---

The publishers assure me that a new edition of the "Blue Laws" is wanted, and at their request I have undertaken to prepare one. I have regarded this as, in some sort, missionary work. There are regions, in which schools and printing-presses have for years been at work, where Peters's " History of Connecticut" is still read as history. There are hundreds who still believe-and thousands who profess to believe-that to kiss one's child on the Sabbath-day, to make minced pies, and to play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jews'-harp, were made criminal offences by the ancient laws of New Haven. There arc honest inquirers, not a few, who write, week after week, to the newspapers, for information about these 'Blue-Laws,' and to ask where authentic copies of them can be found. It has seemed worthwhile to bring together, in one volume of convenient size, the truth and the falsehood about the early legislation of Connecticut and New Haven colonies. Those who like to read the famous code which Peters gave to "the independent dominion of New Haven," may find it here, in unadulterated mendacity. They may find also some genuine? curiosities of legislation and jurisprudence, taken from the records of Connecticut -and other American colonies ; and, for comparison with these, a few specimens of the laws which were in force in England, in the reign of James the First.

I have aimed to give this volume some permanent value to

J. H, T. hartford, Nov. 1st, 1876.

INTRODUCTION.

-" folke that knele in blew They weare the colour, ay and ever shal, In signe they ever were and ever wil be true, Withouten change."

Fixed principles were out of fashion after the Restoration. Nothing could be more unpopular at the court of Charles the Second than constancy in virtue and adherence to convictions of duty. "True blue" became a term of reproach, reserved for puritans and schismatics. It served to point Butler's satire, in the description of Sir Hudibras:

" For his religon, it was fit To match his learning and his wit; 'Twas Presbyterian true blue"

To be "blue" was to be "puritanic," precise in the observance of legal and religious obligations, rigid, gloomy, over-strict,-in a word, to be in morals and manners the very opposite of a courtier, wit, or gallant of the time.

The colonists of New England were, with very few exceptions, " true blue," and their legislation every-where caught a reflection of the color. They accepted the word of God as a sufficient rule of conduct. The freemen of Massachusetts resolved to model their Body of Liberties from the code of Moses; and the early laws of Connecticut and New Haven were in

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great part copied from those of Massachusetts. The first planters of New Haven resolved "that, as in matters that concern the gathering and ordering of a church, so like-wise jn all public offices which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing of laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature, we would all of us be ordered by those rules which the scripture holds forth to us." "There is," observes Dr. Palfrey (History of N. England, ii. 27), " no higher, and no other just conception of human law, than was theirs, when they recognized it as an embodiment of the will-in other words, of the law-of God. . . The mistake which had more or less clouded the mind of the Puritan New-Englander was in his regarding the law of Moses as a declaration of the law of God for all times and places. But he did not embrace this error in its full extent." In New Haven, such only of "the judicial laws of God, delivered by Moses," as are "a fence to the moral law, being neither typical nor ceremonial, nor having any reference to Canaan," were made a rule to the courts in their proceedings against offeders.* No one of the colonies adopted the whole code of Moses, even in respect to capital offences. A recent editor of the " Blue Laws of Connecticut and New Haven " has commented on the " quaintness, bluntness, particularity, and antiquated excess of penalty, which have gained for them the equivocal epithet by which they have been generally designated for several generations." Quaint and blunt enough, certainly, some of these laws appear in the light of the nineteenth century. They are often perhaps too particular and precise in their application of " rules of righteousness" to the conduct of individuals. But he who believes that the early legislation of New England was distinguished, in its time, by the severity of its penalties, knows little of the history of criminal law in Great Britain or America. " In determining what kind of men our fathers were, we are to compare their laws, not with ours, but with the laws which they renounced." Thirty-one offences were

*New Haven Colony Records, I. 130. (1644.)
•{•The Blue Laws of Connecticut; edited by Samuel M. Smucker, LL.D. (Philadelphia, 1861), Preface, p. 3. ^Dr. Bacon's Historical Discourses, p. 32,

Page 11 punished by death, in England, at the beginning of the reign of James the First. The list grew larger from year to year, until in 1819 it had reached the number of two hundred and twenty-three, of which one hundred and seventy-six were without benefit of clergy. Massachusetts by her first code, in 1641, and Connecticut in 1642, * imposed the penalty of death on twelve offences only. New Haven added two or three to the number of "capital laws," but with such reservations as to leave the exaction of the supreme penalty to the discretion of the courts.

In the reform of penal legislation New England was at least a century in advance of the mother country. If any one doubts this, let him look into the State Trials or the old Reports.

Two years before the sailing of the Mayflower, " one Wrennum " was prosecuted, in the Star Chamber, on the charge of having " divers times petitioned the King against Sir Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor, pretending that the said Lord Bacon had done him great injustice," and moreover, for having dedicated to King James a book in which the Chancellor was " traduced and scandalized." On his conviction, the attorney-general cited a precedent in the same court, in the second year of the same reign, " where one Ford, for an offence in like manner against "the late Chancellor, was censured, that he should be "perpetually imprisoned, and pay a fine of L1000, and " that he should ride, with his face to the tail, from the " Fleet to Westminster, with his fault written upon his " head, and that he should acknowledge his offence in all the courts in Westminster, and that he should stand a reasonable time upon the pillory, and that one of his ears should be cut off, and from thence should be carried to prison again, and in like manner should go to Cheap-side, and should have his other ear cut off, &c." And the Court proceeded to sentence Wrennum "according to the said precedent, "

The case of William Prynne, a learned barrister, is more familiar to American readers. His real offence

* Four years later, two additional offences were made capital, by both colonies. Popham's Reports.

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was in publishing anti-prelatical tracts and opposing the innovations in religious worship introduced by Archbishop Laud. He was prosecuted in 1633, in the Star Chamber, for having written a book (Histriomastix, or a Scourge for Stage-Players") in which he had " railed not only against stage-plays," but, as was alleged, "against hunting, public festivals, Christmas-keeping, bonfires and may-poles," etc. He was sentenced to lose both his ears in the pillory, to degradation from the bar, a fine of L3000, and imprisonment for life. Three years afterwards, he gave new offence to Laud, by publishing a pamphlet against the hierarchy. He was again prosecuted, and was sentenced to lose what remained of his ears, to pay a fine of L5000, to be branded on both his cheeks with the letters S L (for ' Seditious Libeller'), and to remain in prison for life. The severity of this sentence was equaled by the savage rigor of its execution.

With such precedents, is it strange that the colonists of New England chose to frame a new code on the model of the Mosaic, rather than trust themselves to the tender mercies of English law?

The law of England which condemned a prisoner who " stood mute"-or refused to plead-to be slowly pressed to death by weights placed upon his chest (the peine fort et dure), was not repealed till 1772. Several instances of the infliction of this horrible penalty after 1700, are recorded; one, so late as 1741. Until 1790, every woman convicted of counterfeiting gold or silver coin of the realm, was sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and there " to be burned with fire till she was dead." This, says Blackstone, * was "the usual punishment for all sorts of treasons committed by those of the female sex." After 1700, the practice became more humane than the law authorized, and usually the offender was strangled before being burned: "there being very few instances, and those accidental or by negligence, of any person's being emboweled or burned, till previously deprived of sensation by strangling." By such an accident, a woman was actually burned alive at Tyburn in 1726,

* 4 Blackstone's Commentaries, 204. Ibid, 377,

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for killing her husband (a crime that English law made "petty treason"). Twenty thousand people gathered to see a woman burned, in 1773.* Another suffered the same penalty in 1777; and another, for making counterfeit shillings, in 1786.

In the reign of Henry VIII, poisoners were, by act of parliament, condemned to be boiled to death. This act was repealed in the following reign, but not before several offenders had suffered its penalty. In Germany, even in the 17th century, this horrible punishment was inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters. Taylor, the Water Poet, describes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg, in 1616. The judgment pronounced against a coiner of false money was that he should " be boiled to death in oil; not thrown into the vessel at once, but with a pulley or rope to be hanged under the arm-pits, and then let down into the oil by degrees; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil his flesh from his bones alive."

When Connecticut and New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England-as it had been since the time of Henry I. In some cases the thief might claim "benefit of clergy" for the first offence, but the second was punished by death. From many descriptions of larceny, the law expressly took away the benefit of clergy: to steal a horse, or a hawk, or woolen cloth from the weaver, was a hanging matter. So it was, to kill a deer in the king's forest, or to export sheep from the kingdom. " Outlandish persons calling themselves Egyptians " (i. e. gypsies) who remained more than one month in England, and all persons who consorted with them, were declared felons, without benefit of clergy. Thirteen gypsies were executed, under sentence of court, at one term, in Suffolk, for no greater crime than vagabondage. The brutal severity of the laws against vagrants and idlers, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century almost sur­passes belief. In the reign of Edward the Sixth, it was enacted, that " if any man or woman able to work should refuse to labor, and remain idle for three days, he or she should be branded on the breast with the letter V, and adjudged the slave, for two years, of any

* Elizabeth Herring. See the " Annual Register," 1773, p. 131.

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one who should inform against such idler:" if the slave ran away, he or she when recaptured was to be branded on the cheek with the letter S, and to become a slave for life; and running away a second time, was to be punished with death. It was not much better in the reign of James the First, when a law-which continued in force till the time of Queen Anne-pro-Tided that any mendicant or vagrant whom a justices' court should adjudge " incorrigible and dangerous, should be branded on the left shoulder with a hot iron of the breadth of a shilling having a Roman R upon it, and if after such judgment they were found begging and wandering, they were to be adjudged felons and to suffer death, without benefit of clergy."

Before criticising too sharply the penal codes of New England in the first half of the seventeenth century, it may be well to look at the picture a recent English historian has drawn, of England in the middle of the eighteenth, and at the beginning of the reign of George the Third. "Our criminal law," says Phillimore,-"at that time the inexorable scourge of the lower orders, cart-loads of whom were carried off every month to execution -administered in that day too frequently by corrupt and ignorant judges, generally, as any one who turns to the reports of the period will see, by narrow-minded and inferior men, was-for the cruelty, multitude, and inutility of the punishments it inflicted, no less than for the caprice and brutality with which it was abused by the lower officers of justice, and the bottomless magazine of absurdity in the technical forms, rules, and language to which the lawyers clung with interested tenacity- in all probability the worst, for its effects upon the temper and morals of the community, in civilized Europe. .... It is difficult to find, in the history of the most despotic countries in the darkest ages, proofs of more stupid and revolting injustice. . . The reader of the state trials. . . might almost imagine that he is reading the narrative of Gregory of Tours, or the history of some tribe in the infancy of civilization."*

The planters of New England were Englishmen, not exempt from English prejudices in favor of English

* Phillimore's History of England during the Reign of George III. pp. 47, 48, 50.

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institutions, laws, and usages. They were Englishmen of the sixteenth century, not social scientists and law-reformers of the nineteenth. They lived half a dozen generations too early for the discovery that sanguinary and excessive punishments multiply offences. They had not been taught to question the wisdom or the humanity of English criminal law. They were as unconscious of its barbarism, as were the parliaments which had enacted or the courts which dispensed it. That some-what of this barbarism appears in their own beginnings of legislation and in their methods of punishment is not to be wondered at.

Nor should it seem more strange, that their laws manifest intolerance of dissent in matters of religion. Most of them were born and nurtured in the Church of England, and that church certainly had been at no pains to teach, by precept or example, the excellence of toleration. Catholic or Protestant, Calvinistic or Arminian, under Henry the Eighth or Mary the Bloody, Elizabeth or James, the English Church held fast at least one article of faith-the obligation of the State to repress heresy, to punish apostasy, to enforce conformity, and to give effect to ecclesiastical censures by penal laws-by fines, imprisonment, confiscation, banishment, or death. "All religious communities"- says Sir James Mackintosh, with reference to the Church of England after the Reformation,-" were at that time alike intolerant; and there was, perhaps, no man in Europe who dared to think that the State neither possessed, nor could delegate-nor could re-cognize as inherent in another body-any authority over religious opinions."

The Act of Supremacy of 1559 declared the queen to be "supreme governor of the realm.... as well in spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as in temporal;" and the Act of Uniformity, the same year, forbade the use of other forms of prayer than those provided in the Book of Common Prayer, under penalty of loss of goods and chattels for the first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment for life for the third. James the First, shortly after his accession, made known his determination to " have one doctrine and one discipline, one

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religion in substance and in ceremony," and he gave his sanction to the canons adopted by the Convocation of 1604, by which excommunication-"a precursory judgment of the latter day," as Lord Bacon called it,- was added to the other penalties for nonconformity. "To exercise the right of private judgment, so far as to quit the Church of Rome, which had governed Christendom for centuries, was the duty of every Christian; but to exercise it so far as to differ with the Articles put out not one hundred years before, by a Church that did not pretend to be infallible and teachers that laid no claim to inspiration, was a crime to be punished, in some instances by the stake, in all others by confiscation, by the lash and shears of the hangman, and by the pestilential dungeon, within the walls of which was death."*

The colonists of New England-call them fanatics, bigots, persecutors, or what you will-did no more than repeat, in their new home, a few of the lessons they had been taught in the mother country and by the mother church. They believed it to be the duty of civil magistrates, to maintain the order and discipline of the churches and "the liberty and purity of the gospel." The General Court of Massachusetts took counsel, now and then, with "the neighboring Elders" -just as Parliament gave ear to Convocation. The Plymouth pilgrims who had lived in Holland under the ministry of John Robinson had gained some notion of religious liberty and the right of private judgment. 'So had Thomas Hooker, the father of Connecticut, and some of those who came with him. But in England of the reign of Elizabeth or James- under the primacy of Whitgift, Bancroft, or Laud- how should a nonconformist learn the meaning of toleration-except as he may have heard it denounced as the sin of Gallio?

The writ for burning a heretic (de hccretico comburendo) on the judgment of an ecclesiastical tribunal was not abolished in England till late in the reign of Charles the Second. Elizabeth caused two Dutch baptists to be burned at Smithfield, in 1575, and two Socinians, sentenced by the church as "obstinate, contumacious

* Phillimore's Reign of George III., p. 27.

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and incorrigible heretics," were sent to the stake in 1612, by James the First. Two Brownists were hung, in 1583, for circulating' a tract in which the queen's supremacy in the church was denied; John Udal, a nonconforming minister, died in prison, under sentence of death, in 1593, for having written a book against the bishops; and the same year, for a similar offence, Greenwood and Penry, ministers, and Barrow, a lawyer, suffered death; several of the Brownists died in prison, and hundreds were driven into exile. As for Puritans-"I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse," said King James; and, by help of the High Commission and the Star Chamber, he more than kept his word.

With what fervid zeal "the sweet peace of the church" was in those days guarded against dissent, we get a notion from a passage in one of the letters of honest and pious James Howell, in 1635 : " I rather pitty than hate Turk or Infidell," he wrote, "for they are of the same metall, and bear the same stamp as I do, tho' the inscriptions differ: If I hate any, 'tis those Schismatics that puzzle the sweet peace of our Church; so that / could be content to see an Anabaptist go to hell on a Brownist's back."

When New Haven adopted her Code, in 1656, the law of England imposed a fine of 100 marks, for speaking in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer, and for the third offence the penalty was imprisonment for life. Baptists were disqualified to make wills or to receive legacies, and were exposed to corporal punishment; to deny the lawfulness of infant baptism, or to affirm that such baptism was void, subjected the offender to imprison­ment ; absence from the parish church, a single Sunday, incurred a fine of one shilling only, but absence for a month together was fined ,£20-which was about twenty-fold the penalty attached to the same offence by the laws of Connecticut and New Haven.

In the reign of Charles the Second-after New Haven was included in the Connecticut charter-the Act of Elizabeth for the "suppression of conventicles" was revived, and with increased severity: "recusants" were punished by banishment, and in case of return, by death, and all meetings of five or more nonconformists, under

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color or pretence of religious worship, were forbidden under the same penalties. In 1670, this law was re-enacted, with a further provision which imposed a heavy fine on every person present at any religious exercise not in accordance with the liturgy of the Church of England (Acts of 16 and 22 Charles II.)

It would be easy to fill a volume with "blue laws" enacted by the parliaments of Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First. The instances that have been given are enough to show whence came whatever is harsh or repulsive in the early laws and judicial proceedings of New England and by what lessons the puritan colonists were taught intolerance.

To each of the Capital Laws enacted by Massachusetts was appended a reference to the text or texts of scripture that authorize the penalty of death. The other colonies copied these laws and references, without much alteration. Everyone who has anything to say about the " Blue Laws " alludes to this eccentricity of puritan legistation, as showing the judaizing tendency of the religion of New England. To modern eyes, the citation of scriptural authorities, in a penal code, certainly does look odd. The Bible is about the last book to which lawyers or legislatures now-a-days are expected to look for precedents. But Nathaniel Ward, who drafted the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, had been " a student and practiser in the courts of the common law " in Eng-land, before he became a minister, and he may have taken an idea from Coke's Institutes. When commenting on the infernal penalty attached to high treason by the law of England, Coke was careful to point out the scriptural warrant for each revolting particular of the execution. For drawing to the place of punishment, he cites i. Kings, 2. 28, the case of Joab ; for hanging, that of Bigthan and Teresh, Esther 2.23; for emboweling, that of Judas, Acts, i. 18; for piercing the body "while he was yet alive," that of Absalom, 2 Sam., 18. 14; for beheading, that of Sheba, 2 Sam., 20. 22; for quartering and hanging up, that of Rechab and Baanah, 2 Sam, 4, 11, 12; finally, for corruption of blood and forfeiture of estate, David's imprecation against his enemies, in Psalm 109,9-13-* And in the last century, Sir William Blackstone, treating

* 3 Institutes, 211,

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of those unnatural crimes which are the subject of the 6th and 7th capital laws of the Connecticut code, observes that their punishment is "by the voice of nature and of reason, and the express command of God, determined to he capital,"-and for this he cites in a note * the same texts (Levit. 20. 13, 15) which were cited by Connecticut and New Haven. So, too, when writing of witchcraft and its penalty, he refers, as the law-makers of New England in the preceding century had referred, to " the express law of God " in " Exodus, 22. 18."

Something may be said, here, about this law against witchcraft, which to many readers has seemed more deeply tinged with " blue " than any other in the criminal codes of the puritans. "It was not to be expected of the colonists of New England that they should be first to see through a delusion, which befooled the whole civilized world, and the gravest and most knowing persons in it. Men are not omniscient, nor is it common, any more than just, to blame them for not being so." The colonists of New England-in Connecticut and New Haven, as well as in Massachusetts, -"like all other Christian people at that time,-at least, with extremely rare individual exceptions,-believed in the reality of a hideous crime called witchcraft " Herein, if in nothing else, they remained in conformity with the Church of England. To go back to the reign of Elizabeth, we find good Bishop Jewel writing, in 1559, to his friend Peter Martyr: " The number of witches and sorceresses has everywhere become enormous." The same year, when preaching before the Queen, he called attention to the fact "that this kind of people, within these last few years are marvellously increased " in England: and humbly petitioned, in behalf of her majesty's poor subjects, " that the laws touching such malefactors may be put in due execution." Accordingly, at the next session of parliament a bill was passed declaring enchantment and witchcraft to be felony. § In the visitation of parishes, the commissioners were enjoined to Inquire respecting such as used charms, sorcery, witchcraft, " and any like craft, invented by the devil."

* 4 Commentaries, 2.16. *f Palfrey, History of New England, IV. 127, Ibid., 96. § Jewel's Works (Parker Society), pt. 2, p. 1028; and Strype's Annals. I, i. 88.

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A good many witches were convicted in Elizabeth's reign. Three were hanged at Warbois in Huntingdon-shire, in 1593, and their property-'forfeited by conviction of felony-was used to provide for the delivery of an annual sermon on witchcraft, by some Cambridge doctor or bachelor of divinity. This sermon was preached yearly till 1718, and perhaps later. * It seems to have borne some fruits, for zeal against witchcraft was kept burning in that neighborhood, after it had cooled in other parts of England. In 1716, a woman and her daughter, nine years old, were hanged in Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings!

The act of 1562 was superseded, in the first year of James the First's reign, by another, more severe, making witchcraft punishable with death, and without benefit of clergy.

The king, who had acquired in Scotland a taste for witch-hunting, did not suffer this law to become a dead letter. He was as zealous for the suppression of witchcraft and sorcery as for the enforcement of conformity. He had devised new tortures f to extract confessions from the accused; and he had published a learned and convincing treatise on the Doctrine of Devils, which all loyal subjects and aspiring courtiers took care to read and admire. That the witchcraft delusion soon became epidemic throughout England, was a natural consequence. Seven or eight years before the sailing of the

* Hutchinson's Hist. Essay on Witchcraft, p. 130. Before leaving Scotland, James assisted in the execution of several 'warlocks' and witches. One of them, on his second examination, retracted the confession forced from him by the horrible torture of the iron boot, on his first: "whereupon the King's Majestic, perceiving his stubborn wilfulnesse," suggested a remedy. The finger-nails of the accused "were riven and pulled with an instrument called a turkas [a smith's pincers]: and under every nail there was thrust in two needles even up to the heads." Still refusing to confess," he was then with all convenient speed, by commandment"! Conveyed again to the torment of the boots, where he continued a long time, and abode so many blows in them that his legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever."'" lie had little use for them-for the confession being somehow obtained, he was condemned, strangled, and burnt.-Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, i. 213, and after.

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Mayflower, twelve persons were condemned at one time, in Lancaster, and as many more the next year. Two were hanged at Lincoln, in 1618, The wonder is that the Puritans did not bring the mania with them to New England at their first coming. It did not appear here till nearly 1650, arid then only in sporadic cases. In Great Britain, it prevailed, with occasional intermis­sions, for nearly a century. The last execution under the act of James the First was in 1722, when an old woman was burned at the stake, in the north of Scotland, but the ' law was not repealed till 1735: and so late as 1759, an old woman, accused of bewitching her neighbor's spinning-wheel, was tried by a self-appointed jury, and stripped to her shift to be weighed, in the church, against the parish Bible. Fortunately she outweighed it, and was acquitted by the populace. *

The delusion was at its height in England at the time when Connecticut was framing her criminal code. Seventeen persons had been convicted of witchcraft in Lancashire in 1634, sixteen were condemned at Yarmouth in 1644, fifteen at Chelmsford (Thomas Hooker's old home) in Essex, in 1645; nearly sixty in Suffolk, and as many in Huntingdonshire, in 1645 and 1646. "During the whole of James's reign, amid the civil wars of his successor, the sway of the Long Parliament, the usurpation of Cromwell, and the reign of Charles II., there was no abatement of the persecution."

The Church manifested as little doubt of the reality of the crime or of the sufficiency of the evidence on which the accused were convicted, as did the courts, the jurors, and the mass of the people of England. The act of 1562 seems to have been passed, as was before mentioned, at the instance of Bishop Jewel. Twelve bishops were in the committee by which the act of James I. -which Coke and Bacon assisted to prepare-was discussed in the House of Lords. Dr. Francis (afterwards Bishop) Hutchinson intimates that the divines who made the authorized version of the Bible introduced in it "some phrases that favor the vulgar notions " of witchcraft, familiar spirits, etc., at the particular desire of King James, out of " the

* Annual Register, 1759, P- 73- f Mackay's Memoirs of Popular Delusions, ii. 141. | Hutchinson's Historical Essay on Witchcraft, p. 225.

