor’s letter was obeyed. Hebron held the first meeting. Deacon John Phelps was chosen Moderator, and explained the business of the meeting, giving leave to all persons to speak their minds on the subject. Capt. Ben. Buell was the first who spoke in favour of passing a vote for a general collection. Col. Alex. Phelps next spoke against having any collection. The Rev. Elijah Lathrop made the third speech, in favour of a general collection. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Peters made the fourth speech, against having any vote or collection, for the reasons following:

“First: Because Boston is not, and has not been, shut up by order of General Gage, and all people pass out of and into Boston as usual, and the citizens want not our charitable help; of consequence, Governor Trumbull’s letter was premature, occasioned, perhaps, by false information from some friend to the destroyers of the teas, or an enemy to America.

“Secondly: Governor Trumbull, in his letter, has not assigned any proof of the fact that Boston is, or has been, shut up by General Gage.

“Thirdly: The teas destroyed in the harbour of Boston ought to be paid for by the author of that horrible crime; for which deed the King and Parliament have ordered Admiral Graves to blockade the harbour of Boston, until the teas wickedly destroyed are paid for; when the blockade will cease, or I will give my last shilling to help the poor of Boston.”

The question was then called for.

The Moderator commanded silence, and said: “Will not more of this Assembly speak on the subject?”

The answer was a general cry of “No! no!”

The Moderator then put the question: “Will you vote for the general collection for the support of the poor, said to be shut up in Boston to perish with hunger, by the order of General Gage? You that are for the affirmative, hold up your right hands.”

Only four hands were held up.

The Moderator said: “You that are for the negative, hold up your right hands.”

Every hand but the four was held up.

The Moderator proclaimed that the negatives, by a vast majority, had determined the question. “Therefore, I dissolve this town-meeting.”

Hertford, the capital of Connecticut colony, held the next town-meeting, and, after due consideration of Governor Trumbull’s letter, unanimously negatived to vote for a general collection, and the Moderator dissolved the town-meeting.

The doings of Hertford and Hebron were soon spread, and put a stop to all other town-meetings in Connecticut, to the disappointment and mortification of Governor Trumbull, who laid the blame on the influence of Dr. Peters, the episcopal clergyman of these two towns.

Hence the Governor spread the report that Dr. Peters was a dangerous enemy to America, by his correspondence with Lord North and the bishops of England, and ought to be driven out of his native country for the safety of it. Governor Trumbull began and effected this by his Windham mobs, and the mobs of the tea-destroyers in Boston harbour.

This is the true cause of Dr. Peters leaving America, and not because he was an enemy; for he was never an enemy to any man in his life.

This statement Governor Trumbull spread by his letters to the ministers in Windham, where he resided, and added that it could be proved by copies of letters in the Doctor’s house, if sought for suddenly. This letter was read at the meeting on Sunday, the 14th of August, 1774, which caused a large number of the hearers to unite in the afternoon and ride to Hebron, and, after midnight, to surround the house of Dr. Peters, awaking him and his family in great surprise.

Dr. Peters opened the window, and desired to be informed what was the occasion of such a multitude assembling? The answer was, “To search your house! Open your doors!”

Dr. Peters said: “I know you not, but will open my doors very soon.”

Having put on his clothes, he opened his doors and gate, when ten men came into his house. Dr. Peters begged them to be seated, and they sat down. They then said: “We have waited upon you, sir, to search your house from top to bottom, to find your correspondence with the English bishops, Lord North, and other people in Great Britain.”

Dr. Peters replied: “Your demand is new and extraordinary; but here are my keys and library, and you can search my house, but I hope you will not destroy my papers.”

They searched, and read all his correspondence with the bishops and people in England and Europe, and on Monday, before noon, reported to the multitude that they had “seen and read the correspondence held by Dr. Peters with the people of England, and found nothing against the liberty and rights of America; and, as we have been misinformed, let us return home;” and off they went.

This did not satisfy Governor Trumbull. He therefore sent another mob from Windham, armed with guns, swords, and staves, to visit Dr. Peters, and require his signature to eighteen articles which he (the Governor) had written, and his son David, one of the commanders of the mob, presented to Dr. Peters, who read and returned it, saying: “Sir, I cannot sign it without violating my conscience, the laws of my God, and my oath to my King.”

