USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. I > Part 15
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The suggestion of Stuyvesant was adopted, and a commit- tee was sent with plenary power to investigate the matter.
* Trumbull, i. 203.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
This committee was made up of Francis Newman of New Haven, John Leverett, afterwards governor of Massachu- setts, and William Davis .* They repaired to Manhattan, and presented themselves for the discharge of their duties. Ow- ing, perhaps, to the unpleasant tone of the letters sent to Man- hattan in reply to the exculpatory communications of Stuyves- ant, as well as owing to the offensive nature of their mission, these gentlemen were not received with much cordiality. The governor refused to answer any questions except such as should be approved by men of his own appointing, and chose two who had especially incurred the dislike of the English at Hartford. One of these men had been put under bonds while there, for his misdemeanors. At this, the agents of the Congress were offended, and remonstrated against the insult offered to the colonies, and the king. Both parties were evidently in no very dispassionate mood. The govern- or remained inexorable as to the mode of transacting the business, and the agents, after demanding satisfaction for all past injuries and indemnity against all future wrongs, took a very haughty leave of a host who appears to have been glad to be rid of them.
On their way home, the English agents spent some time in gathering additional proof of the guilt of the Dutch gov- ernor; and when they arrived, they were in a favorable mood to make an alarming report of the treatment that they had received at his hands. Letters soon after arrived in Hart- ford and New Haven, giving the additional intelligence that Stuyvesant had also hired the Mohawks to join in this exe- crable measure. Again Stuyvesant remonstrated and at the same time, in a fit of exasperation, asserted his old claims of jurisdiction to New Haven and Connecticut.
The commissioners, with the exception of Bradstreet, were now all in favor of a declaration of war. That gentleman represented the wishes of the General Court of Massachu- setts. His opposition led to a harsh debate, and finally to a committee of conference between the Congress and the Gen-
* Hutchinson, i. 166; Trumbull, i. 203.
175
MASSACHUSETTS OPPOSED TO WAR.
[1653.]
eral Court, which brought about a reference of the whole matter to the elders. That learned body very judiciously advised the colonies to "forbear the use of the sword," but to be in readiness for defense .* This decision did not satisfy the Congress. Again they resolved on war. Massachusetts still remained firm in her opposition.
On the 30th of May, the Rev. Mr. Norris, of Salem, sent a memorial to the Congress, calling loudly for the war .; It is a paper of great ability and eloquence. After presenting a vivid picture of the condition of the Dutch and English na- tions, then in a state of war at home, and warning the Con- gress against the loss of respect among the Indians, by pur- suing such a vacillating policy, he alludes to the situation of these colonies now exposed to danger, who have "sent their moan" to the Congress, and called for their assistance, which, if they should refuse, the "curse of the angel of the Lord against Moses would come upon them."
Still the General Court of Massachusetts continued inexora- ble and passed a resolve that no determination of the Con- gress could induce the colony to unite with the others in an offensive war with the Dutch, which should appear to the Gen- eral Court to be unjust. This resolution led to a written con- troversy between Massachusetts and the other colonies, which might have ended in the dissolution of the union, but for the interference of Cromwell, who took the part of the weak- er colonies without any reference to the supposed conspiracy, as it best suited his stern policy to do. Massachusetts was thus compelled to yield. The ships of the Protector were already on their passage to America, to reduce the pride of the governor of New Netherlands.
I have already stated it to be my belief that the story of the plot against the English was a sheer fabrication. Who was its author, I am of course unable to say. The fact that the Mohawks were made parties to it, and that it resulted in a declaration of war against Ninigret, enables me to draw an inference that certainly exonerates the English from any
* Hutchinson, i. 167; Trumbull, i. 207.
+ Records of the United Colonies.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
blame, unless it be in the exercise of too large a measure of credulity in a matter that appeared to them to threaten their very existence. As regards the conduct of Massachusetts in ignoring the resolves of a confederacy which she was sol- emnly pledged to support, I will only quote the language of her own historian, who dismisses this topic with the re- mark that, "where states in alliance are greatly dispropor- tioned in strength and importance, power often prevails over right."* This is a very happy blending of the elements of praise and blame in a simple sentence, and expresses all that need be said upon a subject that certainly gave occasion for much just censure on both sides.