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great reverence they had to the King's judgment." The learned and eminent Dr. Henry More (who was a pre-bendary of Gloucester, and declined a bishopric) was a firm believer in witchcraft and the power of raising evil spirits. The third book of his "Antidote to Atheism," published after the restoration of Charles the Second, abounds in marvels, some of which are unsurpassed, as tests of credulity, by any in Mather's Magnalia. Bishop Hall, in his treatise on " The Invisible World," proclaimed his belief in " the assumed shapes of Evil Spirits." Dr. Thomas Fuller, in his "Holy and Profane State," maintains that " there are witches in the present " as in the past, and that some of them "indent downright with the devil." Sir Thomas Brown, who wrote on "Vulgar Errors," did not reckon the belief in witchcraft as one of them. "For my part," he said,* "I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches ": and when two women were prosecuted for this crime, in 1664, his testimony had no small influence in procuring their conviction. It was on this trial that Sir Matthew Hale, in his charge to the jury, told them, " he did not in the least doubt there were witches; first, because the Scriptures affirmed it; secondly, because the wisdom of all nations, particularly our own, had provided laws against witchcraft, which implied their belief of such a crime." No book published after the restoration of Charles the Second was more influential in reviving the waning belief in witchcraft, none supplied the magistrates at Salem with so many authoritative precedents, on none did the Mathers draw more largely for "wonders of the invisible world," than the "Sadducismus Trimnphatus" of the Rev. Joseph Glanvil-a fellow of the Royal Society, one of the chaplains of Charles II., rector of the Abbey Church at Bath, and subsequently a prebendary of Worcester.

At one of the last witch-trials in England-that of Jane Wenham, in Hertfordshire, in 1711, before Sir John Powell (afterwards Chief Justice),-two clergy-men of the Church of England were witnesses against the accused, and testified to the efficacy of the Book of Common Prayer, in exorcism of the bewitched; and a third, the Rev. Francis Bragge, displayed great zeal in the prosecution and published "a defence of the pro-

* Religion Medici, § 30.

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ceedings, wherein the possibility and reality of Witch-craft are demonstrated," &c. The accused was found guilty, upon the evidence, " Do you mean," asked Judge Powell, "that you find her guilty upon the indictment for conversing with the Devil in the shape of a cat?" "We find her guilty of that" replied the foreman; and the poor creature was sentenced to death: but, on the recommendation of the Judge, she received a pardon. Mr. Bragge averred that she was sustained by the dissenters, and that she had received contributions while in prison from their party. " We are willing to part with her," he added, " and wish the Fanaticks much joy of their new convert:" but he deplored "the proneness of the age to Sadducism and Infidelity." *

These instances, which might be multiplied a hundredfold, are mentioned, not as proofs that the Church of England was mainly responsible for the witchcraft delusion and the thousands of lives sacrificed to it in, Great Britain, but to counteract the impression which a certain class of writers have been at some pains to produce-that the delusion was confined chiefly to puritans and dissenters, and was to be regarded as in some sort a result of "schism," The truth is, that It pervaded the whole Christian church. The lawmakers and the ministers of New England were under its influences just as-and no more than-were the lawmakers and the ministers of Old England. The learned and excellent divines and staunch churchmen whose names I have mentioned above, were not, in this matter, in advance of their age, " We clergymen," said Bishop Hutchinson, in 1717, "are not thought to have kept our order altogether free from blame in this matter. . . . Yet, in the main, I believe our Church and its clergy have as little to answer for in this respect as any." As much may be said,, and with equal truth, for the churches of New England; and emphatically, for Connecticut.

"The infatuation never extended to the less gloomy people of Rhode Island," says the historian of that

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colony: "the offence appears on the statute book* but no prosecutions were ever had under it. . , . More important matters to them than the bedevilment of their neighbors engrossed their whole attention." Distracted by faction-barely able to maintain the semblance of civil order-there was reason enough why Rhode Island should not look beyond her borders for " bedevilment." When New Haven was framing her code of law, the general court at Providence was striving to keep the peace between its members by passing an Act to punish by fine or whipping "any man who should strike another person in the Court" "Torn and rent by divisions," it was some compensation for her troubles, that her magistrates-whether through lack of disposition or of authority to enforce the laws-instituted no prosecutions for witchcraft, and gave themselves or the colony no trouble on account of "familiarity with the devil."

Just when or by whom the acts and proceedings of New Haven colony were first stigmatized as Blue Laws, cannot now be ascertained. The presumption, however, is strong that the name had its origin in New York, and that it gained currency in Connecticut, among episcopalian and other dissenters from the established church, between 1720 and 1750.

Several causes contributed to bring Connecticut into disfavor with her western neighbors. In the first place, she had defeated every project for the abrogation of her charter and for annexing her to the province of New York under a governor commissioned by .the crown. Andros and Dongan had believed that it would be "impossible for the government of New York to subsist without the addition of Connecticut." Fletcher, and Cornbury, and Hunter, all turned longing eyes to the little colony on the east. They saw not much promise for the future in the condition of affairs at home. They sneered at the set ways of

*In the Laws of 1647: " Witchcraft is forbidden by this present Assembly to be used in this Colony; and the Penallie imposed by the Authorities that we are subject to [i. e, the law of England] is Felony of Death. I Jac. 12."-R. /. Col. Records, I. 166, Arnold's History of Rhode Island, i, 525, JR.' Island Colonial Records, i. 321.

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puritanism and its intolerance of dissent, but they were not insensible to the advantages New England had gained by maintaining a higher standard of morals and a more general regard for at least the externals of religion. Governor Dongan, when questioned by the Board of Trade, in 1687, as to the "religious persuasions" of the people of New York, replied: "New York has, first, a chaplain belonging to the Fort, of the Church of England; secondly, a Dutch Calvinist; thirdly, a French Calvinist; fourthly, a Dutch Lutheran. Here be not many of the Church of England, few Roman Catholics, abundance of Quakers' preachers men, and women especially, singing Quakers, ranting Quakers, Sabbatarians, Anti-sabbaticals, some Ana-baptists, some Independents, some Jews; in short, of ail sorts of opinions there are some, and the most fart of none at all."* Colonel Heathcote-a member of the Provincial Council, and for three years mayor of New York, -in a letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, written in 1704, says, f that at his first coming to the Province in 1692: "I found it the most rude and heathenish country I ever saw in my whole life, which called themselves Christians, there being not so much as the least marks or footsteps of religion of any sort." Matters had not much improved in 1711, when Lewis Morris, chief-justice of the province, wrote to the same Society: "Nine parts in ten of ours will add no great credit • to whatsoever church they are of; nor can it well be expected otherwise: ior as New England-excepting some families-was the scum of the old, so the greatest part of the English in this Province was the scum of the New, who brought as many opinions almost as persons, but neither religion or virtue, and have acquired a very little si nee." J Mr. Muirson, the Society’s missionary in 1708, § was saddened at the hopelessness of Christianizing the Indians of New York, so long as the English "give them such a bad example, and fill their mouths with such objections against our blessed religion:" and the " dissenters, both in this and in the neighboring colony " [Connecticut], say, " that many of the members of the Church

*Doc. History of New York, i. 116. Humphrey's Historical Account, p. 33. Doc. Hist, of N. York, iii. 152. Ibid. 566.

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of England are irregular in their lives, and therefore they ought not, and will not join it." *

That New England-and especially that portion of New England which was best known to New York- should not be regarded with much favor in such a community as is here described, is not surprising. To the lawless all laws are 'blue,' to the vicious all moral restraints are 'puritanic,' to the men who "are of no religion at all," any profession of religious obligation is hypocrisy or superstition.

There were other considerations which, at the period referred to, provoked hostility to Connecticut laws and institutions, and there were special reasons why this hostility was, after a while, particularly directed toward New Haven.

In 1701-the year in which Yale College was incorporated " for upholding and propagating of the Christian protestant religion, by a succession of learned and orthodox men "-the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was organized in England, and immediately began its work for the establishment of the episcopal church in the colonies. In New York and other provinces dependent on the crown, the Society's missionaries found no great hindrance to their work. In Connecticut, they were less cordially welcomed. "They tell our people," wrote the Rev. George Muirson, to the Society, in 1708, "that they will not suffer the house of God to be defiled with idolatrous worship and superstitious ceremonies. They are so bold that they spare not openly to speak reproachfully and with great contempt of our church." Good Mr. Beach-the Society's missionary at New-town-complained that this contempt for "the Church" was manifested even by the Indians of Connecticut. When he made an attempt to instruct those who lived about Newtown, "after a short time" (he writes), "I found that I laboured in vain, and they refused to hear anything about religion from me, and, to show how much they defied the thoughts of the Church of England, they would call me Churchman! Churchman! out of contempt-which they had learned from the neighbouring Dissenters." Connecticut had an estab-

* Beach's Second Address (Boston, 1751), p. 70.

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lished church of her own, and was somewhat jealous of its privileges. Col, Heathcote, in a report made to the Society, in 1705, says: " For Connecticut, I am and have been pretty conversant, and always was as much in their good graces as any man:" as to "the best and most probable way of doing good among them-there is nothing more certain than that is the most difficult task the Society have to wade through., . . . They have abundance of odd kinds of Laws to prevent any dissenting from their church," etc. * For such "odd kinds of laws," blue was a convenient epithet; and not for these only, but for whatever else in colo­nial laws and proceedings looked over-strict, or queer, or 'puritanic.'

Early in the episcopal controversy in New England, the religion of the "dissenters" was ridiculed as "true blue." John Checkley, of Boston, was prosecu­ted and fined, in 1724, for publishing, under the title of "A Discourse concerning Episcopacy," a virulent attack on the churches of Massachusetts, which the court held to be "a false and scandalous libel." In 1738, the book was reprinted for Checkley, in London, with the addition of his Plea to the court and his sentence; and, on a single page, was given "A Specimen of a True Dissenting Catechism, upon Right true-blue Dissenting Principles/' followed by the lines,

" They're so perverse and opposite As if they worship'd God for Spite,'"

This couplet, taken from Butler's description of the religion of Hudibras (which was "presbyterian true-blue") shows where Checkley found the epithet. His book, it appears, continued to be very " industriously handed about," among the episcopalians in western

*Doc. History of New York, iii. 80.

Rev. Sam, Peters, also, made this couplet serviceable. Describing "the grand meeting-house" in Norwich, Conn., of which "the "steeples stands at the east end," he said : " The following couplet was written by a traveller, on the steeple :

' They're so perverse and opposite, As if they built to God in spite." Hist, of Connecticut, p. 140,

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Connecticut, twenty years after its publication, * and doubtless helped to give the epithet currency.

Colonel Caleb Heathcote, before mentioned, who was a member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and directed its work in New York and the neighboring colonies, lived at Westchester, on the western border of Connecticut. It was from this quarter, and with his introduction, that the first missionaries of the Society were brought into the Colony. ''In those days" (as Mr. Wm. L. Kingsley remarks)! "when all traveling was attended with every kind of difficulty, New Haven-which was the nearest town of importance and the one with which the English at New York had most to do-was to them practically 'New England.' It was the part of New England about which they knew the most, and that part of it which they pictured to themselves whenever 'New England' was spoken of." Another circum-stance contributed to draw attention to New Haven, as the strong-hold of 'puritanism ' and dissent. "A thing which they call a college, wherein a commencement was made some three or four months ago "-as Col. Heathcote informed the Society, in November, 1705, -was permanently established at New Haven, in 1716. [Six years after, when the Rev. Timothy Cutler, was won to episcopacy, the fact that he was President of Yale College in New England, a station of credit and profit,"§ added a laurel to the triumph.] The Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, a missionary of the Society, formerly a tutor in Yale, felt it necessary to apologize to his employers for sending his son to New Haven: " It is indeed a great mortification to me and to him," wrote Mr. Johnson, " that I am obliged to send him to a dissenting college, or deny him any public education at all, and rather than deny any collegiate education, I confess I do not deny him going to meeting, when he cant help it." || It is a comfort to know that the young man .

