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the others being Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, and John Cotton, of Boston. He was a man born to direct. His followers had implicit faith in him as a man and a pastor, and they followed him through the forests with confidence that good and not evil would be with them as long as he was their guide. They gave to the town they founded the name of the one they had just left, Newtown, but this was soon changed for Hartford, after the place of the same name in England, which was the birthplace of one of the ministers of the party. A Dutch fort had been erected three years before, within the present limits of Hartford, but the Dutch title was at a later period abrogated by the General Court.

The new town was surrounded by the Pequot Indians, the same that had, in 1634, sent to Boston for help against the Narragansetts, but now they were relieved of fear from their fellow-savages, and became dangerous neighbors for the people of Hartford. They made alliance with the other tribes against the whites, but were dissuaded from their design by the heroic efforts of Roger Williams, who exposed himself to procure safety for those who had sent him into the wilderness. Still, the calamity was postponed only, and hostilities were reciprocated by the murder of the Pequots of one John Oldham, who had been banished. from Plymouth in 1624, for immorality, slander, and treason. This man was trading on the river in a vessel, when he was attacked by the Indians, who were found afterwards helplessly sailing out to sea, and were overpowered.

War was declared, and Hartford contributed fortytwo of the ninety men who enlisted to go against the

Indians, who, full of confidence, spent the night before the conflict in exultant revelry. They were attacked before dawn, and thoroughly defeated, their village being burned, and their entire tribe either killed or enslaved. The bravery and success of the English struck terror into the Indians, and a lasting peace ensued.

In 1635, John Winthrop, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, established a colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River,* which he called Saybrook, in honor of the chief patentees, Lord Say and Seal, and Lord Brook. In 1638, New Haven was founded by a party from Massachusetts, led by Theophilus Eaton, who became its governor, and John Davenport, who was its minister. Other settlements were speedily made along the shores of Long Island Sound. Eaton was governor of the New Haven Colony for twenty years, and Davenport was minister for thirty years, when he was called to Boston (in 1667) to take the corresponding position there. He was a man of remarkable character. Forced by Laud to resign his living in England, he went to Holland, whence he emigrated to Boston in 1637, led by the representa

*The charter granted by Charles II. for Connecticut (April 20, 1662) defined the limits of the territory as extending from the Narragansett River to the Pacific Ocean, and thus Connecticut, like Massachusetts, claimed extensive region in the northwest, a fact that was remembered in 1774, when her statesmen drew magnificent pictures of the prospective growth of the colony on "the finest country and happiest climate on the globe."- Bancroft's United States, vi., 506.

The claim of Connecticut was recognized and a tract of nearly four million acres was set off to her on the south side of Lake Erie (in Ohio) which is still known as the "Western Reserve." Connecticut did not give up her jurisdiction over the tract until 1800, after which the land was sold through her agents. (See page 291.)

example in history in which a government had been organized and its powers defined under a written constitution. It recognized no higher power than the people of the colony, under God, whose word, it stated, requires human governments, and it was based upon right and justice. It is essentially the constitution of Connecticut at the present day.

The Pequot War, the jealousy of the Dutch, and the proximity of the French on the eastern frontier of the colonies, led to a feeling that the colonies should unite for mutual protection. As early as 1637, negotiations had been initiated looking to such a confederacy.* There were many difficulties in the way. The weak felt that the strong would have too great power in the joint counsels, and the strong feared the weak. Besides this, Massachusetts would enter into no league with the people of Rhode Island or of Laconia, for the former had been settled by men at variance with the doctrines of the men of Massachusetts, and the latter was under the proprietorship of Gorges, who was then fighting for the king, to whom, indeed, the Rhode Islanders professed allegiance.

In 1643, however, the four colonies, Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven, and Massachusetts, and their dependencies, bound themselves together in "a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor, upon all just occasions, both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, and for their own

* It was on the thirty-first of August of that year that some of the mag. istrates and ministers of Connecticut being in Boston a meeting was had to confer regarding a confederation. Plymouth Colony had been invited, but the notice was so short that no delegates came from there.

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mutual safety and welfare," under the name of "the United Colonies of New England." The reasons given for making the confederation include the statement that the colonists were "encompassed with people of several nations and strange languages," the injuries sustained from the Indians, and specially "those sad distractions in England," which marked the beginning of the war between King and Commons, which might make it essential that those in the distant colonies who sympathized with the Commons should be united if a call for action should come. Times had changed since Connecticut had made her suggestion of a union six years before. The sentiment in favor of union seemed to spread, and the next year there was a plan which, however, never reached a practical stage, for a confederation of all the English colonies of the Western Continent.

Thus was formed the first union of the English on this continent. It lasted until the advent of Governor Andros, in 1686. In the interim between the overthrow of that person and the receipt of the new charter, Massachusetts * proposed a congress of all the colonies, and its General Court sent letters to all the colonies, as far, at least, as Maryland. The body which convened in pursuance of this call, which Mr. Bancroft calls "The first Anglo-American Congress," met at New York, May 1, 1690, and resolved to attempt the conquest of Canada and the invasion of Acadie.

The union of 1643 naturally led the home government to determine to strengthen its hold on its dis

*“Massachusetts, the parent of so many States, is certainly the parent of the American Union.”— Bancroft.