But New Haven was not the only New England colony whose laws were satirized or burlesqued by those who did not sympathize with the strict ways of the Puritan. John Josselyn, who visited the Massachusetts Colony twice, in his account of the country published in 1674 professes to give some of the laws of that colony. Some of those cited by him are true, and some are false. Some were court orders or sentences for crimes. One is similar to a law in Peters’ code: “For kissing a woman in the street, though in the way of civil salute, whipping or a fine” (p. 178). Of course there were at an early period in the colony instances of ridiculous punishments awarded at the sole discretion of the magistrate, of which the record in all cases may not be preserved, and it is hazardous to deny, for that reason, that they ever took place. The existence of standing laws are more easily ascertained. Josselyn (p. 179) refers the reader to “their Laws in print.” During his second visit to Massachusetts (1663-1671) he could have seen the digest of 1649, and that of 1660. Of the first no copy is now extant, but the Connecticut code of 1650, first printed in 1822, was perhaps substantially a transcript of it. 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 214. Josselyn probably never examined either of the Massachusetts digests.
The notorious Edward Ward published, in 1699 a folio of sixteen pages, entitled A Trip to New England, etc. (Carter-Brown, ii. 1580.) A large part of it, where he speaks of “Boston and the Inhabitants,” is abusive and scandalous. He enlarges upon Josselyn in the instance cited, whose book he had seen. Mr. Drake and Dr. Shurtleff, in their histories of Boston, both quote from it. No one would think of believing “Ned Ward,” the editor of the London Spy, who was sentenced more than once to stand in the pillory for his scurrility; yet for all this he probably was as truthful, if not as pious, as Parson Peters of a later generation.
[665] See Trumbull, i. 297; New Haven Colonial Records, ii. 217, 238, 363; Connecticut Colonial Records, ii. 283, 303, 308, 324.
[666] [See chap. x. of the present volume, and chap. ix. of Vol. IV.—Ed.]
[667] See also Winthrop’s letter in Connecticut Historical Society’s Collections, i. 52, and Secretary Clarke’s in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xi. 344. The earnest protest of New Haven against the union, till the time it really took place, may be seen in the records of that colony from 1662 to 1665.
[668] See also Hutchinson, i. 213-220; the lecture on The Regicides sheltered in New England, Feb. 5, 1869, by Dr. Chandler Robbins, who used the new materials published in a volume of “Mather Papers” in 4 Massachusetts Historical Society’s Collections, vol. viii.; J. W. Barber’s History and Antiquities of New Haven, etc., 1831.
[669] Cf. Trumbull, History, i. 524, 526, 362, 363; Arnold’s Rhode Island, vol. i., passim; Palfrey, New England, vol. ii. [An elaborate monograph of the Boundary Disputes of Connecticut, by C. W. Bowen, Boston, 1882, covers the original claims to the soil, and the disputes with Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York. It is illustrated with the Dutch map of 1616, an Indian map of 1630, and various others.—Ed.]
[670] Copies are rare. A copy sold in the Brinley sale (no. 2,001) for $300. Mr. Brinley issued a private reprint of it, following this copy, in which he gave a fac-simile of the title and an historical introduction.
[671] [Cf. C. K. Adams’s Manual of Historical Literature, p. 552. The author was the Rev. Benjamin Trumbull, D.D. (b. 1735; d. 1820). The papers of Governor Jonathan Trumbull (b. 1710; d. 1785), bound in twenty-three volumes, are in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society; and the writer of the present chapter is the chairman of a committee preparing them for publication. Their chief importance, however, is for the Revolutionary period. The papers were procured in 1795, by Dr. Belknap, from the family of the Governor. One volume (19th) was burned in 1825. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. 85, 393.—Ed.]
[672] [Dr. Trumbull’s labors ceased, with the second volume after the union; when, beginning with 1689, the editorial charge was taken by Mr. Hoadly.—Ed.]