1 "Under God," they said, "we must acknowledge our selves debtors to your Majesty; the greatness of your name and power, with the gracious aspect towards us, being a terror to our heathen adversaries." But the expression of their gratitude to him for the advantage his gracious aspect had afforded them in their hunt of the Indians, did but introduce a more practical topic. They extolled his "great goodness in those charter bounds and privileges which had been no small engagement and encouragement by which to defend and recover the whole, when others that pretended a part deserted the same"; and added an "earnest beseeching the continuance of his princely grace, in the full enjoyment of all the limits mentioned in their said charter, and the privileges thereof." When the regulations of commerce were pressed, "the Governor did, in the pres ence of the Court, take the oath respecting the Act of Navigation and Trade appointed by his Majesty"; and he assured the Commissioners of the Customs that his government had " appointed Customers or Collectors in the several counties to take special care that the Acts of Navigation and Trade were duly observed and kept, and had commissioned them accordingly," and that they would "be ready to grant Mr. Randolph such necessary aid and assistance as should be requisite, if he also should see cause to take any cognizance of these affairs in the Colony."3 Andros wrote to Governor Leete that he was informed of Colonel Goffe's living concealed in Hartford 1 Conn. Rec., III. 260–262. 2 Ibid., 49. 3 Ibid., 307, 308 The Governor, however, forewarned the Lords of the Committee that they must not expect to get much from this collection of duties, inasmuch as the Connecticut people had "only a few small vessels to carry their corn, hogs, and horses 1680. May 14 1681. January 24. 1680. May 18, unto their neighbors of York and Boston; . . . . . likewise some of those commodities were carried to Barbadoes and those islands, to bring in some sugar and rum to refresh the spirits of such as labored in the extreme heat and cold, so to serve his Majesty's enlargement of dominions." June 10. under the name of Cooke; a warrant was forthwith issued to the constables "to make diligent search" for the culprit "in the houses, barns, out-houses, and all places" of that town; and Andros was apprised that the search had proved fruitless, as well as that "our people were amazed that any such thing could be suspected at Hartford."1 At the session at which the eastern boundary line, and Randolph's claim for the Duchess of Hamilton, were under consideration, the Col ony sent an "humble petition" to the King, November 14. expressing at once their abhorrence of the RyeHouse Plot and their sense of the convenience of having their charter respected. The King required them to prevent the enlistment of his subjects within March 8. their jurisdiction in the military service of foreign states; and accordingly Connecticut, like Plymouth and Massachusetts, passed a law making it felony to engage in such service.* 1683. 1684. Death of Governor Leete. 1683. April 16. Governor Leete was at the head of the administration in Connecticut during nearly all the period treated in this chapter. He died when he had been Governor nearly seven successive years, and was succeeded by Robert Treat (the General for his Colony in Philip's war), with whom James Bishop, of New Haven, was associated as Deputy-Governor. The political refractoriness which Leete brought to America seems never to have wholly recovered from the shock it 1 Conn. Rec., III. 283 285; see above, Vol. II. p. 507, note 5. The Connecticut Magistrates had the trouble of a fruitless search after another rebel. Sir Lionel Jenkins wrote to them (September 30, 1682) that one William Kelso, on a passage to New England, had "confessed that he had been Chirurgeon-General to the forces engaged in the late rebellion in Scotland, having also given out suspicious words as if he had been concerned in 2 Conn. Rec., III. 138. 4 Ibid., 150; see above, pp. 388, 425 received before the surrender of New Haven,1 and he never gave Randolph occasion to make a quarrel with the consolidated Colony of which he became Chief MagisAnother character of his administration should not be overlooked. He imported into the legislation of Connecticut something of the New-Haven element of extreme Puritan rigor, an innovation to which his chief associate in the Magistracy was also by no means adverse. From the beginning of Leete's administration "the great unreformedness" of the people excited more anxiety; "provoking evils" and "crying sins" seemed to multiply; "rebukes and threatenings" were more remarked; and Divine judgments appeared to be more deserved and more certainly impending. But Leete was an