Part 15

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constitute more than half of the Assembly, declared that, before any revenue was raised, the Navigation Act should be repealed, and the East India Company, and all the monopolies, dissolved. 3.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

[1] Commonly denominated the London and Plymouth Companies.

[2] About two years after, he made a second voyage to the river, in the service of a number of Dutch merchants; and, some time after, made sale of his right to the Dutch. The right to the country, however, was antecedently in King James, by virtue of discovery which Hudson had made under his commission. The English protested against this sale; but the Dutch, in 1614, under the Amsterdam West India Company, built a fort, nearly on the same grounds where the city of Albany now is, which they called Fort Aurania. Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of Virginia, directly after dispatched Captain Argall to dispossess the Dutch, and they submitted to the King of England, and under him to the Governor of Virginia.

[3] November 3, 1620, just before the arrival of Mr. Robinson’s people in New England, King James I., by letters-patent, under the great seal of England, incorporated the Duke of Lenox, the Marquises of Rockingham and Hamilton, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, and others, to the number of forty noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, by the name of “the Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, and governing of New England in America … and granting unto them, and their successors and assigns, all that part of America lying and being in breadth from forty degrees of north latitude, from the equinoctial line, to the forty-eighth degree of said north latitude inclusively, and in length of and within all the breadth aforesaid, through the mainland from sea to sea.”

The patent ordained that this tract of country should be called New England in America, and by that name have continuance forever.

[4] The same year in which the patent of Massachusetts received the royal confirmation, Mr. John Endicott was sent over with about three hundred people by the patentees, to prepare the way for the settlement of a permanent colony in that part of New England.

They arrived at Naumkeak in June, and began a settlement, which they named “Salem.” This was the first town in Massachusetts, and the second in New England.

[5] Mather, Neal, Hutchinson, and other writers of New England history, have uniformly deviated from the truth in representing Connecticut as having been first settled by emigrants from their darling Massachusetts Bay.

[6] Nearly at the same time, October 8, 1635, Mr. John Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, arrived at Boston with a commission from Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and other noblemen and gentlemen interested in the Connecticut patent, to erect a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Their lordships sent over men, ordnance, ammunition, and two thousand pounds sterling, for the accomplishment of their design.

Mr. Winthrop was directed by his commission, immediately on his arrival, to repair to Connecticut with fifty able men, and to erect the fortifications and to build houses for the garrison, and for gentlemen who might come over into Connecticut. They were first to build houses for their own present accommodation, and after that such as should be suitable for the reception of men of quality. The latter were to be erected within the fort.

It was required that the planters at the beginning should settle themselves near the mouth of the river, and set down in bodies, that they might be in a situation for intrenching and defending themselves. The commission made provision for the reservation of a thousand or fifteen hundred acres of good land for the maintenance of the fort, as nearly adjoining it as might be with convenience.

Mr. Winthrop, having intelligence that the Dutch were preparing to take possession of the mouth of the river, as soon as he could engage twenty men and furnish them with provisions, dispatched them in a small vessel of about thirty tons, to prevent their getting command of the river, and to accomplish the service to which he had been appointed.

But a few days after the party sent by Mr. Winthrop arrived at the mouth of the river, a Dutch vessel appeared off the harbor from New Netherlands, sent on purpose to take possession of the mouth of the river and to erect fortifications. The English had by this time mounted two pieces of cannon and prevented their landing; thus, providentially, was this fine tract of country preserved for our venerable ancestors and their posterity.

Mr. Winthrop was appointed Governor of the Connecticut River and the ports adjacent for the term of one year. He erected a fort, built houses, and made a settlement, according to his instructions. One David Gardiner, an expert engineer, assisted in the work, planned the fortifications, and was appointed lieutenant of the fort.

Mr. Davenport and others, who afterward settled New Haven, were active in this affair, and hired Gardiner, in behalf of their lordships, to come to New England and assist in this business.