* Hutchinson, i. 168.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE DEPARTURE OF LUDLOW. DEATH OF HAYNES, WOLCOTT AND EATON.
THE alarm excited by the charges against the Dutch and Indians resulted in some unhappy contentions. Stamford and Fairfield were in a state of excitement bordering on phrensy. They complained that the war was not prosecuted by the Congress, and that Connecticut and New Haven neg- lected to lend a helping hand to them at a time when their enemies were pressing upon them. These little settlements, so near the Dutch jurisdiction, with the remembrance still alive of bloody Indian depredations so recently brought to their very doors, had much reason to be anxious when they reflected upon their situation, in a remote and solitary re- gion, where they might be murdered, and their houses burned to ashes, long before the news could be carried to New Ha- ven. Having demanded troops to protect her, and not re- ceiving them from the government of New Haven, Stam- ford finally lost all patience and threatened to free herself from the expensive taxes of a colony that either could not or would not defend her, and place herself under the immediate protection of England. It was not until the deputy gov- ernor, in company with Mr. Newman, paid them a visit, and read to them an order of the committee of Parliament, call- ing upon all the towns to obey their respective colonial gov- ernments, that they were induced to yield .*
The citizens of Fairfield held a town meeting, and with one consent determined to raise troops independently of Con- necticut, and carry on the war themselves. They appointed Roger Ludlow commander-in-chief.t As the year 1654 may, for the purposes of historical narrative, be considered as the year of his civil death, I cannot omit this occasion
* Trumbull, i. 214.
+ Trumbull ; Brodhead, i. 565; Allen, 548.
12
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
of making a brief allusion to the character and to the per- sonal history of this remarkable man, as far as I am able to gather it from the scattered shreds that are left of his impul- sive career. He was a lawyer of good family, and resided in Dorchester, in the county of Dorsetshire, in the southern part of England. On the 10th of February, 1630, he was chosen an assistant by the General Court of Massachusetts. In May, following, he sailed from Plymouth for America, in the Mary and John, and entered upon the discharge of his official duties at the first Assistant Court, held at Charles- town in August, of the same year. He continued to occupy this place for four years. In 1634 he was chosen deputy governor of the province, and hoped to have been raised to the rank of governor, but was disappointed by the jealousy of the deputies, who appear to have taken offense at some impolitic remarks made by him, probably in relation to their growing strength and to the frequency of elections. To show him how well they could vindicate themselves, and perhaps to reciprocate his good advice by giving him a prac- tical lesson upon exercising the Christain virtue of humility, they elected John Haynes governor. Ludlow protested against this appointment in terms of severity. He alleged that the election was void for the reason that the deputies had agreed upon their candidate before they left their respec- tive towns. By way of requital for making such an accusa- tion, which was in all probability true, and as a further proof of the popular power, he was left out of the magistracy for that year. He had not learned the art, so common in our age, of telling the people precisely what he did not believe to be true.
Discouraged at this decided expression of the popular dis- pleasure, he removed to Connecticut during the summer or fall of the year 1635, and established himself at Windsor. Here he continued under the gentle ministrations of Mr. Wareham, and soon became one of the most conspicuous men in the colony. In the summer of 1637, he was sent by the General Court as one of the advisers of the Connecticut
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ROGER LUDLOW.
forces in the second stage of the Pequot war .* He was probably the first lawyer who ever came into the colony, and one of the most gifted who have ever lived in it.
I have already incidentally alluded to the part that he took in framing the constitution of 1639. I cannot help regard- ing it as mainly his work. The phraseology is his: it breathes his spirit. It must have been substantially the off- spring of some one mind, that pierced like an eagle through the clouds that shrouded the seventeenth century, and sought the pure region of right reason, shining none the less bright- ly, that, like the rolling spheres of light, it is expressed in dis- tinct forms. I have compared this paper with those written by Milton, expressive of his views of government and of lib- erty. In the political writings of the great poet I can see the marks of unbounded genius, vast imagination and pro- phetic hopes, lighting up the dim horizon with the golden promises of dawn. But I find there no well-digested system of republicanism. He deals alone with the absolute. His republic would befit only a nation of Miltons. His laws are fit only to govern those who are capable of being a law unto themselves. But Ludlow views the concrete and the ab- stract both at once. He is a man of systems-such systems as can alone be placed in the hands of frail men to protect them against their worst enemies-their own lawless passions.
