GENERAL HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT,

FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT UNDER GEORGE FENWICK TO ITS LATEST PERIOD OF AMITY WITH GREAT BRITAIN PRIOR TO THE REVOLUTION;

INCLUDING

A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY, AND MANY CURIOUS AND INTERESTING ANECDOTES.

WITH AN APPENDIX, POINTING OUT THE CAUSES OF THE REBELLION IN AMERICA; TOGETHER WITH THE PARTICULAR PART TAKEN BY THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT IN ITS PROMOTION.

BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE PROVINCE. LONDON: 1781.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, ADDITIONS TO APPENDIX, NOTES, AND EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS, VERIFYING MANY IMPORTANT STATEMENTS MADE BY THE AUTHOR.

BY

SAMUEL JARVIS McCORMICK.

NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1877.

COPYRIGHT BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1877.

PREFACE.

Though Connecticut be the most flourishing, and, proportionally, the most populous, province in North America, it has hitherto found no writer to introduce it, in its own right, to the notice of the world. Slight and cursory mention in the accounts of other provinces, or of America in general, has yet only been made of it. The historians of New England have constantly endeavored to aggrandize Massachusetts Bay as the parent of the other colonies, and as comprehending all that is worthy of attention in that country. Thus Governor Hutchinson says, in the preface of his history of that province, that “there was no importation of planters from England to any part of the continent northward of Maryland, excepting to Massachusetts, for more than fifty years after the colony began;” not knowing, or willing to forget, or to conceal, that Saybrook, New Haven, and Long Island, were settled with emigrants from England within half that period. Another reason for the obscurity in which the Connectitensians have hitherto been involved is to be found among their own sinister views and purposes: Prudence dictated that their deficiency in point of right to the soil they occupied, their wanton and barbarous persecutions, illegal practices, daring usurpations, etc., had better be concealed than exposed to public view.

To dissipate this cloud of prejudice and knavery, and to bring to light truths long concealed, is the motive of my offering the following sheets to the world. I am bold to assert that Connecticut merits a fuller account than envy or ignorance has yet suffered to be given it; and that I have followed the line of truth freely, and unbiased by partiality or prejudice. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised should I have placed the New-Englanders in a different light from that in which they have yet appeared: their characterizers have not been sufficiently unprejudiced, unawed by power, or unaffected by the desire of obtaining it, always to set them in a true one. Dr. Mather and Mr. Neal were popular writers, but, at the time they extolled the prudence and piety of the colonists, they suppressed what are called in New England unnecessary truths. Governor Hutchinson, who loved fame, and feared giving offense, published a few only of those truths, which failed not to procure him a proportionate share of popular distrust and odium. For my own part, I believe my readers will give me credit for having neither the favor nor the fear of man before me in writing this history of Connecticut. I discard the one; I court not the other. My sole aim has been to represent the country, the people, and their transactions, in proper colors. Too much, however, must not be expected from me. I am very sensible of many great defects in this performance, wherein very little assistance was to be obtained from publications of others. Mr. Chambers, indeed, who is writing “Political Annals of the Present United Colonies,” pursues that task with great pains and address. His researches have been of some use to me; but, as to the New England writers, error, disguise, and misrepresentations, too much abound in them to be serviceable in this undertaking, though they related more to the subject than they do. The good-natured critic, therefore, will excuse the want of a regular and connected detail of facts and events which it was impossible for me to preserve, having been deprived of papers of my ancestors which would have given my relation that and other advantages. I hope, therefore, for much indulgence, striking, as I have done, into a new and dark path, almost without a guide. If I have carried myself through it, though with some digressions, yet without incurring the danger of being accounted a deceiver, my disordered garb will, I presume, find an apology in the ruggedness of the road—my Scriptural phraseology be ascribed to the usage of my country.

For three generations my forefathers were careful observers of the proceedings of the Connecticut colonists; and if their papers and myself should continue in existence till a return of peace shall restore them to my possession, I trust the public will not be displeased with the design I have of committing them to the press. In the mean time, lest that event should never take place, I beg their acceptance of the present volume, which, whatever other historical requisite it may want, must, I think, be allowed to possess originality and truth (rare properties in modern publications), and, therefore, I hope, will not be deemed unworthy the public favor.

SECOND PREFACE.

Mr. James Hammond Trumbull, the author of the work entitled “The Blue Laws of Connecticut and New Haven, and the False Blue Laws invented by the Rev. Samuel Peters,” which has just made its appearance, attempts to throw discredit on the work of Dr. Peters, and represents it as a fiction, and a calumny upon the early settlers of Connecticut.

Mr. Trumbull seems to have spared no trouble in his researches to show that no such laws as the “Blue Laws” represented by Dr. Peters were in existence, and to impress this more forcibly upon the public he gives the laws of 1639, 1650, and 1656; when, had he looked more carefully at the doctor’s “History of Connecticut,” he would have found he alluded to them in these words: “The laws made by the independent Dominion, and nominated the Blue Laws by the neighboring colonies, were never suffered to be printed;” nevertheless, Mr. Trumbull shows that there were laws at that time equally repugnant, though clothed in more subtile phraseology, but pointing to the same result, and that these laws were rigidly enforced.

Dr. Peters’s “History of Connecticut” was published in London, in 1781, and possibly there are not twenty persons living who have ever read it. As its truthfulness was unpalatable to the Connecticut colony, the issue that came to this country, I believe, was publicly burnt, and the court prohibited the republishing of the work in the State; consequently it has become a very rare work, so much so that in March, 1877, a copy, at a sale of old works, brought the fabulous price of one hundred and fifteen dollars, demonstrating the fact that but few remained in existence.

The appearance, therefore, of Mr. Trumbull’s work gives the public but one side of the case; under these circumstances I have been induced to republish the work from the original copy belonging to Dr. Peters, using notes and quotations from writers and authors of high repute, and from documents and manuscripts written before the Revolutionary War, which have come into my possession since Mr. Trumbull’s work has appeared, and which, I believe, will show the unbiased public that Mr. Trumbull has not been guided solely by unselfishness in attempting to wipe out the ridicule entailed on Connecticut by the early Blue Laws; but he still retains a little of the fanaticism, bigotry, and spleen, so justly attributed to his ancestor, who was the cause of driving Dr. Peters from his native country; and he would now attempt to cast discredit upon a work that was well received in the State by the intelligent portion of the community, and indorsed as a true history.

In writing of the “Blue Laws,” Prof. De Vere, of the University of Virginia, in his volume on “Americanisms,” published in 1872, says, “They are confirmed without a doubt.” The late Rev. A. B. Chapin, in his article published in the Churchman of Hartford, Connecticut, August 19, 1876, entitled “Was the History of Connecticut a Fabrication?” says, “If Dr. Peters had had my advantages he might have been a worse historian for Connecticut than he has been already.” I might continue such quotations from persons of equally high standing, but my object is to let the work stand upon its merits, giving it to the public as it left the author’s hands, merely adding such portions as I find in the unpublished manuscripts in my possession, relating chiefly to the doctor himself, and the cause of his having to leave the country; also to the action taken by the colony of Connecticut for the relief of the destroyers of the teas in Boston.

It has not been for the purpose of obtaining a character for the work, which it did not before possess, that I again bring it before the public; but that they may have both sides of the case for their view, joined with that of defending my ancestor, the author, a good and venerable old clergyman, who was driven from his country, and his large estates sequestrated, for obeying “the laws of his God, the laws of his country, and the dictates of his conscience, by the fanatics of Connecticut,” and from the unjust and unwarrantable attacks of Mr. Trumbull.

S. J. McCormick.

GENERAL HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.

After several unsuccessful attempts to form settlements in the southern part of North America, in which little more had been done than giving the name of Virginia, in compliment to the virgin Queen Elizabeth, to the country, a patent was obtained in 1606, from James I., by Sir Thomas Gates and associates, for all lands there between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude; and, at the patentees’ own solicitation, they were divided into two companies;[1] to the former of which were granted all the lands between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of north latitude, and to the latter all those between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees. A part of the coast of the territory last mentioned being explored in 1614, and a chart presented to the then Prince of Wales, afterward Charles I., it received from him the appellation of New England.

In the mean time, however, notwithstanding the claim of the English in general to North America, and the particular grant to Sir Thomas Gates and associates, above mentioned, the Dutch got footing on Manhattan or New York Island, pushed up Hudson’s River, as high as Albany, and were beginning to spread on its banks when, in 1614, they were compelled by Sir Samuel Argal to acknowledge themselves subjects of the King of England, and submit to the authority of the Governor of Virginia.[2]

For the better enabling them to accomplish their American undertakings, the Plymouth Company, in 1620, obtained a new patent, admitting new members of rank and fortune. By this they were styled “The Council, established at Plymouth, for planting and governing the said country called New England;” and to them were now granted all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and extending east and west from the Atlantic ocean to the South Sea, except such as were then actually possessed by any Christian prince or people.[3]

Not long afterward, the patentees came to the resolution of making a division of the country among themselves by lot, which they did in the presence of James I. The map of New England, etc., published by Purchas in 1625, which is now become scarce, and probably the only memorial extant of the result, has the following names on the following portions of the coast:

Earl of Arundel, ⎫

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, ⎬ Between the rivers St. Croix and Penobscot.

Earl of Carlisle, ⎭

Lord Keeper, ⎫

Sir William Belassis, ⎬ Between Penobscot and Sagadahoc river.