As the settlement of the three towns on Connecticut River was begun before the arrival of Mr. Winthrop, and the design of their lordships to make plantations upon it was known, it was agreed that the settlers on the river should either remove upon full satisfaction being made by their lordships, or else sufficient room should be found for them and their companions at some other place.

While these plantations were forming in the southwestern part of Connecticut, another commenced on the west side of the mouth of the Connecticut River. A fort had been built here in 1635-’36, and preparations had been made for the reception of gentlemen of quality; but the war with the Pequots, the uncultivated state of the country, and the low condition of the colony, prevented the coming of any principal character from England to take possession of a township and make settlement in this tract.

Until this time there had been only a garrison of about twenty men in the place. They had made some small improvements in the lands, and erected a few buildings in the vicinity of the fort; but there had been no settlement of a plantation with civil privileges. But about midsummer Mr. George Fenwick, with his lady and family, arrived in a ship of two hundred and fifty tons; another ship came in company with him. They were both for Qunnipiack.

Mr. Fenwick and others came over with the view to take possession of a large tract upon the river in behalf of their lordships, the original patentees, and to plant a town at the mouth of the river. A settlement was soon made, and named Saybrook, in honor of their lordships, Say and Seal, and Brook.

Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Thomas Peters, who was the first minister in the plantation, Captain Gardiner, Thomas Leffingwell, Thomas Tracy, and Captain John Mason, were some of the principal planters.

[7] In July, 1638, Mr. Winslow and Mr. Bradford, therefore, made a journey to Boston to confer with Governor Winthrop and his Council on the subject. Governor Winslow and Mr. Bradford proposed to them to join with Plymouth in a trade to Connecticut for hemp and beaver, and to erect a house for the purpose of commerce. It was represented as necessary to prevent the Dutch from taking possession of that fine country, who, it was reported, were about to build upon the river. But Governor Winthrop declined the motion; he considered it was not proper to make a plantation there, because there were three or four thousand warlike Indians upon the river, and small pinnaces only could enter at high water; also, because that seven months in the year no vessels could go into it, by reason of the ice and the violence of the stream.

The Plymouth people, therefore, determined to undertake the enterprise at their own risk. Preparations were made for erecting a trading-house and establishing a small company on the river. In the mean time, the master of a vessel from Massachusetts, who was trading at New Netherlands, showed to Walter Van Twiller, the Dutch Governor, the commission which the English had to trade and settle in New England, and that his Majesty the King of England had granted all these parts to his own subjects. He, therefore, desired that the Dutch would not build at Connecticut.

This appears to have been done at the direction of Governor Winthrop, for, in consequence of it, the Dutch Governor wrote a very complaisant letter to him, in which he represented that the lords, the States-General, had granted the same country to the West India Company. He requested, therefore that the English would make no settlements in Connecticut until the affair should be determined between the court of England and the States-General.

This appears to have been a piece of policy in the Dutch Governor to keep the English still until the Dutch had got a firm footing upon the river.

Several vessels this year went to Connecticut River to trade. John Oldham, from Dorchester, and three men with him, also traveled through the wilderness to Connecticut, to view the country and trade with the Indians. The sachem upon the river made him most welcome, and gave him a present in beaver. He found that the Indian hemp grew spontaneously in the meadows in great abundance. He purchased a quantity of it, and upon trial it appeared much to exceed the hemp which was grown in England.

William Holmes, of Portsmouth, with his company, having prepared the frame of a house, with boards, and materials for covering it immediately, put them on board of a vessel and sailed for Connecticut. Holmes had a commission from the Governor of Plymouth and a chosen company to accomplish his design.

When he came into the river he found that the Dutch had got in before him, made a light fort, and planted two pieces of cannon: this was erected at the place called Hartford.

