(To be continued.)
THE RECORD OF REDDING
Mr. Grumman has produced a wholly novel and unique work[[1]] of a character never before attempted so far as we are aware. It is a record of the services and sufferings of the Revolutionary patriots of a Connecticut town, which through its sons made history and influenced public opinion in a much greater degree than its position and importance would have promised. It is a record also of the loyalists of the town, who suffered even more for their King and Cause than did the patriots, since defeat and banishment with confiscation of their estates was their final portion.
Redding (formerly written Reading) is one of the “hill towns,” of Connecticut, seven miles from Danbury and thirteen from Bridgeport, the two “shire towns,” of Fairfield County. Its people have always been noted for brain force and intelligence. The number of its sons who have won high places in the professions, in art, literature, diplomacy, the army and navy is something remarkable. At the outbreak of the Revolution it was the seat of a polite and learned society far superior to that of the average country town of the day.
Mr. Grumman divides his book into two parts—“Military History,” (a terse and simple account of the campaigns in which Redding soldiers figured, with incidents) and “Revolutionary Soldiers and Patriots of Redding,” a series of biographies which is the larger and more valuable portion of the work. In Part I he first sketches in sharp outline the two opposing forces which the troubles with England created in Redding as elsewhere—the patriots and tories. The former organized their “American Association,” the latter—very numerous and respectable in Redding—formed their “Redding Loyalist Association,” (perhaps the first of the kind in America), in February, 1775.
“In the present critical situation of publick affairs,” to quote its preamble this Association adopted a set of “Resolves” which were published in James Rivington’s Gazette for Feb. 23, 1775, as follows:—
First. Resolved, That while we enjoy the privileges and immunities of the British Constitution we will render all due obedience to his most Gracious Majesty King George the Third, and that a firm dependence on the Mother Country is essential to our political safety and happiness.
Second. Resolved, That the privileges and immunities of this Constitution are yet (in a good degree) continued to all his Majesty’s American subjects, except those who, we conceive, have justly forfeited their right thereto.
Third. Resolved, That we supposed the Continental Congress was constituted for the purpose of restoring harmony between Great Britain and her colonies and removing the displeasure of his Majesty toward his American subjects, whereas on the contrary some of their resolutions appear to us immediately calculated to widen the present unhappy breach, counteract the first principles of civil society, and in a great degree abridge the privileges of their constituents.