* Rev. Dr. Noah Welles, in Dedication of a Sermon preached at Stamford, April 10, 1763, page iii., note.

fin a valuable paper on the "Blue Laws," in The New Englander, for April, 1871.

Doc. History of New York, iii., 80. Humphreys, Historical Account, 33.}. Hawkins, Hist. Notices of the Missions of the Church of England.

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was not quite ruined. William Samuel Johnson is not the least among the magnates of Yale.

There was another reason-and it is perhaps the principal one-for visiting upon New Haven the authorship of all the "odd kinds of laws " which New York found objectionable. In the colony of New Haven, before the union with Connecticut, the privileges of voting and of holding civil office were, by the "fundamental agreement," restricted to church-members. This peculiarity of her constitution was enough to give color to the assertion that her legislation was, pre-eminently, blue. That her old record-book contained a code of " blue laws " which were discreditable to puritanism and which testified to the danger of schism-became, among certain classes, an assured belief. To this imaginary code wit and malice made large additions, sometimes by pure invention, sometimes by borrowing absurd or arbitrary laws from the records of other colonies. And so the myth grew- till the last vestige of truth was lost in fable.

The earliest mention of the " New Haven Blue Laws " that I remember to have seen in print, is in a satirical pamphlet published in 1762, entitled: "The Real Advantages which Ministers and People may enjoy, especially in the Colonies, by conforming to the Church of England," etc. The anonymous author (probably the Rev. Noah Welles, D. D. of Stamford, a zealous opponent of episcopacy,) addressing a young friend who had some thoughts of conforming, tells him that "it is a principal advantage of the Church of England, that the religion which is generally practised by her members is perfectly agreeable to polite gentlemen; whereas no gentleman can belong to other persuasions without meeting with a great deal of uneasiness from their doctrines, but more especially from their discipline " (p. 6) :

" You have doubtless often observed, that the dissenters in New England have such a discipline among them as is very shocking to many fine gentlemen, and ladies too. If a gentleman drinks a little freely, or happens to love a pretty girl somewhat too warmly, nothing will content these rigid bigots, but they must stand on the stool of repentance, or in the broad-alley, and make a long whining confession. Now you know that this rigorous discipline is chiefly levelled and contrived to pester and afflict polite gentlemen, to whom women and wine are far from being disagreeable, now and then. Indeed I have heard that some of them begin to be ashamed of their blue laws at New Haven, yet they still retain so many penances, confessions, and

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INTRODUCTION. 31 newspapers and pamphlets printed before the Revolution, but no specimens of the laws so stigmatised seem to have been published before 1781, when "a sketch of some of them" was given to the world by the

Five or six years before this " History " was fabricated, its author was the subject of a one-line sketch in McFingal;

The late Professor J. L. Kingsley, in the notes to his Historical Discourse at New Haven (1838), was at the pains of pointing out "' a few of the errors "-as he charitably named them-of "the work which, more than any other, has given currency to various misrepresentations respecting the New Haven colony: " and in this connection, he quoted a remark made by, the Rev. Dr. Trumbull, the historian, who was a townsman of Peters and had known him from childhood, -that, "of all men with whom he had ever been acquainted , Dr. Peters, he had thought, from his first knowledge of him, the least to be depended upon as to any matter of fact; especially in story-telling." The best excuse that can be made for him is, that he was a victim of pseudomania; that his abhorrence of truth was in fact a disease, and that he was not morally responsible for its outbreaks. He could not keep even his name clear of falsification. It passes into history with doubtful initials and fictitious titles. He wrote himself, sometimes " Samuel Peters," sometimes "Samuel Andrew (or, Samuel A.) Peters." He appended to his name the letters " LL. D."-but no one can guess how he came by them. Some books of reference have made him D. D.; others (including the latest American biographical dictionary) have conferred on him both the doctorates. His life begins with fable-in fact, the fable is pre-natal, for he claimed descent from a brother of Hugh Peters, who (if proof of a negative can ever be

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trusted) had no existence. His autobiography-which he was fond of writing-is everywhere as untruthful as are his contributions to history. In one place he describes himself as

" The Rev. Samuel Peters, an episcopal clergyman, who by his generosity and zeal for the Church of England, and loyalty to the House of Hanover, has rendered himself famous both in New and Old England, and in some degree made an atonement for the fana­ticism and treasons of his uncle Hugh, and of his ancestor on his mother's side, Major-General Thomas Harrison, both hanged at Charing-Cross in the last century."-History of Connecticzit, 172.

In a " History of Jonathan Trumbull, the Rebel Governor," etc., evidently from the pen of Peters, in a London "Political Magazine," for January, 1781, he introduces himself as

-" the Rev. Mr. Peters, a church clergyman, of an ancient and opulent family in the Colony, and one of those they stiled their Noblesse, being a descendant " etc. ..." and his wife was a descendant of Dr. John Owen." [As a matter of fact, he married the great-grand-daughter of a John Owen who was living in Windsor, Conn., before 1650,-the cotemporary and only eight years the junior of Dr. John Owen.] . . . . " Mr Peters had been brought up to the law, and was extremely popular in the country ; but . .. renouncing the independent faith, he received holy ordination from the Lord Bishop of London."

.... “In proportion to a man's goodness, is he persecuted. Mr. Peters's stile of life in Connecticut was generous and exemplary, and his fortune considerable. It is most likely he would have arrived to the Government of the Colony, had he not forsaken the Republican system of his ancestors, and become an admirer of the English con-stitution and a convert to the Church of England."

To descend to prose: Mr. Peters was born in Hebron in 1735, graduated at Yale College in 1757, went to England for episcopal ordination, and returned in 1760, to take charge of the little episcopal church in his native town, where he continued to reside till the beginning of the revolutionary contest. In 1774, his obstinate and aggressive toryism rendered him very obnoxious to his neighbors and finally provoked the resentment of the Sons of Liberty. A party of two or three hundred men paid him a visit, threatened him (so he averred) with tar and feathers, handled him somewhat roughly when they detected him in falsehood, and drew from him a promise that he would not again meddle in public affairs. After a few weeks, he gave new offence, and was again called to account. This time, he was made to subscribe, "without equivocation or mental reservation," a pledge to

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" support the measures taken to obtain redress of our grievances," etc. He was not much hurt, in person or property, but was badly frightened, and apprehensive of worse to come. He fled from Hebron to Boston, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against his tormentors. "For my telling the Church people not to take up arms, etc., it being high treason, etc.,"-he wrote from his place of refuge, to his friend, the Rev. Dr. Auchmuty, of New York,-" the Sons of Liberty have destroyed my windows, rent my clothes, even my gown, etc., crying out, down with the Church, the rags of Popery, etc.; their rebellion is obvious-treason is common-and robbery is their daily diversion : the Lord deliver us from anarchy." He found his only comfort in the anticipation that, if his plans of vengeance should succeed, Connecticut might be blotted out: "the bounds of New York may directly extend to Connecticut river, Boston meet them, New Hampshire take the Province of Maine, and Rhode Island be swallowed up as Dathan." In October 1774, he sailed for England, where he remained until 1805. He obtained a small pension from the crown, and some compensation for the property he professed to have lost in Connecticut: and it was perhaps in the hope of eking out a livelihood, as well as of gratifying his resentment, that he employed his pen in abuse of the colony which gave him birth, and the religion of his fathers. He did not, says Mr. Duykinck, " carry his point of dismembering Connecticut,-but he punished the natives almost as effectually by writing a book-his History of the State. It was published anonymously, but it was as plainly Peter’s as if every page had been subscribed by him, like the extorted declarations."*

His work seems to have been in no sense a success. He had presumed too far both on the credulity of English readers and on their ill-will to America. With less inveterate aversion to truth, he might have imparted plausibility to fiction; with less exuberance of malice, he might have tickled the English ear with the absurdities and misdeeds of the "rebels," and have passed for a humorist. As it was, the Monthly Review doubtless expressed the general sentiment:

"We find it destitute of every claim to the rare quality [of impar­tiality] ; and observe in it so many marks of party spleen and idle * Cyclopaedia of American Literature, I. 191.

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credulity, that we do not hesitate to pronounce it altogether unworthy of the public attention,'' " Extravagant and Incredible," " ludicrous and apocryphal," are the epithets by which the historian of Episcopacy in Connecticut (the Rev. Dr. Beardsley) has characterized the statements of Peter’s book. It would have fallen forever into the oblivion it merits, had it not been that its malignant fabrications have supplied so many respectable and reverend authors with facilities for breaking the ninth commandment without incurring personal responsibility. The book was first published in 1781. The next year, it received a new title page, which described it as a "second edition." Whether this was done to stimulate the sale, or merely to improve a blank space in the title, by the insertion of one more falsehood, is not clear. " Its narrations," says Duykinck, in his notice of the author, "are independent of time, place, and probability. A sober critic would go mad over an attempt to correct its misstatements." What could sober criticism do, for instance, with the account of Bellows Falls, where "the water is consolidated by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration that no iron crow can be forced into it and the stream is ''harder than marble " (p. 127),-or, with the bridge over the Quinebaug, at Norwich, " under which ships pass with all their sails standing "(p. .130),-or with "the in-famous villainy of [the Rev. Thomas] Hooker, who spread death upon the leaves of his Bible and struck Connecticote (a great Sachem) mad with disease " (134),-or with the Rev. Mr. Vesey's exorcism of the devils who came to attend an Indian powwaw at Stratford, and the resulting introduction of episcopacy into Connecticut (215- 217),-or with the statement, that the people of Massachusetts " sent Mr. John Winthrop privately to Hartford, to promote a petition to Charles II. for a charter, as a security against the ambition of New Haven " (74),- or with the assertion that Yale College was "originally a school established by the Rev. Thomas Peters at Say-brook " (199),-or with the story of the alarming incursions of the Windham frogs, or the descriptions of those remarkable quadrupeds "the whappernocker " and " the cuba,"-or with the conviction and punishment of an episcopal clergyman in 1750, for breaking the Sabbath by

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walking too fast from church and combing a lock of his wig on Sunday (p. 305),-or, in fine, with any half-dozen consecutive sentences in this wonderful "History." Its lies, like Falstaff's, are " gross as a mountain, open, palpable." Indeed, some of the apologists for Peters have insisted that he never intended his book to he believed. Yet-through this slough of mendacity, a Lord Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) could wade, to cull specimens of the "Blue Code of Connecticut " which " made it criminal in a mother to kiss her infant on the Sabbath-day," and "which strictly forbids making mince-pies,"etc., etc., *-and the Reverend Henry Caswall, "D. D. of Trinity College, Connecticut, Prebendary of Sarum," etc., could repeat in his work on " The American Church and the American Union," (on the authority of this History of Connecticut, "as quoted by the Bishop of Oxford"} the story of " the fundamental principles of the New Haven settlement/' and " the most remarkable of the laws passed by the New Haven dominion",-and the Reverend Isaac Taylor, vicar of Holy Trinity, Twickenham, can transfer to the pages of his " Words and Places " (4th edition, 1873, p. n,) these same blue laws, "mince-pies, trumpet, drum, Jews'-harp," and all, as " a curious picture of life in this Puritan Utopia," and can retain through several editions of a popular book a statement which he had, to say the least, good reason to suspect to be untrue -that these laws are "given by Hutchinson,"-and the Reverend J. S. M Anderson, Chaplain to the Queen, etc., etc., in a " History of the Church of England in the Colonies," can quote, and cite as authority (vol. ii. pp. 353, 354) this "General History of Connecticut " of 1781. With such teachings is it strange that the average Englishman believes the story of the ' Blue Laws ' as implicitly as he believes the Thirty-nine Articles-and with much less mental reservation.

