In legal contemplation, each becomes an original, possessing the same signatures and seals, and the terms “original” and “duplicate" in fact having no other significance than one of identification.

As a matter of fact, a comparison of the charter which we have been accustomed to call the duplicate charter and which is in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society, with the original, the one in the office of Secretary of State, as shown by several copies of the duplicate, for unfortunately it is largely illegible and has been mutiliated, discloses that the only difference that any one has ever been able to discover, lies in the insertion before the signature of "Howard" of what seems to be a memorandum that a certain sum of money was to be paid for the duplicate, whereas, no such memorandum appears upon that which is ordinarily denominated the original. The precise entry on the document is, "By writ of Privy Seal. Howard. Per fine five pounds." Then follows the great seal of Great Britain. This sum may have been a fee for copying, or a stamp duty on the paper used for the copy. Indeed there is in the archives of the Connecticut Historical Society a copy of the charter certified to be a correct copy by George Wyllys, Secretary, on October 30th,

1782

1782, in which the "per fine five pounds" appears; conclusively proving one of two things: either there was such an entry on the so-called original, or that the duplicate was so fully regarded as an original, as to be used by the Secretary, even when certifying officially, as an original. That this duplicate itself has played an important part in the history of our State will appear by examining the instruction given by the Colony to Mr. William Whiting, its agent in England, "For his better direction in the management of our affairs in the quo warranto proceedings" in which he is instructed "to have ye duplicate of our charter ready to be exhibited in Court, if need be (which by Governor Winthrop was left with Mr. James Porter of London, and since by us he was ordered to deliver it to you)."

Whether the General Assembly intended to perpetrate a trick upon Governor Andros, and purposely brought in the duplicate, instead of the original charter, if any such distinction existed, it is impossible at this late day to state, but we submit that had Governor Andros gotten possession of it and taken it away with him, such a trick, though successfully carried out, would not have benefited the Colony. Whether it was the "original" or the "duplicate" that was hidden on

that

that 31st day of October, 1687, or both, practically made no difference, since whichever it was, its successful hiding saved to the Colony its charter.

These are briefly the facts as tradition has handed them down to us since the earliest days of the Colony, and the fact that tradition so narrates them is of itself no small proof of their existence. If they rested upon tradition alone, that fact ought not to militate against their acceptance especially in a Christian community like ours, when we remember that some of the dearest and most cherished beliefs connected with the religious life of each and all of us rest solely upon tradition. Not a word of the Gospels or Epistles of the New Testament was reduced to writing, so far as we have any evidence, until many years in some instances after the death of our Saviour, and it is by tradition alone that His blessed deeds and words are preserved to us.

It is to be noted next that all the historians of our State agree substantially in the fact that the charter was hidden by some one.

Peters writing in 1775 gives the history of these events substantially as set forth, except he says that the charter was hidden in an ancient elm.

Mr. Trumbull, who began the preparation of his History of Connecticut before the Revolutionary

War,

War, in his preface, acknowledges the assistance rendered him by Mr. George Wyllys, the then Secretary of State, who had given him access to the official records and assisted him in their examination, gives the account which has always been accepted as the true version of the affair.

Subsequent historians, Barbour, Goodrich, Hollister, Johnson and Sanford, in their histories repeat the same story, as do Holmes and all others, who have incidentally narrated the event. Is it not too much to assume that all these authors have simply copied from each other without making any independent examination of the facts?

There is an entry in President Stiles' Intinerary, a manuscript in possession of Yale College, as follows: "Nathan Stanley, father of the late Colonel Stanley, took one of the Connecticut charters, and Mr. Talcott, late Governor Talcott's father, took the other from Sir Edmund Andros in the Hartford meeting house, the lights blown out. This from Governor Wolcott." On July 12, 1759, Roger Wolcott wrote, at the request of President Clapp of Yale College, his memoirs, relating to affairs in the Colony, in which he had taken part, and in that "Memoir" he says as follows: "In October, 1687, Sir Edmund Andros came to Hartford; the Assembly met and sat late at night;

they

they ordered the charters to be set on the table, and, unhappily or happily, all the candles were snuffed out at once, and when they were lit the charters were gone; and now Sir Edmund Andros being in town and the charters gone, the Secretary closed the Colonial Record with the word 'Finis,' and all departed."

Of this statement, it is to be especially noted that Mr. Wolcott speaks of the charters, using the plural, and saying that both disappeared.

The Rev. Thomas Ruggles, minister in Guilford from 1729 to 1770, and who succeeded his father, who was ordained as minister in that town in 1695, in his History of Guilford, written in 1769, says of Andrew Leete: "That is said and believed that he was the principal hand in securing and preserving the charter when it was just upon the point of being taken," and again, "That it was in his (Leete's) house that it found a safe retreat until better times." A statement that might in every respect be true without robbing Captain Wadsworth any just credit.

of

It is hardly conceivable that the charter was allowed to remain any great length of time in the oak, a place where it would be exceedingly liable to injury and decay, and when removed, what so likely as that it would be removed as far

from