USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. I > Part 18
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The defenses of the colony were not forgotten, and effect- ual measures were taken to perfect its military organization. The distribution of the Bible among widows and children was at the same session made the subject of legislation .*
At the General Court held on the 22d of July, the same silence is observed as to the petition. The king is not even incidentally mentioned. The people never made any con- fessions of loyality unless they considered themselves likely to reap some benefit from the humiliation.
* On page 381 of J. H. Trumbull's Colonial Records will be found an order of the General Court directing that the Bible sent to Goodwife Williams shall be delivered to Goodwife Harrison, " who engageth to this Court to give unto ye children of ye said Williams a bushel of wheat apiece as they shall come out of their time ; and John Not doth engage to give each of ye children two shillings a piece as they come out of their time, to buy them Bibles."
211
ARRIVAL OF THE CHARTER.
[1662.]
At what precise time the charter arrived in Connecticut is not known. Doubtless it must have been early in Septem- ber, as it appears that it was publicly shown to the New England Congress convened at Boston, on the 4th of Sep- tember .*
The commissioners must have opened their eyes wide when " his majesty's letters patent under the broad seal of England were presented and read."
On the 9th day of October, it was publicly read to the as- sembled freemen of Connecticut, and was declared to belong to them and their successors. The freemen immediately bore testimony of their gratitude to the king for this mark of his favor, and to the value that they placed upon it, by appointing Mr. Wyllys, Captain Talcott and Lieutenant Allen a committee to take it into their custody, under the solemnities of an oath administered to them by the General Assembly, binding them faithfully to keep this palladium of the rights of the people. At this session, the General As- sembly confirmed the old tenures of office and ratified all the laws of the colony that were not inconsistent with the charter.t
At the same session, also, the General Assembly began to show a bolder front than ever before, in asserting the claims of Connecticut to jurisdiction over territories before that time claimed by other colonies. Notice was given to the inhabitants of Westchester that they were embraced within the boundaries of Connecticut, and that they would be ex- pected to conduct themselves as peaceable subjects. It was also resolved, that the people of Mistick and Pawcatuck should abstain from the exercise of all authority by virtue of any commission from any other colony, and that they should manage their affairs and elect their town officers in accord- ance with the laws of Connecticut.
The news that the charter had arrived, and the very lib- eral terms of it, flew upon the wings of the wind. As Win- throp probably anticipated, it gave much additional impor-
* See J. H. Trumbull, i. 384. (note.)
+ Colonial Records, i. 384, 385.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
tance to Connecticut. Here was an invaluable, sacred grant, defining the rights of the colony and placing them beyond the grasp of the royal prerogative. The people of Connecti- cut, whatever might be the fate of the other colonies, had the king's written pledge, under the broad seal of England, to vouch for them that they were entitled to all the rights and immunities of Englishmen. One after another, deputations from the remote border towns, upon Long Island and upon the main-land, came flocking to Hartford to tender their per- sons and property to the General Assembly, and praying to be admitted upon equal terms of citizenship. Whether these ambassadors represented the whole population of their respec- tive towns, or only petitioned in behalf of themselves, they were graciously received. A large portion of the inhabitants of Stamford and Greenwich begged to be made participators of the privileges conferred by the charter. A majority of the people of Southold, and some of the principal men of Guil- ford, were among the applicants. The clemency and gen- erosity of the king were upon every tongue in the colony. All the towns upon Long Island were compelled to submit. A Court was instituted at Southold, at which the magistrates of South and East Hampton were members .* Of course the territory embraced in the charter included the entire col- ony of New Haven. Accordingly a committee was sent to New Haven to treat with the government there for an ami- cable union. Matthew Allyn, Samuel Wyllys, Stone, the chaplain of the Pequot expedition, and the renowned Thomas Hooker, were the gentlemen selected for this important and delicate embassy.t
The committee repaired to New Haven with becoming dis- patch, and held a long and earnest conference with the author- ities and principal gentlemen there. They urged a friendly union under the patent on some fair terms. It was too mighty a matter to be disposed of at a single interview, and besides it was thought necessary that the proposition should be communicated to the freemen before any ultimate action
* Thompson's Hist. Long Island.