Judge Haliburton of Nova Scotia, the author of " Sam Slick " and several other quasi-historical works, in a note to one of them-" Rule and Misrule of the English

* History of the Prot. Episcopal Church in America (2d edition), p. 76. In a note, Bishop Wilberforce cited as his authority Peters's " History of Connecticut, 1781," and-" Capt. Marryat's Diary, Blue Code. A copy of which, through the kindness of the last named gentleman, lies before me." He might have added, that Peters lied before Capt. Marryat.

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in America "-remarked that "the Connecticut Laws, which were framed and executed by people vastly inferior in ability and education to those of Massachusetts, are conspicuous for their harshness as well as their absurdity;" and in proof of this, quotes four of Peters's fabulous New Haven Blue Laws,-" No man shall run on the Sabbath," etc: "No one shall read Common Prayer, make mince pies," etc.

So lately as 1867, Mr. " M. Me N. Walsh, A. M., LL.B., of the New York Bar," published a handy-book entitled "The Lawyer in the School Room,"-in which appears Peters's whole code, as veritable laws of New Haven colony.

- Worse yet: Prof. Schele De Vere, of the University of Virginia, in his recent volume of "Americanisms" (N.York, 1872, p. 273), endorses the Blue-Law story of Peters, as "confirmed beyond doubt," Connecticut, he says, "is still often mentioned as the Blue State, unquestionably from its being [as, unquestionably, it was not] the original stronghold of the Presbyterians." Prof. De Vere admits that "the authenticity of the famous laws of New Haven.... known as the Blue Laws" has been "often denied, and Dr. Peter’s well-known book on the subject has been declared a libel; " but "they are confirmed beyond any doubt by"-what?

-" by the reprint of the 'Abstract of Laws of New England" [which were laws proposed for Massachusetts, by John Cotton, but were never in force in that colony or any other,] in Governor Hutchinson's * Collection of Papers,' London, 1655 [that is, Boston, 1769], where the identical provisions [but not one of those given by-Peters which are vulgarly denominated "blue laws"] may be found."

When divines, jurists, and learned professors concur in maintaining that fiction is fact, we cannot wonder that so many of the laity are under the "delusion, that they should believe a lie." Every now and then, the well-worn specimens of "New Haven Blue Laws" go the rounds of the newspaper press-and certain classes of readers swallow them with as much avidity and confidence as they swallow the quack nostrums advertised in the next column. "Thousands," said Professor Kingsley/'have believed implicitly in the

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existence of the 'blue laws' who could scarcely be said to have any other article of faith." With such, disproof avails no more than contradiction. He who is predetermined to believe, will believe. Inshallah! In the bitterness of political strife, between 1800 and the triumph of "Democracy and Toleration" in Con-necticut in 1817, the "Blue Laws" were much talked of by the opponents of "steady habits" and "the standing order." During the war of 1812-1814, the "Blue Lights" story came into being, and supplied another taunt at the federalists. In 1817, a poem was published in New York, entitled: "Blue Lights, or The Convention. In four Cantos. By Jonathan M. Scott, Esq." Of course, the author introduces some allusions to the Blue Laws. Fie tells how the law-students in Yale College are taught to

"Explain old codes, and wisely shew The good effects of statutes Blue, Beneath whose stern control, the swain Might never swear nor drink in Tain ; Whose rule the nuptial kiss restrains On Sabbath day, in legal chains; And should some youth, in daring brunt, Answer with oath the dire affront, Enrich'd by pettifogging toil, The parish battens on the spoil; And should the rash offender fail To pay the fine or find his bail, In cloven stick his tongue must rest, 'Till ev'ning shades embrown the west."-(p. 81.) In a note, the writer says, that, "as this excellent code of laws has never, we believe, been committed to the press, he has, with infinite pains, obtained a few extracts from it, principally for the benefit of our western brethren ": and proceeds to give "some specimens of the wisdom of the New Haven lawgivers"- conceived in the spirit of Peters, bat without the pretence of writing "history." For example:

" i. Whosoever kisseth his wife on the Sabbath clay, shall be fined in the sura of three shillings and four pence, or in default thereof shall receive at the post, forty stripes save one."

"4. Whosoever shall be convicted of profane swearing, shall have the oath of which lie was convicted, written on his hat, with chalk, for the space of one week ; and for the second offence, shall stand with his tongue in a split stick until the going down of the sun."

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" 5. All cracking of nuts, eating of apples, and such like unbecoming amusements, are strictly forbidden, during the time of divine service, as being highly repugnant to ecclesiastical discipline," etc,

Peter’s finished " sketch " of the " Blue Laws " will be given in another part of this volume. But the True Blue legislation of Connecticut, and New Haven must have precedence of the false; and we begin with-

i. the connecticut constitution of 1638-39, or the " fundamental orders " by which " the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfteld," became "associated and conjoined to be as one Public State or Commonwealth,"-not a confederacy of petty sovereignties, but a union under a government of the people's choice, exercising "the supreme power of the commonwealth," and maintaining liberty, under law. It has been justly characterized as " the first properly american constitution-a work in which the framers were permitted-to give body and shape, for the first time, to the genuine republican idea, that dwelt as an actuating force, or inmost sense, in all the New England colonies."*

A sketch of the Rev. Thomas Hooker's sermon preached before the General Court in May, 1638, and an extract from his letter to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, giving his views of the nature of civil government and his conviction that "a general council, chosen by all, to transact businesses which concern all " is " most safe for the relief of the whole,"-are prefixed to the copy of the first Constitution.

2. the capital laws, established, 1642, These, as was before stated, are copied, with little alteration, from the capital laws of Massachusetts,

3. the first connecticut code, This code, adopted by the General Court, May, 1650, was compiled, probably, by Roger Ludlow, who, in April, 1646, was desired "to take some pains in drawing forth a Body of Laws for the government of this Commonwealth, and present them to the next General Court." The work was not completed in May, 1647, and it was then ordered, that when the Body of Laws should be perfected,

* Dr. Bushnell's Historical Estimate ("Work and Play," p. 177).

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as the Court had desired, Mr. Ludlow " should, besides the paying the hire of a man, be further considered for his pains." Nothing more, concerning the progress and completion of the work, appears on the records, until February, 1651, when the Court ordered compensation to the Secretary for "his great pains in drawing out and transcribing the Country Orders, concluded and established in May last."-Colonial Records, i. 138, 154, 216.

The code comprises all laws of general concernment enacted by the General Court, and remaining in force in May, 1650, with large additions, most of which were taken from the laws of Massachusetts.

4. orders of the connecticut court, 1636-1662. Under this head are comprised some orders which were repealed before the adoption of the code of 1650, and some which were made between 1650 and the re-establishment under the Charter, in 1662; with a few judgments rendered and sentences pronounced by the General and Particular Courts.

The Particular Court, or Court of Magistrates, was constituted (under the 10th Fundamental Order of the Constitution) of the Governor and at least four other magistrates: after February, 1645, of the Governor or Deputy Governor and three other magistrates.-Colonial Records, i. 71, 119.

5. the fundamental agreement of the planters of new haven.

This agreement-the Constitution of New Haven col­ony-was adopted by " all the free planters," June i4th, 1639, and continued in force until the Union of the two colonies in 1665.

It differs from the Connecticut constitution, radically, by restricting to church-members the management of public affairs and the right of suffrage. Mr. Hooker maintained that "the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people." Mr. Davenport believed that in " a new plantation, where all, or the most considerable part of the free planters, profess their purpose and desire of securing to themselves and their posterity the pure and peaceable enjoyment of Christ's ordinances," " such planters are bound, in laying the foundations of Church and Civil State, to take order that all the free burgesses be such as are in fellowship of the

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Church or Churches which are or may be gathered according to Christ,"-and " that this course will most conduce to the common welfare of all."*

" If you call their adoption of this principle fanaticism, it is to be remembered," says Dr. Bacon, " that the same fanaticism runs through the history of England. How long has any man in England been permitted to hold office under the crown, without being a communicant in the Church of England? "

6. THE NEW HAVEN CODE OF LAWS. 1655

"The laws in this code were passed at various times, and perhaps collected and digested about 1648 or 1640, though revised and in some degree altered in 1655, upon the perusal by Governor Eaton of the " new book of laws in the Massachusetts Colony/' and the "small book of laws newly come from England, which is said to be Mr. Cotton's."

" The laws which, at the Court's desire have been drawn up by the governor," Theophilus Eaton, were " read and seriously weighed by the Court, and by vote: concluded, and ordered to be sent to England to be Sprinted," at the October Court, 1655

In June, 1656, Gov. Eaton "informed the Court that there is sent over now, in Mr. Garret's ship, 500 law books, which Mr. Hopkins hath gotten printed," etc. §

A copy of this volume of the New Haven Laws, "printed by M. S. for Livewell Chapman," London, 1656, is in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Mass. Until lately, this copy was regarded as perhaps unique, and in 1834 a transcript of it was made, at the request of the General Assembly of Connecticut, to be preserved in the office of the Secretary of State. Since then, two copies of the original edition

*"A Discourse about Civil Government in a New Plantation whose design is Religion," written (as Dr. Hacon has demonstrated) by Davenport, though attributed, by its publisher, to John Cotton. For an exposition of the New Haven constitution, and a defence of the colonists from the stereotyped charges of " fanaticism and bigotry," see Dr. Bacon's admirable Historical Discourses, pp. 25-32. Extracts from the " Discourse about Civil Government" are given in his Appendix, pp. 280.-292. C. J. Hoadly, in Preface to New Haven Colonial Records, vol. L New Haven Records, ii. 154.

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have been discovered (one of which is somewhat imperfect), and both are now in the library of the late Mr. George Brinley, of Hartford.

This code was first reprinted (from the manuscript copy in the Secretary's Office) in 1838, in a volume entitled: "The Blue Laws of New Haven Colony, usually called Blue Laws of Connecticut," etc. " Compiled by an Antiquarian." (Hartford, 12mo.) The Compiler was the Hon. R. R. Hinman, then Secretary of State. It was reprinted again-and with absolute accuracy - by Mr. Hoadly, at the end of his second volume of New Haven Colonial Records, in 1858. 7. laws and judgments of the new haven general court, before 1655.

What Hutchinson has said of early judicial proceedings in Massachusetts is equally true for New Haven: "Whilst they were without a code or body of laws, and the colony had but just come to its birth, their sentences seem to be adapted to the circumstances of a large family of children and servants." A remark of Chief Justice Smith, to the same effect, has been quoted (on page 30). The judges, he says, "took up an authority similar to that which every religious man exercises over his own children and domestics." By the unanimous agreement of the planters, the General Court was en-trusted with the power not only of " declaring and establishing, for the plantations, the laws of God," and of " making and repealing orders for smaller matters, not particularly determined in Scripture,"-but, generally, " with all care and diligence from time to time to provide for the maintenance of the purity of religion and suppress the contrary," etc.

" Their judicial proceedings," says Hutchinson (i. 83), varied in very few circumstances from the Massachusetts; one, indeed, was a material one, that they had no jury, neither in civil nor criminal cases. All matters of fact, as well as law, were determined by the court."

From specimens of the true blue laws and judgments of New Haven, we pass to

8. THE " BLUE LAW " FORGERIES OF PETERS.

His first reference to New Haven " Blue Laws " is as follows:

" The lawgivers soon discovered that the precepts in the Old and

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New Testaments were insufficient to support them in their arbitrary and bloody undertakings: they, therefore, gave themselves up to their own inventions in making others, wherein, in some instances, they betrayed such an extreme degree of wanton cruelty and oppression, that even the rigid fanatics of Boston and the mad zealots of Hartford, put to the blush, christened them the Blue Laws; and the former held a day of thanksgiving, because God, in his good providence, had stationed Eaton and Davenport so far from them" (Peter’s " History," p. 43). After giving a " sketch of some of these laws " (which will be found in this volume), he remarks that

" They consist of a vast multitude, and were very properly termed Blue Laws, i. e. bloody Laws; for they were all sanctified with excommunication, confiscation, fines, banishment, whippings, cut-ting off the ears, burning the tongue, and death. . . . And did not similar laws still [that is, in 1782] prevail over" New England as the common law of the country, I would have left them in silence," etc. (pp. 69, 70).