Sir Robert Mansell, ⎭

Earl of Holderness, ⎫

Earl of Pembroke, ⎪

Lord Sheffield, ⎪

Sir Henry Spelman, ⎪

Sir William Apsley, ⎪

Captain Love, ⎬ Between Sagadahoc and Charles river.

Duke of Buckingham, ⎪

Earl of Warwick, ⎪

Duke of Richmond, ⎪

Mr. Jennings, ⎪

Dr. Sutcliffe, ⎭

Lord Gorges, ⎫

Sir Samuel Argal, ⎬ Between Charles River and Narraganset.

Dr. Bar. Gooch. ⎭

In the above map, no names appear on the coast north of the river St. Croix, i. e., Nova Scotia, which was relinquished by the patentees in favor of Sir William Alexander; the coast west of Narraganset is not exhibited by Purchas, so that it is uncertain whether the division above mentioned extended to that or not. Probably, it was not then sufficiently explored. However, in 1635, the patentees, from the exigency of their affairs, thinking a surrender of their patent to the king, with reservation of their several rights with regard to the property of the land, an advisable measure, a new division of the coast was struck out, consisting of twelve lots, extending to and comprising lands on the west side of Hudson’s River, and, of course, the Dutch settlement at Manhattan. The following is an account of these lots:

1. From the river St. Croix to Pemaquid.

2. From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc.

3. The land between the rivers Amarascoggin and Kenebec.

4. From Sagadahoc along the sea-coast to Piscataqua.

5. From Piscataqua to Naumkeak (or Salem).

6. From Naumkeak, round the sea-coast by Cape Cod to Narraganset.

7. From Narraganset to the half-way bound, between that and Connecticut River, and so fifty miles up into the country.

8. From the half-way bound to Connecticut River, and so fifty miles into the country.

9. From Connecticut River along the sea-coast of Hudson’s River, and so up thirty miles.

10. From the thirty miles’ end to cross, up forty miles eastward.

11. From the west side of Hudson’s River thirty miles up the country toward the fortieth degree, where New England beginneth.

12. From the end of the thirty miles up the said river, northward thirty miles further, and from thence to cross into the land forty miles.—(“Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay.”)

These divisions were immediately, on the above-mentioned surrender, to be confirmed by the king to the proprietors, and proposed to be erected into so many distinct provinces, under one general Governor of New England. It is certain that this plan was not then carried into execution in the whole. Several, if not all of the lots were formally conveyed to their respective owners previous to the resignation of the patent. How many were confirmed by the king is not known; there is positive evidence of but one—to Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

The eighth and ninth lots nearly form the province of Connecticut, taking its name from the great Indian king who reigned when the English made their first inroads into the country.

But before I give an account of this event, it may be proper to premise a few particulars concerning the Dutch, already spoken of as having seated themselves on New York Island and the banks of Hudson’s River, and also concerning the settlements formed by the English in and near the Massachusetts Bay.

The same year which established the Council of Plymouth, established also the Dutch West India Company, to whom the States of Holland are said to have granted, the year after, all the lands between Capes Cod and Henlopen.

Under their encouragement and support the Dutch at New York were induced to look upon the act of Argal with contempt; accordingly, they revolted from the allegiance he had imposed upon them, cast off the authority of their English Governor, and proceeded in their colonizing pursuits under one of their own nation; in which they seemed to have employed their wonted industry, having, before the year 1637, erected a fort on the spot where Hartford now stands.

A party of Brownists, who in 1619 are said to have obtained a grant of land from the Virginia Company, set sail on the 6th of September in the following year for Hudson’s River; but making on the 11th of November the harbor of Cape Cod instead of the place of their destination, and finding themselves not in a fit condition to put to sea again at such a late season of the year, they ranged along the coast till a commodious situation presented itself, when they disembarked, and founded the colony of New Plymouth.

Seven years afterward a party of Puritans procured a grant of the lands from Merrimack River to the southernmost part of Massachusetts Bay. They made their first settlement at Naumkeak, by them now named Salem, and a second at Charlestown. Great numbers of the Puritans followed their brethren to New England, so that, within a few years, was laid the foundation of Boston and other towns upon the Massachusetts coast.[4]

Thus far had colonization taken place in the neighboring country when, in 1634, the first part of the English adventurers arrived in Connecticut from England[5] under the conduct of George Fenwick, Esq., and the Rev. Thomas Peters, and established themselves at the mouth of the Connecticut River, where they built a town, and which they called Saybrook, a church, and a fort.[6]

In 1636 another party proceeded from Boston under the conduct of Mr. John Haynes and the Rev. Thomas Hooker, and in June settled on the west bank of the Connecticut River, where Hartford now stands, notwithstanding the Dutch had found their way thither before them.[7]

A third party of English settlers in Connecticut were headed by Mr. Theophilus Eaton and the Rev. John Davenport, who left England early in the year 1637, and, contrary to the advice of the people of Massachusetts Bay, who were very desirous of their settling in that province, fixing themselves in the July following on the north side of a small bay wherein the river Quinnipiack empties itself, forty miles southwest of Hartford, and there built the town of New Haven.[8]

Thus, within the space of three years, was Connecticut seized upon by three distinct English parties, in three different places, forming a triangle; by what authority I will now beg leave to inquire.

In favor of the first, it is alleged that they purchased part of the lands belonging to the Lords Say and Brook, which land included the eighth and ninth lots, and had been assigned to them by the Earl of Warwick, who, about the year 1630, obtained a grant of the same from the Council of Plymouth, and a patent from the king, and that Fenwick was properly commissioned to settle and govern the colony.

Neal, Douglas, and Hutchinson, speak of the grant and assignment with the greatest confidence, but make no reference where either may be consulted.

They were very willing to believe what they said, and wished to palm it upon the credulity of their readers as a fact too well established to need proof. I shall endeavor to show the futility of their assertions; indeed, Mr. Hutchinson himself inadvertently gives reason to doubt the truth of them, writing of the transactions of 1622: “The Earl of Warwick,” says he, “we are assured, had a patent for the Massachusetts Bay about the same time, but the bounds are not known.” It will appear presently that a part of the territory in question was, in 1635, granted to the Marquis of Hamilton. Now, taking these several items together, the Council of Plymouth are represented to have granted not only to Massachusetts Bay in 1622, but also, in 1630, a region of vast extent, including Connecticut, to the Earl of Warwick; and then, in 1635, they have regranted the best part of the latter to the Marquis of Hamilton. There is an infeasibility in this supposition that, without proof, will deprive it of all credit among persons who have no particular interest in the support of it.

True it is that Fenwick and his associates were properly authorized to settle upon lands belonging to Lords Say and Brook; but that the lands they did settle upon were the property of the Earl of Warwick is not only without proof, but against it.

It seems to be generally agreed that the Lords Say and Brook were understood to have a right to lands upon Connecticut River, but that river being five hundred miles long, and running through the greatest part of New England, the situation of their property was by no means pointed out; whether it lay at the mouth, the middle, or the northern end, was equally unascertained.

The settlers, indeed, established themselves at the mouth, but without showing their right to the spot; they licentiously chose it. There never has been produced any writing of conveyance of the land in question from the Council of Plymouth to the Earl of Warwick, or from the Earl of Warwick to the Lords Say and Brook, and therefore their title to it must be deemed not good in law. By a letter from Lord Say to Mr. Vane, in 1635, it appears that he (Lord Say), Lord Brook, and others, had thought of removing to New England, but were not determined whether to join the adventurers in Boston or settle a new colony.—(Hutchinson’s “History,” vol. i., p. 42.)

If Connecticut had been assigned to Lords Say and Brook by the Earl of Warwick, as it is pretended was done in 1631, it is very strange that those lords should have been in doubt in 1635 where to fix themselves in New England, since interest and ambition, as well as fertility of soil, would naturally have led them to settle in Connecticut, where they had land of their own, and where a settlement was already begun, and bore a very promising appearance. Hence, it seems but reasonable to suppose that if Lords Say and Brook were entitled to any land on Connecticut River it could not lie within the province of Connecticut; and, if their claims were derived from the Earl of Warwick, it may fairly be concluded that their property lay much higher up the country, since the coast appropriated to the Earl of Warwick by Purchas is that at or about Cape Ann. Lords Say and Brook, therefore, might have a right to send Fenwick, Peters, etc., to colonize on the north parts of Connecticut River, but not southwardly, at the mouth of it; and their neglect of the colony at Saybrook may easily be accounted for, by supposing that they were sensible the settlers had fixed upon a wrong site—an idea corroborated by this circumstance, that Fenwick some years after sold his property there for a mere trifle, when he might have sold it dear if his title had been good.

But, it may be asked, who were the real proprietors of the eighth and ninth lots?

It is asserted that, on the Council of Plymouth’s resignation of their patent to Charles I. in 1635, that monarch granted the latter to the Earl of Stirling.

Possibly there is not now existing any written testimony of this grant, yet it seems authenticated by the sale which the earl made in 1639, by his agent, Forrest, of the eastern part of Long Island, as appertaining to his lot, to Mr. Howell. However, though his claim is not, perhaps, clearly to be established, it is by no means liable to the many objections urged against that of Lords Say and Brook, which will in a manner be annihilated by the additional argument I am now going to adduce from the positive proof there is to whom the eighth lot really belongs.

