to them a tract in the town of Lyme, two miles in breadth, and nine miles in length, with the whole tract contained in the town of Colchester. The court ordered Connecticut immediately to restore all those lands to Owaneco, and filed a bill of cost against the colony of 5731. 12s. 8d.1 Thus a cause of such magnitude, in which the essential interests of a whole colony, and the fortunes of hundreds of individuals, were concerned, was carried wholly by intrigue and the grossest misrepresentations. The commission was granted by her majesty, wholly upon an ex parte hearing, upon the representation of the enemies of the colony; and the men who carried on the intrigue, were appointed judges in their own case. Without hearing the case, contrary to all reason and justice, they gave judgment against the colony, and hundreds of individuals. They gave away lands holden by conquest, purchase, ancient deeds from the original proprietors, well executed and recorded, by charter, acts, and patents from the assembly, and by long possession. The chief judge had been using all his art and influence to ruin the colony, and was now supposed to be scheming for a portion of its lands, as well as for the government. Major Palms had been a long time in controversy with the colony, was exceedingly embittered against it, and against the governor, his brother in law. Others of the commissioners were supposed to be confederate with Mason and Clarke, and interested in the lands in controversy. Hallam, Clarke, and several of the commissioners were witnesses in the case. They were witnesses and judges in their own cause, heard themselves, and no others. Owaneco was placed, in state, on the right hand of the president, and the colony were treated worse than criminals, with dishonour and contempt.2

After the court had given judgment against the colony, on the 24th of August, they spent three days in hearing such complaints as Owaneco, Mason, and other persons interested in the lands, or inimical to the colony, were pleased to make. When they had heard all the complaints and misrepresentations which they had to make, they represented to her majesty, that Owaneco complained he was disseised of a tract of land, containing about seven thousand acres, called Mamaquaog, lying northward of Windham; of another tract called Plainfield, and considerable skirts and parcels of land, encroached upon and taken in, by the towns of Lebanon, Windham, and Canterbury. The court prohibited all her majesty's subjects from entering upon, or improving any of those lands, until a further hearing and determination of the case. Further, in the plenitude of their power, they appointed captain John Mason to be trustee, or guardian, to Owaneco and his people, and to manage all their affairs. They represented, 1 Moheagan case, in print.

2 Petition to her majesty, printed in Moheagan trial.

from the evidence of major James Fitch and captain John Mason, that the colony had left the Indians no land to plant on, and that they consisted of a hundred and fifty warriors, one hundred of whom had been in the actual service of the country that very year.1

These Indians were enlisted and sent out by the colony of Connecticut, and went as cheerfully into service this year, as they had done at any time before. This gave demonstrative evidence, that there was no general uneasiness among the Moheagans. Had there been, two thirds of their warriors would not have enlisted into the service of the government. Indeed, Owaneco himself was not uneasy only at turns, when the Masons, Clarke, Fitch, Hallam, and others, made him so; who were scheming to deprive him and the Moheagans of their lands.

So far was it from being true, that Connecticut had injured them, or taken their lands from them, they had treated them with great kindness, defended them by their arms, and at their own expense, and prevented their being swallowed up by their enemies. They had left them a fine tract of land, of between four and five thousand acres, between New-London and Norwich; and both in the grant and patent to New-London, there was an express reservation of all the rights and property of the Indians. The colony had not only reserved lands for the Moheagans, but for all other Indians in it, to plant upon. They suffered them to hunt, fish, and fowl, in all parts of it, and even to build their wigwams, and cut such wood and timber as they needed, in any of their uninclosed lands.

Dudley's court, having finished such business as was agreeable to its wishes, adjourned until the next May; but it never met again. Before that time, the intrigue and duplicity of governor Dudley and the malcontents, became so evident, that all their designs were frustrated.

The assembly, at their session in October, appointed a committee to examine into all matters respecting the Indians, and the complaints which had been made against the colony, and, as soon as possible, to transmit a particular and full answer to their agent. They were instructed fully to acquaint him with a true statement of the Moheagan case, and of the whole management of Dudley and his court. They were to represent, that Dudley, Palms, and others of the commissioners, were interested, and parties in the cause, and to insist, that the manner in which the commission was procured, to governor Dudley, major Palms, and others, was matter of intrigue, and the whole process arbitrary and illegal.

Sir Henry Ashurst, on receiving the papers relative to the case, 1 Proceedings and judgment of the court in print, Moheagan case, p. 26 to 67. ? Records of the colony, and Moheagan case, in print.

presented a petition to her majesty, representing the title of the colony to all the lands in controversy, by conquest, purchase, royal charter, long possession and improvement: That Uncas, when the English became first acquainted with him, was a revolted Pequot, expelled his country, and had not a sufficient number of men to make a hunt; and that the lands reserved to him, were not reserved to him in consequence of any right of his, but was a matter of mere permission: That Joseph Dudley, Esq. Hallam, Palms, the Averys, Morgan, and Leffingwell, had grants of several parts of the controverted lands, and, in their own names, or in the name of John Mason, were attempting to set up their titles to them: That Dudley and Hallam, by misrepresentation, had obtained a commission from her majesty, by surprise, under the great seal of England, directed to the said Dudley, Palms, the two Averys, Morgan, Leffingwell, and others, most of whom were of Dudley's and Hallam's denomination, and under his influence; and that in the court, thus instituted, they were the accusers, parties, and judges: That they had assumed to themselves jurisdiction, in a summary way, to try her majesty's petitioners' titles to their lands, and to evict and disseise them of their freeholds, properties, and ancient possessions, without any legal process, or so much as the form of a trial. This, it was represented, tended to the destruction of all the rights of the colony, and was directly contrary to divers acts of parliament, made and provided in such cases. The agent, therefore, in behalf of the colony, appealed from the judgment of said court to her majesty, in council, and prayed that the case might be heard before her.1

In consequence of this petition, her majesty, some time after, appointed a commission of review. The affair was kept in agitation nearly seventy years. It was always, upon a legal hearing, determined in favour of the colony. The final decision was by king George the third, in council.

