Part 5

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

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

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

But Connecticut hath not been the only sufferer from the restless ambition of New-York. Twenty miles depth of land belonging to the Massachusets and Newhampshire provinces, which formerly claimed to Hudson’s river, were cut off by the line that deprived Connecticut of the same proportion of its western territory. With this acquisition, surely, the New-Yorkers might have been content; but very lately their _wisdom_, if not their “fraud,” has prevailed over the “ignorance” of Newhampshire; which has sustained another amputation of its territory, eighty miles in width and two hundred miles in length; viz. all the land between the above-mentioned twenty-mile line and Connecticut river. The particulars of this transaction are interesting. Benning Wentworth, Esq. Governor of Newhampshire, by order of his present Majesty, divided, in 1762, the vast tract of land just mentioned into about 360 townships, six miles square each. These townships he granted to proprietors belonging to the four provinces of New-England, one township to sixty proprietors; and took his fees for the same, according to royal appointment. Every township was, in twelve years time, to have sixty families residing in it. In 1769 there were settled on this piece of land 30,000 souls, at a very great expence; and many townships contained 100 families. The New-Yorkers found means to deceive the King, and obtained a decree that the East boundary of New-York, after passing Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, should be Connecticut river.[30] This decree annexed to the jurisdiction of New-York the said 360 townships; but was quietly submitted to by the proprietors, since it was his Majesty’s will to put them under the jurisdiction of New-York, tho’ they found themselves 150 miles farther from their new capital New-York, than they were from Portsmouth, their old one. Had the New-Yorkers rested satisfied with the jurisdiction, which alone the King had given them, they might have enjoyed their acquisition in peace; and New-England would have thought they had possessed some justice, though destitute of religious zeal. But the Governor and General Assembly of New-York, finding their interest in Old-England stronger than the interest of the New-Englanders, determined at once, that, as the King had given them jurisdiction over those 360 townships, he had also given them the lands in fee simple. Sir Henry More, the Governor, therefore, in 1767, began the laudable work of regranting those townships to such people as lived in New-York, and were willing to pay him 600_l._ York currency for his valuable name to each patent. It is remarkable that Sir Harry made every _lawyer_ in the whole province a patentee; but totally _forgot_ the four public lots, viz. that for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, those for the church, the first clergyman, and school in each township, which had been reserved in Governor Wentworth’s grants. Death stopped his career; but Colden, the Lieutenant-Governor, filled up the measure of his iniquity, by granting all the rest on the same conditions. Sir Henry More had taken care to grant to his dear self one township, settled with above 80 families, before he died. Colden did the same for himself. The virtuous William Smith, Esq. of New York, had a township also; and Sir Henry More left him his executor to drive off the New-England settlers. This, however, he attempted in vain. The polite New-Yorkers, having the jurisdiction, betook themselves to law, to get possession of the lands in question, which they called their own; and sent the posse of Albany to eject the possessors; but this mighty power was answered by Ethan Allen, and the old proprietors under Governor Wentworth, who was a King’s Governor as well as Sir Henry More:--the Mynheers of Albany were glad to have liberty to return home alive.--See here the origin of Ethan Allen!--of the Verdmonts, and the Robbers of the Green Mountains; a compliment paid by the New-Yorkers to the settlers under Governor Wentworth;--who, on that amiable gentleman’s death, had no friend of note left in England, and were therefore under the necessity of defending themselves, or becoming tenants to a set of people who neither _feared God_ nor _honoured the King_, but when they got something by it.--The New-Yorkers had the grace, after this, to outlaw Ethan Allen, which rendered him of consequence in New-England; and it would not surprise me to hear that New-York, Albany, and all that the Dutchmen possess in houses east of Hudson’s River, were consumed by fire, and the inhabitants sent to Heaven, in the style of Dr. Mather, by the way of Amsterdam. I must do the New-Englanders the justice to say, that, though they esteem not highly Kings or Lords, yet they never complained against his Majesty for what was done respecting Verdmont; on the contrary, they ever said the King would reverse the obnoxious decree, whenever he should be acquainted with the truth of the case, which the New-Yorkers artfully concealed from his knowledge.

There are in the four New-England provinces near 800,000 souls, and very few unconnected with the settlements on Verdmont; the property of which was duly vested in them by Wentworth, the King’s Governor, whose predecessors and himself had jurisdiction over it also for 106 years. They say, what is very legal and just, that his Majesty had a right to annex Verdmont to the government of New-York, but could not give the fee of the land, because he had before given it to the New-Englanders. It appears very unlikely that those hardy sons of Oliver will ever give up Verdmont to the New-Yorkers by the order of Sir Henry More, or any other Governor, till compelled by the point of the sword. The Mynheers have more to fear than the New-Englanders, who will never yield to Dutch virtue. Van Tromp was brave; Oliver was brave and successful too.