It stands authenticated in the office of the Lords Commissioners of Colonies that, in April, 1635, was conveyed to James, Marquis of Hamilton, by a deed from the Council of Plymouth, the territory lying between Narraganset Bay and Connecticut River.[9] The right to the eighth lot, therefore, was clearly vested in the marquis; and it only remains to be shown why his descendants are not in possession of it to remove every doubt upon the matter.[10]

Unfortunately, in the civil broils of his time the marquis engaged and died fighting under the royal banners, while the king’s enemies took possession of his lands in Connecticut. At the restoration of Charles II. to his crown, reason taught the children of royal sufferers to expect a restoration at least of their landed property; and the daughter of the Marquis of Hamilton petitioned Charles II. to grant her relief with respect to the land lying between Narraganset Bay and the Connecticut River—a relief she had the more reason to hope for, as “her father had died fighting for his father.” But Charles had been too much polished in foreign courts to do anything effectual for his suffering friends. Afterward the Earl of Arran applied to William III. for redress in regard to the same land; but that earl having acted on the wrong side at the revolution, could not but expect as little from William as the friends of Charles II. had received from him. However, William III. ordered the Lords Commissioners of the colonies to state his title, which they fairly did; and the earl was referred to try his case in Connecticut, before the very people who had his lands in possession.

The Governor and Company of Connecticut gave a formal answer to the claims of the Earl of Arran, setting up a title under the Earl of Warwick, as is above mentioned, who, they said, disposed of the land in dispute to Lord Say and Seal and Lord Brook, and the Lords Say and Brook sold the same to Fenwick, Peters, and others. The Earl of Arran answered that, “when they produced a grant from the Plymouth Company, of those lands to the Earl of Warwick, it should have an answer;” but the colony was silent, and King William was silent also.—(Vide “Records of New England,” A., pp. 170-201.)

Since, then, no proof of any title derived from the Earl of Warwick could be produced by the Governor and Company of Connecticut, when the question of right to the country was fairly brought into litigation, and since there is a record of the grant of the eastern part of it to the Marquis of Hamilton, it is evident that the claim of the present possessors under Lords Say and Brook is not valid. The record of the Marquis of Hamilton grant is an irrefragable proof that those lords had no right to the tract between Narraganset Bay and Connecticut River; and thence the conclusion is fair that they had no right to the tract between Connecticut and Hudson’s River; for their title to both having but one and the same foundation, it follows, of course, that what destroys it in the former destroys it in the latter also.

However disputable the Earl of Stirling’s claim to the land between Hudson and Connecticut Rivers may be, the Duke of Hamilton is undoubtedly the rightful owner of that between the latter and Narraganset Bay. This much I have proved, to show the errors of Mather, Neal, Douglas, and Hutchinson, who assert what the above record contradicts. I differ in opinion also with divines who say that the world grows every day worse than it was the last. I believe the world is growing better every year; and that justice will be administered to the Duke of Hamilton, and other noble proprietors of lands in New England, who have been wickedly supplanted by the emigration of Puritans, republicans, regicides, and smugglers. The time, I hope, is hastening, when the records I have quoted will be considered, and unjust possessors be ordered to give up their possessions to the right owners; for we have a king who honors his crown, and prefers justice to policy.

Hooker and Haynes, who conducted the second of the three English parties already spoken of as making inroads into Connecticut, and who fixed their headquarters at Hertford, left Massachusets Bay for the same reason they had before left England—to avoid being persecuted, and to acquire the power to persecute. Hooker was learned, ambitious, and rigid. He lived near Boston two years, in hopes of becoming a greater favorite with the people than the celebrated Mr. Cotton; but, finding himself rather unlikely to meet with the desired success, he devised the project of flying into the wilderness of Connecticut, to get a name. Accordingly, in 1635 he applied to the General Court for leave to remove thither, but was refused. The next year, however, for reasons which will hereafter appear, he found the fanatics more compliant; and he and Haynes obtained permission to emigrate into Connecticut, carrying with them, as Mr. Neal expresses it, “a sort of commission from the government of Massachusets Bay for the administration of justice” there.

But it cannot be supposed that Hooker and his associates could derive any title to the soil, from this permission and commission granted by the Massachusets colony, who had not the least right to it themselves. The emigrants not only did not entertain any such idea, but, as soon as they had discovered a situation that pleased them, they even set at naught the commission which they took with them, the professed object of which was to secure the authority and jurisdiction claimed by the Massachusets colony over them. Knowing that they had passed the limits of that province, they voted themselves an independent people, and commenced despots, pleading the old adage, Salus populi suprema lex. It has never been suggested, I believe, that this party entered Connecticut with any other semblance of authority than this ridiculous permission and commission of the Massachusets dictators.[11]

As to the third party, headed by Eaton and Davenport, they took possession, as is already mentioned, without even pretending any purchase, grant, permission, or commission, from any one. Of these three parties, then, it appears that the last two had not the least shadow of original right to the lands they possessed themselves in Connecticut; and the claims of the first I have shown to be ill-founded. I will now consider the right they are pretended to have acquired after possession; in regard to which they seem to have been put upon the same footing, by a general war between them and the Indians, occasioned by the ambitious, oppressive, and unjust conduct of Hooker and Davenport. This war opened a door to king-killing and king-making, violence, and injustice, in America, similar to what we have of late years shuddered to hear of in India. Hence the colonies have endeavored to establish a title to the lands by purchase of the natives. Accordingly, they have produced deeds of sale signed by Sunksquaw, Uncas, Joshua, Moodus, and others, whom Mr. Neal and Dr. Mather call sachems, and consequently owners of the soil. Whether those gentlemen knew, or did not know, that Connecticut was owned by these sachems only, who, with their wives and families, were killed by the English, and who never would give a deed of any land to the Dutch or English, is not material; since it is a fact that not one of those Indians who have signed those famous deeds was ever a sachem or a proprietor of a single foot of land claimed by the colony.

It is true that Uncas (whom Mr. Neal calls a sachem, because the colonists declared him King of Mohegan, to reward him for deserting Sassacus, sachem of the Pequods) gave deeds of the land that he had no right or title to; and so did Sunksquaw, who, after murdering his sachem Quinnipiog, was also declared sachem by the English Dominion[12] of Newhaven. Gratitude, or pride, induced all those English-made sachems to assign deeds to their creators.

After the death of Uncas, his eldest son, Oneko, became King of Mohegan, who refused to grant any deeds of land to the colony; whereupon, vexed at his wisdom and honor, they declared him an incestuous son, deposed him, and proclaimed his natural brother, Abimeleck, to be sachem of the Mohegans. Oneko gave a deed of all his lands to Mason and Harrison, who were his friends; as did Abimeleck, of the same lands, to the colony who had made him sachem. This laid a foundation for a suit at law, which was first tried before the judges of the colony, where Mason, of course, lost his suit. He appealed to the King in Council, who ordered a special court to sit at Norwich, in Connecticut: Mr. Dudley, a learned man, and Governor of Massachusetts Bay, was president of it. The court met, and, having heard the evidence and pleadings of both parties, gave a verdict in favor of Mason’s claim. The colony appealed home to England, but never prosecuted their suit to an issue. Mason died. The colony kept possession under Abimeleck, their created King of Mohegan. About ten years ago the heirs of Mason and Harrison petitioned the government to decree that Dudley’s verdict should be enforced; but the colonists found means to confound the claims of those competitors without establishing their own. The truth is, neither the colonists nor Mason and Harrison ever had any deed or title to those lands from Sassacus or his heirs; their deeds spring from Uncas, already mentioned, a rebel subject of Sassacus, without any royal blood in his veins. Nevertheless, Mr. Neal, and others, who have written histories of New England, have taken especial care to vindicate the justice of the settlers, who always, they say, conscientiously purchased their lands of the sachems. I have given the reader some idea of the purchases of the first colonizers in Connecticut, who by their iniquitous act of making Sachems have entailed lawsuits without end on their posterity; for there is not one foot of land in the whole province which is not covered by ten deeds granted by ten different nominal sachems to ten different persons; and, what aggravates the misfortune, the courts of justice differ every session concerning the true sachem, so that what a plaintiff recovers at a hearing before one jury, he loses upon a rehearing before another.

Enough, surely, has been said to nullify the colonists’ plea for having bought their lands from the Indians.

As to any purchases made of the Saybrook settlers, those of Hertford totally declined them till the farcical business respecting their charter came into agitation between the two juntos who procured it, of which I shall speak hereafter; and, so far were the people of Newhaven from buying any right of Fenwick or his associates that they scorned the idea of claiming under them; nay, it was one of their principal views, in the machinations wherein they were continually employed, to reduce the Saybrook colony under the tyranny of their own dominions as having no more title to the country than possession gave them. And, upon the other supposition, it is impossible to account for the neglect of the colonizers of Hertford to secure their lands by such a purchase, seeming as they did to ransack heaven and earth for a title satisfactory even in their own eyes; they were conscious no purchase of that kind could give them firmer footing than they had already.

The truth, therefore, undoubtedly is that Fenwick and Peters had no legal right to sell the lands they occupied, whatever might be their pretensions; nor, indeed, did they pretend to the power of selling more on their own account than was granted to them severally by their patrons—the Lords Say and Brook—which cannot be supposed but an inconsiderable proportion of their American property.

No wonder, then, that we find another claim set up—a claim by conquest. This was particularly agreeable to the genius of the Hertford and Newhaven heroes, but will nevertheless appear to as little for their right as their honor, from the following considerations: 1. The invaders did not find Connecticut in a state of Nature, but cultivated and settled by its Indian inhabitants, whose numbers were thousands, and who had three kings, viz., Connecticote, Quinnipiog, and Sassacus, of whom Connecticote was the emperor, or king of kings—a dignity he and his ancestors had enjoyed, according to the Indian mode of reckoning, twenty sticks,[13] i. e., time immemorial; 2. They had no authority to invade, make war upon, and conquer the Indians, who were not at war with the King of England, nor his patentees, or their assignees; and, 3. Seizures, without legal commission, of however long standing, do not convey right or title by the English law.