Writers who have copied the "blue law " fiction seem to have overlooked the very important statement which is here italicized. That the provision that " every male should have his hair cut round according to a cap " (or " the hard shell of a pumpkin ") and the law forbidding the making of mince-pies were in force not only in New Haven colony, but that they or " similar laws " still prevailed over New England, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century-is a fact which the Bishop of Oxford and the Rev. Isaac Taylor would have clone well to note.

The definition of ' blue ' by ' bloody ' was probably original with Peters. It is amusing to see how unsuspiciously it has been adopted by believers in the " Blue Laws." When we tell a friend that he is "looking blue" we do not usually intend to convey the impression that his aspect is remarkably sanguine-or sanguinary,

9. EARLY LAWS AND JUDGMENTS OF OTHER COLONIES.

For comparison, in " quaintness, bluntness, particularity, and antiquated excess of penalty," with the laws of Connecticut and New Haven, some specimens of laws enacted in several other American colonies-particularly New York, and Virginia, - are grouped under the several heads: Crimes and Punishments; Laws against Dissenters, Quakers, Papists, and Disturbers of the Church; and Sumptuary Laws, regulating dress, diet, and expenditure, with some other curiosities of legislation.

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Peters's Blue Laws have often been reprinted, and several compilations, more or less complete, of the early laws of Connecticut and New Haven have been published under the name of " Blue Laws." Some of these may be named here, beginning with

A General History of Connecticut. ... By a Gentleman of the Province. London, 1781. 8vo.

The same work, with a new title-page (and a "p. s." of three lines on the last page of the text, mentioning the death of the Rev. Nathaniel Hooker of Hartford), called " Second Edition." London, 1782.

The same: " To which is added, A Supplement verifying- many important statements made by the author. Illustrated with eight engravings." New Haven, Published by D. Clark and Co., 1829. 12 rno.

This reprint has an additional preface of 6 pages, and a Supple-ment (of Notes) of 87 pp. (319-405). The editor has hitherto es-caped detection, or, ii suspected, has not been absolutely con-victed.

The Code of 1650: being a compilation of the Laws and Orders of the General Court of Connecticut: also, the Constitution, or civil Compact, entered into and adopted by the towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, in 1638-9. To which is added, Some Extracts from the Laws and Judicial Proceedings of New Haven Colony, commonly called BLUE laws. Hartford, Published by Silas Andrus, 1822. (12 mo, pp. 120.)

Some copies had, by way of frontispiece, a coarse wood-cut repre-senting1 the arrest of a tobacco-taker, by a constable.

The Code of 1650 was first printed in this volume-and with creditable accuracy. Peters's "Blue Laws" are not included in the compilation. Like other publications of Mr. Andrus, this book was a favorite with the book-peddlers, by whose agency several editions of it were scattered through the country.

The same: Hartford, Silas Andrus, 1825. I2mo, pp. 119. Woodcut.

The same: with a new title-page only. Hartford, S. Andrus & Son. n. d. I2mo, pp. 119.

The Blue Laws of New Haven Colony, usually called the Blue Laws of Connecticut; Quaker Laws of Massachusetts; Blue Laws of New York [and other colonies].... Compiled by an Antiquarian. Hartford, 1838. I2mo. pp. 336.

The compiler was Royal R. Hinman, who was Secretary of Connecticut, 18;J5 -1842. The New Haven Code of 1655 was for the first time reprinted, in this volume, from a manuscript copy (in the Secretary's Office) of the London edition of 1656. Peter’s "Blue Laws" are found on pages 121-124.

The Blue Laws of Connecticut. [The Code of 1650, and Laws and Orders of 1638-39.] Cincinnati, 1850. 13mo.

The Blue Laws of Connecticut: a Collection of the earliest statutes and judicial proceedings of that Colony; being an exhibition of the rigorous morals and legislation of the Puritans. Edited, with an

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Introduction, by Samuel M. Smucker, LL. D. Philadelphia, 1861. I2mo.

This editor, like some of his predecessors, mistakes the Connecticut code of 1650 for "the celebrated code at present stigmatized as the 'Blue Laws.' " The fabulous code of New Haven colony was so ' stigmatized' by Peters and those who believed or professed to believe his story; but the name was not given, till the present generation, to the genuine Connecticut code of 1650, or to any laws enacted by Connecticut.

Every now and then, some English or Scotch writer parades the choicest specimens of Peter’s collection as genuine " curiosities of Puritan legislation," or as " affording a curious picture of life in this Puritan Utopia." Only a few years ago, a paper on the " Blue Laws " was published in Blackwood's Magazine (for April, 1870), in which the old story was repeated, that

" In the Blue Laws of New Haven, which were not, however, drawn up or codified by the State of Connecticut [why should they have been?], it was ordered that no one should ' travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath-Day; that no woman should kiss her child on the Sabbath or Fasting-day, that no one should keep Christmas or Saint days; and that every male should have his hair cut round, according to a cap? " " Such were the Blue Laws," etc., etc.

This article contains, in its dozen pages, more misstatements than even Peters managed to condense in the same compass. The writer tells us that " the laws codified by Roger Ludlow [i. e. the Connecticut laws of 1650] were the famous 'Blue Laws;'" that "the phrase was suggested by the old English phrase of ' the blues,' and 'blue-devils' [which, as every English scholar knows, are not old English phrases] and the common vulgarism 'to look blue;' " that "this code remained in operation until 1686, when Sir Edward Andros suspended the charter of the Colony, as well as the Puritanic laws " [Sir Edmund Andros assumed the government of Connecticut in 1687, and did not suspend the "puritanic laws," though he promulgated some new laws; but the whole body of Connecticut laws, includ­ing the code of 1650, had been revised, amended, re-codified, and published, in 1673, long before Andros's coming] ; that shortly after the completion of his task of codification, " the worthy Justice Ludlow was publicly

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called 'Justass Ludlow,' by one Captain Stone," and "for this offence the Captain was fined £100," etc. [Captain Stone's offence was committed and punished in Massachusetts, two years before Connecticut was settled, and about seventeen years before the Connecticut laws were codified]; and the " one significant paragraph by Roger Ludlow," which is quoted is, in fact, the declaration of rights prefixed to the Massachusetts "Body of Liberties" of 1640, and adopted by Connecticut, nearly word for word, in 1650.* It was this article, perhaps, which suggested the remarks made by the late Rev. Dr. John Todd, in a conversation with an intelligent Scotch traveler who subsequently published his impressions of "The Americans at Home."

"Speaking of the old Puritan strictness, and of the so-called Blue Laws of Connecticut, the Doctor said: ' I have been amused to see that some of your writers imagine that there really were such laws in New England. The whole thing is an absurd fiction. ... It was not wonderful, perhaps, that people so ignorant about us as the English were should have been hoaxed into the belief that there had really been laws in Connecticut making it penal for a man to kiss his wife on Sundays, and all that nonsense; but to find some of your living writers still falling into an error so preposterous, is very melancholy. What would you think of an American, writing about England, and quoting 'Jack and the Bean Stalk' as an authentic historical work? "

"These Blue Laws," says the writer in Black woods, "were of five kinds-general, theological, municipal, commercial, and personal." A somewhat similar classification might be made, of the writers who believe- or profess to believe-the Blue-Law story. Perhaps the " theological" believers are the most numerous. English churchmen, particularly, find it difficult not to believe in the fabricated code, which has so conveniently been appropriated in pios usus, or that laws forbidding the making of mince pies and playing on any musical instrument, " except the drum, trumpet, and jews' harp," were not the natural and necessary fruits of schism. There seems to be, in some minds, an honest doubt, whether the prohibition in the ninth

*This article was put to a better use than it deserved, by Mr. Wm. L. Kingsley-who made it the target of " A Long-range Shot," in The New Englander, for April, 1871 (vol. xxx., pp. 284-304).

f By David Macrae. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1870. The passage was quoted by Mr. J. A. Picton, in " Notes and Queries," January, 1871.

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commandment really extends to witness borne against New England puritanism.

Several communications on the Blue Laws appeared in "Notes and Queries," in 1871. In the number for March 4th (4th Series, vii. 191) the Rev.J. A. Picton, after searching all the authorities within his reach, presented the result of his inquiries. The work on which he was obliged mainly to rely was the little volume published by Silas Andrus, in 1825, as a chap book-with its rude frontispiece, representing the arrest of a tobacco-taker; but he had also examined-what that compilation did not include-the genuine New Haven Code of 1655. Of course, he found, neither in this, nor in the Connecticut Code of 1650, "the slightest traces of the absurdities usually attached to the idea of the Slue Laws." Mr. Picton went further, and "having seen what the Connecticut and New Haven Codes are not" was at the pains of " stating what they really are "-with an intelligent appreciation that it is really refreshing to meet with in an English periodical. He is mistaken as to the identification of church and state-even in New Haven Colony, where only church-members were entrusted with the privileges of freemen-certainly, in Connecticut; and he seemingly exaggerates the severity of these codes-as compared with the laws of England, at the same period-by his reference to " the ruthless sacrifice of human life," which they exacted.

"They are," writes Mr. Picton, " very valuable illustrations of the tone and temper of mind of the stern pioneers who went out to people the wilderness, and whose customs, manners, and civil and religious opinions have been the normal type after which the great American commonwealth has been modeled. The founders of New England were resolute God-fearing men of the Roundhead stamp. In the foundation of their institutions, the following principles lie at the base: -

1. Perfect equality and mutual responsibility amongst all the members of the commonwealth.

2. The identity of Church and State, with the necessary corollary that all laws should be founded on the Word of God.

3. The obligation of the civil magistrate to enforce ecclesiastical discipline.

4. That the law should take cognizance of immorality as well as of crime.

These principles were logically and relentlessly carried out into practice: sometimes making one shudder at the ruthless sacrifice of human life, and at other times raising a smile at the ludicrous minuteness with which the law intermeddled with private affairs.

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(1.) The Enactments of the Code breathe the true spirit of freedom and equal rig/its, the system of manhood-suffrage and annual elections containing the germ of the future institutions of the United States. Several of these laws are far in advance of their age, such as voting by written papers, freedom of debtors from arrest except in case of fraud, etc.

(2.) The Word of God was held to be supreme in all cases not otherwise provided for by the law, and all enactments were supposed to be founded thereon. Unfortunately it was the Mosaic Code rather than the Gospel, which was resorted to. ...

(3 & 4.) The ecclesiastical discipline enforced by the magistrate descended to the ordinary intercourse of private life, in the most minute particulars.