+ Colonial Records, i. 388.
213
DIFFICULTIES WITH NEW HAVEN.
[1662.]
was taken. The committee therefore presented the authori- ties of New Haven with a copy of the charter, accompanied by a very plausible and somewhat stately declaration, where- in they were careful to speak in terms of the greatest com- mendation of the privileges granted by the "large and ample patent," which they describe not as having been artfully pro- cured by the colony of Connecticut, but as having come to their hand. The declaration informs New Haven that the king has united the two colonies into one body politic, and reminds the freemen to whom it is made, that they are equally interested with the people of Connecticut in all the provisions of the royal patent, inviting them to a happy and peaceable union-" that inconveniences and dangers may be prevented, peace and truth strengthened and established, through our suitable subjection to the terms of the patent, and the blessing of God upon us therein."
This paper I suppose to be the composition of Hooker. The conciliatory, half-reproachful reply I have no doubt was framed by Leete, whose gentle nature never showed the de- cision and strength that lay hidden beneath its surface until all persuasive measures were exhausted .*
The time had now arrived when the freemen of New Ha- ven were called upon to arouse themselves. On the 4th of November they convened to consult upon the best measures to be adopted. Excited and indignant as they were, they manifested a calm dignity that was never exhibited, I pre-
* The reply of the authorities of New Haven was as follows : "We have re- ceived and perused your writings, and heard the copy read of his majesty's let- ters patent to Connecticut colony ; wherein, though we do not find the colony of New Haven expressly included, yet to show our desire that matters may be issued in the conserving of peace and amity, with righteousness between them and us, we shall communicate your writing, and a copy of the patent, to our freemen, and afterwards, with convenient speed, return their answer. Only we desire, that the issuing of matters may be respited, until we may receive fuller information from Mr. Winthrop, or satisfaction otherwise ; and that in the meantime, this colony may remain distinct, entire, and uninterrupted, as heretofore ; which we hope you will see cause lovingly to consent unto ; and signify the same to us with con- venient speed."
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
sume, under like circumstances in any State of ancient Greece. Governor Leete produced the declaration of the Connecticut committee and the copy of the charter that they had left. The strange patent, that had thus suddenly dis- posed of their government and political existence, without giving them a premonition of the fate that awaited them, was read aloud in the hearing of the freemen ; and then, to allow them time for consideration, the Court took a recess for an hour and a half to meet again at the beat of the drum.
At the sound of this primitive summons, the Court again assembled. Davenport-the venerable father of the colony that had been thus summarily passed over into other hands- Davenport, the man who was second to no other in New England for straight-froward honesty and moral courage- was the first to break the ominous silence. He rose up calmly, as his custom was, and though grown gray in the hard services of his calling, and bowed under the weight of recent bereavements, neither his hand nor his voice could have betrayed a sign of weakness, when he unfolded the pa- per containing his carefully written views and reasons upon this vital matter, and prefaced his reading with the charac- teristic remark, that "according to the occasion he would discharge the duty of his place." He did nobly discharge that duty. In his distinct and impressive way, he read to them " his own thoughts which he had set down in writing, and which he said he desired should remain his own until his hearers should be fully satisfied with them."
When he had read the paper, he committed it to the keep- ing of the assembly and retired. Governor Leete prudently forbore to participate in the discussion. The debate was long and earnest, and after it was ended it was agreed that a committee made up of Mr. Law of Stamford, and the mag- istrates and elders, should draw up an answer to the declar- ation of Connecticut, that was to embrace and enlarge upon the following distinct propositions :
I. The wrong and sin of Connecticut in thus attempting to rob them of their independence and colonial existence.
215
REMONSTRANCE OF DAVENPORT.
[1662.]
