66 ran through the Pequot country, which had been conquered by Connecticut more than forty years before, and had recently been appropriated as the residence of "Indians who were helpful" to the Colonies in the late war, "when the Narragansetts were their enemies and the Rhode-Islanders no good friends"; 4. That, "after the charter was procured and sent over, the honored John Winthrop's agency was expired, and therefore any agreement Rhode Island might pretend they made with Governor Winthrop did not bind the Colony"; 5. That they had antiquity of their side," having been in possession of the Narragansett country, not only before the charter of Rhode Island, but before the pretended cession by the Narragansetts to the King; 6. That the King's letter of the preceding year ought to restrain the intrusions of Rhode Island, at least until such time as an authoritative decision should be made in England; 7. That not only "in the late Indian war Rhode Island government neglected to grant assistance defend the people planted in the Narragansett country," but that, when the Colonial forces, after the fight at the Narragansett fort "in the sharpest of the winte.,. .. retreated to Rhode Island for recruit with their wounded men, they were forced to pay dearly for what relief they had there; and the soldiers, when they were so well that they could be removed for cure, they having not money there to pay, the late Governor Cranston took indemnity of the soldiers to serve him for years for what they had, before he let them pass." "1 1 Conn. Rec., III. 302, 303. — It was, I presume, on account of its connection with the claim here mentioned of Connecticut to the Pequot country, as territory conquered by her, that Major Mason's "Brief History of the Pequot War" was first given to the press. That war took place in 1637. Mason died January 30, 1672. In 1677, when the boundary dispute between Connecticut and Rhode Island was revived after Philip's war, Mason's narrative was published by Increase Mather, who had received it from Secretary John Allyn, and who supposed Allyn to be its author. Dr. Prince, in 1736, prø cured a copy from Captain John Mason, grandson of the old soldier, who 1683. April 7. The silence of the records both of Connecticut and of Rhode Island indicates that, probably in consequence of the firm attitude assumed by the former Colony, the boundary dispute was now suspended for somewhat more than two years. It was as long, before the home government found leisure to give serious attention to the business. At the end of that time, the King appointed "Commissioners for examining and inquiring into the respective claims and titles, as well of himself as of all persons and corporations whatsoever, to the immediate jurisdiction, government, or propriety of the soil of or within the Province commonly called the King's Province or Narragansett Country." The Commissioners were Edward Randolph, Edward Cranfield, Governor of New Hampshire, William Stoughton, Joseph Dudley, and five other Massachusetts men, prominent in the prerogative party. They were to make their report to the Privy Council for its final determination.' Agreeably to a printed notice, circulated through the Governors of the several Colonies, the Commissioners held a meeting for a hearing of the parties at Wickford, where Richard Smith had rebuilt his house, burned in the recent war. corrected Mather's error concerning the authorship of the tract. (Prince's Preface to Mason's History, in Mass. Hist. Coll., XVIII. 125.) My learned correspondent, Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, expresses an opinion that the composition was superintended, or at least retouched, by the capable and vigilant Secretary of Connecticut. 1 Journals of the Privy Council. The commission is in Mass. Hist. Coll., V. 232. 2 Smith, who was a partner in the Atherton Company, (see above, Vol. II. p. 561, note 2,) was a friend to the claim of Connecticut. July 3, 1678, a petition from him was presented to August 22. The government of the King in Council (Journals of the Privy Council), praying that the Narragansett country might be settled under that Colony, "according to his Majesty's precedent grant." (Colonial Papers, &c.; comp. Conn. Rec., III. 267-269.) Still Williams and he were always friends, and Williams did his best to protect Smith in his property. Under the date of " Providence, 21st July, 1679, ut vulgo," Williams, "being, by God's mercy, the first beginner of the mother town of Providence, and of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, be ing now near to fourscore years of age, yet, by God's mercy, of sound under August 23. Award of Royal October 20. Rhode Island, on the ground of "not having seen any commission from his Majesty," not only declined to ap pear, but, by solemn proclamation, "did, in his Majesty's name, prohibit the said Edward Cranfield and associates from keeping court in any part of the jurisdiction."1 In behalf of Connecticut, John Allyn and John Wadsworth addressed the Commissioners with the usual argument for a right of jurisdiction belonging to their Colony, at the same time declining to contest the claim of the Atherton Company to "propriety Commissioners. of soil." The decision of the Commissioners, reported to the Privy Council, fully sustained the pretensions of these two parties, and disdainfully set aside those of Rhode Island. They said that the King's charter to Connecticut distinctly gave to that Colony the lands in question; that the subsequent agreement between Winthrop and Clarke had no virtue to invalidate the royal