On the 11th of April, 1639, he was chosen deputy gov- ernor of the commonwealth, and was the first who ever held that office in Connecticut.t John Haynes, whose elevation to the place of governor in Massachusetts, in 1635, was the cause of Ludlow's removing from that province, was elected governor of Connecticut at the same time that Ludlow was made deputy governor. This unlucky coincidence must have been galling to the pride of an ambitious man, and whether it induced him, when considered in connection with his former defeat, to regard Haynes as his evil genius, or whether he intended to found a new colony, rather than a
* J. H. Trumbull, i. 10. + J. H. Trumbull, i. 27.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
town, in a place that seemed remote enough for such a pur- pose, I cannot positively aver ; yet had he been placed at the head of the magistracy, I have no doubt that he would have remained longer at Windsor. Still it would have been only a brief sojourn. This enthusiastic, restless man could not have been tempted to tarry long in any one place even could he have been rewarded with a diadem. It was not alone the stirring of that emulation, that, like the love of fame, belongs to all noble minds-not alone the " trophies of Milti- ades," that drove sleep from his pillow ; but rather the bright visions that throbbed in the pulses of the adventurer, and called him, not for the love of earthly goods, but to give zest to the faculties and room for the free tides of a restless na- ture to ebb and flow without restraint-that led him to ven- ture forth again into the wilderness. He had already visited Unquowa, and his eye had made such a pleasant acquaint- ance with its fields and streams, that he could not long hesi- tate whither to betake himself. After his removal to Fair- field, he still continued to perform important services for Connecticut, and in 1646 he was appointed by the General Court to reduce her crude and ill-defined laws to a system .* This he did as well as it could be done when we consider the scanty materials that were furnished him for such a struc- ture. The code was published at Cambridge in 1672.t He was several times a commissioner for the colony in the New England Congress. His connection with the Congress ap- pears to have been the remote cause of his sudden though voluntary exile. Why the conduct of the citizens of Fair- field, in arming either to defend themselves or to go in pur- suit of a dreaded enemy, who was every day expected to in- vade their settlement, should have been looked upon by Con- necticut as an act worthy of animadversion, when the Gen- eral Court itself admitted the existence of the dangerous emergency that induced them to take the step, I am unable to say. It is certain that no sedition was in their hearts.
* J. H. Trumbull, i. 138, 154. + Allen's Biog. Dic., 548.
1
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ROGER LUDLOW.
Angry they doubtless were, and Ludlow not the least, for he had an "infirmity of temper " that often visited him-angry and grieved that they had been left by the government in such a defenseless condition ; but they only took up arms in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation, that is, accord- ing to the common law of England, a divine voice, para- mount in its authority to all earthly jurisdictions. Yet their conduct was treated as reprehensible and seditious, and Robert Bassett and John Chapman were charged with " fo- menting insurrections," and were treated as the leaders of the project. Ludlow must have known that these accusations were aimed at him, as he was the principal man of the town. He felt that he had, without any moral guilt, incurred the displeasure of the colony, and that unless he should make some humiliating concessions, his behavior would not be likely to escape public censure. It was quite evident that his popularity had already reached its meridian. Proud and sensitive to a high degree, he brooded over the change that had taken place in his prospects, as well for promotion as for usefulness, and at last came to the conclusion, not without many keen regrets, to leave the colony where he had held so conspicuous a place for nineteen eventful years.