II. The propriety of suspending all further proceedings until Mr. Winthrop should return, or until they should other- wise obtain further information and satisfaction.
III. That New Haven could of right do nothing without first consulting the other confederated colonies .*
The committee was directed to present in their answer whatever arguments they could against the union, and if these should fail to bring about the intended result, they were ordered to prepare an address to the king, praying for relief. The document drawn up by this committee in obedience to the instructions of the freemen of New Haven, has such salient points and such a marked individuality, that no one can doubt that Davenport was the author of it.t There is a concealed and galling irony in the document that must have been intolerably provoking, while the facts as well as the deductions from them, are indeed unanswerable. The com- mittee say in substance, that whatever may be the purport of the charter, they have looked in vain to find in it any clause that prohibits the continuance of a distinct colonial government on the part of New Haven. The fact that not one of the patentees named in it belonged to New Haven, was to their minds strong corroborative evidence that neither they who petitioned for the patent, nor his majesty who granted it, intended that she should be embraced in it or af- fected by it, and that for aught that appeared in the charter they were still left at liberty to petition for the same privi- lieges that had been so recently bestowed upon Connecticut. " Yet," say the committee, "if it shall appear (after due and
1
* The words of the reply are not here given literally, but only in substance as found upon the New Haven Colonial Records.
+ Davenport was remarkable in that age of verbiage, for his terse, direct man- ner of expressing his thoughts in writing. There is a manliness and patrician bearing in this comprehensive state paper, that stamps its authorship upon it as with a seal. Whoever supposes that John Davenport can be set lightly aside by the flippant charge of narrow-mindedness and bigotry, had better study the his- tory of those times more faithfully, before he presumes to put his crude views up- on paper. There was indeed a mote in the eye of the old pioneer clergyman, but alas ! for the beam in that of the critic.
216
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
full information of our State,) to have been his majesty's pleasure so to unite us as you understand the patent, we must submit according to God." The solemn covenants en- tered into under the confederation are then again alluded to, and the request urgently made, that New Haven may go on discharging the functions of a distinct colonial government, until "either by the honored Mr. Winthrop, by the other confederates, or from his majesty," they may learn what construction should be given to the patent.
The implied charge of a breach of faith contained in the following language is exceedingly severe. "This occasion [is] given before any conviction tendered or publication of the patent among us, or so much as a treaty with us in a christian, neighborly way. No pretense for our dissolution of government, till then, could rationally be imagined. Such carriage may seem to be against the advice and mind of his majesty in the patent, as also of your honored governor, and to cast reflection upon him."
This letter bore date the 5th of November, 1662. Con- necticut made no reply to it, and in this she acted wisely, for no human ingenuity could have framed a successful answer to its stern truthfulness.
On the 11th of March, 1663, the General Assembly met, and in a very pacific tone proceeded to appoint a committee to treat with New Haven in relation to the terms of the union. Deputy governor Mason was at the head of this committee. They proceeded to New Haven and attempted to hit upon some amicable mode of adjusting the difficulties. But the hot haste that the General Assembly had manifested in getting possession of Southold, Stamford and other towns belonging to New Haven, and establishing a government there, and the protection and fellowship that had been promised by Connecticut to the disaffected at Guilford, had inflicted a deep wound upon the colonial independence of New Haven, that nothing save a full and honorable restitution could be expected to heal.
In this crisis of affairs governor Leete called a special ses-
217
NEW HAVEN STILL RESISTS.
[1663.]
sion of the General Court to commence on the 6th of May. When the freemen were convened, they were asked if it was their pleasure, on account of relations existing between them and Connecticut, to make any alteration in respect to the time or manner of holding their election ? With one consent they answered "No." Had the negative been ut- tered by the lips of John Davenport himself, it could not have been more resolute. They further resolved, that a re- monstrance against the doings of the encroaching colony should be drawn up and sent to the General Assembly of Connecticut. This was accordingly done. This able paper, reciting the causes that induced the people of the colony to establish themselves in New England, and also giving a his- tory of the wrongs that they had recently suffered at the hands of their sister colony, protesting against those wrongs, and calling for redress, is also the composition of Davenport. It contains some passages of powerful and eloquent appeal, that my limits will not allow me to quote, nor indeed ought they to be presented in a fragmentary form.