Feeling the weight of these considerations, the colonists have been obliged to found their claim to the country on their charter, which was obtained in 1662—more than twenty-six years after they had taken possession. Here, again, they are destitute of support, for the king, any more than his subjects, could not give to others the property of the Duke of Hamilton unless his title had been proved to be forfeited by due course of law. But the charter created no title; it merely conferred on the people the authority of a legal corporation, without conveying any title to the lands. And, indeed, the prevarications of the colonists themselves with regard to the charter-claim sufficiently explode it. Whenever they find their property affected by any duty, custom, etc., imposed by Parliament, and warranted by charter, they allege that they got the lands in possession by their own arms, without the aid of the King and Parliament of Great Britain; as Charles II. allowed in granting the charter, which conveyed no title, but was founded upon the title they possessed before the date of it. At other times, when these selfish temporizers find it convenient either for promoting their own, or preventing their neighbors’ encroachments, they then plead their charter as the one only thing needful to prove their right of land even to the South Sea itself.

In short, and upon the whole, possession, begun in usurpation, is the best title the inhabitants of Connecticut ever had, or can set up, unless they can prove they hold the lands by a heavenly grant, as the Israelites did those of Canaan.

This heavenly title was, indeed, set up by Peters, Hooker, and Davenport, the first three ministers that settled Connecticut, and is generally believed through the Colony to this day. They thus syllogistically stated it: “The heathen are driven out, and we have their lands in possession; they were numerous, and we but few; therefore, the Lord hath done this great work, to give his beloved rest.”

This much for the various pretensions of the occupiers of Connecticut in regard to their right to the soil. I shall now give some account of the proceedings of the first settlers with respect to their religious and civil establishments, and of their political transactions, etc.

The party which settled at Saybrook, under George Fenwick, Esquire, and the Rev. Thomas Peters, in 1634, contented themselves, in framing the polity of their civil constitution, with the laws of England and a few local regulations.

As to their ecclesiastical institutions, they voted themselves to be a church independent on lords bishops, and Mr. Peters to be their minister, whose episcopal ordination was deemed good, notwithstanding he had been silenced in England. They voted presbyters to be bishops, and possessed of power to ordain ministers when invited by a proper number of people formed into a society by a license from the Governor. They voted that a certain part of the liturgy of the Church of England might be used—the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, together with one chapter in the Bible, to be read at morning and evening service, or omitted, at the discretion of the minister; that extempore prayers might be used at the pleasure of the minister, but that the surplice should not be worn, nor should the sign of the cross at baptisms, the ceremony of the ring at marriages, or saints’-days, etc., be observed, as in the Church of England; that every society licensed by the Governor, after having a minister ordained over it, be a complete church, and invested with the keys of discipline, dependent only upon Christ, the head of the church; that the minister should be the judge of the qualifications of church-membership, and should censure disorderly walkers; that the members in full communion should have power over the minister, and might dismiss him from his parish by a majority of voices and with the consent of the Governor; that all children were the objects of baptism, and that none should be debarred that sacrament for the sins of their parents, provided an orderly liver would engage to bring them up in the ways of Christianity; that all sober persons might partake of the Lord’s Supper, provided the minister, upon examination, should find them sufficiently acquainted with their duty; that what is commonly called conversion is not absolutely necessary before receiving the Lord’s Supper, because that sacrament is a converting ordinance; that all gospel ministers were upon an equality in office; and that it was the business of every one to admonish the transgressor, privately in the first place, and next, if no attention was paid to his advice, before his deacons; then, if their admonishment was disregarded, the offender should be presented to the church (that is, the minister, deacons, and communicants, united by the keys of discipline), and, upon his still continuing refractory, he should be censured and rejected by the majority of voters without any appeal; that deacons should be chosen by the minister and communicants upon a majority of voices, and ordained by the minister according to the holy practice of St. Paul; that it was the duty of the Governor and civil magistrates to protect and nurture the Church, but not to govern it, because Christ’s authority, given to his Church, was above principalities and all civil powers, etc., etc.

The settlers of Hertford, having declared themselves to be an independent Colony, and that their dominions extended from sea to sea, voted Haynes to be their Governor, and appointed six councilors to assist him in framing laws and regulating the State. The same spirit of independence dictated their church discipline. They voted Mr. Hooker to be their minister, and six of their church-members to ordain him. Mr. Hooker accepted of their vote, or call, renounced his Episcopal ordination, and was ordained by the six lay church-members, over the church of the Independents in Hertford. Thus, Mr. Hooker, who was born in Leicestershire, educated at Cambridge, ordained by a bishop, silenced by a bishop in 1630, in England, and reordained by six laymen in America, became what he wished to be—the head of the Independents in the Dominion of Hertford, where he had the honor and pleasure of exercising over all who differed from him in opinion that violent spirit of persecution which he and his friends so clamorously decried as too intolerant to be endured in England. Some of the characteristic doctrines of this persecuting fanatic were of the following purport: That Christ’s Church was not universal, but a particular visible church, formed by general consent and covenant; that Christ had committed the power of binding and loosening to believers, without any distinction between clergy and laity; that ruling and preaching elders are duly ordained to their office by the election and the imposition of the hands of the people; that the tables and seals of the covenant, the offices and censures of Christ’s Church, the administrations of all public worship and ordinances, are in the cœtus fidelium, or combination of godly, faithful men met in one congregation; that a diocesan, provincial, or national assembly, is incompatible with the nature of Christ’s Church, seeing all and every member of Christ’s Church are to meet every Lord’s-day, in one place, for the administration of the holy ordinances of God; that a multitude of free people may elect and ordain a king over them, although they were not, prior to that act, possessed of kingly power; for the people of Israel imposed their hands on Levites, when they themselves were not Levites (Numbers viii. 10); that Nature has given virtual power to a free people to set up any Christian form of government, both in church and state, which they see best for themselves in the land; but Christ gave the power of his keys to his Church, i. e., to his believing people, and not to Peter or to Paul as ministers, but as professed believers, in conjunction with the rest of true believers; that the Church hath not absolute power to choose whom it will; it hath ministerial power only to choose whom Christ hath chosen, i. e., such as He hath gifted and fitted for the work of the ministry; that neither popes, bishops, nor presbyters, are necessary to ordain ministers of Jesus Christ, because the power of the keys are given by Christ to his Church, i. e., the people in covenant with God; that as ordination is in the power of each church, no church hath power over another, but all stand in brotherly equality; that it is unlawful for any Church of Christ to put out of its hand that power which Christ hath given it into the hands of other churches; that no one church ought to send to ministers of other churches to ordain its ministers or to censure its offenders; that baptism does not make any one a member of Christ’s Church, because papists and other heretics are baptized; therefore, to be a member of Christ’s Church is to own the covenant of that particular church where God has placed such members; that seven persons may form a Church of Christ, but fifteen thousand cannot, because such a number cannot meet in one place, nor hear, nor partake, nor be edified together; that no one can partake of the Lord’s Supper till he be converted, and has manifested his faith and repentance before the church, etc., etc.[14]

The laws made by the Governor and Council of Hertford are, in general, much of the same stamp as those of the Newhaven legislators, of some of which an abstract will be given hereafter.

The fanatics at Newhaven, in like manner with those of Hertford, voted themselves to be a Dominion independent, and chose Eaton for their Governor, and Davenport for their minister. The Governor and a committee had the power of making laws for the State, and the minister, assisted by deacons and elders, was to rule the church. The following is a specimen of the tenets established by Davenport in the latter:

That Christ has conveyed all power to his people both in church and state; which power they are to exercise until Christ shall return on earth to reign one thousand years over his militant saints—that all other kings, besides Christ and his elected people, are pestilent usurpers, and enemies of God and man—that all vicars, rectors, deans, priests, and bishops, are of the devil; are wolves, petty popes, and antichristian tyrants; that pastors and teachers of particular congregations are of Christ and must be chosen by his people, i. e., the elect and chosen from the foundation of the world, or else their entrance and ministry are unlawful; that all things of human invention in the worship of God, such as are in the Mass-Book and Common-prayer, are unsavory in the sight of God; that ecclesiastical censures ought to be exercised by the members of particular congregations among themselves; that the people should not suffer this supreme power to be wrested out of their hands until Christ shall begin his reign; that all good people ought to pray always that God would raze the old papal foundation of the episcopal government, together with the filthy ceremonies of that antichristian church; that every particular who neglects this duty, may justly fear that curse pronounced against Meroz (Judges v. 23): “Curse ye Meroz, because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty” enemies of God and his church; that every particular congregation is an absolute church, the members of it are to be all saints; those must enter into covenant among themselves, and without such covenant there can be no church; that it is a heinous sin to be present when prayers are read out of a book by a vicar or bishop; that subjects promise obedience to obtain help from the magistrates, and are discharged from their promise when the magistrates fail in their duty; that, without liberty from the prince or magistrate, the people may reform the church and state, and must not wait for the magistrate, etc., etc.