The commissioners of review, in 1743, not only determined the title of the lands to be in the colony of Connecticut, but "That the governor and company had treated the said Indians with much humanity, at all times; and had, at all times, provided them with a sufficiency, at least, of lands to plant on; and that no act, or thing, appeared, either before the judgment of Joseph Dudley, Esq. or since, by which they, the said governor and company, had taken from the Indians, or from their sachem, any tracts of land, to which the Indians or their sachem had any right, by reservation, or otherwise, either in law or equity.” The proceedings of the several courts of review, and the pleadings before them and his majesty, in council, will most properly

1 Petition in print, Moheagan case, p. 153-157.

2

Judgment, in print, Moheagan case, p. 140.

"2

be noticed in the time of them, and will not be anticipated in this volume.

The agent of the colony petitioned her majesty, in its behalf, to hear the complaints exhibited by governor Dudley and his accomplices, that it might have an opportunity of demonstrating how false and groundless they were. He also prayed, that as Dudley had surprised her, to grant a commission of high powers to the subversion of the rights of her loyal subjects, and contrary to her gracious intentions towards them, and had abused her name and authority to serve his own dark designs, that her majesty would, in some exemplary manner, discountenance the said Dudley and his abettors.

However, it does not appear, that Dudley, or lord Cornbury, were ever obliged to bring forward any evidence in support of the charges which they had exhibited, or that her majesty, by any public act, discountenanced their intrigue and falsehood. They had such powerful friends at court, that they seem to have palliated, and kept the affair, as far as possible, out of public view; and it seems to have been passed by without any further examination.

There was no alteration made in the legislature, at the election in May, 1706.

The assembly adopted the same measures, for the defence of Connecticut and the neighbouring colonies, which they had done the year preceding. The same officers were appointed, and the same number of men sent into the field.

The colony had assurances from their agent, Sir Henry Ashurst, that they had a clear right to command their own militia; that the governors of the neighbouring colonies had no right to command their men, or money; and that this was the opinion of the best counsel in the nation. He assured them, that they were under no obligations to them, to do any thing more, than to furnish such quotas as her majesty should require.

Connecticut had done much more than this, both in the reign of king William and queen Anne. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the abusive treatment of governor Dudley, lord Cornbury, and their associates in mischief, and the great expense which had been brought upon them, not only by the war, but in consequence of the defence which their agent had been obliged to make for them, in England, such was their zeal for her majesty's service, and their concern and good will for their sister colonies, that they exerted themselves no less for their defence, than if they had been under the command of their respective governors. It was declared to her majesty, that had this been the case they could have done no more.

At the session in October, the assembly passed the following act in favor of the clergy, "That all the ministers of the gospel

that now are, or hereafter shall be settled in this colony, during the continuance of their public service in the gospel ministry, shall have their estates, lying in the same town where they dwell, and all the polls belonging to their several families exempted, and they are hereby exempted and freed from being entered in the public lists and payment of rates." By virtue of this act, for the encouragement of the clergy of this colony, they have always, from that to the present time, been exempted from taxation.1

The colony, at this period, was in very low circumstances. Its whole circulating cash amounted only to about two thousand pounds. Such had been its expense in the war, and in defending itself against the attempts of its enemies, in England and America, that the legislature had been obliged to levy a tax, in about three years, of more than two shillings on the pound, on the whole list of the colony. The taxes were laid and collected in grain, pork, beef, and other articles of country produce. These commodities were transported to Boston and the West-Indies, and by this means money and bills of exchange were obtained, to pay the bills drawn upon the colony, in England, and to discharge its debts at home. These low circumstances, these misrepresentations, abuse, and dangers, from their enemies, our venerable ancestors endured with an exemplary patience and magnanimity. Under the pressure of all this expense and danger, they cheerfully supported the gospel ministry and ordinances, in their respective towns and parishes. They contemplated their dangers and deliverances with wonder and thanksgiving, rejoiced in the enjoyment of their privileges, and in the divine care and benefi

cence.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SUCH reports of the preparations of the French and Indians, to make a descent upon some part of New-England, were spread abroad, about the beginning of the year 1707, as gave a general alarm to the country. On the 6th of February, 1707, a council of war, consisting of the governor, most of the council, and a considerable number of the chief military officers in the colony, convened at Hartford. A letter was received from deputy governor Treat, and another from major Schuyler at Albany, giving intelligence, that the French, and Indians in their interest, were about to make a descent upon New-England. Information was also communicated, that suspicions were entertained, that the Pohtatuck

1 The legislature had before released their persons from taxation, but not their families and estates.