David Trumbull replied: “My father told me you might sign it with safety, and it would save you and your house.”

Dr. Peters replied he would not sign it to save his life, and all the world, from destruction.

David Trumbull said: “Then you must take the consequences.”

His mob then fired balls into the house, and with stones, bricks, and clubs broke the doors, windows, and furniture, wounding his mother, the nurse of his infant son, and his two brothers, and seizing him, tore off his hat, wig, gown, and cassock, stripping off his shirt, made him naked, (except his breeches, stockings, and shoes,) struck him with their staves and spat in his face, and then placed him upon a horse and carried him more than a mile to their liberty-pole, where they threatened to tar and feather him, and hang him up by the hands, unless he would sign the eighteen articles.

Dr. Peters said: “I am in your power; you can soon finish my mortal existence, but you cannot destroy my immortal soul; and, to save it, I refuse to sign any one of those articles.”

The mob now cried: “Send for the Rev. Dr. Pomeroy to pray for this stubborn old tory, before we send him to his own place.”

A sergeant and twelve men were ordered to call on Dr. Pomeroy and desire him to attend and pray for this wicked old tory Peters.

Dr. Pomeroy answered: “I will not attend, nor give any countenance in murdering the best man in Hebron.”

The sergeant reported Dr. Pomeroy’s answer. Then an order was given to the mob to go and bring Dr. Pomeroy to the liberty-pole, to be dealt with according to his demerits. The mob went, but could not find Dr. Pomeroy.

By this time the mob had drunk sufficiently, and the two commanders (David Trumbull and Major Wright) stood near Dr. Peters. The Hebron people had now collected, and were prepared to take Dr. Peters out of the hands of the mob. Three bold troopers rode up to the commander, and said: “We have come to kill you, or deliver Dr. Peters. Resign him, or die!”—placing their pistols at the commanders’ breasts. They said: “Take him away, and be silent.” They then instantly led him away.

Major Wright mounted his horse, and cried to his mob, “Silence! We have done enough to this old tory priest for one day, and in four days we will return and subdue his obstinate temper and finish this day’s work. Make ready and follow me to Lebanon.”

The mob obeyed, and on their way they saw the wife of John Manee, Esq. sister to Dr. Peters, at whom they discharged three musket-balls, which missed her. The mob huzzaed, and cried out, “We are dam’d sorry!”

The troopers carried Dr. Peters into the house of David Barber, Esq. where they put on his clothes, and conducted him home to his half-ruined house.

The next day Dr. Peters went in his carriage and called on Governor Trumbull, and demanded his protection against the Windham mobs.

The Governor replied: “I was once Governor of the people, but they have taken all power out of my hands into their own; and you must apply to them for protection, and it is in your power to gain it.”

Dr. Peters asked his Honour to tell him by what means.

The Governor said: “By signing the paper they presented to you yesterday, which you refused to sign, and so brought on you their just resentment.”

Dr. Peters replied: “Sir, do you think it my duty to sign the eighteen articles your son David, at the head of a mob, demanded me to sign?”

The Governor answered: “Yes, by all means.”

Dr. Peters: “Do you wish to have me justify the outrageous action of casting into the sea the teas, the property of English merchants?”

The Governor replied: “Yes; and all friends of America will do it.”

Dr. Peters: “Did your Honour mean to have me guilty of perjury and high treason, by signing those eighteen articles, which you wrote and gave to your son David for me to sign?”

The Governor replied: “Why do you say I wrote those eighteen articles?”

Dr. Peters answered: “Because I read them, and well know your handwriting; and your son David, Major Wright, and Mr. Croker, told me so, and that you had sent them to demand my signature to the paper. I told them I dare not and could not sign them without committing perjury and high treason, and violating my own conscience and God’s laws.”

The Governor replied: “There is no treason in saying that George the Third, King of England, is a ‘Roman Catholic,’ a ‘tyrant,’ and an ‘idiot,’ and has forfeited the crown; that no true friend of America ought to obey him, or any of his laws.”

Dr. Peters here arose and took leave of the Governor, with the Hon. William Hillhouse and Capt. David Tarbox, who had been present during the interview, and, when out of the house, declared they were astonished at the words and conduct of the Governor.