This Dominion, this tyrant of tyrants, adopted the Bible for its code of civil laws, till others should be made more suitable to its circumstances. The provision was politic. The lawgivers soon discovered that the precepts in the Old and New Testaments were insufficient to support them in their arbitrary and bloody undertakings; they, therefore, gave themselves up to their own inventions in making others, wherein, in some instances, they betrayed an extreme degree of wanton cruelty and oppression, that even the religious fanatics of Boston, and the mad zealots of Hertford, put to the blush, christened them the “Blue Laws,” and the former held a day of thanksgiving, because God, in his good providence, had stationed Eaton and Davenport so far from them.[15]

The religious system established by Peters at Saybrook was well calculated to please the moderate Puritans and zealots of all denominations; but the fanatics of the Massachusets-Bay, who hated every part of the Common Prayer-book worse than the Council of Trent, and the papal power exercised over heretics, were alarmed at the conduct of the half-reformed schismatics in that colony; and, thinking that their dear Salem might be endangered by such impure worshipers, consented, in the year 1636, to give Mr. Hooker and his associates liberty to emigrate to Hertford, notwithstanding the preceding year they had refused such liberty, seeing then no reason for Hooker’s seizing the territory of other people. But when the New England vine was supposed to be threatened by the Bible, Lord’s Prayer, and Ten Commandments, the pious people of Massachusets-Bay permitted Hooker, in 1635, to remove into and govern Connecticut by their authority, and to impede and break up the worship of the Peterites at Saybrook. Hooker, ever faithful to his trust, excepting that, when he got to Hertford, he rejected the authority of his employers in the Massachusets-Bay, set up a new Dominion, and persecuted the Peterites under his own banner, though he called it the banner of Jesus. But for his and Davenport’s tyrannical conduct, the colony of Saybrook would have lived in peace with the Indians, as they did till their artful and overbearing neighbors brought on a general war between them and the English, which ended with the death of Sassacus and the destruction of all his subjects. After that war great dissension arose among the conquerors. Fenwick was sensible, of a calm disposition, and very religious, yet not entirely void of ambition; he claimed the government of Connecticut, and insisted upon payment for such lands as were possessed by Hooker and Davenport and their associates; this, he said, was common justice, due to his constituents, the Lords Say and Brook. Hooker and Davenport, however, were not fond of his doctrine of justice, but made religion, liberty, and power, the great object of their concern, wherein they were supported by the people of Massachusets-Bay, whose spirits were congenial with their own; hence no opportunity was lost of prejudicing Saybrook, and the troubles in the mother-country furnished their enemies with many. One step they took, in particular, operated much to their disadvantage. The Massachusets colony, eager to act against Charles I., agreed with those of Hertford, Newhaven, Newhampshire, and Rhode-Island, to send agents to England, assuring the House of Commons of their readiness to assist against the king and bishops. The Saybrook settlers, though zealous against the bishops, were not much inclined to rebellion against the king, and therefore took no part in this transaction.

As the royal cause lost ground in England, the apprehensions of this colony increased; and Fenwick, finding himself unsupported by the Lords Say and Brook, thought it prudent to dispose of his colonial property to Peters and his associates, and return to England.

Confusion being established in England, moderation became an unpardonable sin in Saybrook, which both the neighboring colonies were ready to punish by assuming the jurisdiction there: mutual jealousy alone prevented it. At length, during Cromwell’s usurpation, the inhabitants, fearing the effects of his displeasure for not joining in the above-mentioned address to the Commons of England, especially lest he should put them under the power of the furious Davenport, and at the same time foreseeing no prospect of the restoration, judged it advisable, by way of preferring the lesser to the greater evil, to form a sort of alliance and junction with the people of Hertford, where Hooker now lay numbered with the dead.

The colony was not only hereby enabled to maintain its ground, but flourished greatly; and the minister, Thomas Peters, established a school in Saybrook, which his children had the satisfaction to see become a college, denominated Yale College, of which a particular account will be given in the course of this work. He was a churchman of the Puritanic order, zealous, learned, and of mild disposition, and frequently wrote to his brother Hugh at Salem to exercise more moderation, lest “overmuch zeal should ruin him and the cause they were embarked in.”[16]

At his death, which did not happen till after the Restoration of Charles II., he bequeathed his library to the school above mentioned.

The religious institutions of Hooker at Hertford were not only binding on the Dutch, but even extended to the great Connecticote himself. The Sachem did not like his new neighbours; he refused to give or sell any land to them; but told them, that, as they came to trade, and to spread the Christian Religion among his subjects, which Mr. Hooker defined to consist only in peace, love, and justice, he had no objection to their building wigwams, planting corn, and hunting on his lands. The wisdom and steady temper of this great Sachem, and the vast number of subjects at his command, made Haynes and Hooker cautious in their conduct. Many people of Massachusets-Bay, hearing that Hooker had made good terms with the Sachem, left their persecutors, and fled to the fertile banks of Connecticut, that they might help Hooker spread the Gospel among the poor benighted Heathen in the wilderness. The Reverend Mr. Huet, with his disciples, fixed at Windsor, eight miles north of Hertford; and the Reverend Mr. Smith, at Weathersfield, four miles south of it. In the space of eighteen months, the Dominion of Hertford contained seven-hundred white people, and seven independent churches. Having converted over to the Christian faith some few Indians, among whom was Joshua, an ambitious captain under the great Sachem Connecticote, Hooker, Huet, Smith, and others, hereby found means to spread the Gospel into every Indian town, and, to the eternal infamy of christian policy, those renowned, pious fathers of this new colony, with the Gospel, spread the small-pox. This distemper raged in every corner: it swept away the great Sachem Connecticote, and laid waste his ancient kingdom. Hereupon, Haynes and his assembly proclaimed Joshua Sachem; and such as did not acknowledge his sachemic power, were compelled to suffer death, or fly the Dominion. Thus in three years time, by the Gospel and fanatic policy, was destroyed Connecticote, the greatest king in North-America. This remarkable event was considered as the work of the Lord; and the savage nations were told that the like calamities would befal them, unless they embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joshua was grateful to the English who had made him Sachem, and gave them deeds of those lands which had constantly been refused by Connecticote. But Joshua had as little honour as virtue and loyalty: he supported himself many years by signing deeds, and gulled the English through their own imprudence in neglecting to make a law for recording them.—These colonists, having driven out the Heathen, and got possession of a land which flowed with milk and honey, expelled the Dutch, as a dangerous set of heretics;—and Hooker, after doing so much for this new Dominion, expected the homage from every Church which is only due to a Bishop. This homage, however, he could not obtain, because each Minister had pretensions not much inferior to his. Disputes arose about Doctrine and Discipline. Hooker taught that there were forty-two kinds of Grace, though all of little value, except that of ‘saving Grace.’ As to Discipline, he held, that, as he had received his ministerial ordination from the Laity, who were members in full communion, he considered those actual communicants as Christ’s Church here on earth, and consequently as holding the keys of discipline; and he maintained that the Minister had but a single voice, and was a subject of the Church. Other Ministers, who had received episcopal ordination, but had been silenced by their Bishops, judged themselves, notwithstanding, to be Ministers of Christ; and alleged that the installation of a Minister by prayer and imposition of hands of lay communicants, was no ordination, but a ceremony only of putting a Minister in possession of his Church, from which he might be dismissed by a majority of voters of the Members in full communion. And those Ministers taught for doctrine, that mankind were saved by Grace, and that the Gospel told us of but one Grace as necessary to Salvation; for that he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, is born of God, and enjoys the Grace of God which brings Salvation. The majority of the People of course were on the side of Mr. Hooker, as his plan established their power over the Minister; and they soon determined by vote, according to their code of laws, in his favour. But the Ministers and minority were not convinced by this vote, and, to avoid an excommunication, formed themselves into separate bodies; nevertheless, they soon felt the thundering anathemas of Hooker, and the heated vengeance of the civil power. However, persecution, by her certain consequence, fixed the separatists in their schism, which continues to the present time.—Hooker reigned twelve years high-priest over Hertford; and then died above sixty years of age, to the great joy of the separatists, but, in point of populousness, to the disadvantage of the colony of Saybrook, which was the little Zoar for Hooker’s heretics.

Exact in tything mint and anise, the furies of Newhaven for once affected the weightier matters of justice. They had no title to the land: they applied to Quinnipiog, the Sachem, for a deed or grant of it. The Sachem refused to give the lands of his ancestors to strangers. The settlers had teeming inventions, and immediately voted themselves to be the Children of God, and that the wilderness in the utmost parts of the earth was given to them. This vote became a law forever after. It is true, Davenport endeavoured to christianize Quinnipiog, but in vain: however, he converted Sunksquaw, one of his subjects, by presents and great promises; and then Sunksquaw betrayed his master, and the settlers killed him. This assassination of Quinnipiog brought on a war between the English and Indians, which never ended by treaty of peace. The Indians, having only bows and arrows, were driven back into the woods; whilst the English, with their swords and guns, kept possession of the country. But, conscious of their want of title to it, they voted Sunksquaw to be Sachem, and that whoever disputed his authority should suffer death. Sunksquaw, in return, assigned to the English those lands of which they had made him Sachem. Lo! here is all the title the settlers of the Dominion of Newhaven ever obtained.—The cruel and bloody persecutions under Eaton and Davenport in Newhaven soon gave rise to several little towns upon the sea-coast. Emigrants from England arrived every year to settle in this Dominion; but few remained in Newhaven, on account of Eaton, Davenport, the Deacons, and Elders, who possessed all power there, and were determined to keep it. The new-comers, therefore, under pretence of spreading Christ’s kingdom, and shunning persecution, joined with the settlers at Stamford, Guilford, and Stratford, where, however, persecution domineered with as much fury as at Newhaven; for each town judged itself to be an independent Dominion; though, for fear of the Dutch and the Indians, they formed a political union, and swore to bear true allegiance to the capital Newhaven, whose authority was supreme. As all officers in every town were annually elected by the freemen, and as there were many candidates, some of whom must be unsuccessful, there was always room for complaints. The complainants formed schisms in the Church, which brought on persecution; and persecution drove the minority to settle new towns, in order to enjoy Liberty, Peace, and Power to persecute such as differed from them. Thus lived those ambitious people, under far worse persecutions from one another than they ever experienced or complained of in Old-England; all which they endured with some degree of patience, the persecuted one year living in hopes that the next would enable them to retaliate on their persecutors.

