USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. I > Part 30
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Aside from the accusations before made against the colony, the complaint alleged that it was a place of refuge for sea- men, servants, malefactors, and other fugitives from justice who fled from the other colonies, that it also took under its protection young men who went there from New York and Massachusetts to avoid taxation resulting from the wars, that had thrown such heavy burdens upon all the northern colonies except Connecticut ; that this colony had refused to aid in the fortification of New York and Albany, and had failed to send men to defend Massachusetts against the
* This singular work, though anonymous, is supposed to be from the pen of the Rev. Gershom Bulkley, who graduated at Harvard College in 1659; was settled in the ministry at New London from 1661 to 1666, and in Wethersfield from that latter date until 1677. He then removed to Glastenbury where he practiced medicine for over thirty years, and died in 1713. As a politician, he was opposed to the assumption of the government by the colonial authorities in 1689, after the arrest of Andross. In 1689, he published a pamphlet on the affairs of Connecti- cut, but no copy of it is now known to exist. (See Dr. Chapin's Hist. of Glasten- bury.) " Will and Doom" was doubtless written soon after. December 15, 1692, Major Palms, Gershom Bulkley and Wm. Rosewell appended to the MS. volume their certificate, in which they say, that to their "best knowledge of things, the state of affairs in Connecticut is therein truly represented," and they " doubt not but every material passage in it may easily be proved by them." To be sure, it is not often that an author volunteers a formal certificate of the probable truth of his own work ; but in this case, Mr. Bulkley may have done so for the purpose of better concealing the authorship of the volume, which was not calculated to in- crease his popularity in New England. The MS. was indorsed as follows, on its arrival in England : " Mr. Bulkley's ' Will and Doom,' relating to grievances and irregularities in the Province of Connecticut." "Received with Lord Cornbury's of the 6th of November 1704. Vide New York, Bundle X, 18." "Received 16 January ; read 1st. February 1704-5. Entered Proprieties, fol. 126. No. 20."
Some have supposed that the book in question was written by the Rev. John Bulkley, of Colchester-but the improbability of this is apparent from the fact, that he did not graduate until 1699, and " Will and Doom" is not the work of a boy.
357
OWANECO'S PETITION.
[1705.]
French and Indians .* All this time Dudley smiled blandly upon the colony that he was thus plotting to destroy, and in a letter that bore almost an even date with these infamous allegations, he thanked the General Assembly for the liberal supplies that they had bestowed upon Massachusetts, and the readiness with which they had responded to his requisi- tions.
I have said it was a part of the plan of operations to con- ciliate certain malcontents who lived in Connecticut. These men now aided Dudley in furnishing evidence against the colony, by giving currency to a ridiculous story that the General Assembly had abused Owaneco, chief of the Mohe- gans, and had driven his tribe from their planting grounds. Whoever knows any thing of the history of that tribe and of the sacrifices made by Connecticut to protect it from ene- mies that would have annihilated it long before this con- spiracy was made, can judge what credit should be given to a tale that contradicts all the records that have been trans- mitted to us relating to the affairs of that expensive and burdensome tribe. Yet, inconsistent as was the accusation, it was penned into a petition to the queen, ostensibly in behalf of the Mohegans, but really with no other motives than avarice and revenge on the part of the applicants, repre-, senting the General Assembly in such false colors that it could not fail to deceive the ears for which it was intended, especially when presented and advocated by such men as Dudley. Had the complaint charged the colony with un- kindness towards the Pequots after the strength of their tribe had been broken, and with yielding to the solicitations of Uncas, or submitting to the cruel robberies that he was allowed to perpetrate upon that suffering people ; or had it
* Nothing could surpass the wicked falsehood of these two charges, unless it were the ingratitude that could allow the governors of these invaded colonies to deny the services of our troops in saving their inhabitants from the tomahawk and the ruinous taxes that our people paid with cheerfulness to answer pecuniary demands, sometimes entirely unnecessary and often greatly exaggerated -- services rendered and taxes paid, as in the case of New York under Leisler's administra- tion, in behalf of a people who either could not or would not help themselves.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
charged Connecticut, in common with the rest of New Eng- land, with the guilt that often accompanies a too easy credu- lity, because she had lent a willing ear to Mohegan prejudices, and consented to the judicial murder of Miantinomoh ; or because her fears had led her to sacrifice Nanuntenoo, there might have been some show of justice in the arraignment. But it has always been the fate of Connecticut to be put upon her deliverance for imaginary crimes, for the reason that her faults in some cases were too slight, and in others at- tended with too palliating circumstances to justify the malice of her enemies or afford a palpable ground of conviction.