On this point, Mr. Picton cited from the New Haven Records, May, 1660, the proceedings in the case of two young persons, "the charge being that, after some chaffing, Jacob had taken away Sarah's gloves." We have no objection to joining him in a laugh over this or other illustrations of the strictness with which, in "the day of small things/'the rule of righteousness was applied to the conduct of individuals. Indeed, some pains has been taken, in making selections for this volume, to amuse good-natured readers, -as well as to remove unfounded prejudices and correct popular misconceptions. Connecticut can well afford to Jet her records go to the world. "There is no State in the Union," wrote Mr. Bancroft, "and I know not any in the world, in whose early history, if I were a citizen, I could find more of which to be proud, and less that I should wish to blot." "Nearly two centuries have elapsed,"-the same historian has said elsewhere, - "the world has been wiser by various experience, political institutions have become the theme on which the most powerful and cultivated minds have been employed, dynasties of kings have been dethroned, recalled, dethroned again, and so many constitutions have been framed or reformed, stifled or subverted, that memory may despair of a completed catalogue; but the people of Connecticut have found no reason to deviate from the government established by their fathers." The state came to be known as "the land of steady habits," and was proud of the name. It was her boast that her sons were " antiqua virtute ac fide "- which, according to Ainsworth, is the Latin equivalent

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of" true blue will never stain." (" Di boni! " said Terence's Demea,-

"Naj illiusmodi jam nobis magna civium Penuria 'st, homo antiqua virtute ac fide : Haud cito mail quid ortum ex hoc sit publice.") And to the charge that " the advancement of political science, generated by our Revolution, had neither changed her constitution nor affected her steady habits"-one of her poets replied, in 1804:

Straight on her course she firmly steers, Nor jibes, nor tacks, nor scuds, nor veers, Not the whole force they all can yield, Can drive her vet'rans from the field, The same pure, patriotic fires Which warm'd the bosoms of their Sires, That generous, that effulgent flame, Which glow'd in winthrop's deathless name, Unsullied through their bosoms runs, Inspires and animates her sons." The Constitution of 1638-9, -"the first one written out, as a complete frame of civil order, in the new world, embodies," said Dr. Bushnell, in his noble Speech for Connecticut, "all the essential features of the constitutions of our States, and of the Republic itself, as they exist at the present day. It is the free representative plan, which now distinguishes our country in the eyes of the world." Mr. Calhoun declared in the Senate of the United States that it was dicing mainly to two States, -Connecticut and New Jersey-that we have, as a nation " the best government instead of the worst and most intolerant on earth. Who are the men of the States to whom we are indebted for; this I admirable government? I will name them," he said|-" their names ought to be engraved on brass and live forever. They were Chief-Justice ellsworth, ROGER sherman, and Judge patterson of New Jersey. ... To the coolness and sagacity of these three men, aided by a few others, not so prominent, we owe the present Constitution."

liberty under law.

"I fully assent to those staple principles which you set down; to wit, that the people should choose some from amongst them,-that they should refer matter of counsel to their counsellors, matter of judicature to their judges ; only, the question here grows, what rule the judge must have to judge by? Secondly, who those counsellors must be?

" That in the matter which is referred to the judge, the sentence should lie in his breast or be left to his discretion, according to which he should go, I am afraid it is a course which wants both safety and warrant. I must confess, I ever looked at it as a way which leads directly to tyranny and so to confusion, and must plainly profess, if it was in my liberty, I should choose neither to live nor leave my posterity under such a government. Sit liber judex, as the lawyers speak. 17 Deut., 10, 11, 'Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform, according to the sentence of the Law? Thou shalt seek the Law at his mouth: not ask what his discretion allows, but what the Law requires. And therefore the Apostles, when the rulers and high priest passed sentence against their preaching, as prejudicial to the State, the Apostle Peter made it not dainty to profess and practice contrary to their charge, because their sentence was contrary to law, though they might have pretended discretion and depth of wisdom and policy in their charge.

"And we know in other countries, had not the law overruled the lusts of men and the crooked ends of judges, many times, both places and people had been, in reason, past all relief, in many cases of difficulty. You will know what the heathen man said, by the candlelight of common sense; 'The law is not subject to passion, nor to be taken aside with self-seeking ends, and therefore ought to have chief rule over rulers themselves.'

"It’s also a truth, that counsel should be sought from counsellors; but the question yet is, who those should be? Reserving small matters, which fall in occasionally in common course, to a lower counsel, in matters of greater consequence, which concern the common good, a general counsel, chosen by all, to transact businesses which concern all, I conceive, under favor, most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole. This was the practice of the Jewish church, directed by God, Deut., 17: 10, 11 ; 2 Chron., 19 ;and the approved experience of the best ordered States give in evidence this way.

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Solomon's one wise man, and the one wise woman in Abel that delivered the city, shows the excellency of wisdom and counsel where it is, but doth not conclude that one or few should be counsellors, since 'in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.'"-Rev, Thomas Hooker's Letter to Gov. Winthrop of Massachusetts, 1638,

the people's privilege of election; abstract
of mr. hooker's discourse before the general
court at hartford, may 31, 1638.

Doctrine, I. That the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people, by God's own allowance. ,

II. The privilege of election, which belongs to the people, there-fore must not be exercised according to their humours, but according to the blessed will and law of God.

III. They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them.

Reasons. I. Because the foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people.

2. Because, by a free choice, the hearts of the people will be more inclined to the love of the persons chosen and more ready to yield obedience.

3. Because of that duty and engagement of the people.

Uses, The lesson taught is threefold :-

1st, There is matter of thankful acknowledgment-in the appreciation of God's faithfulness toward us, and the permission of these measures that God doth command and vouchsafe.

2dly, Of reproof-to dash the conceits of all those that shall oppose it.

3dly, Of exhortation-to persuade us, as God hath given us Liberty, to take it.

And lastly,-as God hath spared our lives, and given us them in liberty, so to seek the guidance of God, and to choose in God and for God.

I.

FIRST CONSTITUTION OF CONNECTICUT.

forasmuch as it hath pleased the Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Harteford, and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Conectecotte and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Government established ac-cording to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth; and do, for our-selves and our Successors, and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into combination and confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said gospel is now practiced amongst us ; as also in our Civil Affairs to be guided and governed according to

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such laws, rules, orders, and decrees, as shall be made ordered and decreed, as followeth:-

1. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that there shall be yearly two General Assemblies or Courts, the one the second Thursday in April, the other the second Thursday in September following; the first shall be called the Court of Election, wherein shall be yearly chosen from time to time so many magistrates and other public officers as shall be found requisite: where-of one to be chosen Governor for the year ensuing and until another be chosen, and no other magistrate to be chosen for more than one year; provided always there be six chosen besides the Governor; which being chosen and sworn according to an oath recorded for that purpose, shall have power to administer justice according to the laws here established, and for want thereof according to the rule of the word of God; which choice shall be made by all that are admitted freemen and have taken the Oath of Fidelity, and do cohabit within this jurisdiction, (having been admitted inhabitants by the major part of the town wherein they live,*) of the major part of such as shall be then present. 2) It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the election of the aforesaid magistrate shall be on this manner?: every person present and qualified for choice shall bring in (to the persons deputed to receive them) one single paper, with the name of him written in it whom he desires to have Governor, and he that hath the greatest number of papers shall be Governor for that year. And the rest of the magistrates or public officers to be chosen in this manner: The secretary for

* This clause has been interlined, in a different handwriting and t a more recent period.

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the time being shall first read the names of all that are to be put to choice and then shall severally nominate them distinctly, and every one that would have the person nominated to be chosen shall bring in one single paper written upon, and he that would not have him chosen shall bring in a blank ; and every one that hath more written papers than blanks shall be a magistrate for that year ; which papers shall be received and told by one or more that shall be then chosen by the court and sworn to be faithful therein ; but in case there should not be six chosen as aforesaid, besides the Governor, out of those which are nominated, then he or they which have the most written papers shall be a magistrate or magistrates for the ensuing year, to make up the foresaid number.

3. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the secretary shall not nominate any person, nor shall any person be chosen newly into the magistracy, which was not propounded in some General Court before, to be nominated the next election and to that end it shall be lawful for each of the towns aforesaid by their deputies to nominate any two whom they conceive fit to be put to election; and the court may add so many more as they judge requisite.

4. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that no per-son be chosen Governor above once in two years, and that the Governor be always a member of some approved congregation, and formerly of the magistracy within this jurisdiction; and all the magistrates, free-men of this commonwealth: and that no magistrate or other public officer shall execute any part of his or their office before they are severally sworn, which shall be done in the face of the court if they be pre-

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sent, and in case of absence by some deputed for that purpose.

5. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that to the aforesaid Court of election the several towns shall send heir deputies, and when the elections are ended they may proceed in any public service as at other courts. Also the other General Court in September shall be for making of laws, and any other public occasion which concerns the good of the commonwealth.

6. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that the Governor shall, either by himself or by the secretary, send out summons to the constables of every town for the calling of these two standing courts, one month at least before their several times: And also if the Governor and the greatest part of the magistrates see cause upon any special occasion to call a General Court, they may give order to the secretary so to do within fourteen days warning: and if urgent necessity so require, upon a shorter notice, giving sufficient grounds for it to the deputies when they meet, or else be questioned for the same ; And if the Governor and major part of magistrates shall either neglect or refuse to call the two general standing courts or either of them, as also at other times when the occasions of the commonwealth require, the free-men thereof, or the major part of them, shall petition to them so to do : if then it be either denied or neglected, the said freemen or the major part of them shall have power to give order to the constables of the several towns to do the same, and so may meet together, and choose to themselves a moderator, and may proceed to do any act of power which any other General Court may.

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7. It Is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that after there are warrants given out for any of the said General Courts, the constable or constables of each town shall forthwith give notice distinctly to the inhabitants of the same, in some public assembly or by going or sending from house to house, that at a place and time by him or them limited and set, they meet and assemble themselves together to elect and choose certain deputies to be at the General Court then following, to agitate the affairs of the commonwealth; which said deputies shall be chosen by all that are admitted inhabitants in the several towns and have taken the oath of fidelity;* provided that none be chosen a deputy for any General Court which is not a freeman of this commonwealth.

The foresaid deputies shall be chosen in manner following: every person that is present and qualified as before expressed, shall bring the names of such, written in several papers, as they desire to have chosen for that employment, and these three or four, more or less, being the number agreed on to be chosen for that time, that have the greatest number of papers written for them, shall be deputies for that court; whose names shall be endorsed on the back side of the war-rant and returned into the court, with the constable or constables' hand unto the same.

8. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield shall have power, each

* " Whereas in the Fundamental Order it is said 'that such who have taken the oath of fidelity and are admitted inhabitants' shall be allowed as qualified for choosing of deputies, the Court declares their judgment, that such only shall be counted admitted inhabitants, who are admitted by a general vote of the major part of the town that receiveth them."-Voted, Nor, 10, 1643.

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town, to send four of their freedmen as their deputies to every General Court; and whatsoever other towns shall be hereafter added to this jurisdiction, they shall send so many deputies as the court shall judge meet, a reasonable proportion to the number of freemen that are in the said towns being to be attended therein; which deputies shall have the power of the whole town, to give their votes and allowance to all such laws and orders as may be for the public good, and unto which the said towns are to be bound.

9. It is Ordered and decreed, that the deputies thus chosen shall have power and liberty to appoint a time and a place of meeting together before any General Court, to advise and consult of all such things as may concern the good of the public, as also to ex-amine their own elections, whether according to the order, and if they or the greatest part of them find any election to be illegal they may seclude such for present from their meeting, and return the same and their reasons to the court; and if it prove true, the court may fine the party or parties so intruding and the town, if they see cause, and give out a warrant to go to a new election in a legal way, either in part or in whole. Also the said deputies shall have power to fine any that shall be disorderly at their meetings, or for not coming in due time or place according to appointment; and they may return the said fines into the court if it be refused to be paid, and the treasurer to take notice of it, and to estreat of levy the same as he doth other fines.

10. It is Ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that every General Court, except such as through neglect of the Governor and the greatest part of magistrates the

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freemen themselves do call, shall consist of the Governor, or some one chosen to moderate the court and four other magistrates at least, with the major part of the deputies of the several towns legally chosen-and in case the freemen or major part of them, through neglect or refusal of the Governor and major part of the magistrates, shall call a court, it shall consist of the major part of freemen that are present or their deputies, with a moderator chosen by them : In which said General Courts shall consist the supreme power of the Commonwealth, and they only shall have power to make laws or repeal them, to grant levies, to admit of freeman, dispose of lands undisposed of, to several towns or persons, and also shall have power to call either court or magistrate or any other person whatsoever into question for any misdemeanor, and may for just causes displace, ordeal otherwise, according to the nature of the offence; and also may deal in any other matter that concerns the good of this commonwealth, except election of magistrates, which shall be done by the whole body of freemen.