The laws made by this independent Dominion, and denominated Blue-Laws by the neighbouring Colonies, were never suffered to be printed; but the following sketch of some of them will give a tolerable idea of the spirit which pervades the whole.

“The Governor and Magistrates, convened in general Assembly, are the supreme power under God of this independent Dominion.

“From the determination of the Assembly no appeal shall be made.

“The Governor is amenable to the voice of the people.

“The Governor shall have only a single vote in determining any question; except a casting vote, when the Assembly may be equally divided.

“The Assembly of the People shall not be dismissed by the Governor, but shall dismiss itself.

“Conspiracy against this Dominion shall be punished with death.

“Whoever says there is a power and jurisdiction above and over this Dominion, shall suffer death and loss of property.

“Whoever attempts to change or overturn this Dominion shall suffer death.

“The judges shall determine controversies without a jury.

“No one shall be a freeman, or give a vote, unless he be converted, and a member in full communion of one of the Churches allowed in this Dominion.

“No man shall hold any office, who is not found in the faith, and faithful to this Dominion; and whoever gives a vote to such a person, shall pay a fine of 1l. for a second offence, he shall be disfranchised.

“Each freeman shall swear by the blessed God to bear true allegiance to this Dominion, and that Jesus is the only King.

“No Quaker or dissenter from the established worship of this Dominion shall be allowed to give a vote for the election of Magistrates, or any officer.

“No food or lodging shall be afforded to a Quaker, Adamite, or other Heretic.

“If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished, and not suffered to return but upon pain of death.

“No Priest shall abide in the Dominion: he shall be banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized by any one without a warrant.

“No one to cross a river, but with an authorized ferryman.

“No one shall run on the Sabbath-day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.

“No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave, on the Sabbath-day.

“No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting-day.

“The Sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday.

“To pick an ear of corn growing in a neighbour’s garden, shall be deemed theft.

“A person accused of trespass in the night shall be judged guilty, unless he clear himself by his oath.

“When it appears that an accused has confederates, and he refuses to discover them, he may be racked.

“No one shall buy or sell lands without permission of the selectmen.

“A drunkard shall have a master appointed by the selectmen, who are to debar him from the liberty of buying and selling.

“Whoever publishes a lye to the prejudice of his neighbour, shall sit in the stocks, or be whipped fifteen stripes.

“No Minister shall keep a school.

“Every rateable person, who refuses to pay his proportion to the support of the Minister of the town or parish, shall be fined by the Court 2l. and 4l. every quarter, until he or she pay the rate to the Minister.

“Men-stealers shall suffer death.

“Whoever wears cloaths trimmed with gold, silver, or bone lace, above two shillings by the yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the offender at 300l. estate.

“A debtor in prison, swearing he has no estate, shall be let out, and sold, to make satisfaction.

“Whoever sets a fire in the woods, and it burns a house, shall suffer death; and persons suspected of this crime shall be imprisoned, without benefit of bail.

“Whoever brings cards or dice into this Dominion shall pay a fine of 5l.

“No one shall read Common-Prayer, keep Christmas or Saints-days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp.[18]

“No Gospel Minister shall join people in marriage; the Magistrates only shall join in marriage, as they may do it with less scandal to Christ’s Church.[19]

“When parents refuse their children convenient marriages, the Magistrates shall determine the point.

“The selectmen, on finding children ignorant, may take them away from their parents, and put them into better hands, at the expence of their parents.

“Fornication shall be punished by compelling marriage, or as the Court may think proper.

“Adultery shall be punished with death.

“A man that strikes his wife shall pay a fine of 10l.; a woman that strikes her husband shall be punished as the Court directs.

“A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband.

“No man shall court a maid in person, or by letter, without first obtaining consent of her parents: 5l. penalty for the first offence; 10l. for the second; and, for the third, imprisonment during the pleasure of the Court.

“Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned.

“Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.”[20]

Of such sort were the laws made by the people of Newhaven, previous to their incorporation with Saybrook and Hertford colonies by the charter. They consist of a vast multitude, and were very properly termed Blue Laws; i. e. bloody Laws; for they were all sanctified with excommunication, confiscation, fines, banishment, whippings, cutting off the ears, burning the tongue, and death. Europe at this day might well say the Religion of the first settlers at Newhaven was fanaticism turned mad; and did not similar laws still prevail over New-England as the common law of the country, I would have left them in silence along with Dr. Mather’s Patres conscripti, and the renowned Saints of Mr. Neal, to sleep to the end of time. No one, but a partial and blind bigot, can pretend to say the projectors of them were men of Grace, Justice, and Liberty, when nothing but murders, plunders, and persecutions, mark their steps. The best apology that can be made for them is, (I write in reference to those times,) that human nature is every-where the same; and that the mitred Lord and canting Puritan are both equally dangerous, or that both agree in the unchristian doctrine of persecution, and contend only which shall put it in practice. Mr. Neal says many call the first Colonizers in New-England weak men for separating from the Church of England, and suffering persecutions, rather than comply with indifferent ceremonies; and, after asserting that they were men of great learning and goodness, he appeals to the world to judge, which were weak, the Bishops or the Puritans? My answer is, that those Puritans were weak men in Old England, and strong in New England, where they out-pop’d the Pope, out-king’d the King, and out-bishop’d the Bishops. Their murders and persecutions prove their strength lay in weakness, and their religion in ambition, wealth, and dominion.

Notwithstanding the perpetual jealousy and discordance between the three colonies of Connecticut, (Saybrook claiming the whole under the Lords Say and Brook, Hertford under Jehovah and Conquest, and Newhaven under King Jesus and Conquest,) they judged it necessary, for their better security against the Dutch and Indians, to strengthen each other’s hands by forming a general confederacy with the Colonies of New Plymouth and the Massachusets-Bay. A measure of this kind, which they formally entered into in 1643, proved of the most salutary consequence, in a war which many years after broke out between them and Philip, sachem of the Pokanoket Indians, and which, for some time, imminently endangered the Colonies, but at length terminated in the destruction of that noted warrior and his followers.

The death of Cromwell in 1658 struck an awe throughout all New-England. Hertford and Newhaven appointed their days of fasting and prayer. Davenport prayed “the Lord to take the New-England Vine under his immediate care, as he had removed by death the great Protector of the protestant liberty:” nevertheless he lived to see the time when Charles II. obtained the possession of his Father’s crown and kingdom, in spite of all his prayers. However, in the midst of sorrows, they were comforted by the presence of many regicides and refugees, who fled from England not so much for religion as for liberty; among whom were Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell,[21] three of the judges and murderers of Charles I. Davenport and Leet the then Governor received them as Angels from Heaven, and blessed God that they had escaped out of the hands of “Herod the son of Barabbas.”[22]

Newhaven Dominion being thus suddenly filled with inhabitants, saw itself enabled to support its independence, and as usual despised Hertford and Saybrook, and withal paid no attention to the King and Parliament of England.—The People of Massachusets, who were ever forward in promoting their own consequence, observing the temper and conduct of those of Newhaven, conceived an idea at once of exalting an individual of their own province, and of attaching Hertford and Saybrook to their interest for ever. They sent Mr. John Winthrop privately to Hertford, to promote a petition to Charles II. for a charter, as a security against the ambition of Newhaven.—The Bostonians boasted of having had the honour of settling Hertford, which they therefore professed to consider in the light of a near and dear connection. The proposal was accepted by the few persons to whom it was communicated, but, in framing their petition, they found themselves deficient in their title to the lands. This obliged them to have recourse to a Junto at Saybrook, who claimed a title under Lords Say and Brook.—A few purchases, or rather exchanges, of land now took place between the Junto’s; after which a petition was drawn up, containing an artful description of the lands claimed, “part of which they said they had purchased, and part they had conquered.” They then as privately appointed Mr. Winthrop their agent to negociate the business in England, which he very willingly undertook. On his arrival here, he applied to the agents of Massachusets-Bay, and with their assistance procured from the incaution of Charles II. as ample a charter as was ever given to a palatinate state; it covered not only Saybrook, Hertford, and Newhaven, but half New-York, New-Jersey, and Pensylvania, and a tract of land near 100 miles wide, and extending westward to the South sea, 1400 miles from Narraganset bay. This charter, which was obtained in 1662, well pleased the people of Hertford, because it coincided with their former vote, viz. “that their dominion extended from sea to sea.”[23] Newhaven Dominion too late discovered the intrigues of her artful neighbours; and, after two years opposition, submitted to the charter purely out of fear lest some of her ministers and magistrates should suffer ignominious deaths for aiding in the murder of their King.[24]

To the great joy of the People of Boston and Saybrook, Mr. Winthrop was appointed, by the Charter, Governor of all Connecticut. Their joy, however, sprung from different motives: Saybrook hoped for effectual protection from the insults of Hertford and the persecutions of Newhaven; and Boston expected to govern the Governor.

