Since, then, no proof of any title derived from the Earl of Warwick could be produced by the Governor and Company of Connecticut, when the question of
right to the country was fairly brought into litigation, and since there is a record of the grant of the eastern part of it to the Marquis of Hamilton, it is evident that the claim of the present possessors under Lords Say and Brook is not valid. The record of the Marquis of Hamilton grant is an irrefragable proof that those lords had no right to the tract between Narraganset Bay and Connecticut River; and thence the conclusion is fair that they had no right to the tract between Connecticut and Hudson’s River; for their title to both having but one and the same foundation, it follows, of course, that what destroys it in the former destroys it in the latter also.
However disputable the Earl of Stirling’s claim to the land between Hudson and Connecticut Rivers may be, the Duke of Hamilton is undoubtedly the rightful owner of that between the latter and Narraganset Bay. This much I have proved, to show the errors of Mather, Neal, Douglas, and Hutchinson, who assert what the above record contradicts. I differ in opinion also with divines who say that the world grows every day worse than it was the last. I believe the world is growing better every year; and that justice will be administered to the Duke of Hamilton, and other noble proprietors of lands in New England, who have been wickedly supplanted by the emigration of Puritans, republicans, regicides, and smugglers. The time, I hope, is hastening, when the records I have quoted will be considered, and unjust possessors be ordered to give up their possessions to the right owners; for we have a king who honors his crown, and prefers justice to policy.
Hooker and Haynes, who conducted the second of
the three English parties already spoken of as making inroads into Connecticut, and who fixed their headquarters at Hertford, left Massachusets Bay for the same reason they had before left England—to avoid being persecuted, and to acquire the power to persecute. Hooker was learned, ambitious, and rigid. He lived near Boston two years, in hopes of becoming a greater favorite with the people than the celebrated Mr. Cotton; but, finding himself rather unlikely to meet with the desired success, he devised the project of flying into the wilderness of Connecticut, to get a name. Accordingly, in 1635 he applied to the General Court for leave to remove thither, but was refused. The next year, however, for reasons which will hereafter appear, he found the fanatics more compliant; and he and Haynes obtained permission to emigrate into Connecticut, carrying with them, as Mr. Neal expresses it, “a sort of commission from the government of Massachusets Bay for the administration of justice” there.
But it cannot be supposed that Hooker and his associates could derive any title to the soil, from this permission and commission granted by the Massachusets colony, who had not the least right to it themselves. The emigrants not only did not entertain any such idea, but, as soon as they had discovered a situation that pleased them, they even set at naught the commission which they took with them, the professed object of which was to secure the authority and jurisdiction claimed by the Massachusets colony over them. Knowing that they had passed the limits of that province, they voted themselves an independent people,
and commenced despots, pleading the old adage, Salus populi suprema lex. It has never been suggested, I believe, that this party entered Connecticut with any other semblance of authority than this ridiculous permission and commission of the Massachusets dictators.[11]
As to the third party, headed by Eaton and Davenport, they took possession, as is already mentioned, without even pretending any purchase, grant, permission, or commission, from any one. Of these three parties, then, it appears that the last two had not the least shadow of original right to the lands they possessed themselves in Connecticut; and the claims of the first I have shown to be ill-founded. I will now consider the right they are pretended to have acquired after possession; in regard to which they seem to have been put upon the same footing, by a general war between them and the Indians, occasioned by the ambitious, oppressive, and unjust conduct of Hooker and Davenport. This war opened a door to king-killing and king-making, violence, and injustice, in America, similar to what we have of late years shuddered to hear of in India. Hence the colonies have endeavored to establish a title to the lands by purchase of the natives. Accordingly, they have produced deeds of
sale signed by Sunksquaw, Uncas, Joshua, Moodus, and others, whom Mr. Neal and Dr. Mather call sachems, and consequently owners of the soil. Whether those gentlemen knew, or did not know, that Connecticut was owned by these sachems only, who, with their wives and families, were killed by the English, and who never would give a deed of any land to the Dutch or English, is not material; since it is a fact that not one of those Indians who have signed those famous deeds was ever a sachem or a proprietor of a single foot of land claimed by the colony.
It is true that Uncas (whom Mr. Neal calls a sachem, because the colonists declared him King of Mohegan, to reward him for deserting Sassacus, sachem of the Pequods) gave deeds of the land that he had no right or title to; and so did Sunksquaw, who, after murdering his sachem Quinnipiog, was also declared sachem by the English Dominion[12] of Newhaven. Gratitude, or pride, induced all those English-made sachems to assign deeds to their creators.