Within the paradise she fixed,
There man, enamoured of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness.
--BYRON.
On the restoration of monarchy in England, in 1660, the Connecticut colonists entertained serious fears regarding the future. Their sturdy republicanism and independent action in the past might be mortally offensive to the new monarch. The general assembly of Connecticut, therefore, resolved to make a formal acknowledgment of their alliance to the crown and ask the king for a charter. A petition was accordingly framed and signed in May, 1661, and Governor John Winthrop bore it to England. He was a son of Winthrop of Massachusetts, and was a man of rare attainments and courtly manners. He was then about forty-five years of age.
Winthrop was but coolly received at first, for he and his people were regarded as enemies of the crown. But he persevered, and the good-natured monarch at last chatted freely with him about America, its soil, productions, the Indians and the settlers, yet he hesitated to promise a charter. Winthrop, it is said, finally drew from his pocket a gold ring of great value, which the king's father had given to the governor's grandfather, and presented it to his majesty with a request that he would accept it as a memorial of the unfortunate monarch and a token of Winthrop's esteem for and loyalty to King Charles, before whom he stood as a faithful and loving subject. The king's heart was touched. Turning to Lord Clarendon, who was present, the monarch asked:
"Do you advise me to grant a charter to this good gentleman and his people?"
"I do, sire," Clarendon answered.
"It shall be done," said Charles, and he dismissed Winthrop with a royal blessing.
The charter was issued on the first of May, 1662. It confirmed the popular constitution of the colony, and contained more liberal provisions than any yet issued by royal hands. It defined the boundaries so as to include New Haven colony and a part of Rhode Island on the east, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. In 1665, the New Haven colony reluctantly gave its consent to the union; but the boundary between Connecticut and Rhode Island remained a subject of dispute for more than sixty years. That old charter, written on parchment, is still among the archives in the Connecticut State Department.