The sympathies of the queen were touched at the sup- posed sufferings of the Mohegans, so wantonly inflicted by her English subjects, and, without waiting to allow Connecti- cut a hearing, she granted, on the 19th of July 1704, a com- mission to Dudley and Palms, the arch-enemies of the colony, and others, their instruments-twelve in all-to hear and try the cause of the afflicted Owaneco against Connecti- cut .*
Preparatory to this farcical court, on the 5th of July 1705, John Chandler, in behalf of Owaneco-whose ancestors had received the consideration-money more than twice over for all the lands that had ever gone out of their possession- and Mason, and the other claimants, in behalf of themselves, began a survey of the Mohegan country. They ran out the lines in accordance with their own claims, and having com- pleted the perambulation, they made a map of the territory such as suited well enough the uses of a hearing before a tribunal that was understood to have pre-judged the case.
The lines as run by Chandler and his assistants had for their southern boundary a large rock in Connecticut river near Eight-Mile-Island, in Lyme, and thence took an easter- ly course through Lyme, New London, and Groton, to a lit-
* The Court of Commissioners consisted of the following persons, viz. :- Joseph Dudley, Esq., President, Edward Palms, Giles Sylvester, Jahleel Brenton, Nathaniel Byfield, Thomas Hooker, James Avery, John Avery, John Morgan, and Thomas Leffingwell. The other two appear to have been absent.
359
THE MOHEGAN CONTROVERSY.
[1705.]
tle lake in the north-eastern part of Stonington, called Ah- yo-sup-suck ; thence northerly, to another lake called Mah- man-suck, thence to a place called the Whetstone hills, and thence to Man-hum-squeeg, or the Whetstone country. From this last named point (if indeed it was a point) the line veered off in a south-westerly course, a distance of several miles, to the upper falls in the Quinibaug river ; here, taking a new track, it darted away to the north-west through Pomfret, Ashford, Willington, and Tolland, to the Notch of Bolton mountain, and thence, "instinct with fire and nitre," the liberal-minded surveyors took wing in a southerly course, across Bolton, Hebron, and East Haddam, to the place of beginning.
Having completed his survey, his map, and all his other enginery of self-conviction-and who could judge so well as his excellency of the machinery best calculated to subdue his scruples-Governor Dudley carried his court into Con- necticut, and planted it in a convenient place within the limits of Stonington.
As Connecticut had not been allowed a hearing as to the propriety of creating this special court, so did the court fail to serve her with a copy of the commission that was to try the question of title and jurisdiction to some of the most valuable lands within her boundaries ;- so that she remained in ignorance till the day of the hearing, whether the com- mission merely authorized a court of inquiry, or whether it was to determine the title to the lands.
She therefore sent a committee to be present at the open- ing of the court, and find out what was the extent of its powers. If it was a court of inquiry, they were instruct- ed to defend ; if it was designed to try the title, they were commanded to enter their solemn protest in behalf of the colony, and withdraw in silence. At the same time, all the inhabitants of Connecticut who claimed any interest in the controverted lands, were forbidden to put in any plea or make any answer before the court. The names of the gen- tlemen composing this committee, were William Pitkin, John
360
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Chester, Eleazer Kimberly, Esqrs., Maj. William Whiting, Mr. John Elliott, and Mr. Richard Lord.
Governor Winthrop, on the 21st of August, wrote a letter to Dudley, in which he is careful to speak of the commission as authorizing only a preliminary court.
When the committee had arrived at the place of trial and had learned that it was the intention of the tribunal to set- tle questions of title, they tendered to Dudley their written protest. After sketching, with a few hasty strokes, the folly and wantonness of the charges brought against Connecticut, the committee go on to say, " We must declare against and prohibit all such proceedings as contrary to law and to the letters patent under the great seal of England granted to this her majesty's colony." In conclusion they add, " It seems strange to us that your excellency should proceed in such a manner, without first communicating your commission to the General Assembly of this her majesty's colony."
