The news of the accession of William and Mary diffused the utmost joy throughout Connecticut. An address of the most loyal and scriptural character was sent over; in which, however, they took care to make known that their acquiescence to the rule of Andros was an involuntary submission to an arbitrary power, and that, by the consent of the major part of freemen, they had resumed the government.
The administration was restored by the royal sanction. “They elected,” says Bancroft, “their own governor, council, and assembly men, all their magistrates, and that annually. The government of Connecticut was a perfect democracy. It rested on free labour, and upheld equality; the people were the sources of all power.”
During the war which followed the Restoration, Colonel Fletcher, governor of New York, was empowered by his commission to take command of the militia of Connecticut; but this was resolutely resisted. The scene is curious; and again we find that brave patriot, Captain Wadsworth, an actor. Fletcher arrived at Hartford, and ordered out the troops. The troops, with Captain Wadsworth at their head, appeared. Fletcher ordered his commission to be read; Wadsworth ordered the drums to beat. “Silence!” shouted Fletcher; and the drums ceased. Again the reading of the commission commenced, and again the drums beat louder than ever. Again Fletcher commanded silence, and in the silence which ensued, Wadsworth, turning to Fletcher, said, with great emphasis, “If we are interrupted again, I will make the sun shine through you!” Again the drums beat, and Fletcher made no further attempt to command the Connecticut forces.
We have already related how Yale College was founded in 1700. Delegates from the churches of Connecticut met at Saybrook in 1708, and framed a system of church government called the “Saybrook Platform,” which obliged all the clergy of the state to meet annually in each county by rotation, for the consideration of ecclesiastical affairs.
The colonial history of Connecticut contains from this time no events of interest apart from the general history of the colonies. The laws, customs, manners, and religious opinions were similar to those prevalent in Massachusetts.
Rhode Island submitted without opposition to the authority of Andros; but when, on the English Revolution, he was deposed in Boston, the people assembled at Newport and resumed their former chartered privileges, and re-elected the very officers whom Andros had deposed.
“The government was again organised on a free basis, and the old emblem of the state—an anchor with its motto, Hope—became significant of the steadfast zeal and spirit with which Rhode Island has ever cherished religious freedom and civil rights.” “Less liberal, however, than Connecticut,” says Bancroft, “Rhode Island attached the franchise not to the inhabitant but to the soil; and, as a wrong principle always leads to a practical error, it fostered family pride and a distant imitation of the English law of primogeniture.”
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FIRST INTERCOLONIAL WAR, AND THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT.
The charter of Massachusetts being annulled in 1685, Joseph Dudley was appointed president over the country from Narragansett to Nova Scotia. The following year Sir Edmund Andros arrived at Boston as royal governor of all New England. Andros was not only unpopular, as marking by his governorship the epoch of the loss of independence, but still more so from the arbitrary character of his proceedings; and as an evidence of the feeling of the colony, it refused to hold the annual thanksgiving on the day of his appointing. He was called the tyrant of New England; and when, early in the year 1689, the news reached Boston, by way of Virginia, of the revolution in England, an insurrection immediately took place for his deposition. Andros, affecting to disbelieve the first rumours of this event, imprisoned those who had brought them to the city; and then, seeing the determined spirit of the people, who were already organised under their old leaders, fled with precipitation to Fort Hill, a fortified stronghold of the city. Simon Bradstreet, now eighty-seven years of age, was re-chosen governor, while the former magistrates and some of the principal inhabitants formed themselves into a committee of safety. A declaration was drawn up by Cotton Mather, and Andros summoned to surrender, which he did shortly; when, with his principal officers, Dudley, Randolph, and others, he was sent to England; and William and Mary having been joyfully proclaimed, the former mode of government was “temporarily” resumed; and Sir Henry Ashurst and Increase Mather, father of Cotton Mather, with two others, hastened to England as agents of the colony.
William was so much occupied in establishing himself on his new throne, that Massachusetts was for a while left to manage her own affairs. In the meantime she was busy with her warfare against Canada and the French Indian allies. In July, 1689, the Pennicook Indians in New Hampshire, who had lost several of their number by the treachery of the whites, were instigated by the Baron de St. Castine to take vengeance on the British settlement at Dover in that state. One evening, therefore, two Indian squaws, requesting the hospitality of a night’s lodging in the house of the venerable Major Waldron, a magistrate and Indian trader, were kindly received and allowed to sleep by the fire. In the dead of the night they rose and admitted a war-party, who at once filled the house. The old magistrate started forward, exclaiming, “What now? what now?” and defending himself with a drawn sword, was stunned by a blow from a hatchet. Then placing him in mockery at the head of a long table in his hall, the savage intruders bade him “judge Indians again!” and drawing gashes across his breast with their knives, said, “Thus I cross out my account!” till at length he died. The Indians then burnt his house and others that stood near, and, having killed twenty-three persons, carried away with them twenty-nine prisoners.