were brought to the English on Connecticut river. Most of the warriors whose lives were spared, were given to the auxiliary Indians, who treated them as their own people. Some of the males were sent to the West Indies, and their country became the property of the English. In the course of this bloody war, at least seven hundred Pequots are supposed to have been destroyed, thirteen of whom were sachems. The English loss of men was small: in all their battles with their enemy, even with inferior numerical forces, their fire arms gave them a vast superiority, and when the enemy approached sufficiently near to do execution with their bows and arrows, they were certain to loose great numbers, and it was impossible to break in or repulse the English, so long as they remained in a body, and managed their fire with dexterity.

CHAPTER IV.

The succesful termination of the Pequot war, though it relieved the settlers on the Connecticut from the depredations of the Indians, yet it left them to contend with many serious difficulties. A considerable public debt had been incurred; the population was reduced, and considerable property had been destroyed. Interrupted in their agricultural pursuits, the necessary provisions had not been raised, and the following winter proving uncommonly severe, articles of food and clothing were with difficulty procured.

To relieve the wants of the people, application was made to Mr. Pynchon of Springfield, for a quantity of Indian corn, which he was requested to purchase of the neighboring Indians, and a vessel was dispatched to Narraganset for the same purpose. Notwithstanding these exertions a great scarcity still continued, and the extraordinary price of twelve shillings was paid for a a bushel. The quantity of corn obtained being still short of the demand, agents were sent up the Connecticut to Pocumtuck, now Deerfield, where considerable quantities were raised; and the Indians of that place descended the river with fifty canoes, loaded with that article of food.

This in some measure relieved the suffering people, and the most delicate fed on bread made of this coarse, though wholesome material. But these embarrassments did not long continue. The people now left to prosecute their labor without interruption, were soon able to raise a supply of provisions from their fertile lands, and, by bartering with their friends in the older settlements, to procure most of the necessaries of life. Thus relieved from their distresses, they soon began to extend their plantations into various parts of the adjacent country.

In the summer of 1637, John Davenport, a celebrated minister of London, Theophilus Eaton, and Edward Hopkins, merchants of the same place, and several other persons, arrived at Boston, with the intention of establishing a settlement where they might enjoy civil and religious liberty. Finding the country about Boston, already principally covered with plantations, they determined to look out some unsettled place for themselves and others, who were expected soon to follow them from England. The situation of Quinipiack, had been noted by the troops employed in the expedition against Sassacus, and favorably represented. Believing this an eligible situation, the adventurers resolved to procure a tract of land at that place, or in its vicinity. In the autumn, Mr, Eaton and a few others, proceeded to explore the country, and they at length pitched upon Quinipiack for their settlement; and here they erected a hut, and remained during the winter.

The next spring, Mr. Davenport and the rest of the company, sailed from Boston, and landed at Quinipiack; the first Sunday, the people assembled under a large spreading oak, where Mr. Davenport delivered a sermon. Not long after their arrival, Quinipiack was purchased of Monauguin, the sachem of that part of the country. Besides engaging to protect him against the Indians of the neighborhood, they paid to him and his tribe, twelve coats of English cloth, twelve alchymy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives, twelve poringers, and four cases of French knives and scissors. Other lands lying in the vicinity, were afterwards purchased of the sachem of Mattebeseck, since Middletown, and the following year, the people adopted a frame of government

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for the colony, and Theophilus Eaton was chosen governor of the Province. Quinipiack at this time received the name of New Haven.

In January the same year, all the free planters of the three towns upon the Connecticut river, convened at Hartford, and formed a constitution for the government of their colony; and in April, John Haynes was chosen governor, agreeably to the constitution. The two provinces of Connecticut and New Haven remained distinct and separate governments, until united by charter in 1662, by the name of the governor and company of the English colony of Connecticut, in New England.

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While settlements were thus spreading westward of Connecticut river, religious intolerance in Massachusetts was preparing the way for a new colony in another quarter. Yes, singular as it may appear, the people who had suffered so severely under the English hierarchy, “ had so far forgotten their sufferings, as to press for uniformity in religion, and to turn persecutors." Roger Williams had already been banished the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, for heresy, and the frivolous reveries of a lady, (Mrs. Hutchinson,) about this time, having enlisted a few enthusiasts, produced great alarm among the clergy. In 1637, a synod convened at New Town, composed of all the teaching elders in the country, and after a long session, they condemned eighty two erroneous opinions, that were then prevalent in New England. More than fifty persons in Boston and the neighboring towns, suspected of heresy, were disarmed to prevent a breach of the peace, and it soon became a law, that none should be received into, or inhabit within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, but such as should be permitted by some of the magistrates.

