As he went to execution, prayers and tears accompanied him. So great was the public sympathy, that people cried, “God be with you!” On the scaffold it was his wish to address the vast multitude assembled to witness his death, but trumpets overpowered his voice, and finding it vain to make the attempt, he turned to his friends, reminding them that he had foretold the dark clouds which were coming thicker and thicker for a season, but that a better day would dawn in the clouds; and baring his neck for the axe, he exclaimed: “Blessed be God, I have kept a conscience void of offence; to this day I have not deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer.” Thus perished Sir Henry Vane; his death establishing the great principle of popular liberty, even more than his life had done. The blood of the martyr never flows in vain.
The ship that conveyed to Boston, in July, the first news of the Restoration, brought with it Whalley and Goffe, two of the regicide judges of Charles II., who now naturally fled to the only portion of the English territories where republicanism might still be tolerated. They were well received by Endicott, the governor, and the tidings which they brought being hardly credited, excited but little attention. Nor was it till the month of November that official information of this great event arrived; of the act of indemnity for all except such as were concerned in the death of Charles I.; of the execution of Peters, and the imprisonment of Vane, together with the information that many complaints of persecution and misdemeanours against the colony were received by parliament and the crown.
More unwelcome tidings could hardly have reached Massachusetts; and yet, a general court being summoned, addresses were prepared to the restored monarch very little creditable to the independence and manliness of the colony. They spoke of the execution of Charles very vaguely, and apologetically represented themselves as “his present majesty’s poor Mephibosheths, by reason of lameness in respect of distance, not until now appearing in his presence, kneeling with the rest of his subjects before his majesty as their restored king. They prayed for a continuance, however, of civil and religious liberties; and as regarded the complaints which had been brought against them, they besought the king that he would not hear men’s words, for that his servants were true men, fearing God and the king.” At the same time that this cringing address, and another in the same spirit to parliament, were sent, letters were written to the now aged Lord Say and Seal, and other puritan noblemen who might be supposed to have interest with the new government, to bespeak their favour.
Much more creditable than these addresses was the conduct of New England with regard to the fugitive regicides. Before a royal order for their arrest reached Boston, by the hands of a party of royalists, which Massachusetts was required to execute, the offenders had escaped to New Haven. The magistrates assumed an appearance of assiduity, and published a proclamation against them, but no intention existed of giving them up. They were safe, and shortly afterwards were joined by Dixwell, another of the regicide judges; and, spite of all the efforts that were made to arrest them, all three finished their days in New England. Dixwell lived openly, under a feigned name, at New Haven; and the other two in concealment, sometimes in Massachusetts, at other times in Connecticut.
It was not long before New England perceived that they had no reason to congratulate themselves on the altered government in the mother-country. The commercial restrictions from which they had been exempt during the Commonwealth were now renewed; and with some return to their former independence, the general court and elders drew up a clear declaration of what they considered to be their rights. These they asserted to be, “to choose their own governor, deputy-governor, and representatives; to admit freemen on terms to be prescribed at their own pleasure; to set up all sorts of officers, superior and inferior, with such powers and duties as they might appoint; to exercise, by their annually-elected magistrates and deputies, all authority legislative, executive and judicial; to defend themselves by force of arms against any aggression; and to reject any and every imposition which they might judge prejudicial to the colony, and contrary to any just act of colonial legislation.”
This declaration, which left but small prerogative to the crown, and which asserted the navigation act to be an infringement of their charter, was drawn up before Charles II. was publicly proclaimed in New England, nearly twelve months after the news had first reached them, and then all demonstrations of extravagant joy were prohibited; the king’s health was not even allowed to be drunk. The colonies of Plymouth, Hartford, New Haven and Rhode Island, had, on the contrary, immediately proclaimed the king.
Connecticut, in the person of the younger Winthrop, then in London, applied for and obtained a favourable charter; the colonists having beforehand carefully drawn up the document, which they desired the king to ratify, claiming the land by purchase from the natives—by conquest from the Pequods, who had made on them a war of extermination—and by the sweat of their own brows, which had changed the wilderness into a garden. Their petition for this charter was not only seconded by the aged Lord Say and Seal, who obtained for it also the co-operation of the Earl of Manchester, but Winthrop, himself a man of the noblest endowments, at once a scholar, a gentleman and a Christian, won for it general good will by his merits alone. The son-in-law of Hugh Peters, whose execution had so lately taken place, “God gave him, nevertheless, favour,” as his own father Governor Winthrop, truly observed, “in the eyes of all with whom he had to do;” and in his interviews with Charles, whether it was by the charm of his conversation, his descriptions of Indian warfare, and the adventurous life in the wilderness; or whether, really, as was said, Winthrop presented a ring to the monarch, which had been given, under peculiar circumstances, by Charles I. to Winthrop’s grandfather, which constituted a claim on the house of Stuart, is not known; this, however, is a fact, the charter was obtained. Clarendon was full of good will, and certain courtiers, having themselves, it is believed, interested views, recommended no limitations. This charter embraced as one colony New Haven and Hartford, the limits of the latter being extended from the Narragansett river to the Pacific Ocean. On the colonists it conferred unqualified power to govern themselves; to elect their own officers; to enact their own laws; to administer justice; to exercise all power deliberative and executive, without appeal to England, or without reference to England under any circumstances. Connecticut was independent in everything but name.
“After his successful negociation and efficient concert in founding the Royal Society,” says Bancroft, “Winthrop returned to America, bringing with him a name which England honoured, and which his country should never forget, and resumed his tranquil life in rural retirement.” Some little trouble he at first met with from the two colonies being amalgamated, without the consent of New Haven to such a measure being first obtained. New Haven, which seemed thus compelled to sink its own existence in that of the stronger sister-colony, very naturally made some opposition, but the wisdom and firm gentleness of Winthrop effected a reconciliation; the colonies were united as by a happy marriage, and thenceforth but one interest swayed the two. Connecticut showed her respect and affection for Winthrop, by annually electing him for fourteen consecutive years as her governor.
The result of this ample charter, this liberty of self-government, was a social condition so nearly approaching to the Utopia of philosophers, and the golden age of the poets, that we must be allowed to dwell somewhat at length upon the beautiful and refreshing picture. It stands almost alone in the history of man. The institutions of Connecticut being almost perfected by this charter, nearly a century elapsed before any event took place which demands the historian’s notice. But its progress during this time was of healthy increase, its population doubled every twenty years, and its history was a picture of colonial happiness and prosperity. “To describe its condition,” says Bancroft, “is but to enumerate the blessings of self-government by a community of farmers who have leisure to reflect, who cherish education, and who have neither a nobility nor a populace. Could Charles II. have looked back upon earth, and seen what security his gift of a charter had conferred, he might have gloried in an act which redeemed his life from the charge of having been unproductive of public happiness. The contentment of Connecticut was full to the brim.”
Connecticut and Rhode Island were examples of what a truly Christian commonwealth may become; greater than the Pilgrim states, because they understood and practised the milder Christian virtues of forbearance and love. Persecution had no home in these states. Roger Williams was ever a welcome guest at Hartford, and “that heavenly man,” John Haynes, at Providence. “I think, Mr. Williams,” said this modern St. John, addressing his Christian brother, “that the most wise God hath provided and cut out this part of the world as a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences.” Happy Connecticut! “No enemy,” we are told, “was within her borders, tranquillity was within her gates, and the fear of God within her heart.” Nor was this a mere poetical image; for many years the public security was so great, that locks and bolts were unknown; the best house had no firmer fastening to its doors than a simple latch.