Dr. Peters then rode to the Judges of the Supreme Court sitting at Hertford, Col. Eliphalet Dyer being one of the Judges, and desired the Court to protect him from the mob at Windham, who had ill-used him, and threatened to take his life in four days if he did not sign his name to a paper containing eighteen treasonable articles.

The Court replied: “We are ready to do our duty, when the King’s Attorney shall exhibit an indictment against the rioters.”

The Attorney arose, and told the Court that it was the duty of the Grand Jury to exhibit the indictment, and not his.

Thus ended the protection of the Supreme Court of Connecticut.

From thence Dr. Peters drove in his carriage to Newhaven, forty miles west from Hertford, and so shunned a third visit of the Windham mob. Here the Doctor applied to the Hon. James Hillhouse for protection, who said: “My house is your protection; yet I want protection myself against the mobs of Colonel Wooster and Dr. Benedict Arnold, who are mobbing the Sandemanians for having spoken against the outrageous conduct of the destroyers of the teas in Boston harbour. But as you decline my offer, I advise you to put up at the house of the Rev. Dr. Hubbard, and, if any disturb you, warn them to keep out of the yard and house upon pain of death; and if they break the gate, shoot them, and kill as many as enter the yard. I will raise men, and come to your assistance.”

The Rev. Dr. Hubbard gave up his house to Dr. Peters, and, on hearing that Arnold and Wooster had said they would visit Peters and Hubbard as soon as they had finished with the Sandemanians, Dr. Hubbard removed his wife and children to a neighbour’s house, and Dr. Peters told him he would pay for all the damage that might be done to his house. Dr. Peters fastened the gate, and obtained twenty muskets, powder, and balls, and, loading the muskets, with his servants and a friend waited for the mob’s coming.

At ten o’clock in the evening Dr. Arnold and his mob came to the gate, and found it shut and barred. He called out to open the gate, and Dr. Peters answered: “The gate shall not be opened this night but on pain of death!”—holding a musket in his hand.

The mob cried: “Dr. Arnold, break down the gate, and we will follow you, and punish that tory Peters!”

Arnold replied: “Bring an axe, and split down the gate!”

Dr. Peters said: “Arnold, so sure as you split the gate, I will blow your brains out, and all that enter this yard to-night!”

Arnold retired from the gate, and told one of his fellows to go forward and split the gate. The mob then cried out: “Dr. Arnold is a coward!”

Arnold replied: “I am no coward; but I know Dr. Peters’ disposition and temper, and he will fulfill every promise he makes; and I have no wish for death at present.”

The mob then cried: “Let us depart from this tory house!”

In half an hour after appeared another mob, under the command of Col. David Wooster, and ordered the gate to be opened.

Dr. Peters told Wooster not to open that gate unless he was ready to die, and whoever came this night into the yard, or house, he would shoot, at the same time showing his musket.

Wooster then said to his mob: “Let us go on, and leave this episcopal tory, who has madness enough to kill any man, and we will see him to-morrow.”

The mobs raised a liberty-pole, and kept watch all night over Dr. Peters; but some friends took his horses over the water to Branford, where Dr. Peters and his servant went the next day in disguise, and from there to Saybrook, and thence to Hebron, where they arrived at midnight on Saturday, and found ten men watching his return; who soon informed the Windham mobs, who prepared on Sunday to pay a visit to Dr. Peters on Sunday night.

The Doctor preached in the church to a numerous congregation in the morning. At 11 o’clock a friend arrived from Windham and informed the Doctor that a large mob would be at his house by midnight, and advised him to abscond, and not attend church in the afternoon.

Dr. Peters desired him to be silent, and attended church in the afternoon, when the assembly was much increased, and the Doctor preached an affectionate sermon from these words: “O that my head was water, and my eyes fountains of tears. I would weep day and night for the transgressions of my people.” The discourse drew tears from every eye, and the congregation was dismissed, after a most excellent prayer. Many people attended the Doctor to his house, and quietness remained till darkness came on, when several persons were observed around the house as spies.

The Doctor then ordered a servant to take a valuable horse and ride to the west two miles, and then turn and ride to the east until he reached Carter’s tree, and there abide until the Doctor came to him.

Dr. Peters then told his mother, to prevent a civil war between the Windham mob coming and the people of Hebron, he must leave her, and go to Boston for protection. He then walked out into his garden in the dark, and thence, unsuspected, across the fields to his servant and horse. Mounting, he told his servant to go home, and tell no person where he saw him last. He then rode off for Boston, 100 miles, and reached there at 5 P. M. the next day, and had an interview with General Gage and Admiral Graves, who gave him ample protection.

