was confirmed by Indian testimonies from all quarters. It was expected that a Dutch fleet would arrive, and that the Dutch and Indians would unite in the destruction of the English plantations. It was rumoured, that the time for the massacre was fixed upon the day of the public election, when the freemen would be generally from home."

NOTE....No. II.

"Most gracious and dread sovereign,

"May it please your majesty (in the day wherein you happily say, you now know, that you are again king over your British Israel) to cast a favourable eye upon your poor Mephiboseths now, and by reason of lameness, in respect of distance, not until now, appearing in your presence, we mean New England, kneeling, with the rest of your subjects, before your majesty, as her restored king. We forget not our inaptness as to these approaches. We at present own such impotency, as renders us unable to excuse our impotency of speaking unto our lord the king: yet, contemplating such a king, who hath also seen adversity, that he knoweth the hearts of exiles who hath been himself an exile, the aspect of majesty, thus extraordinarily circumstanced, influenceth and animateth exanimated outcasts (yet outcasts as we hope for truth,) to make their address unto their prince, hoping to find grace in his sight: We present this scrip, the transcript of our loyal hearts, into your royal hands, wherein we crave leave.

"To supplicate your majesty for your gracious protec tion of us, in the continuance both of our civil privileges, according to (and of our religious liberty, the grantees known end of) the patent conferred upon the plantation by your royal father. This, this, viz. our liberty to walk in the faith of the gospel, with all good conscience, according to the order of the gospel (unto which the former, in these ends of the earth, are but subservient) was the

cause of our transporting ourselves, with our wives, our little ones, our substance, from that pleasant land, over the Atlantic ocean, into this vast and waste wilderness; choosing rather the pure scripture worship, with a good conscience, in this poor remote wilderness, among the heathens, than the pleasures of England, with subjection to the then so disposed and so far prevailing hierarchy, which we could not do without an evil conscience. For this cause we are this day in a land which lately was not sown, wherein we have conflicted with the sufferings thereof much longer than Jacob was in Syria. Our witness is in heaven, that we left not our country upon any dissatisfaction, as to the constitution of our civil state; our lot, after the example of the good old non-conformist, hath been only to act a passive part, through these late vicissitudes and successive overturnings of state; our separation from our brethren in this desert hath been, and is, a suffering, bringing to mind the application; but providential exceptions of us thereby from the late wars, and temptation of either party, we account as a favour from God; the former clothes us with sackcloth, the latter with innocency.

"What reception, courtesy, and equanimity, those gentlemen and other adherers to the royal interest, who in adverse changes visited these parts, were entertained with amongst us, according to the meanness of our conditions, we appeal to their own reports.

"Touching complaints put in against us, our humble request only is, that, for the interim wherein we are dumb, by reason of absence, your majesty would permit nothing to make an impression upon your royal heart against us, until we have opportunity and license to answer for ourselves. Few will be nocent, said that impleader, if it be enough to deny; few will be innocent, replied the then emperor, if it be enough to accuse.

"Concerning the quakers, open capital blasphemers, open seducers from the glorious trinity, the Lord's Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed gospel, and from the

holy scriptures, as the rule of life, open enemies to government itself, as established in the hands of any but men of their own principles, malignant and assiduous promoters of doctrines directly tending to subvert both our church and state: after all other means, for a long time used in vain, we were at last constrained, for our own safety, to pass a sentence of banishment against them, upon pain of death; such was their dangerous, impetuous, and desperate turbulency to religion and to the state, civil and ecclesiastical, as that, how unwilling soever could it have been avoided, the magistrate at last, in conscience both to God and man, judged himself called, for the defence of all, to keep the passage with the point of the sword held towards them: this could do no harm to him who would be warned thereby; their willingly rushing thereupon was their own act, and, we with all humility conceive, a crime, bringing their bloods upon their own heads. The quakers died not because of their other crimes, how capital soever; but upon their superadded presumptuous and incorrigible contempt of authority, breaking in upon us notwithstanding the sentence of banishment made known to them: had they not been restrained, so far as appeared, there was too much cause to fear that we ourselves must quickly have died, or worse; and such was their insolency, that they would not be restrained but by death; nay, had they at last but promised to depart the jurisdiction, and not to return without leave from authority, we should have been glad of such an opportunity to have said they should not die.

"Let not the king hear men's words; your servants are true men, fearers of God and the king, and not given to change, zealous of government and order, orthodox and peaceable in Israel: we are not seditious as to the interest of Cesar; nor schismatics as to matters of religion; we distinguish between churches and their impurities; between a living man, though not without sickness and infirmities, and no man. Irregularities either in ourselves or others, we desire may be amended; we could not live

without the worship of God; we were not permitted the use of public worship without such a yoke of subscription and conformity as we could not consent unto without sin. That we might therefore enjoy divine worship without human mixtures, without offence either to God or man or our consciences; we, with leave, (but not without tears) departed from our country, kindred, and fathers' houses, into this Patmos; in regard whereunto, we do not say our garments are become old by reason of a very long journey, but that ourselves, who came away in our strength, are, by reason of very long absence, many of us become grey headed, and some of us stooping for age. The omission of the prementioned injunctions, together with the walking of our churches, as to the point of order in the congregational way, is all wherein we differ from our orthodox brethren.

"Sir, we lie not before your sacred majesty: The Lord of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know, if it were in rebellion or schism that we left our dwelling in our own, or continue our dwellings in a strange, land, save us not this day.

"Royal sir, if, according to our humble petition and good hope, the God of the spirits of all flesh, the father of mercies (who comforteth the abject,) shall make the punishment of the bereavement of that all, for which we do leave and do suffer the loss of all, precious, so precious in your sight; or that your royal heart shall be inclined to shew unto us that kindness of the Lord in your majesty's protection of us in these liberties, for which we hither came, and which hitherto we have enjoyed, upon Hezekiah's speaking comfortably to us as to sons; this orphan shall not continue fatherless, but grow up as a revived infant under its nursing father: these churches shall be comforted in a door of hope opened by so signal a pledge of the lengthening of their tranquillity; these poor and naked gentiles, not a few of which through grace are come and coming in, shall still see their wonted teachers, with encouragement of a more plentiful increase

of the kingdom of Christ among them; and the blessing of your poor afflicted (and yet we hope trusting in God) shall come upon the head and heart of that great king, who was some time an exile as we are. With a religious salutation of our prayers, we (prostrate at your royal feet) beg pardon for this our boldness; craving finally that our names may be enrolled among your majesty's most humble subjects and suppliants."

NOTE....No. III.

Mr. Trumbull gives this curious account of the transaction:

"The assembly met as usual, in October, and the government continued according to charter until the last of the month. About this time sir Edmond with his suite, and more than sixty regular troops, came to Hartford, where the assembly were sitting, demanded the charter, and declared the government under it to be dissolved. The assembly were extremely reluctant and slow with respect to any resolve to surrender the charter, or with respect to any motion to bring it forth. The tradition is, that governor Treat strongly represented the great expense and hardships of the colonists, in planting the country; the blood and treasure which they had expended in defending it both against the savages and foreigners; to what hardships and dangers he himself had been exposed for that purpose; and that it was like giving up his life, now to surrender the patent and privileges, so dearly bought and so long enjoyed. The important affair was debated and kept in suspense until the evening when the charter was brought and laid upon the table, where the assembly were sitting. By this time great numbers of people were assembled, and men sufficiently bold to enterprise whatever might be necessary or expedient. The lights were instantly extinguished, and one captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner,