I recrossed the Thames to New London, and after an early dinner rode down to the lighthouse, near which Arnold landed, and made the drawing printed on page 43. Returning along the beach, I sketched the outlines of Fort Trumbull and vicinity, seen on page 42, and toward evening strolled through the two principal burial-grounds of the city. In the ancient one, situated in the north part of the town, lie the remains of many of the first settlers, in the other, lying upon a high slope, westward of the center of the city, is a plain monument of Bishop Seabury, whose name is conspicuous in our Revolutionary annals as that of an unwavering Loyalist. I shall have occasion to notice his abduction from West Chester county, and imprisonment in Connecticut, as well as his general biography, when I write of the events at White Plains.
We will now bid adieu to New London, not forgetting, however, in our parting words, to note the fact so honorable to its name and character, that the first printing-press in Connecticut was established there, according to Barber, forty-five years before printing was executed in any other place in the colony. Thomas Short, who settled in New London in 1709, was the printer, and from his press was issued The Saybrook Platform, ** in 1710, said to be the first book printed in the province. Short died in 1711, and there being no printer in the colony, the Assembly procured Timothy Green, a descendant of Samuel Green, of Cambridge, the first printer in America, to settle at New London. Samuel Green, the publisher of the "Connecticut Gazetteer" until 1845, the oldest newspaper in the state, is a descendant of this colonial printer.
Business demanding my presence at home, I left New London at ten in the evening, in the "Knickerbocker," and arrived in New York at nine the following morning.
* The following is the inscription upon the slab: "Here lieth the body of Samuel Seabury, D.D., bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island, who departed from this transitory scene February 25th, Anno Domini 1796, in the 68th year of his age, and the 12th of his Episcopal consecration. "Ingenuous without pride, learned without pedantry, good without severity, he was duly qualified to discharge the duties of the Christian and the bishop. In the pulpit he enforced religion; in his conduct he exemplified it. The poor he assisted with his charity; the ignorant he blessed with his instruction. The friend of men, he ever designed their good; the enemy of vice, he ever opposed it. Christian! dost thou aspire to happiness? Seabury has shown the way that leads to it."
** This was a Confession of Faith or Articles of Religion arranged in 1708—Yale College was first established at Saybrook, and fifteen commencements were held there. To educate young men of talents and piety for the ministry was the leading design of the institution. The founders, desirous that the Churches should have a public standard or Confession of Faith, according to which the instruction of the college should be conducted, such articles were arranged and adopted after the commencement at Saybrook in 1708. and from that circumstance were called the Saybrook Platform. The standards of faith of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches are substantially the same as the Saybrook Platform.
Voyage to Rhode Island.——Stonington.—Arrival at Providence