Many have been the disputes between Connecticut and the neighbouring Colonies concerning their several boundaries, and much blood has been spilt on those occasions. On the north and east, where lie the Massachusets and Rhode-Island, Connecticut has, in some degree, been the gainer; but has lost considerably on the west and south, to the engendering violent animosity against the loyal New-Yorkers, to whom it will probably prove fatal in the end. The detail is briefly as follows:
The Dutch settlers on New-York Island, Hudson’s
river, and the west end of Long Island, being subdued by Colonel Nichols in September, 1664, the royal Commissioners, after hearing the Deputies from Connecticut in support of the charter granted to that province against the Duke of York’s patent, ordered, in December following, that Long-Island should be annexed to the government of New-York, and that the West boundary of Connecticut should be a line drawn from the mouth of Mamaroneck river north-north-west to the line of the Massachusets. This settlement, although it infringed their charter, was peaceably acquiesced in by the people of Connecticut; and not complained of by those of New-York till 1683, when they set up a claim founded upon a Dutch grant, said to be made in 1621, of all the lands from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen. In furtherance of their pretensions, they had recourse to invasion and slander. Of the latter Mr. Smith has given a specimen in his History of New-York, where he says that the agreement in 1664 “was founded in ignorance and fraud;” because, forsooth, “a north-north-west line from Mamaroneck would soon intersect Hudson’s river!” Could any one of common-sense suppose the Dutch on the banks of Hudson’s river, who no doubt were consulted upon the occasion, less acquainted with the course of it, than persons residing on the banks of the Connecticut? Extraordinarily absurd as such an insinuation might be, the people of Connecticut were aware of its probable weight with the Duke of York, whose patent grasped half their country; and therefore, knowing by whom a contest must be decided, they consented to give up twenty miles of their land east of Hudson’s river, hoping that would content a
company of time-serving Jacobites and artful Dutchmen. But neither were they nor their Patron satisfied; and the agreement was suspended till 1700, when it was confirmed by William III. About twenty years afterwards, however, the New-Yorkers thought the times favourable to further encroachments; and at length, in 1731, they gained 60,000 acres more, called the Oblong, from Connecticut, purely because they had Dutch consciences, and for once reported in England what was true, that the New-England colonists hated Kings, whether natives or foreigners. Mr. Smith, indeed, p. 238, says, referring to Douglas’s[29] Plan of the British Dominions of New-England in support of his assertion, that “Connecticut ceeded these 60,000 acres to New-York, as an equivalent for lands near the Sound surrendered to Connecticut, by New-York.” Mr. Smith, and all the New-York cabal, know, that there never were any lands in the possession of the New-Yorkers surrendered to Connecticut: on the contrary, Connecticut was forced, by the partiality of sovereigns, to give up, not only Long-Island and the above-mentioned twenty miles east of Hudson’s river, but also the Oblong, without any equivalent. How New-York
could surrender lands and tenements which they never had any right to or possession of, is only to be explained thus: whereas the people of New-York did not extend their eastern boundary to Connecticut river, they therefore surrendered to Connecticut what they never had; which is like a highwayman’s saying to a Gentleman, Give me ten guineas, and I will surrender to you your watch in your pocket.
Thus by degrees has Connecticut lost a tract of land sixty miles in length and above twenty in breadth, together with the whole of Long-Island; and this in the first place by a stretch of royal prerogative, and afterwards by the chicanery of their competitors, who have broken through all agreements as often as a temporising conduct seemed to promise them success. Whenever, therefore, a favourable opportunity presents itself, it is probable, that Messrs. Smith and Livingston, and other pateroons in New-York, will find the last determination also to have been “founded in ignorance and fraud,” and will be pushing their claim to all the lands west of Connecticut river; but the opportunity must be favourable indeed, that allows them to encroach one foot farther with impunity.
Another stroke the people of Connecticut received about 1753 has sorely galled them ever since, and contributed not a little to their thirst of revenge. The Governor of New-York was then appointed “Captain-General and Commander in Chief of the militia, and all the forces by sea and land, within the Colony of Connecticut, and of all the forts and places of strength within the same.” This violation of the Charter of Connecticut by George II. was very extraordinary, as
the reins of Government were then in the hands of protestant dissenters, whose supposed veneration for the House of Hanover operated so powerfully, that the American protestant dissenting ministers were allowed to be installed teachers, and to hold synods, without taking the oath of allegiance to the English King, at the same time that papists, and even members of the Church of England, were not excused that obligation. The aggravating appointment above mentioned added no celebrity to the name of George II. in New-England; nor, however excusable it may appear in the eyes of those who with me question the colonial pretensions of the people of Connecticut, was it, upon the ground they have been allowed to stand by the English government, justifiable in point of right, nor yet in point of policy, were the true character of the New-Yorkers fully known. This argument may be used on more occasions than the present.
But Connecticut hath not been the only sufferer from the restless ambition of New-York. Twenty miles depth of land belonging to the Massachusets and Newhampshire provinces, which formerly claimed to Hudson’s river, were cut off by the line that deprived Connecticut of the same proportion of its western territory. With this acquisition, surely, the New-Yorkers might have been content; but very lately their wisdom, if not their “fraud,” has prevailed over the “ignorance” of Newhampshire; which has sustained another amputation of its territory, eighty miles in width and two hundred miles in length; viz. all the land between the above-mentioned twenty-mile line and Connecticut river. The particulars of this transaction
are interesting. Benning Wentworth, Esq. Governor of Newhampshire, by order of his present Majesty, divided, in 1762, the vast tract of land just mentioned into about 360 townships, six miles square each. These townships he granted to proprietors belonging to the four provinces of New-England, one township to sixty proprietors; and took his fees for the same, according to royal appointment. Every township was, in twelve years time, to have sixty families residing in it. In 1769 there were settled on this piece of land 30,000 souls, at a very great expence; and many townships contained 100 families. The New-Yorkers found means to deceive the King, and obtained a decree that the East boundary of New-York, after passing Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, should be Connecticut river.[30] This decree annexed to the jurisdiction of New-York the said 360 townships; but was quietly submitted to by the proprietors, since it was his Majesty’s will to put them under the jurisdiction of New-York, tho’ they found themselves 150 miles farther from their new capital New-York, than they were from Portsmouth, their old one. Had the New-Yorkers rested satisfied with the jurisdiction, which alone the King had given them, they might have enjoyed their acquisition in peace; and New-England would have thought they had possessed some justice, though destitute of religious zeal. But the Governor