Colonel Heathcote wrote, "The Ministers are very uneasy at our coming amongst them, and abundance of pains were taken to persuade and terrify the people from hearing Mr. Muirson, but it availed nothing;"—not even the threat to jail the rector for holding services contrary to the colony law which the magistrates had read to him at his lodgings.—Church Doc. Conn., i, p. 20.
[m] "We received no persecution than that of the tongue until December, 1709."—Ibid., i, p. 42.
[n] The Mohegan Indians had sold certain lands to the colony in 1659, Major John Mason acting as agent. These lands had been conveyed to English proprietors. John Mason, the major's grandson, representing his own and other interests, pretended that both his grandfather and the Indians had been overreached and wronged by the colony in the transaction; that the colony had taken more land than agreed upon from the Indians, and had also seized some that belonged by private purchase to the Mason heirs. For the sake of peace and the credit of magnanimity, the government offered to the chief, Owaneco, who represented the Indians, to pay them again for the land, but Mason and his party resolved to prevent such a settlement. One of them went to England with a false report of extortion practiced upon the savages, and a commission was sent out to investigate. Connecticut was willing to answer the commissioners if they sought facts for a report, but when they assumed the right to decide the question judicially, the colony could only protest against their pretensions. The commissioners adjudged the land in dispute to the Indians and the Mason party, and charged the colony nearly £600 and costs. The colony appealed to the Crown and won the case in 1743; but it was again appealed by Mason, and in this fashion dragged along until after the Revolution, when the Indians were content to accept the reservation allotted by the State to them.—C. W. Bowen, Boundary Disputes, pp. 25-27.
[o] John Liveen of New London in 1689 left property to the "ministry of the town." Major Fitz-John Winthrop and his brother-in-law Edward Palmes were executors. Major Winthrop was absent with the army on the northern frontier, but made no objection to the probating of the will at a special court in New London in 1689. This probating Major Palmes, a former friend of Andros, declared void, since Andros had ruled that all wills should be probated at Boston. Upon special application of Mrs. Liveen, in 1690, the county court probated a copy of the will, since Palmes held the original. To this probating the latter also objected on the ground that, though the court had been again legalized, the "ministry" referred to must be that recognized by the English law and not the Congregational ministry of the town,—the only one then existing. The colonial courts decided against him, and John and Nicholas Hallam, the widow's sons by a former marriage, virtually accepted the terms of the will and the court's decision by being parties to the sale of a portion of the Liveen estate, the ship "Liveen." The estate could not be wholly settled; so the town continued to receive a regular dividend until after the widow's death in 1698. Then the sons attempted to contest the will. The Court of Assistants confirmed the proceedings of the lower courts. Not satisfied with this decision, Nicholas Hallam went to England in 1700-1702, and was allowed to plead his case before the Privy Council. Sir Henry Ashurst held that the charter gave the right of final decision, but the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations thought otherwise, and it looked as if Hallam was to win his case, when he was ordered to return to America and, because of technicalities, to retake all the testimony. In 1704, because of his acknowledged signature in the sale of the "Liveen," the suit was decided in favor of the colony.—F. M. Caulkins, Hist. of New London, pp. 222-228.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIRST VICTORY FOR DISSENT
Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus, xxv, 17.
The dissenters found the terms of the Toleration Act too narrow; the conditions under which they could enjoy their own church life too onerous. Consequently, they almost immediately began to agitate for a larger measure of liberty, and persisted in their demands for almost twenty years before obtaining any decided success.
Foremost among the dissenters pressing for greater liberty, for exemption from taxes for the benefit of Congregational worship, and for the same privileges in the support of their own churches as the members of the Connecticut Establishment enjoyed, were the Episcopalians. The year following the passage of the Toleration Act witnessed the first persecution of these people beyond that of tongue and pen. Fines and imprisonments began in earnest and were continued, more or less frequently, for many years. Even as late as 1748, the Episcopalians of Reading were fined for reading the Prayer-book and for working on public fast-days. Still later, in 1762, there was occasional oppression, as in the case of the New Milford Episcopalians. They desired to build a church, but had to wait for the county court to approve the site chosen. The court was averse to the building of the church, and accordingly was a long time in complying with this technicality. Meanwhile, the Episcopalians could not build, neither would they attend Congregational worship, and the magistrates, refusing to recognize the services held in private houses, fined them for absence from public worship. This treatment was abandoned as soon as it became known that the rector had counseled his people to submit, as he intended to send a copy of the court's proceedings to England to be passed upon as to their legality. It was such petty, yet costly, persecution as this that became frequent after 1709, and from which the Episcopalians were determined to escape.
These Church-of-England men were increasing in numbers in the colony, and, at the passage of the Toleration Act, were quite hopeful that the Rev. John Talbot's mission to England to secure a bishop for America would prove successful. Although he was not successful in obtaining the episcopate, his mission received so much encouragement from those in high places that, upon Talbot's return, a home for the prospective bishop was purchased, in 1712, in Burlington, New Jersey. It was known that Queen Anne was much interested in the proposed bishopric, and letters were exchanged between the leaders of the movement in England and the prominent Independent clergymen in the colonies, in order to sound the state of public opinion. A bill for the American expansion of the Church of England, as a branch to be severed from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and to be planted in the colonies under a bishop with full ecclesiastical powers, was prepared and was ready for presentation in Parliament when the Queen's death, August 1, 1714, caused its withdrawal, and felled the hopes of Churchmen. George I had too many temporal affairs to occupy his mind to burden himself with the intricate rights, powers, and privileges of a new episcopate, sought by a few colonials scattered through the American wilderness;—too many vexatious secular affairs in the colonies, and too heavy war-clouds darkening his European horizon. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 1715, made one futile attempt to interest the king, and then gave up any hope of the immediate appointment of an American bishop.