On the 26th of April, 1654, he embarked at New Haven, with his family and effects, for Virginia, where he passed in obscurity the remainder of his days .*
I have been thus minute in treating of him, because I felt called upon to do justice to the memory of a great man, whose faults were better understood than his virtues by his contemporaries, and who is almost a mythological character, except as his name still keeps the brief paragraph allotted to it in the records that load the shelves of the antiquary. He seems indeed himself to have courted oblivion, for he carried away with him the entire records of the town that he had planted, and of which he was the register at the time of his romantic flight, as if to blot out every trace of his irregular
* I am indebted for some of the facts set forth in this sketch, to the Hon. James Savage, LL. D., President of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
footprints from the soil of Connecticut. But his fame, like that of all other men of genius, who have labored in the cause of the people, rests upon no such frail founda- tion ; for genius builds its own imperishable temple, whose worshipers are the millions of "freemen whom the truth makes free."*
Just before the departure of Ludlow from the colony, died his Excellency, John Haynes, while in the midst of his offi- cial term. He was as unlike Ludlow as one man could well be dissimilar to another. He was a native of the county of Essex, in England, and was of good lineage. He was the owner of Copford Hall, an elegant seat that afforded an an- nual income of one thousand pounds sterling. He was an ardent admirer of Hooker, and, regardless of all social and pecuniary considerations, accompanied him to America. As I have already stated, he was made governor of Massachu- setts in 1635. The next year he was succeeded by Sir Henry Vane, and in the month of June, went with that large party who traversed the glades and thickets of the primitive forest in quest of the valley of the Connecticut. He had the honor of being the first governor of the little commonwealth, an office that he held every alternate year until his death. He was a gentleman of stately deportment, graceful manners and great stability of character.t With less intellectual ac- cumen than Ludlow, and without any of his genius, he was yet greatly superior to that wandering and whimsical man in all the attributes that commanded the popular suffrages. Haynes was one of the best representatives of the republi- canism of that day, which Coleridge has so justly called a " religious and moral aristocracy." He was one of the best examples of the Puritan class or party. Ludlow on the other
* The family name of Ludlow is an ancient one in England, and from it prob- ably the famous castle of Ludlow received its name. Ludlow is celebrated as the place where Butler wrote a portion of Hudibras, and there were deposited some of the remains of Sir Henry Sidney.
t See Trumbull, i. 216, &c .; Mather's Magnalia, ii. 17; Hutchinson, i. 39, 43, 55 ; Holmes, i. 303.
183
ARRIVAL OF SEDGWICK AND LEVERETT.
[1654.]
hand, belonged to no party, but was himself the prototype of a different order of republicanism that has at last diffused itself like the air over the surface of the continent.
The question of the Dutch and Indian war still agitated the colonies. About the time of Ludlow's removal, one Manning, master of a small armed vessel, was arrested by the authorities of New Haven colony, for carrying on a contra- band trade with the Dutch at Manhattan. While Manning's trial was going on at New Haven, his men took possession of his ship, and in defiance of the government sailed out of Milford harbor, where she had been riding at anchor. The gallant people of Milford armed and manned a vessel, and gave the fugitive such a chase that they came in sight of her before she reached Manhattan, and pressed so hard upon her that her crew betook themselves to their boat, and left her adrift to fall an easy prey into the hands of her pursurers, who brought her back into the harbor, where she was con- demned with her cargo as a lawful prize.
A few days after, Major Sedgwick and Captain Leverett arrived in Boston with a fleet, sent over by the Lord Pro- tector at the request of Connecticut and New Haven, to carry on the war with the Dutch .* On the 8th of June, governor Eaton received a letter from Cromwell, informing him that he had sent the fleet for the assistance of the col- onies. Major Sedgwick and Captain Leverett also sent let- ters, asking that each of the governments would send com- missioners to consult with them as to the objects of the expe- dition. Connecticut and New Haven both sent commis- sioners, and such was the zeal of Connecticut that she au- thorized Mason and Cullick, whom she chose to represent her in this important embassy, to engage in her behalf two hundred soldiers, and, rather than that the enterprise should fail, even five hundred if necessary.t
In Massachusetts the old opposition to the war remained unshaken. On the 8th of June, the General Court convened in a state of considerable excitement. They would vote to
* Brodhead, i. 582, 583. + J. H. Trumbull, i. 260.
184
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
raise neither men nor money for the war. Still they re- solved that Sedgwick and Leverett might enrol five hundred volunteers in Massachusetts if they could .* The commis- sioners decided that an army of about eight hundred men would be sufficient to reduce the Dutch to subjection.t The ships were to furnish two hundred, three hundred volunteers were to be raised, if they could be, in Massachusetts ; Con- necticut was to send two hundred, and New Haven one hun- dred and thirty-three. All this bustle and preparation was nipped in its first beginnings by the news-not very grateful to Connecticut and New Haven-that England and Holland were again at peace.