While these disorderly proceedings were going on in America, the agent of New Haven, sent to his majesty to peti- tion for his interference, arrived in England. Winthrop was still there, and when the state of things in the two colonies was made known to him, he undertook to be the surety of Connecticut, that New Haven should suffer no further wrong at her hands, and that if the union was to take place at all, it should be a voluntary one. In pursuance of this pledge, Winthrop, on the 3d of March, 1663, wrote a letter to the deputy governor and company of Connecticut, informing them of the purport of the arrangement that he had made with the agent of New Haven, and further stating that be- fore he prayed out the charter, he had given the people of New Haven his assurance that their interests should in no way be compromised by the step that Connecticut was about to take. These pledges of his, made while he was acting as their agent, and in a manner speaking in their behalf, he earnestly begged them not to violate, but to abstain from all
218
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
violence and from all encroachments upon the rights and territory of their sister colony. He dexterously intimated that the blame of what they had already done, was to be im- puted rather to his own negligence in not making those en- gagements known to them, than to any wanton usurpation on their part. He added, that if the General Assembly would wait until his return, he hoped to bring about the de- sired union by some amicable adjustment .*
What strange infatuation had taken possession of Connec- ticut, I am unable to say. The General Assembly in July following laid claim to Westchester, and sent out a magis- trate from Connecticut with authority to lead the voters to a choice of officers, and to administer the proper oaths when chosen. The chartered colony also stretched out her hand over the Narragansett country, and appointed rulers over the inhabitants of Wickford. Disregarding the wishes of the governor thus decidedly expressed, and in defiance of the re- monstrance of the freemen of New Haven and their earnest appeal to the king, she followed up the contemplated union in the same hasty way in which it had been begun.
On the 19th of August, another session of the General As- sembly was summoned, and a new committee appointed to treat not alone with New Haven, but also with Milford, Guilford, and Branford, upon the terms of the union. If the committee failed to negotiate the matter amicably, they were instructed to read the charter publicly at New Haven, and proclaim to the people there that Connecticut could not fail to resent their attempts to maintain a separate jurisdiction, as it was clear that they were included within the limits of the patent; and that the General Assembly must insist that New Haven, Milford, Guilford, Branford and Stamford surrender themselves to the jurisdiction of Connecticut. This committee, like the preceding one, effected nothing.
In September, the Congress met at Boston, and the New Haven commissioners were received and acknowledged
* See Gov. Winthrop's letter in Trumbull. i. 520, 521.
219
WINTHROP, LEETE, AND FENN.
[1663.]
as the representatives of an independent colony. At this session New Haven prepared a complaint against Connecti- cut, involving a complete history of all proceedings under the charter that related to New Haven. Governor Winthrop, who had now returned from England, and Mr. John Talcott, in behalf of Connecticut, defended her course with such ar- guments as they could adduce. They said the complainants had no just grounds of accusation against the chartered col- ony, as she had never done them any wrong, and had always proposed a friendly settlement of the controversy by treaty.
That this claim of Winthrop was at war with the matter contained in his own letter of the 3d of March, and not strictly in accordance with the facts in the case, I suppose nobody would attempt at this day to deny. However, I am unwilling that such a character as this great patriot has transmitted to posterity, should be thought to have left upon its surface a stain of dissimulation. He was anxious to con- ciliate the applicants, and in attempting to persuade them that they were unreasonable in their complaints, he only em- ployed the ordinary privileges of the advocate, and stated the views that his too partial mind had adopted, with such elo- quence and force as was natural to him. Besides, he may have arrived at different conclusions, on finding himself in the neighborhood of the excited people whom it was his duty, as far as he rightfully could, to justify and defend in the face of the whole world, from those that had been the basis of the letter that he had written from England, and of the assur- ances that he had then given to the agent of New Haven.