intelligent and a virtuous ruler, and Connecticut prospered under his care. The disappearance of another name, in perhaps the same month, from the roll of the living, was less observed at the time, though the name fills a larger place in history. Busy and conspicuous as has seemed the part that for a time he acted, the precise date of the death of Roger Williams is not recorded. For many years before it took place, he can scarcely be said to have been prominent in the view even of his own little public. In whatsoever proportions the failure may have been owing to his own eccentricities on the one hand, and to the obtuseness and waywardness of those whose conceits he had stimulated on the other, it is certain that he failed to command the controlling consideration which might have been expected to follow his possession of some uncommon abili ties, and his repeated manifestations of a public spirit singularly disinterested and earnest. Free as he was from selfish ambition, it is not to be doubted that his life was a happy, though it cannot be called, in any common 1 See above, Vol. II. p. 547. 2 Conn. Rec., II. 280 283, 296, 297, 317; III. 46, 65, 105, 146. use of the terms, a successful one. A Magistrate, at two or three distant intervals, of the Colony which he had founded, his official life was mostly passed in a furious turmoil, such as would have made wretched any man of less cheerful temper. Leaving the public scene, not be cause his associates there were ungrateful, but because they were intractable, and betaking himself to the woods. to turn Indian trader,2 no constant good fortune appears to have attended him even in that sphere. It seems that his expectations from his new employment were disappointed, and that in his old age he was maintained by his son.3 William Coddington had ended his course a few years earlier. The principal founder of one of the 1678. two communities which were united in the Colony of Rhode Island - the sovereign of it, as at one time he had been by royal grant-survived, by many years, not only his official and his personal importance, but probably his intellectual faculties, which were never of the highest order. Whether it was owing most to want of balance and want of force in his occupied it were found. But the roots of an apple-tree, planted above, had embraced the skull, trunk, and limbs, and preserved their shape. (Allen, Memorial of Roger Williams, 7.) From a person who had been acquainted with Roger Williams's sons, Dr. Stiles (MS. "Itinerary" in the Library of Yale College, II. 63) learned that "all of them had oddities, but were men of estate; and so his grandsons.” Dr. Stiles himself, in 1763, saw a grandson of Williams, named Providence, then seventy-three years old, not of sane mind, and "subsisted by the town." He appears to me constitutionally mixed up of distraction and reason." (Ibid.) 66 mind and character, or to the perversity of those whom he had undertaken to improve, profit, and govern, his hold on their confidence had not proved lasting. Happily for his peace of mind, from Antinomian he had turned Quaker; and the visions and the controversies of his sect provided him with resources for enjoyment in his declining years.1 Commissioners 1681. September 26 1684. What remained of the Confederacy of the New-England Colonies was now about to expire. After that meeting of the Commissioners at which were considered the conflicting claims to the Narragansett country, only two more meetings were held. At the former of Last meetings these, which took place in Boston, no business of the Federal was transacted, except the settlement of two or three small claims made by private parties on account of the late war.3 The last meeting was at Hartford. Arrangements having been made to pay another little war-debt to Richard Smith, the September 5. final act of the Board of Commissioners of the Confederate Colonies was to proclaim a day of fasting and humiliation, that the people might bewail "those rebukes and threatenings from Heaven which they were at present under, His hand being stretched out still," and might pray for a further lengthening out of their tranquillity under the shadow of their sovereign lord the King, and that God would preserve his life, and establish his crown in righteousness, for the defence of the Protestant religion in all his dominions." But the life that was desired for protection against a Popish reign was to be prolonged, in such righteousness as ap pertained to it, but a very little further. 1 See above, pp. 105, 107.-The Quaker controversy was sharply revived just before Coddington's death. Groom's "Glass for the People of New England," &c. was published in 1676; and Fox's " Answer to Several New VOL. III. 38 4 Laws and Orders made by the Rulers |