In which Court the Governor or Moderator shall have power to order the court, to give liberty of speech, and silence unseasonable and disorderly speakings, to put all things to vote, and in case the vote be equal to have the casting voice. But none of these courts shall be adjourned or dissolved without the consent of the major part of the court.

11. It is ordered, sentenced, and decreed, that when any General Court upon the occasions of the common-wealth have agreed upon any sum or sums of money to be levied upon the several towns within this Jurisdiction, that a committee be chosen to set out and appoint what shall be the proportion of every town to

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pay of the said levy; provided the committees be made up of an equal number out of each town.

14th January, 1638-39, the 11 Orders above said are voted.

the oath of the governor, for the present. i, n. W. being now chosen to be Governor within this Jurisdiction for the year ensuing, and until a new be chosen, do swear by the great and dreadful name of the everliving God, to promote the public good and peace of the same, according to the best of my skill; as also will maintain all lawful privileges of this commonwealth; as also that all wholesome laws that are or shall be made by lawful authority here established, be duly executed; and will further the execution of justice according to the rule of God's word; so help me God, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

the oath of a magistrate, for the present. I, N. W. being chosen a Magistrate within this Jurisdiction for the year ensuing, do swear by the great and dreadful name of the everliving God, to promote the public good and peace of the same, according to the best of my skill, and that I will maintain all the lawful privileges thereof according to my under-standing, as also assist in the execution of all such wholesome laws as are made or shall be made by lawful authority here established, and will further the execution of Justice for the time aforesaid, according to the righteous rule of God's word; so help me God, etc.

the oath of a constable. I, A. B., of W, do swear by the great and dreadful

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name of the overliving God, that for the year ensuing, and until a new be chosen, I will faithfully execute the office and place of a Constable, for and within the said plantation of W. and the limits thereof, and that I will endeavour to preserve the public peace of the said place, and Commonwealth, and will do my best endeavour to see all watches and wards executed, and to obey and execute all lawful commands or warrants that come from any Magistrate or Magistrates of Court; so help me God, in the Lord Jesus Christ.

II.
CAPITAL LAWS.

2. If any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath of consulteth with a familiar spirit,) they shall be put to death. Ex. 22. 18: Lev. 20. 27: Deut. 18.10,11.;

3. If any person shall blaspheme the name of God,

*All these arc copied from the capital laws of Massachusetts, established (with her Body of Liberties ), Dec. 1641,-except the 9th (against rape of a married or betrothed woman) which was enacted by Massachusetts, in June, 1642. One of the Massachusetts laws, punishing manslaughter with death, was not adopted by Connecticut, and only the first clause of the Massachusetts law against conspiracy, rebellion, etc., was taken.

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the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or highhanded blasphemy, or shall curse God in the like manner, he shall be put to death. Lev. 24. 15, 16.

4. If any person shall commit any wilful murder, which is manslaughter committed upon malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man's necessary and just defence, nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death. Ex. 21. 12, 13, 14. Numb. 35. 30, 31.

5. If any person shall slay another through guile, either by poisonings or other such devilish practice, he shall be put to death. Ex. 21. 14.

6. If any man or woman shall lie with any beast or brute creature, by carnal copulation, they shall surely be put to death, and the beast shall be slain and buried. Lev. 20. 15, 16.

7. If any man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they? both shall surely be put to death. Lev. 20.13.

8. If any person committeth adultery with a mar-ried or espoused wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Lev. 20. 10, and 18. 20: Deut. 22. 23, 24.

9.If any man shall forcibly and without consent ravish any maid or woman that is lawfully married or contracted, he shall be put to death. Deut. 22. 25. 10. If any man stealeth a man or mankind, he shall be pit to death. Ex. 2l. 16.

11. If any man rise up by false witness, wittingly and of purpose to take away any man's life, he shall be pit to death. Deut l9.16, 18, 19.

12. If any man shall conspire or attempt any invasion, insurrection or rebellion against the commonwealth, he shall be put to deaths.

III.
THE FIRST CODE OF LAWS,

ESTABLISHED BY THE GENERAL COURT OF CONNECTICUT,
may, 1650.*

It is therefore ordered by this court and authority thereof, that no man's life shall be taken away, no man's honor or good name shall be stained, no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any way punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no man's goods or estate shall be taken away from him, nor any ways endamaged, under color of law or countenance of authority, unless it be by the virtue or equity of some express law of the country warranting the same, established by a

* See the introduction, page 38. The preamble and the paragraph which follows are copied from the Massachusetts Body of Liberties ( or from the Massachusetts Book of Laws printed in 1648 ).

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General Court and sufficiently published, or, in case of the defect of a law in any particular case, by the word of God.

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estate; and if not, his person may be arrested and imprisoned, where lie shall be kept at his own charge, not the plaintiff's, till satisfaction be made, unless the court that had cognizance of the cause or some superior court shall otherwise determine ; provided never-the less, that no man's person shall be kept in prison for debt, but when there appears some estate which he will not produce, to which end any court or commissioners authorized by the general court may administer an oath to the party or any others suspected to-be privy in concealing his estate; and if no estate appear, he shall satisfy the debt by service, if the creditor require it, but shall not be sold to any but of the English nation.

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jurisdiction; and in that case also the party delinquent to bear his own charge.

It is also ordered, that attachments to seize upon any man's lands or estate be only granted for, or against, such goods as are foreigners' and do not dwell or inhabit within this jurisdiction; or in any case upon credible information it appear that any inhabit-ant that is indebted, or engaged, go about to convey a way his estate to defraud his creditors, or to convey away his person out of this jurisdiction, so as the process of this jurisdiction may not be served upon his person; in that or any other just causes there may be attachment or attachments granted upon the limitations expressed; provided that in all cases of attachments, all or any of the creditors have liberty to declare upon the said attachment, if he come in at the return of the said attachment; provided also, that if any attachment laid upon any man's estate, upon a pretence of a great sum, and if it be not proved to be due in some near proportion to the sum challenged and mentioned in the attachment, then the security given shall be liable to such damages as are sustained thereby.

It is further ordered and decreed by this court, that whosoever takes out an attachment against any man's person, goods, chattels, lands or hereditaments, sufficient security and caution shall be given by him to prosecute his action in Court and to answer the defendant such costs as shall be awarded him-by the court; and in all attachments of goods or lands, legal notice shall be given unto the party or left in writing at his house or place of usual abode if he live within this jurisdiction, otherwise his suit shall not

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proceed. And it is further ordered and declared, that every man shall have liberty to replevy his cattle or goods impounded, distained, seized or extended, (unless it be upon execution after judgment and in payment of fines,) provided in like manner he put in good security to prosecute his replevy and to satisfy such damage, demands or dues as his adversary shall recover against him in law.

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to the assignee as it was to the assigner, at the time of its assignation, and that it shall be lawful for the said assignee to sue for and recover the said debt due upon bill and so assigned, as fully as the original creditor might have done; provided the said assignment be made upon the backside of the bill or specialty; not excluding any just or clear interest any man may have in any bills or specialties made over to them by letters of attorney or otherwise.

It is therefore ordered by this court and authority thereof, that every town shall set out their bounds within twelve months after the publishing hereof, and after their bounds are granted; and that when their hounds are once set out, once in the year three or more persons in the town, appointed by the select-men, shall appoint with the adjacent towns to go the bounds betwixt their said towns and renew their marks, which marks shall be a great heap of stones or a trench of six foot long and two foot broad, the most ancient town (which for the river is determined by the court to be "Wethersfield,*) to give notice of the

*This early decision, by the General Court, off the question of priority of settlement of the River towns, seems to hare been over-looked by writers on our colonial history. The clause within the

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time and place of meeting for this perambulation, which time shall be in the first or second month, upon pain of five pounds for every town that shall neglect the same ; provided, that the three men appointed for perambulation shall go in their several quarters, by order of the selectmen and at the charge of the several towns. And it is further ordered, that if any particular proprietor of lands lying in common with others shall refuse to go, by himself or his assign, the bounds betwixt his land and other men's, once a year, in the first or second month, being requested thereunto upon one week's warning, he shall forfeit for every day so neglecting, ten shillings, half to the party moving thereto, the other half to the town. And the owners of all impropriated grounds shall bound every particular parcel thereof with sufficient mear stones, and shall preserve and keep them so upon the former penalty.

It is therefore ordered by this court and authority thereof, that if any person shall commit burglary, by breaking up any dwelling house, or shall rob any person in the field or highways, such a person so offending shall for the first offence be branded on the

parenthesis is, in the original record, interlined. As, however, it is in the handwriting of Capt. Cullick, who ceased to be Secretary in 1658, the interlineation must have been made within a few years after the adoption of the code. The clause is retained in the first printed revision of the Laws, of 1672-3, and in that of 1702; but is o'mitted in subsequent revisions.

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with the letter (B): If he shall offend in the same kind the second time, he shall he branded as before, and also be severely whipped; and if he shall fall into the same offence the third time, he shall be put to death as being incorrigible. And if any person shall commit such burglary or rob in the fields or house on the Lord's day, besides the former punishments, he shall for the first offence have one of 'his ears cut off; and for the second offence in the same kind, he shall lose his other ear in the same manner; and if he fall into the same offence the third time, lie shall be put to death.

2. Secondly, for the prevention of pilfering and theft, it is ordered by this court and authority there-of, that if any person, whether children, servants or others, shall be taken or known to rob any orchards or garden, that shall hurt or steal away any grafts or fruit trees, fruits, linen, woolen, or any other goods left out in orchards, gardens, backsides, or other place, in house or fields, or shall steal any wood or other goods from the waterside, from men's doors or yards, he shall forfeit treble damage to the owners thereof, and such severe punishment as the court shall think meet.

And forasmuch as many times it so falls out that small thefts and other offences of a criminal nature are committed, both by English and Indians, in towns remote from any prison or other fit place to which such malefactors may be committed till the next court; It is therefore hereby ordered, that any magistrate, upon complaint made to him, may hear and upon due proof determine any such small offences of the afore-said nature, according to the laws here established, and

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give warrant to the constable of that town where the offender lives to levy the same, provided the damage or fine exceed not forty shillings; provided also it shall be lawful for either party to appeal to the next court to be holden in that jurisdiction, giving sufficient caution to prosecute the same to effect at the said court. And every magistrate shall make return yearly to the court of the jurisdiction wherein he liveth, of what cases he hath so ended. And also the constable, of all such fines as they have received; and where the offender hath nothing to satisfy, such magistrate may punish by stocks or whipping, as the cause shall deserve.

It is also ordered that all servants or workmen embezzling the goods of their masters, or such as set them on work, shall make restitution, and be liable to all laws and penalties as other men.

13. If any child or children about sixteen years old and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoke them by extreme and cruel correction, that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming. Exod. 21, 17; Lev. 20. [9] ; Exod. 21. 15.

14. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son of

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sufficient years and understanding, viz: sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them, then may his father and mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death. Deut. 21. 20, 21.

It is also ordered by this court and authority there-of that whatsoever child or servant, within these liberties, shall be convicted of any stubborn or rebellious carriage against, their parents or governors, which is a forerunner of the aforementioned evils, the governor or any two magistrates have liberty and power from this court to commit such person or persons to the house of correction, and there to remain under hard labor and severe punishment so long as the court or the major part of the magistrates shall judge meet."*

And whereas frequent experience gives in sad evidence of several other ways of uncleanness and lascivious carriages practiced among us, whereunto, in regard of the variety of circumstances, particular and express laws and orders cannot suddenly be suited; this court cannot but look upon evils in that kind as very pernicious and destructive to the welfare of the common weal, and do judge that severe and sharp punishment should be in