Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

There came a royal order to Massachusetts, requiring the governor to arrest the fugitives. The governor and his officers were anxious to show their zeal in carrying out all the wishes of the new king, and so they gave a commission to two zealous young royalists, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, authorizing them to hunt through the colonies as far south as Manhattan Island for the missing judges and to bring them back to Boston.

The searchers set out at once, and went first to Governor Winthrop at Hartford. He gave them permission to arrest the regicides anywhere in the colony of Connecticut, but he assured them that he understood that the judges were not in his colony, but had gone on to the colony of New Haven. So they set forth again, and next day reached the town of Guilford, where they stopped to procure a warrant from Governor Leete, who lived there.

Governor Leete appeared to be very much surprised at the news the two men brought. He said that he didn't think the regicides were in New Haven. He took the papers bearing the orders of Governor Winthrop and read them in so loud a voice that the two men begged him to keep the matter more quiet, lest some traitors should overhear. Then he delayed furnishing them with fresh horses, and, the next day being Sunday, the pursuers were forced to wait over an extra day before they could continue their hunt.

In the meantime an Indian messenger was sent to New Haven in the night, to give warning of the pursuers. Then Governor Leete refused either to give the pursuers a warrant or to send men with them to arrest the regicides until he should have had a chance to consult with the magistrates, which meant that he himself would have to go to New Haven. The upshot of all this was that the pursuers stayed chafing in Guilford while the men they were hunting had plenty of time to escape.

John Davenport, the minister at New Haven, preached that Sunday morning to a congregation that had heard the news of the pursuit of the English judges. Davenport knew that the king of England had ordered the capture of the judges and that this colony of New Haven was part of the English realm. Yet, for the sake of mercy and justice, he urged his hearers to protect the fugitives who had taken refuge among them. Not in so many words did he urge it, but his hearers knew what he meant, for the text of his sermon, taken from the sixteenth chapter of Isaiah, read: "Take counsel, execute judgment, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts dwell with thee; Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." The congregation understood his meaning.

Early Monday morning Kellond and Kirk rode into New Haven, where the people met them with surly faces. They had to wait until Governor Leete arrived, and when he did he refused to take any steps in the matter until he had called the freemen together. The two pursuers, now growing angry, told the governor flatly that it looked to them as if he wanted the regicides to escape. Spurred on by this the governor called the magistrates together, but their decision was that they would have to call a meeting of the general court.

More exasperated than ever, the two hunters spoke plainly to Governor Leete. They pointed out that he was not behaving as loyally as the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut had; they warned him against giving aid to traitors, and then they flatly asked whether he meant to obey King Charles or not.

"We honor His Majesty," answered Governor Leete, "but we have tender consciences."

The pursuers lodged at a little inn in New Haven. There the governor went that evening, and taking one of them by the hand, said, "I wish I had been a plowman, and had never been in office, since I find it so weighty."