Mr. Winthrop settled at New-London, in the kingdom of Sassacus, or colony of Saybrook, where he purchased lands of the claimants under Lords Say and Brook. Wisdom and moderation guided Mr. Winthrop. He was annually elected Governor till his death, which happened in 1676.

Whether it were owing to the discovery of any defect in the title of the People of Connecticut to the soil, or of any undue arts practised in obtaining their charter, or whether it must be considered as an instance of Charles’s fickle or arbitrary disposition, that Monarch, in the short space of two years after granting that charter, comprized half Connecticut in another grant to his brother, the Duke of York, of the territory between the rivers Connecticut and Delaware, called by the Dutch New-Netherlands. This step excited much discontent in Connecticut, especially when an actual defalcation of its territory was discovered to be in agitation, after Colonel Nichols had succeeded in an enterprise he was sent upon against the Dutch at New-York. Commissioners were sent thither from Connecticut, the latter end of 1664, to defend the interests of the Colony; but, notwithstanding all the opposition they could make, they were constrained to yield up the whole of Long-Island and a strip of land on the east side of Hudson’s river. This dismemberment is not easily to be justified; but, probably, finding it necessary to the performance of a promise he had made the Dutch of the enjoyment of their possessions, Nichols might think himself at liberty of insisting upon it, furnished as he was with almost regal powers as the Duke of York’s deputy. In that capacity, he assumed the government of the conquered territory, but does not appear to have intermeddled further with that of Connecticut.

With Colonel Nichols were associated three other gentlemen, in a commission, empowering them to enquire into the state of the New-England provinces, to hear and redress complaints, settle differences, and check abuses of power: but the ill humour and obstinacy of those of Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, in a great measure frustrated their endeavours.

By authority of the Charter, the freemen chuse annually, in May, a Governor, a Deputy-Governor, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and 12 Assistants, and, twice a year, two Representatives from each town. These, being met, constitute the General Assembly, which has power to make laws, provided they are not repugnant to the laws of England, and enforce them without the consent of the King.

The General Assembly meets in May and October without summoning. By it the colony has been divided into six counties, viz. Hertford, Newhaven, New-London, Fairfield, Windham, and Litchfield; and these subdivided into 73 townships and 300 parishes.

Each town has two or more justices of peace, who hear and determine, without a jury, all causes under 2l.

Each county has five judges, who try by a jury all causes above 2l.

Five judges preside over the superior court of the province, who hold two sessions in each county every year. To this court are brought appeals from the county courts when the verdict exceeds 10l. appeals from the courts of probate, writs of error, petitions for divorce, &c.

The General Assembly is a court of chancery, where the error or rigour of the judgments of the superior courts are corrected.

The General Assembly, and not the Governor, has the power of life and death.

The courts of probate are managed by a justice of peace appointed by the General Assembly.

Each county has its Sheriff, and each town its constables.

By charter the Governor is Captain-general of the militia. Fourteen Colonels, 14 Lieutenant-Colonels, and 14 Majors, are appointed by the General Assembly. The Captains and Subalterns are elected by the People, and commissioned by the Governor.

The ecclesiastical courts in Connecticut are: 1. The Minister and his Communicants; 2. The Association, which is composed of every minister and deacon in the county; 3. The Consociation, which consists of four ministers and their deacons, chosen from each Association; and always meets in May, at Hertford, with the General Assembly. An appeal from the Consociation will lie before the General Assembly; but the clergy have always been against it, though with less success than they wished.—The General Assembly declared “Sober Dissenters” to be the established religion of the province.

The laws of the colony enacted by the authority of the Charter are decent in comparison with the Blue Laws. They make one thin volume in folio. Yet exceptions may justly be made to many of them—equal liberty is not given to all parties—taxes are unfairly laid—the poor are oppressed.—One law is intolerable, viz. When a trespass is committed in the night, the injured person may recover damages of any-one he shall think proper to accuse, unless the accused can prove an alibi, or will clear himself by an oath; which oath, nevertheless, it is at the option of the justice either to administer or refuse. Queen Ann repealed the cruel laws respecting Quakers, Ranters, and Adamites; but the General Assembly, notwithstanding, continued the same in their law-book, maintaining that a law made in Connecticut could not be repealed by any authority but their own. It is a ruled case with them that no law or statute of England be in force in Connecticut till formally passed by the General Assembly and recorded by the Secretary.[25] Above 30 years ago, a negro castrated his master’s son, and was brought to trial for it before the Superior Court at Hertford. The Court could find no law to punish the negro. The lawyers quoted the English statute against maiming; the Court were of opinion that statute did not reach this colony, because it had not been passed in the General Assembly; and therefore were about to remand the negro to prison till the General Assembly should meet. But an ex-post-facto law was objected to as an infringement upon civil liberty. At length, however, the Court were released from their difficulty by having recourse to the vote of the first settlers at Newhaven, viz. That the Bible should be their law till they could make others more suitable to their circumstances. The court were of opinion that vote was in full force, as it had not been revoked; and thereupon tried the negro upon the Jewish law, viz. Eye for Eye, and Tooth for Tooth. He suffered accordingly.

The idea fostered by the colony of independence on Great Britain was not, as might be imagined, destroyed by the royal charter, but, on the contrary, was renewed and invigorated by it. Indeed, the charter is as much in favour of Connecticut, and unfavourable to England, as if it had been drawn up in Boston or Newhaven. Had it been granted jointly by the King, Lords, and Commons, and not by the King solus, no one could dispute the independence of Connecticut on England, any more than they could that of Holland on Spain. The people at large did not discriminate between an act of the King solus and an act of the King, Lords, and Commons, conjointly; and, to prevent any-one from shewing the difference, the General Assembly made a law that “whoever should attempt to destroy the constitution of this Colony as by charter established, should suffer death.” The power of a British King was held up by them much higher than the constitution allowed. The King had authority, they said, to form palatinate states without consent of Parliament. Accustomed to doctrines of this tendency, the multitude concluded the General Assembly of Connecticut to be equal to the British Parliament.

Notions of this kind did not prevail in Connecticut alone; Massachusets-Bay still more abounded with them, and Rhode Island was not uninfected. What was the consequence? Complaints against those governments poured into the British court. A reformation, therefore, became indispensable in New-England, and was begun by a disfranchisement of the Massachusets province. The death of Charles II. put a temporary stop to proceedings against the other colonies; but James II. soon found it expedient to renew them. In July, 1685, the following instances of mal-administration were formally exhibited against the Governor and Company of Connecticut, viz., “They have made laws contrary to the laws of England:—they impose fines upon the inhabitants, and convert them to their own use:—they enforce an oath of fidelity upon the inhabitants without administering the oath of supremacy and allegiance, as in their charter is directed:—they deny to the inhabitants the exercise of the religion of the church of England, arbitrarily fining those who refuse to come to their congregational Assemblies:—his Majesty’s subjects inhabiting there cannot obtain justice in the courts of that colony:—they discourage and exclude the government all gentlemen of known loyalty, and keep it in the hands of the independent party in the colony.” (New-Eng. Ent. vol. II. p. 241.) In consequence of this impeachment, James II. ordered a Quo Warranto to be issued against the Charter of Connecticut. The People perceived the King was in earnest; and their alarm manifested itself in humble sollicitations for favour: but, it being thought adviseable, on several accounts, particularly the extensive progress the French were making in Canada, to appoint one general Governor over New-England, the submissive applications of the Connecticut colonists could no further be regarded than in allowing them their choice, whether to be annexed to New-York or the Massachusets. They preferred the latter; and, accordingly, Sir Edmund Andros having been appointed Captain-general over all New-England, the charter of Connecticut was surrendered to him. It is very remarkable that Mr. Neal, Hutchinson, and other historians of New-England, have artfully passed over in silence this transaction of the surrender of Connecticut Charter to Sir Edmund Andros, the General Governor over New-England. They have represented the magistrates of Connecticut as not having resigned their charter, but by an erroneous construction put on their humble supplication to James II. by the Court of London; whereas the fact is, they resigned it, in propria forma, into the hands of Sir Edmund Andros, at Hertford, in October, 1687, and were annexed to the Massachusets-Bay colony, in preference to New-York, according to royal promise and their own petition.[26] But the very night of the surrender of it, Samuel Wadsworth, of Hertford, with the assistance of a mob, violently broke into the apartments of Sir Edmund, regained, carried off, and hid the charter in the hollow of an elm; and, in 1689, news arriving of an insurrection and overthrow of Andros at Boston, Robert Treat, who had been elected in 1687, was declared by the mob still to be Governor of Connecticut. He daringly summoned his old Assembly, who, being convened, voted the charter to be valid in law, and that it could not be vacated by any power without the consent of the General-Assembly[27] They then voted that Samuel Wadsworth should bring forth the charter; which he did in a solemn procession, attended by the High-sheriff, and delivered it to the Governor. The General Assembly voted their thanks to Wadsworth, and twenty shillings as a reward for stealing and hiding their charter in the elm. Thus Connecticut started from a dependent county into an independent province, in defiance of the authority that had lately been paid such humble submission. None should be surprized to find the People shewing more deference to Abimeleck, King of Mohegin, than to George, King of England; since a vote of men, whose legislative and even corporate capacity had been annihilated, has prevailed, for more than eighty years, over a just exertion of royal prerogative.[28] Nevertheless, this unconstitutional Assembly, whose authority under an assumed charter has been tacitly acknowledged by the British Parliament, have not at all times been unchecked by the Corporation of Yale College. That College, by a charter received from this self-erected Government, was enabled to give Bachelors and Masters degrees; but the Corporation have presumed to give Doctors degrees. When the General Assembly accused them of usurping a privilege not conferred by their charter, they retorted that “to usurp upon a charter was not so bad as to usurp a vacated charter.” The General Assembly were obliged to be content with this answer, as it contained much truth, and came from the clergy, whose ambition and power are not to be trifled with.