The Windham mob went to the east border of Hebron, and three spies met them, and told them Dr. Peters had gone off to the west—likely to New-York. The mob therefore returned home.

Dr. Peters remained in Boston some weeks, and hearing that the ship Fox was soon to sail for England, he went off in the night and walked ten miles, when the stage-coach overtook him and carried him to Portsmouth.

Sir John Wentworth, Governor of Newhampshire, and the Hon. Col. Atkinson, called upon him and invited him to dine, and begged him to preach on Sunday, as their church was vacant by the death of Dr. Browne. Dr. Peters replied: “I would readily comply with your request, but for fear of letting the tea-destroyers of Boston know where I am; and you know their malice against me by the newspapers.”

Sir John replied: “They have no influence in Portsmouth, and we can and will protect you against those public enemies.”

Dr. Peters consented, and preached in their church on the following Sunday.

All was quiet till Wednesday, at noon, when a man rode up to the door and called the hostler to take his horse and feed him. He then came in and called for dinner. He saw Dr. Peters, but did not know him, and asked him if he belonged to the house.

The Doctor said “Yes.” He then gave him a Boston newspaper, in which was an advertisement, signed John Hancock, promising 200l. to any person taking up the Rev. Samuel Peters and delivering him to a Committee of Safety, he having “retreated from Boston in the night, and will do mischief wherever he goes, being a most bitter enemy to the rights and liberty of America.”

The man asked the Doctor: “Have you seen that wicked old priest?”

The Doctor replied: “The landlord was at church, and a stranger preached last Sunday; perhaps he can tell his name. I will go and call him.”

The Doctor went and told the landlord what the stranger was in pursuit of, and wished to see him.

The landlord told his servant to run and tell the ferryman to say to any one inquiring after a clergyman, that he had carried over a man in black clothes last Monday, who looked like a clergyman, and who said he was going to Casco Bay, and from thence to London in a mast-ship. The servant soon did his errand, and the landlord went with the Doctor to the stranger at dinner, who wished to know if he could inform him whether Priest Peters had been in Portsmouth.

The landlord replied: “Yes; he preached in our church last Sunday, and it was said he was going to Casco Bay, to take passage to London in a mast-ship.”

The stranger said: “I am in pursuit of him, and four other men coming from Boston will be here soon, and we will have him in custody. I will follow him to Casco Bay, or hell, to take him. Tell my friends so when they arrive.”

He then mounted his horse and rode to the ferry. Asking the ferryman if he had carried over Priest Peters, he answered: “I cannot tell. I carried over a man in black clothes last Monday, who was going to Casco Bay.”

The stranger said: “Mr. Ferryman, shoot me over quick, and I will give you five shillings.” The ferryman soon got his five shillings, and the stranger rode off with speed seventy miles, and returned without his prize.

His four companions arrived in the evening, and caused the bells to be rung and the mobs to assemble, who searched the Governor’s house and the town to find Dr. Peters, and gain Hancock’s reward of 200l., but found not the Doctor, who was well secured in a cave on the seashore, where he remained fourteen days.

The Casco Bay news enraged the mob, and they again searched the Governor’s house, the town, and Captain Norman’s ship, the Fox, placing a guard on board to prevent him taking passengers or sailing for London. They searched the fort three times for the Doctor, but found him not, and placed sentinels in every part of the town, by day and night, to discover him.

The news of the situation of Dr. Peters reached Boston. General Gage and Admiral Graves sent an armed ship of sixteen guns to take him from the cave and carry him to Boston, or any other place he might select. The ship arrived in the night, and took the Doctor on board.

The captain asked him if he should carry him to Boston, or Halifax?

The Doctor said he preferred London, in the ship Fox, Commander Norman, lying in the river Piscataqua, but that the mob would not permit him, or the ship, to sail.

The captain replied: “I will see to that!” and sailed into the river, hailed the ship Fox, and asked if she was ready to sail. The answer was, “Yes.” The captain then said: “Let down a chair.” It was done, and he and his men went on board the ship Fox, and called for the master. He appeared, and the captain asked: “What men are those on your decks?”