The debate was very earnest and absorbing. Governor Leete and Benjamin Fenn-the one cautious and courtly, the other blunt and bold-resolutely met the arguments of the Connecticut commissioners, and did not find it a difficult task to procure a decree that the distinct colonial existence of New Haven should remain inviolate, that no encroach- ments should be made upon her jurisdiction, and that her power should continue entire, as one of the confederates, "until such time as in an orderly way it shall be otherwise
220
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
disposed of." No other decision could have been antici- pated from the Congress, for the jealousy of Massachusetts and of the other associated colonies against Connecticut, since it had first been made known that she had become in- vested with privileges unknown to themselves, knew no bounds. Aside from the just claims of New Haven, how was it to be borne by the metropolitan colony of Massachu- setts, who had always patronized Connecticut as her younger and portionless sister, that she should presume all at once to give herself such matronly airs, and place herself upon a royal matrimonial alliance that afforded such a striking contrast to her Arcadian manners and humble childhood ?
Governor Stuyvesant, likewise indignant at the grasping ambition of Connecticut evinced by extending her jurisdic- tion over Westchester and the towns adjacent, appeared at Boston and complained of the encroachments made by her upon his territories. Winthrop and Talcott begged that, as no demand had been made upon the General Assembly and consequently they were not instructed how to make answer to his complaint, that the consideration of the affair might be postponed until the next meeting of the Congress. The mat- ter was accordingly deferred.
On the 8th of October, the General Assembly of Connecti- . cut again convened to consider and discuss the difficulties that were impending. An act was passed, wherein the as- sembly declare their dissatisfaction with the plantations of New Haven, Milford, Guilford, Stamford and Branford, be- cause they persist in maintaining a government distinct from that authorized by the charter. A committee was at the same session again appointed to treat with those towns, and debate the matters in dispute. "If," say the assembly, " they can rationally make it appear that they have such power, and that we have wronged them according to their complaints, we shall be ready to attend them with due satisfaction."*
It will be observed that this diplomatic piece of legislation is very far from recognizing even pretended jurisdiction on
* Colonial Records, i. 415.
221
GENERAL COURT OF NEW HAVEN.
[1663.]
the part of New Haven, as a separate colony. On the other hand, the plantations are individually spoken of, and severally treated as independent of each other, and as constituting in- tegral portions of Connecticut under the charter.
At a special session in March, Thomas Pell was authorized in behalf of the colony and with the design of securing pos- session and title to all the lands included within the bound- aries of the patent, to buy of the Indians all that large tract lying between Westchester and Hudson's river, and " the waters which make the Manhadoes an island."* The Gen- eral Assembly also lent a willing ear to the petitions of those plantations that were situated upon the western extremity of Long Island, and took them under the protection of Con- necticut, for the charter included the adjoining islands within her limits. It was also resolved that Hammonasset should be a town. During the same month, twelve planters, most of them from Hartford, Windsor and Guilford, took up their abode there. Out of respect to Mr. Griswold, one of the principal proprietors of the town, it was afterwards named Killingworth, a corruption of the historical name of Kenil- worth, the birthplace of the Griswolds of Connecticut.
Meanwhile New Haven continued to struggle against her fate. On the 22d of October, her General Court convened, and Governor Leete hastened to present to the freemen the details of all that had passed, and to take their advice. The members of the Court reviewed the behavior of Connecticut towards them, the rights of government that she persisted in asserting over them, the disturbances that she fomented in the several towns, by giving encouragement to malcontents and by sowing the seeds of sedition broadcast within their borders- and with unyielding courage resolved "that no treaty be made by this colony with Connecticut before such acts of power exerted by them upon any of our towns, be revoked or re- called, according to the honorable Mr. Winthrop's letter urg- ing the same, the commissioners' determination and our fre- quent desires." With one consent they resolved to petition
* Colonial Records, i. 418 ; Brodhead, i. 733.
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