Whatever might be the reason of the English Government’s winking at the contempt shewn to their authority by the people of Connecticut, it certainly added to their ingratitude and bias to usurpation. Having been in possession of that country one-hundred and forty years, the General Assembly, though unsupported either by law or justice, resolved to take up and settle their lands west not only of Hudson but Susquehanna river, and extending to the South-Sea. In pursuance of this resolution, they with modesty passed over New-York, and the Jerseys, because they are possessed by Mynheers and fighting christians, and seized on Pensylvania, claimed by Quakers, who fight not for either wife or daughter. They filled up their fathers iniquities, by murdering the Quakers and Indians, and taking possession of their lands; and no doubt, in another century, they will produce deeds of sale from Sunksquaw, Uncas, or some other supposititious Sachem. This is a striking instance of the use I have said the Colony sometimes make of their charter, to countenance and support their adventurous spirit of enterprize. They plead that their charter bounds them on the west by the South-Sea; but they seem to have forgotten that their charter was surreptitiously obtained; and that the clause on which they dwell is rendered nugatory, by the petitioners having described their lands as lying upon Connecticut river, and obtained partly by purchase and partly by conquest. Now, it being a fact beyond all controversy, that they then had not conquered, nor even pretended to have purchased, any lands west of Hudson’s-River, it is evident that their westernmost boundary never did or ought to extend further than to that river. Not that Mr. Pen has any just title to those lands on Susquehanna river which are the bone of contention, and which lie north of his patent: they belong to the assigns of the Plymouth Company, or to the Crown of England.

Republicanism, schisms, and persecutions, have ever prevailed in this Colony.—The religion of “Sober Dissenters” having been established by the General Assembly, each sect claimed the establishment in its favour. The true Independents denied that the Assembly had any further power over Christ’s Church than to protect it. Few Magistrates of any religion are willing to yield their authority to Ecclesiastics; and few disciples of Luther or Calvin are willing to obey either civil or spiritual masters. In a Colony where the people are thus disposed, dominion will be religion, and faction conscience. Hence arose contentions between the Assembly and Independents; and both parties having been brought up under Cromwell, their battles were well fought. The independent Ministers published, from their pulpits, that the Assembly played off one sect against another; and that Civilians were equal enemies to all parties, and acted more for their own interest than the glory of God. Those spiritual warriors, by their Associations, fasting, and prayers, voted themselves the “Sober Dissenters,” and got the better of the General Assembly. Indeed, none disputed their vote with impunity. Whenever a Governor manifested an inclination to govern Christ’s Ministers, Christ’s Ministers were sure to instruct the freemen not to reëlect him. The Magistrates declared that they had rather be under Lords-Bishops than Lords-Associations. A Governor was appointed, who determined to reduce Christ’s Ministers under the Civil Power; and, accordingly, the Assembly sent their Sheriff to bring before them certain leading men among the Ministers, of whom they banished some, silenced others, and fined many, for preaching sedition. The Ministers told the Assembly that curst cows had short horns; and that “they were Priests for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” However, like good christians, they submitted to the sentence of the Assembly; went home, fasted, and prayed, until the Lord pointed out a perfect cure for all their sufferings. On the day of election, they told the freemen that the Lord’s cause required a man of Grace to stand at the head of the Colony, and with sure confidence recommended the Moderator of the Association to be their Governor; and the Moderator was chosen. This event greatly inflamed the lay-magistrates, who were further mortified to see Ministers among the Representatives; whereupon they cried out, “This is a presbyterian popedom.” Now Magistrates joined with other Churches which they had long persecuted; and the Connecticut Vine was rent more and more every day. The Ministers kept the power, but not always the office, of the Governor, whilst the weaker party paid the cost. One party was called Old Light, the other New Light: both aimed at power under pretence of religion; which-ever got the power, the other was persecuted. By this happy quarrel, the various sectarians were freed from their persecutions; because each contending party courted their votes and interest, to help to pull down its adversary. This has been the religious-political free system and practice of Connecticut since 1662.

In speaking of the religious phrenzies and persecutions in Connecticut under the sanction of the charter, I must notice the words of an eminent Quaker, who, as a blasphemer, had been whipped, branded, burnt in the tongue, set on the gallows, banished, and, upon return, sentenced to be hanged. “Dost thee not think,” said he to his Judges, “that the Jews, who crucified the Saviour of the World, had a Charter?”

Many have been the disputes between Connecticut and the neighbouring Colonies concerning their several boundaries, and much blood has been spilt on those occasions. On the north and east, where lie the Massachusets and Rhode-Island, Connecticut has, in some degree, been the gainer; but has lost considerably on the west and south, to the engendering violent animosity against the loyal New-Yorkers, to whom it will probably prove fatal in the end. The detail is briefly as follows:

The Dutch settlers on New-York Island, Hudson’s river, and the west end of Long Island, being subdued by Colonel Nichols in September, 1664, the royal Commissioners, after hearing the Deputies from Connecticut in support of the charter granted to that province against the Duke of York’s patent, ordered, in December following, that Long-Island should be annexed to the government of New-York, and that the West boundary of Connecticut should be a line drawn from the mouth of Mamaroneck river north-north-west to the line of the Massachusets. This settlement, although it infringed their charter, was peaceably acquiesced in by the people of Connecticut; and not complained of by those of New-York till 1683, when they set up a claim founded upon a Dutch grant, said to be made in 1621, of all the lands from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen. In furtherance of their pretensions, they had recourse to invasion and slander. Of the latter Mr. Smith has given a specimen in his History of New-York, where he says that the agreement in 1664 “was founded in ignorance and fraud;” because, forsooth, “a north-north-west line from Mamaroneck would soon intersect Hudson’s river!” Could any one of common-sense suppose the Dutch on the banks of Hudson’s river, who no doubt were consulted upon the occasion, less acquainted with the course of it, than persons residing on the banks of the Connecticut? Extraordinarily absurd as such an insinuation might be, the people of Connecticut were aware of its probable weight with the Duke of York, whose patent grasped half their country; and therefore, knowing by whom a contest must be decided, they consented to give up twenty miles of their land east of Hudson’s river, hoping that would content a company of time-serving Jacobites and artful Dutchmen. But neither were they nor their Patron satisfied; and the agreement was suspended till 1700, when it was confirmed by William III. About twenty years afterwards, however, the New-Yorkers thought the times favourable to further encroachments; and at length, in 1731, they gained 60,000 acres more, called the Oblong, from Connecticut, purely because they had Dutch consciences, and for once reported in England what was true, that the New-England colonists hated Kings, whether natives or foreigners. Mr. Smith, indeed, p. 238, says, referring to Douglas’s[29] Plan of the British Dominions of New-England in support of his assertion, that “Connecticut ceeded these 60,000 acres to New-York, as an equivalent for lands near the Sound surrendered to Connecticut, by New-York.” Mr. Smith, and all the New-York cabal, know, that there never were any lands in the possession of the New-Yorkers surrendered to Connecticut: on the contrary, Connecticut was forced, by the partiality of sovereigns, to give up, not only Long-Island and the above-mentioned twenty miles east of Hudson’s river, but also the Oblong, without any equivalent. How New-York could surrender lands and tenements which they never had any right to or possession of, is only to be explained thus: whereas the people of New-York did not extend their eastern boundary to Connecticut river, they therefore surrendered to Connecticut what they never had; which is like a highwayman’s saying to a Gentleman, Give me ten guineas, and I will surrender to you your watch in your pocket.

Thus by degrees has Connecticut lost a tract of land sixty miles in length and above twenty in breadth, together with the whole of Long-Island; and this in the first place by a stretch of royal prerogative, and afterwards by the chicanery of their competitors, who have broken through all agreements as often as a temporising conduct seemed to promise them success. Whenever, therefore, a favourable opportunity presents itself, it is probable, that Messrs. Smith and Livingston, and other pateroons in New-York, will find the last determination also to have been “founded in ignorance and fraud,” and will be pushing their claim to all the lands west of Connecticut river; but the opportunity must be favourable indeed, that allows them to encroach one foot farther with impunity.

Another stroke the people of Connecticut received about 1753 has sorely galled them ever since, and contributed not a little to their thirst of revenge. The Governor of New-York was then appointed “Captain-General and Commander in Chief of the militia, and all the forces by sea and land, within the Colony of Connecticut, and of all the forts and places of strength within the same.” This violation of the Charter of Connecticut by George II. was very extraordinary, as the reins of Government were then in the hands of protestant dissenters, whose supposed veneration for the House of Hanover operated so powerfully, that the American protestant dissenting ministers were allowed to be installed teachers, and to hold synods, without taking the oath of allegiance to the English King, at the same time that papists, and even members of the Church of England, were not excused that obligation. The aggravating appointment above mentioned added no celebrity to the name of George II. in New-England; nor, however excusable it may appear in the eyes of those who with me question the colonial pretensions of the people of Connecticut, was it, upon the ground they have been allowed to stand by the English government, justifiable in point of right, nor yet in point of policy, were the true character of the New-Yorkers fully known. This argument may be used on more occasions than the present.