After an ex parte hearing of a single day, in which the Indian, Owaneco, who probably did not care a whiff of to- bacco smoke'about the controversy, aside from the paltry presents that he might have expected for allowing his name to be used in it, and the other applicants, had it all their own way, and procured a judgment in their favor .*
If ever there was a piece of judicial villainy it was this, by which the property of hundreds of persons, and the juris- diction of a colony, were disposed of without serving any notice upon the respondents by the adverse party in interest, who had caused themselves to be constituted a tribunal to sit in judgment upon their own untenable claims.
* The Court adjudged to Owaneco and the Mohegans a tract of land in New London, called Massapeag ; and another tract in the northern part of the same town, containing about eleven hundred acres ; also, a tract in Lyme, two miles in breadth and nine miles in length, together with the whole tract contained in the town of Colchester. These lands had been obtained by conquest, purchase treaty, and other lawful means, and had been settled upon by persons who held their deeds or patents from the Assembly. The court ordered Connecticut immedi- ately to restore all these lands to Owaneco ; and also prohibited all her majesty's subjects from settling upon or improving certain other large tracts, until a fur- ther hearing and determination of the case.
361
TRIAL OF CONNECTICUT.
[1705]
I have said that this Mohegan affair, as far as Dudley was interested in it, was designed to prejudice the mind of the queen against Connecticut, so that she might be the more readily induced to regard the people as outlaws, who had forfeited their charter privileges, and were entitled to no mercy at her hands. The fact that the hearing was not had until after the trial of the principal allegations against Con- necticut before the queen in council, made little difference. The charge having been made, the chief mischief was ac- complished, as the colony was in much the same condition that an accused person is while awaiting his trial for the commission of a crime. It is true that theoretically the law presumes him innocent till proved guilty, but no legal maxim or presumption can do away with the impression made upon the public mind even by a false accusation .*
On the 12th of February, 1705, after the last bundle of evidence that had been shipped by Cornbury from America was received in England, the trial of Connecticut for her charter, which had been postponed at the solicitation of Sir Henry Ashurst, in order that he might receive further evi- dence and further instructions from the General Assembly, came on before the queen in council.
Dudley had prepared his case with great address, and Corn- bury had seconded him with an equal amount of industry and spite. The former had dug up from the archives of King William's reign a precedent in favor of the proposition that the crown had power to appoint a governor over Con- necticut. He had also attempted to get an opinion from the then acting attorney-general favorable to his case ; but
* This famous " Mohegan case," after having agitated Connecticut more than seventy years, was finally determined in favor of the colony in 1743. The lands in dispute, or some part of them, had been acquired by Major Mason, as agent of Connecticut-who, in a somewhat informal manner, surrendered them to the colony in March, 1661. (See J. H. Trumbull's Colonial Records, i. 359.) The heirs of Mason, and certain other designing persons, subsequently instituted a claim for the lands, and prosecuted it with great tenacity. The pretense that the Mohegans were oppressed or driven off by the English settlers, was simply designed for effect.
362
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
the best that he could induce the guarded functionary to do for him, was to make the statement " that if it were as Gov- ernor Dudley had represented, there was a defect in the Gov- ernment, that the colony was not able to defend itself and in imminent danger of being possessed by the queen's ene- mies ; and that in such case, the queen might send a governor for civil and military government, but not to alter the laws and customs." Nobody could find any fault with this opin- ion. It would have been equally tenable had he said, " if the authorities harbored pirates and carried on contraband trade," as Governor Dudley had represented, "they ought to be adjudged guilty of felony without the benefit of clergy." There is much significance in a legal opinion that is heralded with an "if." It implies at least that the facts have not yet been passed upon.