The Dutch forbade Holmes going up the river, stood by their cannon, and ordered him to strike his colors or they would fire upon him; but he was a man of spirit, assured them that he had a commission from the Governor of Plymouth to go up the river, and that he must obey his orders. They poured out their threats, but he proceeded, and, landing on the west side of the river, erected his house a little below the mouth of the small river in Windsor. The house was covered with the utmost dispatch, and fortified with palisadoes. The sachems who were the original owners of the soil had been driven from this part of the country by the Pequots, and were now carried home on board of Holmes’s vessel. Of them the Plymouth people purchased the land on which they erected their house. “This,” Governor Wolcott says, “was the first house erected in Connecticut.” The Dutch about the same time erected a trading-house at Hartford, which they called the “Hirse of Good Hope.”

It was with great difficulty that Holmes and his company erected and fortified their house, and kept it afterward. The Indians were offended at their bringing home the original proprietors and lords of the country, and the Dutch that they had settled there, and were about to rival them in trade and in possession of these excellent lands upon the river. They were obliged, therefore, to combat both, and to keep a constant watch upon them.

The Dutch, before the Plymouth people took possession of the river, had invited them in an amicable manner to trade in Connecticut; but, when they were apprised that they were making preparations for a settlement there, they repented the invitation, and spared no exertion to prevent them.

On the 8th of June the Dutch had sent Jacob Van Curter to purchase lands upon the Connecticut. He made a purchase of about twenty acres at Hartford, of Nepuquash, a Pequot captain. Of this the Dutch took possession in October, and on the 25th of the month Curter protested against William Holmes, the builder of the Plymouth house. Some time afterward the Dutch Governor, Walter Van Twiller, of Fort Amsterdam, dispatched a reënforcement to Connecticut, designing to drive Holmes and his company from the river. A band of seventy men, under arms, with banners displayed, assaulted the Plymouth house, but they found it so well fortified, and the men who kept it so vigilant and determined, that it could not be taken without bloodshed; they therefore came to a parley, and finally returned in peace.

About the beginning of June, 1636, Mr. Hooker, Mr. Stone, and about one hundred men, women, and children, took their departure from Cambridge, and traveled more than one hundred miles through a hideous and trackless wilderness to Hartford. They had no guide but their compass; made their way over mountains, through swamps, thickets, and rivers, which were not passable but with difficulty. They had no cover but the heavens, nor any lodgings but what simple Nature afforded them. They drove with them one hundred and sixty head of cattle, and by the way subsisted upon the milk of their cows. Mrs. Hooker was borne through the wilderness upon a litter. The people generally carried their packs, arms, and utensils. They were nearly a fortnight on their journey.

[8] While the planters of Connecticut were thus exerting themselves in prosecuting and regulating the affairs of that colony, another was projected and settled at Quinnipiack, and afterward called New Haven. On the 26th of July, 1637, Mr. John Davenport, Mr. Samuel Eaton, Theophilus Eaton, and Edward Hopkins, Esquires, Mr. Thomas Gregson, and many others of good character and fortune, arrived in Boston.

Mr. Davenport had been a famous minister in the city of London, and was a distinguished character for piety, learning, and good conduct. Many of his congregation, on account of the esteem which they had for his person and ministry, followed him to New England.

Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins had been merchants in London, possessed great estates, and were men of eminence for their abilities and integrity.

The fame of Davenport, and the reputation and good estates of the principal gentlemen of his company, made the people of Massachusetts exceedingly desirous of their settlement in that Commonwealth.

Great pains were taken not only by particular persons and towns, but by the General Court, to fix them in the colony.

Charlestown made them large offers, and Newbury proposed to give up the whole town to them. The General Court offered them any place which they should select. But they were determined to plant a distant colony. By the pursuit of the Pequots to the westward, the English became acquainted with that fine tract along the shore from Saybrook to Fairfield, and with its several harbors. It was represented as fruitful, and happily situated for navigation and commerce.

The company, therefore, projected a settlement in that part of the country.

In the fall of 1637 Mr. Eaton and others who were of the company made a journey to Connecticut to explore the lands and harbors on the sea-coast. They pitched upon Quinnipiack for the place of their settlement. They erected a poor hut, in which a few men subsisted through the winter.

