in which he quoted from these Blue laws to prove the intolerance of the early settlers of Connecticut. Doubtless he believes them to be a part of the Connecticut statute book. He might better have quoted Knickerbocker's New York as a veracious history, since the latter does contain a little truth, while the "Blue laws" are fictitious from beginning to end.

Can the RECORD give us any light upon this subject? FREDERICK S. DICKSON.

West Chester, Pa., Sept. 18, 1872.

ANSWER.-In the year 1655, the General Court of the New Haven colony ordered that some "able, judicious and godly man" should be appointed, to form a code of laws for that colony. Governor Eaton was chosen for that labor. He examined the laws of Massachusetts and Plymouth, and from them, and the "Discourse on Civil Government in a New Plantation," by the Rev'd Mr. Cotton; also from some unwritten statutes in his own colony, he compiled a collection that was satisfactory to his employees. These were the first printed laws used there. The Sheets were bound up in blue covers, and were afterward known as the "Blue Laws of New Haven," bearing date 1656. They were quite as much the Blue Laws of Massachusetts, for they were chiefly reenactments of the statutes of that colony. They were the laws of bigots in an age of bigotry; and, judged by the Christian ethics now prevailing amongst enlightened people they appear inexcusably harsh, intolerant and sanguinary. It hardly seems possible that some of them should have been in force in a Christian land. It ought to be said however that laws of the early periods in the history of New York, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Barbadoes, English colonies, were quite as obnoxious to charges of intolerence and blood-thirstiness, as were the Blue Laws of New Haven and Massachusetts.

The Rev Samuel A. Peters, a Connecticut Tory and refugee, published anony mously, in London, in 1781, a "History of Connecticut," and gave in it what purported to be a code known as "The Blue

Laws of Connecticut." He seems to have taken some of the most objectionable ones from Eaton's Code, and then added some disgraceful laws, for the purpose of stigmatising the people of Connecticut, which was, in a great degree, the chief design of his history, so called. It is difficult to separate the genuine from the spurious Blue Laws.

The statement of the "Times' that the Blue Laws were "purely fictitious" and "without any other foundation than the brain of the practical joker" is far from being correct.

CUTLER'S RE-SURVEY.-Who can tell where a copy of Cutler's Resurvey is to be found? The order to John Cutler, to resurvey portions of the County of Bucks, is dated 11th of 6 mo. 1702, but the return to it is not in the Surveyor General's Office at Harrisburg.

W. W. H. DAVIS. Doylestown, Pa., December 4th, 1872.

RHODE ISLAND.-A correspondent of the RECORD objects to the conclusion of Mr. Wilde (RECORD, Nov. 1872, page 515,) on the authority of Mr. Cushing, that the name of Rhode Island is derived from the English title of " Red Island," because of the red color of the soil. He cites colonial records against this tradition, and says the error has been promulgated before, in the shape of an assertion that Dutch Skippers called it Roodt Eylandt (the Dutch for Red Island.) He does not believe that the few Dutch sailors who visited that region could overcome the English in naming the island.

The RECORD thinks it probable that from the name given it by the Dutch sailors, (if they did call it red island,) settled its name for the English, who, it must be remembered were there for the first, many years after Dutch trappers had caught beavers on the shores of Narraganset Bay. The orthoepy of Roodt Eylandt, would seem, to English ears, very much like Rhode Island; and the English may have had to transfer the sound to their records by writing it Rhode Island.

[GENERAL HUGH MERCER.] [From the autograph collection of Mr. Robert Coulton Davis.]

Sir:

Perth Amboy, 26 July, 1776.

It is generally believed that such of the Inhabitants of this Town as have relations on Staten Island or hold principles inimical to the American cause have it in their power to give Intelligence to the Enemy

Sir:

by private signals such as may prove detrimental to the Service. It is therefore submitted to the consideration of your honorable House whether the removal of such Persons at a distance from hence would not be a Salutary measure. If it is judged to be so the authority for adopting and carrying it into execution will most naturally arise from a Civil Power1.

I have the honour to be Sir
Your most obed. Serv1,

[JAMES FAULKNER.']

Martinsburg, April 20, 1814.

You will pardon me for intruding upon you, at this time, but the opportunity by Capt Gregory who commands the light infantry from this county, and his offer to deliver this letter to your Excellency, induces me to inform you that as there is an expectation that the enemy will make an attack on Norfolk this season,' I will

1 James Faulkner was a native of Ireland, where he was born in 1776, and came to America when he was a boy. He established himself in Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia, at the age of twenty-one years, where he resided until his death, in 1817, which was caused by exposure and fatigue in camp. Possessing a military spirit, he long tried, in vain, to obtain a commission in the army of the United States. When the war of 1812-'15, broke out, he hastened to Norfolk with the volunteer troops of his adopted State, and was commissioned a Major of artillery. In that capacity he served most gallantly on Craney Island, near Norfolk, as a skilful commander of a battery, in repelling a British flotilla on the 22d of June, 1813. He left the service not long afterward. He married the only daughter of Captain William Mackey, of the Revolutionary Army. The Hon. Chas. J. Faulkner, who was American minister at the French Courts, when the late Civil war broke out, is their only child.-[EDITOR.]

British troops, destined for the United States, had landed at Bermuda. This was followed by Admiral Cockburn, the marauder, in Lynn Haven Bay, on the coast of Virginia, on the 1st of March, with a 74 line-of-battle ship, two frigates and a brig, who commenced, at once, the practice of his distressing amphibious warfare. It was this fact which caused Major Faulkner to believe that Norfolk, which he had been instrumental in saving the year before, would now be attacked.-[EDITOR.]

This letter bears no evidence as to whom it was addressed; it was probably written to William Livingston, who was then Governor of New