As had been the case in the Mohegan affair, so in this most vital matter, the grounds of the accusation and the argu- ments that would be set up by the complainants, had been kept secret from the agent of the colony. True, however, to the interests of his principals, as on former occasions he had proved himself, Sir Henry Ashurst* nobly stood his ground. He knew that this was a desperate struggle for colonial existence against injustice and oppression, and that it called for all the address of which he was master, and all the influence that he could command. He was a brother-in- law of Lord Paget, a nobleman of fine abilities and power- ful connections. His lordship, whose sense of justice was outraged by the behavior of the applicants, magnanimously espoused the cause of Connecticut, and threw into the scale that he desired should preponderate, the full weight of his disinterested influence with the queen's favorites and the members of the council. He procured the professional aid of two of the best advocates in England, who met the
* This gentleman was a son of Henry Ashurst, Esq., member of parliament, and a firm friend to New England. Sir Henry had previously been the agent of Massachusetts at the Court of Great Britain ; but accepted the agency of Con- necticut in 1704, and continued to act in that capacity until his death in 1710.
363
DEFENSE OF CONNECTICUT.
[1705]
sophistries and exposed the false statements of Dudley, Cornbury, Congreve, and the whole host of assailants, who argued the cause for an hour and a half before the council with great eloquence and force. I need not go over the grounds urged by these gentlemen, as they will suggest themselves to the reader who has had the patience to peruse the preceding chapter.
After exposing the intrigues of Dudley and his fellow con- spirators, the counsel in behalf of the colony went on to say, that whatever might be the real truth in relation to the allegations, it was a sacred right extended to all British sub- jects by the constitution itself, that all persons and corpora- tions should have an oportunity to be heard, before any legal proceeding against them could be the basis of a judg- ment. The advocates powerfully pressed upon the minds of the council the consideration, that as this necessary pre-re- quisite had not been complied with in relation to the govern- or and company of Connecticut, it would be doing them a great and unprecedented wrong to take from them their most precious rights-nay, their very political life, without giving them the opportunity of confronting their accusers. Then a well-timed allusion was made to the motives that led to the accusation, and a very striking portraiture was drawn of the overshadowing growth and noxious qualities of execu- tive ambition in a remote part of the empire, beyond the conservative influences of her majesty's personal supervision. The patronage attending such a position as that held by Dudley, the facility of procuring witnesses who, from inte- rested motives, could be induced to falsify their testimony, were dwelt upon as so many facts that should put the coun- cil upon their guard while the limited power of the governor of Connecticut under the charter, watched as he was by the other branches of the government and amenable to the an- nual suffrages of the freemen, afforded a very strong pre- sumption in his favor, and seemed to call still more loudly for a public hearing of the evidence that might be within
364
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
reach of the corporation. Waxing warm as they dwelt upon the contrast between such men as Dudley and Corn- bury on the one hand, and Treat and Winthrop on the other, these gentlemen boldly urged, that in the case of a provin- cial governor who held during the pleasure of the crown, and who was liable to lose nothing but his office, avarice often tempted the incumbent to perpetrate the most barbarous cruelties, and that it might be found upon investigation of the evidence, that Governor Winthrop was better fitted to govern Connecticut, than Cornbury was to rule in New York, or Dudley in Massachusetts. In conclusion, they begged that a copy of the complaint might be sent to the governor and company of Connecticut, that they might prepare themselves at a future day to defend the corporation.
So reasonable was this request that the council could not fail to comply with it. It was therefore ordered that copies of the principal charges in the complaint should be made out and sent, one to the governor of Connecticut, and one to Dudley and Cornbury, the chief complainants; that Connec- ticut should make her answer to each allegation, and estab- lish such answer if she could, by evidence legally taken and duly sealed with the seal of the colony. Dudley and Cornbury were in like manner to forward their proofs in proper legal form.
