a fresh one, and that the colonial government should have all the necessary powers given to it pending the grant of the new instrument. There the attack ended, diverted, we can hardly err in thinking, by the increasing troubles at home. If so, the action of the Long Parliament did as much indirectly for Massachusetts as it did directly for England. If the King and his advisers had been left with their hands free, with power and leisure to work their will on Massachusetts, the colony must have either seen her nascent liberty destroyed or been prematurely hurried into rebellion.

1

Winthrop, vol. i. pp. 209, 299, 305. It is remarkable that there is no trace of this proceeding to be found among the State Papers.

CHAPTER V.

THE SETTLEMENT OF CONNECTICUT AND THE PEQUOD WAR.1

A new stage in colonization.

THE settlement of Connecticut marks a new stage in colonial history. For the first time a colony becomes itself in turn the parent of a new community. The step was marked by those peculiar features which throughout distinguished the extension of the Puritan settlements of New England. When a few straggling Virginian explorers crossed their southern

For what one may call the Massachusetts side of early Connecticut history Winthrop is the main authority. The Records of Connecticut from the outset are published. The editor, Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, began his labours in 1850. The twelfth volume, coming down to 1762, appeared in 1882. Mr. Trumbull has incorporated many valuable documents with the records. Trumbull's History of Connecticut, published in 1818, is a careful compilation of the chief authorities. The writer also had access to private documents of some value. Of the Pequod War we have no less than four contemporary accounts, three of them by those who actually took part in it. The most important is Mason's History of the Pequod War. It was first published by Increase Mather in his Relation of the Troubles (1677). See Mr. Tyler's History of American Literature, vol. i. p. 148. Mason's history was republished by Prince with a preface in 1735. This edition was again published in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collection (2nd series, vol. viii.). In 1660 Lyon Gardiner, the commander of the fort at Saybrook, wrote for the satisfaction of his friends an account of his military experiences in America, including so much of the Pequod War as he had himself taken part in. This remained in manuscript till 1833, when it was published in the third series of the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collection (vol. iii.). The other two works are in the same series (vol. vi.). One is entitled News from America, or a New and Experimental Discovery of New England, containing a true relation of their warlike proceedings these two years last, by Captain John Underhill. It fortunately supplements Gardiner's and Mason's accounts, since it deals mainly with that part of the war in which they had no share. The other is called A true Relation of the late Battle fought in New England between the English

borders and formed the nucleus of North Carolina, they at once severed their connexion with the parent colony. Connecticut at its foundation was an organized member of the parent stem, closely resembling it in political character. Even when formally separated it never lost. sight of its origin nor of the ties of common feeling and interest which bound it to the older commonwealth.

Proposal of Plymouth for

the Con

necticut.

The fertile valley of the Connecticut had been marked at an early date as a fit site for colonization. As we have seen, Plymouth not long after its settlement had friendly intercourse with the trading on Dutch settlers of New Netherlands. The latter, with a freedom from jealousy seldom shown in the colonial policy of their nation, had told the men of Plymouth of the Connecticut river and of its fitness as a site for trade and plantation. This was confirmed by some of the Mohicans, a scattered and broken tribe in that neighbourhood. They had been driven from their territory on the upper waters of the Hudson by the Mohawks, and had then occupied the shores of the Connecticut.2 Uncas, now the chief of the Mohicans, was an ambitious, capable, and, as many thought, unprincipled man. For some years he had been a dependent of the Pequods, the most warlike and one of the most populous of the savage races in the neighbourhood of New England, and had striven to weaken them by fos

and the Pequod Savages. It is written by one Philip Vincent, an English clergyman and a graduate of Cambridge. He also wrote a short account of the Thirty Years' War, published in 1638 under the title, Lamentations of Germany. The pictures which that work contains show that the Indians had much to learn in the art of torture from the soldiers of Tilly and Wallenstein. All that is known about Vincent is contained in a short memoir by Mr. Hunter in the fourth series of the Massachusetts Historical Collections (vol. i. p. 86). Mr. Hunter's information is derived from a manuscript in private hands. Underhill's pamphlet and Vincent's were both originally published in London in 1638. 1 Bradford, p. 196.

2 Brodhead's History of New York (ed. 1859), vol. i. p. 182.

1633 ENGLISH TRADERS ON THE CONNECTICUT,

201

The nephews of

tering quarrels in the reigning family. the Pequod head chief, encouraged by Uncas, rebelled. At length they and their supporters were banished, and the power of the Pequods for awhile extended. Uncas now saw in the English alliance a means of reconstructing his schemes against the Pequods. From this time his endeavours to make the English his tools for building up the power of the Mohicans and making them supreme among the native tribes, form the chief factor in what one may call the Indian politics of New England.1

3

The Plymouth settlers, whose venturesome temper had already shown itself in their exploration of the Kennebec, now made a few trading voyages to the Connecticut. These were so far successful as to satisfy them that it would be well to establish a permanent station on the river.2 Meanwhile Wahginnacut, a sachem of the Mohicans, had been making overtures to the Massachusetts settlers to tempt them to establish a trade in his country. His advice was taken. In the summer of 1633 a bark was sent on a trading voyage to Connecticut, and the adventurous Oldham with three companions made a land journey for the same end. He obtained some beaver from the Indian sachem, and came back with a good report of the fertility of the soil, of its productiveness in hemp, and of the hospitality of the savages.4 Next year Bradford and Winslow came to Boston to propose that the two colonies should enter into a partnership for the purpose of trading on the Connecticut. Winthrop pointed out divers objections: the ferocity and number of the Pequods, and the nature of the

1 The relations between Uncas and the Pequods before 1636 are very clearly set forth in the report of a committee appointed in 1663 by the Federal Commissioners to examine his title to the Pequod country. The report is in the Acts, vol. ii. p. 379. A letter by Roger Williams, undated, but seemingly written about 1637, confirms the report (Narr. Hist. Coll., vol. vi. p. 61.) 4 Ib. p. 111.

2

Bradford, p. 196.

3 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 52.

river, which, owing to a sand bar and to the severity of the weather, could only be navigated by small vessels and for seven months of the year. His objections prevailed, and the scheme was abandoned.1 The settlement

A Dutch fort on the

river.

of Connecticut proved to be one of the chief conditions through which the New England settlements attained unity. At the outset it seemed as if it was fated to call out every possible cause of discord and disruption. It formed a source of jealousy and dissension between the different colonies, it was the beginning of active hostility with the Dutch, and it caused the first serious war between the New Englanders and the Indians. These difficulties made themselves felt at once. The Dutch could not but see that the position and resources of Massachusetts made it a more dangerous neighbour than Plymouth. Moreover events had just occurred which might well make the settlers at New Netherlands jealous of English intrusion. In the spring of 1633 Jacob Eelkens, a discharged servant of the Dutch West India Company, had forced his way with an English vessel, the William, into the Hudson, refusing to recognize the rights of the Dutch and asserting that the English had a title to the river, since one of that nation had discovered it. The sloth and cowardice of the Dutch allowed Eelkens to sail past Fort Orange unchecked and to open a trade with the natives. A force was soon sent after him; he was stripped of his goods and driven from the river. Eelkens' claim was obviously absurd, nor was the encroachment of much practical importance, but it marked the beginning of a chapter in the great struggle between the nations of Europe for the mastery of the New World.2

The Dutch, as was but natural, took prompt mea

1 Winthrop, vol. i. p. 105; Bradford, p. 196.

2 The affair with Eelkens is told by Mr. Brodhead (vol. i. p. 239). There is a reference to the voyage of the William in Winthrop, vol. i. p. 101.