Major Sedgwick employed this fleet and the Massachusetts volunteers to drive the French from Penobscot, St. John's, and the adjacent coasts. It is needless to say that he would not have dared to do it had he not acted under secret instruc- tions from Cromwell.}
* Hazard, i. 587, 589 ; Hutchinson, i. 169. + Records of the United Colonies. # The following letter from the renowned geologist, Professor Adam Sedg- wick, of Cambridge University, England, addressed to General Charles F. Sedg- wick, of Sharon, Connecticut, contains much valuable information relative to the family of Major General Robert Sedgwick, who is the ancestor of all the Sedg- wicks in New England. This letter cannot fail to interest the public. It is in- trinsically a gem, aside from the great name of its author.
" SIR ;
" CAMBRIDGE, FEB. 26, 1837.
" After an absence from the University of several months I returned to my chambers yesterday, and found your letter on my study table. I first supposed that it might have been there some time, but on looking at the date, I was greatly surprised that it had reached me in a little more than three weeks after it had been committed to the post on the other side of the Atlantic. Of your patriarch, Robert Sedgwick, I have often heard, as the active part he took during the pro- tectorate, made him, in some measure, an historical character ; and about the same time there were one or two Puritan divines of considerable note and of the same name; but whether or no they were relations of his, I am not able to in- form you. The clan was settled from very early times, among the mountains which form the borders of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Westmoreland, and I be- lieve every family in this island of the name of Sedgwick can trace its descent from ancestors who were settled among those mountains. The name among the country people in the valleys in the north of England, is pronounced Sigswick, and the oldest spelling of it that I can find is Siggeswick ; at least it is so written
185
THE SEDGWICKS.
Owing to the steady opposition of Massachusetts, the war that had been previously declared against Ninigret had not been pursued; and that Indian had become so much em-
in many of our old parish records that go back to the reign of Henry VIII. It is good German, and means the village of victory, probably designating some place of successful broil, where our rude Saxon or Danish ancestors first settled in the country and drove the old Celtic tribes out of it, or into the remoter recesses of the Cambrian mountains, where we meet with many Celtic names at this day. But in the valleys where the Sedgwicks are chiefly found, the names are almost ex- clusively Saxon or Danish. Ours, therefore, in very early days was a true bor- der clan. The name of Sedgwick was, I believe, a corruption given like many others through a wish to explain the meaning of a name, (Siggeswick,) the real import of which was quite forgotten. The word Sedge is not known in the nothern dialects of our island, and the plant itself does not exist among our valley, but a branch of our clan settled in the low, marshy regions of Lincolnshire, and seems to have first adopted the more modern spelling, and at the same time began to use a bundle of sedge (with the leaves drooping like the ears of a corn sheaf,) as the family crest. This branch was never numerous, and is, I believe, now almost ex- tinct. Indeed the Sedgwicks never seem, (at least in England,) to flourish away from their native mountains. If you remove them to the low country, they droop and die away in a few generations. A still older crest, and one which suits the - history of the race, is an eagle with spread wings. Within my memory, eagles ex- isted among the higher mountains, visible from my native valley. The arms most commonly borne by the Sedgwicks, are composed of a red Greek cross, with five bells attached to the bars. I am too ignorant of heraldic terms to describe the shield correctly-I believe, however, that this is the shield of the historical branch, and that there is another shield belonging to the Siggeswicks of the mountains, with a different quartering, but I have it not before me and do not remember it suffi- ciently well to give any account of it. All the border clans, and ours among the rest, suffered greatly during the wars of York and Lancaster. After the Refor- mation they seem generally to have leaned to the Puritanical side, and many of them, your ancestor among the rest, served in Cromwell's army. From the Reformation to the latter half of the last century, our border country enjoyed great prosperity. The valleys were subdivided into small properties; each head of a family lived on his own estate, and such a thing as a rented farm hardly existed in the whole country, which was filled with a race of happy, independent yeo- manry. This was the exact condition of your clansmen in this part of England. They were kept in a kind of humble affluence, by the manufactory of their wool, which was produced in great abundance by the vast flocks of sheep which were fed on the neighboring mountains. I myself, remember two or three old men of the last century, who in their younger days had been in the yearly habit of riding up to London to negotiate the sale of stockings, knit by the hands of the lasses of our own smiling valleys. The changes of manners, and the progress of machin- ery, destroyed, root and branch, this source of rural wealth ; and a dismal change has now taken place in the social and moral aspect of the land of your fathers.
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