Mather, Neal, and Hutchinson, represent religion to have been the cause of the first settlement of New-England; and the love of gold as the stimulus of the Spaniards in settling their colonies in the southern parts of America; but, if we should credit the Spanish historians, we must believe that their countrymen were as much influenced by religion in their colonial pursuits as were our own. However, in general, it may be said, that the conduct of both parties towards the aborigines discovered no principles but what were disgraceful to human nature. Murder, plunder, and outrage, were the means made use of to convert the benighted savages of the wilderness to the system of Him “who went about doing good.” If we may depend on Abbé Nicolle, the Spaniards killed of the Aytis, or the savage nations, in the Island of Hispaniola, 3,000,000 in seventeen years; 600,000 in Porto Rico, and twenty times these numbers on the continent of South-America, in order to propagate the Gospel in a savage and howling wilderness! The English colonists have been as industrious in spreading the Gospel in the howling wilderness of North-America. Upwards of 180,000 Indians, at least, have been slaughtered in Massachusets-Bay and Connecticut,[31] to make way for the protestant religion; and, upon a moderate computation for the rest of the colonies, on the continent and West-India Islands, I think one may venture to assert, that nearly 2,000,000 savages have been dismissed from an unpleasant world to the world of spirits, for the honour of the protestant religion and English liberty. Nevertheless, having travelled over most parts of British America, I am able to declare, with great sincerity, that this mode of converting the native Indians is godlike in comparison with that adopted by the Africans.

These miserable people are first kidnapped, and then put under saws, harrows, and axes of iron, and forced through the brick-kiln to Molock.

Nearly half a million of them are doomed to hug their misery in ignorance, nakedness, and hunger, among their master’s upper servants in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland. The number of these wretches upon the Continent and Islands is scarce credible; about 100,000 in Jamaica alone; all toiling for the tyrant’s pleasure; none seeking other happiness, than to be screened from the torture rendered necessary by that curious American maxim, that men must be willing to die before they are fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. However, what Mussleman, African, or American, would not prefer the state of a christian master, who dreads death above all things, to the state of those christian converts? Christianity has been cursed, through the insincerity of its professors; even savages despise its precepts, because they have no influence on christians themselves. Whatever religious pretensions the Spanish, French, or English may plead for depopulating and repeopling America, it is pretty clear that the desire of gold and dominion was no impotent instigation with them to seek the western continent. The British leaders in the scheme of emigration had felt the humiliating effects of the feudal system; particularly the partial distributions of fortunes and honour among children of the same venter in the Mother Country. They had seen that this inequality produced insolence and oppression, which awakened the sentiments of independence and liberty, the instinct of every man. Nature then kindled war against the oppressors, and the oppressors appealed to prescription. The event was, infelicity began her reign. Both parties invoked religion, but prostrated themselves before the insidious shrine of Superstition, the life of civil government, and the sinews of war; that expiates crimes by prayers, uses ceremonies for good works, esteems devotion more than virtue, supports religion without probity, values honesty less than honour, generates happiness without morality, and is a glorious helmet to the ambitious.

They enlisted vassals with her bounty to fight, burn, and destroy one another, for the sake of religion. Behold the sequel! The vassals seemed more to themselves than the Egyptian masters and laws, both in the elder and younger brothers; yet, after all, Superstition told them they enjoyed liberty and the rights of human nature. Happy deception! The Spartan Magnates, tributary to the Turks, are jealous of their liberties; while the American Cansey, near Lake Superior, enjoy liberty complete without jealousy. Among the latter, the conscious independence of each individual warms his thoughts and guides his actions. He enters the sachemic dome with the same simple freedom as he enters the wigwam of his brother: neither dazzled at the splendour nor awed by the power of the possessor. Here is liberty in perfection! What christian would wish to travel 4000 miles to rob an unoffending savage of what he holds by the law of Nature? That is not the God or Dominion that any christian ever sought for. The first settlers of America had views very different from those of making it a christian country; their grand aim was to get free from the insolence of their elder brethren, and to aggrandise themselves in a new world at the expense of the life, liberty, and property of the savages. Had the invaders of New-England sown the seeds of christian benevolence, even after they had eradicated the savages and savage virtues, the world would not have reproached them for cherishing that all-grasping spirit to themselves, which in others had driven them from their parent country. But the feudal system, which they considered an abominable vice in England, became a shining virtue on the other side of the Atlantic, and would have prevailed there, had the people been as blind and tame in worldly as they were in spiritual concerns. But they had too long heard their leaders declaim against the monopoly of lands and titles, not to discover that they themselves were men, and entitled to the rights of that race of beings; and they proceeded upon the same maxims which they found also among the Indians, viz. that mankind are by nature upon an equality in point of rank and possession; that it is incompatible with freedom for any particular descriptions of men systematically to monopolise honours and property, to the exclusion of the rest; that it was a part despicable and unworthy of one freeman to stoop to the will and caprice of another on account of his wealth and titles, accruing not from his own, but from the heroism and virtue of his ancestors, &c., &c.

