Travels in the United States of America / Commencing in the Year 1793, and Ending in 1797. With the Author's Journals of his Two Voyages Across the Atlantic.

by William Priest

DEAR FRIEND,

The states of Massachusetts and Connecticut were originally settled by brownists, and other puritans, and were, for many years, an asylum for dissenters of all denominations, who fled from persecution in Europe, to exercise a still greater degree of intolerance themselves, when in power in America. You have doubtless read or heard of the Blue Laws of Connecticut. Without insisting on the sanguinary code, said to be formerly in force under this title, I shall briefly, and without connexion, transcribe for you some extracts from Dr. Belknap, and others of their own writers on this subject; on the truth of which you may rely:—