On the 30th of March, 1638, Mr. Davenport, Mr. Prudden, Mr. Samuel Eaton, and Theophilus Eaton, Esquire, with the people of their company, sailed from Boston to Quinnipiack. In about a fortnight they arrived at their desired port.

On the 14th of April they kept their first Sabbath in the place.

The people assembled under a large, spreading oak, and Mr. Davenport preached to them from Matthew v. 1. He discoursed on the temptations of man, and made such observations as were pertinent to the then present state of his hearers. He left this remark, that he enjoyed a good day.

[9] “New England Records,” A., p. 201.

[10] While the colonists were thus prosecuting the business of settlement in New England, the Right Honorable James, Marquis of Hamilton, obtained a grant from the Council of Plymouth April 20, 1635, of all that tract of country which lies between Connecticut River and Narraganset River and harbor, from the mouth of each of said rivers northward sixty miles into the country.

However, by reason of its interference with the grant to Lords Say and Brook, and others, or for some other reason, the deed was never executed.

The marquis made no settlement on the land, and the claim became obsolete.

[11] Such numbers were constantly emigrating to New England, in consequence of the persecution of the Puritans, that the people of Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown, began to be much straitened by the accession of new planters.

By those who had been in Connecticut they had received intelligence of the excellent meadows on the river; they therefore determined to remove, and once more brave the dangers and hardships of making settlements in a dreary wilderness.

Upon application to the General Court for the enlargement of their boundaries, or for liberty to remove, they at first obtained consent for the latter. However, when it was afterward discovered that their determination was to plant a new colony in Connecticut, there arose a strong opposition; so that, when the Court convened, in September, there was a warm debate on the subject, and a great division between the Houses. Indeed, the whole colony was affected with the dispute.

Mr. Hooker, who was more engaged in the enterprise than the other ministers, took up the affair and pleaded for the people. He urged that they were so straitened for accommodations for their cattle, that they could not support the ministry, neither receive nor assist any more of their friends who might come over to them. He insisted that the planting of towns so near together was a fundamental error in their policy. He pleaded the fertility and happy accommodations of Connecticut; that settlements upon the river were necessary to prevent the Dutch, and others, from possessing themselves of so fruitful and important a part of the country; and that the minds of the people were strongly inclined to plant themselves there, in preference to every other place which had come to their knowledge.

On the other side, it was insisted that, in point of conscience, they ought not to depart, as they were united to Massachusetts as one body, and bound by oath to seek the good of the Commonwealth; and that, on principles of policy, it could not by any means be granted. It was pleaded that the settlement in Massachusetts was new and weak; they were in danger from an assault from their enemies; that the departure of Mr. Hooker, and the people of those towns, would not only draw off many from Massachusetts, but prevent others from settling in the colony. Besides, it was said that the removing of a candlestick was a great judgment; that, by suffering it, they should expose their brethren to great danger, both from the Dutch and the Indians. Indeed, it was affirmed that they might be accommodated by the enlargements offered them by other towns.

After a long and warm debate, the Governor, two assistants, and a majority of the representatives, were for granting liberty for Mr. Hooker and the people to transport themselves to Connecticut. The Deputy-Governor, however, and six of the assistants, were in the negative, and so no vote was obtained.

The next May the Newtown people determined to settle at Connecticut, renewed their application to the General Court, and obtained liberty to remove to any place which they should select, with the proviso that they should continue under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.--ED. NOTE.

[12] Dominion, in New England, signifies a sovereign, independent state, uncontrollable by any other earthly power.

[13] The Indian mode of counting is from one to twenty. Every year they cut a notch in a stick, and when the stick is full, or has twenty notches on it, they lay it up and take another. When they have thus cut twenty sticks, they reckon no more; the number of twenty times twenty with them becomes infinite, or incomprehensible.--ED. NOTE.

[14] It was the opinion of the principal divines who settled in New England and Connecticut that in every church completely organized there was a pastor, teacher, ruling elder, and deacons.