In consequence of these arbitrary measures, John Clark, with a small company, left Massachusetts and proceeded to Providence, in search of a place where peace and liberty of conscience might be enjoyed. By the advice and aid of Roger Williams, they purchased Aquetneck, or Rhode Island, of the Narraganset sachem, in consideration of fifty fathoms of white beads. Other islands in the bay were subsequently purchased, and soon after, eighteen of the adventurers formed themselves into a body politic,

and chose William Coddington, their chief magistrate. The beauty and fertility of the islands, with the religious freedom the people enjoyed, attracted other settlers, and the islands very soon became so populous as to send out people to plant on the neighboring shores. About this time Newport began to be settled.

Notwithstanding these emigrations, by the influx of people from England, and the increase of the first stock of inhabitants, plantations were extending in Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, and their population was increasing. In 1639, the militia of the former colony, were embodied into two regiments, composing a force of one thousand soldiers, and the whole were mustered for review in Boston. The same year a printing press was set up at Cambridge, (the New Town,) the first in North America. In Connecticut and New Haven colonies, new purchases of land were made of the Indians, and settlements extended in various directions. Previous to the close of 1639, plantations were began at Menunkatuck, (Guilford,) Cupheag and Pughquonnuck, (Fairfield,) Wopowage, (Milford,) and about Saybrook fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut.

Mattebeseck, or Middletown, still remained in possession of the natives of that place, who being a numerous people, were not diposed to part with their lands so readily as those of the neighboring tribes. Such was their attachment to the place, and the number of their warriors, that they at one time held out a hostile attitude to prevent encroachments, and threatened war. The English at length prepared a military force to bring them to terms, but the difficulties were finally adjusted without recourse to actual hostility. About this time, a lodge of Pequots, who had been permitted to remain in the Pawtucket country after their subjection in 1637, evinced a hostile disposition towards the English; a small force under captain Mason, their old enemy, was sent to chastise them, and he promptly destroyed their lodge, captured, and delivered the Indians to Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegans.

The Dutch claims at Hartford were attended with embarrassing circumstances to the settlers on Connecticut river. The fort they had built at that place, prior to the

arrival of the trading company under Holmes, still remained under a garrison of their troops, and they occupied about thirty acres of land contiguous. In 1641, the Dutch governor at Manhattan, asserted his claim to the territory on the river; but this was disregarded by the government of Connecticut, and the claim considered as void, on the ground that the Pequots, who had sold the lands to the Dutch, had no right to the country, and that the English settlers had bought theirs of the river Indians, the rightful owners. Finding that they could not obtain the lands by consent of the English, the Dutch governor detached a company of men to seize them by force. Difficulties occurring at this time, with the Indians on his own frontiers, prevented the march of his troops, but he still kept up his claim to the country. The difficulty continued several years, but did not produce actual war. At length, the dispute was amicably adjusted by arbitrators mutually chosen, who met at Hartford; the Dutch giving up their claim. A number of their people, however, remained at Hartford and continued to cultivate their lands, until they were sequestered by Connecticut.

The dislocated situation of the New England colonies; the wars with the Indians, and the difficulties arising out of the Dutch claims, had for some time turned the minds of the people to the subject of an union, and as early as 1638, measures had been taken to carry a plan into effect; several circumstances, however, rendered the scheme abortive. In 1643, the project was renewed, and commissioners from New Haven, Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts, convened at Boston, and entered into articles of perpetual league, offensive and defensive.* Each colony was to retain separate jurisdiction ;-the charge of all wars to be borne in proportion to the male inhabitants between sixteen and sixty years of age in each colony. Upon notice of an invasion from three magistrates of any colony, the others were immediately to send troops in aid Massachusetts one hundred, and each of the other colonies forty five; and if a greater force should be necessary, the commissioners were to meet and determine the

* The commissioners were the following: JOHN WINTHROP, THOMas Dudley, EDWARD WINSLOW, WILLIAM COLLIER, EDWARD HOPKINS, THOMAS GRIGSON, THEOPHILUS EATON, and GEORGE FENWICK.-Morton's New England's Me- » morial.