Nothing could have been more unsatisfactory to Dudley and Cornbury than this just decision. They saw at once that their schemes were ruined and their intrigues exposed. They saw the castles that they had built upon the crumbling foundations of calumny and lies, already beginning to topple down upon their heads. For did they not know that of all the accusations so pompously paraded in their complaint, not one of them could stand before the array of unimpeachable testimony that would be sent out against it by the outraged and insulted colony ? Poor Dudley, the cunning artificer of this fraud, had need of all his fortitude to sustain him, for the General Assembly were able to prove, that instead of
365
[1705.] THE CAUSE OF CONNECTICUT TRIUMPHANT.
neglecting Massachusetts and New York in their day of peril, as he had attempted to make the queen believe, and that instead of leaving the inhabitants of those provinces without men and supplies, Connecticut had during that year and the preceding one, kept six hundred troops in constant requisition, and that two-thirds of that number had been en- gaged in actual service in those provinces. She could prove, too, that while her people had scarcely two thousand pounds of money in circulation in the whole colony, they had in three years expended a much greater sum in defending New York and Massachusetts. What was still more mortifying to Dudley, they had in their keeping a most flattering letter under his own hand, in which he thanked them for the gen- erous aid that they had given him, and for their services dur- ing the war. To corroborate even his admissions against himself, they had also on file, ready to be produced, letters of commendation and thanks from the officers who had com- manded in Massachusetts, and from the principal gentlemen there, all speaking the language of gratitude for services rendered by Connecticut. As to the cowardly charges of disloyalty to the government, contraband trade, harboring fugitives from justice or taxation, and that more infamous one of piracy, who knew better than the author of them, how vain would be the attempt to prove them, and with what triumph the evidence that was within the reach of the colony could sweep them away ?
No wonder, then, that he gave up the complaint as hope- less, and set himself, as I have already detailed, to execute a commission in regard to a matter that was, before the date of the instrument, a foregone conclusion in his own mind ; nor need I tell the reader, that when the proofs adduced by the governor and company arrived in England, the loyal- ty and honor of Connecticut shone but the brighter when placed in contrast with the wickedness of her accu- sers.
I need not say that Dudley and Cornbury did not forward their testimony, nor appear to prosecute their complaints ;
366
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
nor is it necessary to add, that in due time a letter arrived from Sir Henry Ashurst, informing the people that it was the opinion of the best men in the realm that they alone, sub- ject to the requisitions of the crown, had a right to com- mand the militia of the colony and dispose of its money un- der The Charter.
15
Eng. by D. C. Hinman from a pencil sketch by Col. Trumbull in the possession of B. Silliman, Jr.
MAJ. GEN. ISRAEL PUTNAM.
Frael Dulnam
CHAPTER XVII.
DEATH OF TREAT. SURRENDER OF PORT ROYAL.
EARLY in the year 1707, the colonies were again alarmed with rumors of another French and Indian invasion. On the 6th of February, a council of war, made up of the gov- ernor and most of his council with the principal military gentlemen of the colony, convened at Hartford. Robert Treat, then deputy governor, too infirm by reason of his great age to be present, wrote a letter and sent it in by a messenger to aid the deliberations of the council. This let- ter gave intelligence confirming these rumors. Major Schuy- ler sent in similar communications. It was thought that the Pootatuck and Owiantuck tribes had been consulted, and were ready to join with the French. As these Indians were within our borders, and in a position to expose our western fron- tiers to great hazard, it was ordered that Simsbury, Water- bury, Woodbury, and Danbury, should speedily be fortified. As Waterbury had not yet recovered from the effects of the floods alluded to on a former page of this work, the coun- cil promised to use their influence with the General Assem- bly to get the country rates of the town abated by way of encouraging the inhabitants to place their houses in a defen- sible condition. Two gentlemen from Woodbury, Captain John Minor, and Mr. John Sherman, were selected to remove the Pootatuck and Owiantuck Indians from the places then occupied by them, to Stratford and Fairfield, where they would be in the midst of a vigilant English population and could be more easily watched. It was ordered, further, that some of the chiefs of each tribe should be carried down to those towns, and there kept as hostages for the good be- havior of their people. On the second of April, a special
368
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
assembly was called on account of the receipt of letters from Governor Dudley, who proposed to send one thousand men against Acadie, and requested (he could not command) Con- necticut to join her forces with those of Massachusetts in the expedition. The duplicity of Dudley towards the colony was by no means forgotten, and the recollection of it aided the Assembly, I have no doubt, in coming to a conclusion not to respond to the call. It was argued that Connecticut had not been consulted as to the propriety of taking this step, and that she was not yet sufficiently recovered from the bur- den of defending the county of Hampshire, to be able to as- sist in an enterprise where her hand and not her counsels were in request.
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