The _vox populi_ established these maxims in New-England; and whoever did not, at least outwardly, conform to them, were not chosen into office. Nay, though not objectionable on that score, men very seldom met with reappointments, lest they should claim them by hereditary right. Thus, the levelling principle prevailing, equals were respected and superiors derided. Europeans, whose manners were haughty to inferiors and fawning to superiors, were neither loved nor esteemed. Hence an English traveller through Connecticut meets with supercilious treatment at taverns, as being too much addicted to the use of the imperative mood when speaking to the landlord. The answer is, “Command your own servants, and not me.” The traveller is not obeyed, which provokes him to some expressions, that are not legal in the Colony, about the impertinence of the landlord, who being commonly a Justice of the Peace, the delinquent is immediately ordered into custody, fined, and put in the stocks. However, after paying costs, and promising to behave well in future, he passes on with more attention to his “unruly member” than to his pleasures. Nevertheless, if a traveller softens his tone, and avoids the imperative mood, he will find every civility from those very people, whose natural temper are full of antipathy against all who affect superiority over them. This principle is, by long custom, blended with the religious doctrines of the province; and the people believe those to be heretics and Americans who assent not to their supremacy. Hence they consider the kingly Governors as the short-horns of Antichrist, and every Colony in a state of persecution which cannot choose its own Governor and magistrates.

Their aversion to New-York is inconceiveably great upon this account, as well as others I have mentioned. Their jealousies and fears of coming under its jurisdiction make them heroes in the cause of liberty, and great inquisitors into the characters and conduct of kingly Governors. They have selected Mr. Tryon as the only English Governor who has acted with justice and generosity in respect to the rights, liberties, and feelings of mankind, while, they say, avarice, plunder, and oppression have marked the footsteps of all the rest. This character Mr. Tryon possessed, even after he had subdued the regulators in North-Carolina, and was appointed Governor of New-York. Some persons assert, indeed, that he secured the good will of Connecticut by recommending, in England, the Livingstons, Schuylers, and Smiths, as the best subjects in New-York. However, Mr. Tryon was undoubtedly entitled to good report; he was humane and polite; to him the injured had access without a fee; he would hear the poor man’s complaint, though it wanted the aid of a polished lawyer. Besides, Mr. Tryon did not think it beneath him to speak to a peasant in the street, or to stop his coach to give the people an opportunity to let him pass. His object was not to make his fortune, nor did he neglect the interests of the people. He embellished not his language with oaths and curses, nor spent the Sabbath at taverns. ’Tis true, Mr. Tryon went not to meeting; but he was forgiven this offence because he went to church, the people of New-England having so much candour as to believe a man may be a good sort of man if he goes to church, and is exemplary in his words and deeds. I have not the honour of being known to Mr. Tryon, but from what I know of him, I must say, without meaning to offend any other, that he was the best Governor, and the most pleasing gentleman, that I ever saw in a civil capacity in America; and that I cannot name any Briton so well calculated to govern in Connecticut, with ease and safety to himself, as he is. One reason for this assertion is, that Mr. Tryon has a punctilious regard for his word: a quality which, though treachery is the staple commodity of the four New-England provinces, the people greatly admire in a Governor, and which, they say, they have seldom found in royal Governors in America.

Of the share Connecticut has taken, in common with her sister colonies, in co-operating with the Mother Country against her natural enemies, it is superfluous to say anything here, that being already sufficiently known.

I shall therefore proceed to a description of the country, its towns, productions, &c. together with the manners, customs, commerce, &c. of the inhabitants, interspersing such historical and biographical anecdotes as may occur to me in the relation, and having a tendency to elucidate matter of fact or characterize the people.

The dimensions of Connecticut, according to the present allowed extent, are from the Sound on the south to the Massachusets line on the north, about sixty miles; and from Biram River and New-York line, on the west, to Narraganset-Bay, Rhode-Island, and Massachusets-Bay on the east, upon an average about one hundred miles. It is computed to contain 5,000,000 acres.

Many creeks and inlets, bays and rivers, intersect the coast. Three of the last, dividing the colony into as many parts, I shall particularly notice. They all run from north to south.

The eastern river is called the Thames, as far as it is navigable, which is only to Norwich, fourteen miles from its mouth. Then dividing, the greatest branch, called Quinnibaug, rolls rapidly from its source 100 miles distant through many towns and villages, to their great pleasantness and profit. On it are many mills and iron-works, and in it various kinds of fish, but no salmon, for want of proper places to nourish their spawn.