Newhampshire, and Rhode-Island, to send agents to England, assuring the House of Commons of their readiness to assist against the king and bishops. The Saybrook settlers, though zealous against the bishops, were not much inclined to rebellion against the king, and therefore took no part in this transaction.
As the royal cause lost ground in England, the apprehensions of this colony increased; and Fenwick, finding himself unsupported by the Lords Say and Brook, thought it prudent to dispose of his colonial property to Peters and his associates, and return to England.
Confusion being established in England, moderation became an unpardonable sin in Saybrook, which both the neighboring colonies were ready to punish by assuming the jurisdiction there: mutual jealousy alone prevented it. At length, during Cromwell’s usurpation, the inhabitants, fearing the effects of his displeasure for not joining in the above-mentioned address to the Commons of England, especially lest he should put them under the power of the furious Davenport, and at the same time foreseeing no prospect of the restoration, judged it advisable, by way of preferring the lesser to the greater evil, to form a sort of alliance and junction with the people of Hertford, where Hooker now lay numbered with the dead.
The colony was not only hereby enabled to maintain its ground, but flourished greatly; and the minister, Thomas Peters, established a school in Saybrook, which his children had the satisfaction to see become a college, denominated Yale College, of which a particular account will be given in the course of this work. He was a
churchman of the Puritanic order, zealous, learned, and of mild disposition, and frequently wrote to his brother Hugh at Salem to exercise more moderation, lest “overmuch zeal should ruin him and the cause they were embarked in.”[16]
At his death, which did not happen till after the Restoration of Charles II., he bequeathed his library to the school above mentioned.
The religious institutions of Hooker at Hertford were not only binding on the Dutch, but even extended to the great Connecticote himself. The Sachem did
not like his new neighbours; he refused to give or sell any land to them; but told them, that, as they came to trade, and to spread the Christian Religion among his subjects, which Mr. Hooker defined to consist only in peace, love, and justice, he had no objection to their building wigwams, planting corn, and hunting on his lands. The wisdom and steady temper of this great Sachem, and the vast number of subjects at his command, made Haynes and Hooker cautious in their conduct. Many people of Massachusets-Bay, hearing that Hooker had made good terms with the Sachem, left their persecutors, and fled to the fertile banks of Connecticut, that they might help Hooker spread the Gospel among the poor benighted Heathen in the wilderness. The Reverend Mr. Huet, with his disciples, fixed at Windsor, eight miles north of Hertford; and the Reverend Mr. Smith, at Weathersfield, four miles south of it. In the space of eighteen months, the Dominion of Hertford contained seven-hundred white people, and seven independent churches. Having converted over to the Christian faith some few Indians, among whom was Joshua, an ambitious captain under the great Sachem Connecticote, Hooker, Huet, Smith, and others, hereby found means to spread the Gospel into every
Indian town, and, to the eternal infamy of christian policy, those renowned, pious fathers of this new colony, with the Gospel, spread the small-pox. This distemper raged in every corner: it swept away the great Sachem Connecticote, and laid waste his ancient kingdom. Hereupon, Haynes and his assembly proclaimed Joshua Sachem; and such as did not acknowledge his sachemic power, were compelled to suffer death, or fly the Dominion. Thus in three years time, by the Gospel and fanatic policy, was destroyed Connecticote, the greatest king in North-America. This remarkable event was considered as the work of the Lord; and the savage nations were told that the like calamities would befal them, unless they embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joshua was grateful to the English who had made him Sachem, and gave them deeds of those lands which had constantly been refused by Connecticote. But Joshua had as little honour as virtue and loyalty: he supported himself many years by signing deeds, and gulled the English through their own imprudence in neglecting to make a law for recording them.—These colonists, having driven out the Heathen, and got possession of a land which flowed with milk and honey, expelled the Dutch, as a dangerous set of heretics;—and Hooker, after doing so much for this new Dominion, expected the homage from every Church which is only due to a Bishop. This homage, however, he could not obtain, because each Minister had pretensions not much inferior to his. Disputes arose about Doctrine and Discipline. Hooker taught that there were forty-two kinds of Grace, though all of little value, except that of ‘saving Grace.’ As to Discipline, he held, that, as
he had received his ministerial ordination from the Laity, who were members in full communion, he considered those actual communicants as Christ’s Church here on earth, and consequently as holding the keys of discipline; and he maintained that the Minister had but a single voice, and was a subject of the Church. Other Ministers, who had received episcopal ordination, but had been silenced by their Bishops, judged themselves, notwithstanding, to be Ministers of Christ; and alleged that the installation of a Minister by prayer and imposition of hands of lay communicants, was no ordination, but a ceremony only of putting a Minister in possession of his Church, from which he might be dismissed by a majority of voters of the Members in full communion. And those Ministers taught for doctrine, that mankind were saved by Grace, and that the Gospel told us of but one Grace as necessary to Salvation; for that he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, is born of God, and enjoys the Grace of God which brings Salvation. The majority of the People of course were on the side of Mr. Hooker, as his plan established their power over the Minister; and they soon determined by vote, according to their code of laws, in his favour. But the Ministers and minority were not convinced by this vote, and, to avoid an excommunication, formed themselves into separate bodies; nevertheless, they soon felt the thundering anathemas of Hooker, and the heated vengeance of the civil power. However, persecution, by her certain consequence, fixed the separatists in their schism, which continues to the present time.—Hooker reigned twelve years high-priest over Hertford; and then died above sixty years of age,