grant; and that they found "no cause to judge that Pawcatuck River anciently was, or ought to be called or accounted, the Narragansett River." And they added: "We hold it our duty humbly to inform your Majesty, that, so long as the pretensions of the RhodeIslanders to the government of said Province continue, it will much discourage the settlement and improve standing and memory, ..... humbly testified, ..... as leaving this country and this world," that Richard Smith ought to be "by his Majesty's authority confirmed and established in a peaceful possession of his father's and his own possessions in this Pagan wilderness and Nahigansic country." (Colonial Papers, &c.; see above, Vol. II p. 218.) In a memorial dated in the same month, Smith the younger, and others, said that, their homes being ravaged during Philip's war, they withdrew to Rhode Island; that, receiving there in hospitable treatment, they returned to ment thereof, it being very improbable that either the afore-mentioned claimants, or others of like reputation and condition, will either remove their families, or expend their estates, under so loose and weak a government." » 1 1635. Randolph was not present at this meeting. During the early progress of his assaults upon Massachusetts, he had cultivated for a while the good-will of Connecticut. But, ready as he was for any job, he now presented himself to her in a hostile attitude, as prosecutor of a claim of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. When, at the time of the dissolution of the Council for New England, the members undertook to divide the corporate property among themselves, a portion of the territory of Connecticut was assigned to the Marquis of Hamilton.' The proceeding was invalid from the beginning; for the Council had long before granted away its property, nor were even the necessary legal formalities observed in the transaction. But when the Marquis, taking the royal side, had lost his life in the civil war, and when the restoration of the monarchy had revived the hopes of royalists, the Marquis's daughter Ann, whose husband, William Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, had been created Duke of Hamilton, sued to the King to be replaced in possession of her father's alleged American estate. Having obtained from the Duke and Duchess a power of attorney to make what he could of this pretension, Randolph prevailed on his colleagues in the Narragansett commission to reopen the question with reference to the rights of this third party, and give him a hearing. The Commissioners accordingly met again Claim of the ilton to lands Duke of Ham of Connecticut. 1683. June 30. Governor Cranfield wrote to England, for the purpose, but could not be prevailed on November 19. to do more than transmit the papers for his Majesty's consideration. The question, having remained in an annoying position for several years, was at length referred by the Privy Council to the law officers of the Crown, and definitively adjudged against the claimants.3 1696. Loyal temper While Connecticut had such great interests dependent on the pleasure of the court, her people were of Connecticut. not backward in manifestations of loyalty. The October 10. authorities sent an Address to the King, to thank him for the happy issue of the late Indian war. 1678. 1 Conn. Rec., III. 335. For pay, Randolph was ready to undertake any business of this sort. Major Savage, in the second year before his death, in 1682, set up, as one of the eighteen first settlers of Rhode Island (see above, Vol. I. p. 512), a claim to one eighteenth part of its soil. (Arnold, History of Rhode Island, 462.) November 17, 1683, his four sons, "all of Boston," joined in a power of attorney to Randolph, to prosecute this claim. (Mass. Arch., II. 58.) 2 Conn. Rec., III. 136, 333-336. 3 The boundary question between Connecticut and New York was settled by agreement, to the mutual satisfaction of the parties. November 28, 1683, Commissioners from the Colony met Colonel Dongan, the Duke's Governor of his Province of New York, and determined upon the line which has ever since divided the two territories. In 1680, Sir Edmund Andros, as Governor of New York for the Duke, laid claim to Fisher's Island, near New London, as belonging to his jurisdiction. (Conn. Rec., III. 283.) Connecticut, which had granted the island to the second John Winthrop (see above, Vol. II. p. 234, note), protested (May 20, 1680) against the pretension of Andros, and forbade all persons except her own Magistrates to exercise jurisdiction in the island. (Conn. Rec., III. 64.) Andros left his government, and went to England, in the following January.—In May, 1682, the government of Connecticut, hearing that some New York people had en croached on her limits by "purchasing large tracts of land on the east side of Hudson's River from the Indians," sent a complaint to the officer provisionally in charge at New York. (Conn. Rec., III. 100, 313.)-Thomas Dongan, successor of Andros as Governor for the Duke, arrived at New York in August, 1683. The Magistrates of Connecticut sent him an address of welcome (October 5), at the same time inviting his attention to some encroachments of his people upon their bounds. He wrote them a very surly answer, to which they replied in excellent temper. Their courtesy sobered him; and his next letter assured them that, "if he must have any contention with them, he wished it might be who should do one another the better offices." After this, everything went smoothly to the conclusion of the treaty. (Conn. Rec., III. 131, 133-136, 141, 326-332, 337-339.) |