Chapter V: Preface (5)

Connecticut is situated between 41 and 42 degrees of north latitude, and between 72 and 73 degrees 50 minutes west longitude from London. Notwithstanding, from this latitude, New-London lies 600 miles nearer the line than the capital of England, the winter sets in there a month before it does here, and not only continues longer, but is more severe. This extraordinary coldness is said by naturalists to arise from the vast frozen lakes and rivers, and mountains eternally covered with snow, throughout the northernmost parts of America. The mountains may have their share in producing this effect; but I am apt to think the lakes and rivers have a contrary influence. If I ask why lands bordering on them are three weeks earlier in their productions than lands ten miles distant, it will readily be imputed to the warmth of the air, occasioned by the reflection of the sun’s rays from the water. On the same principle, I argue that the rays of the sun, multiplied and reflected by ice also, will render the air warmer. But it may be further said, that the cause is perhaps to be ascribed to the soil being more sandy and loose near a lake or river, and, therefore, naturally warmer than that which is remote and not sandy. I reply, that there are loose, sandy plains, twenty miles off from any lake or river, three weeks later in their products, and very perceptibly colder, than lands upon them. It would be to no purpose to urge that the damps and fogs from unfrozen lakes, rivers, &c. &c. affect the distant but not the adjacent country; because I apprehend there are no unfrozen lakes and rivers in the north of America in winter. Besides, if there were, the mists arising from them would naturally be intercepted by the first mountains or forests they approached. But I pretend to little philosophical knowledge in these matters; I write from experience, and can thence, moreover, assert that mountains with snow upon them are not so cold as they would be without it; and that mountains covered with trees are the coldest of all places, but without trees are not so cold as forests or plains. I am clearly of opinion, therefore, that not the lakes or rivers, but the infinite quantity of timber in the immense regions of North-America, whether upon mountains or not, is the grand cause of the coldness of the winters in Connecticut. I will add, moreover, in support of my argument, that beasts, in the coldest weather, are observed to quit the woods and woody mountains for lakes, rivers, and cultivated open country; and that Connecticut, having lost most of its timber, is by no means so intensely cold in winter as it was forty years ago, and as Susquehanna is at present, a wilderness in the same latitude. The snow and ice commonly cover the country, without rains, from Christmas to March; then rains, attended with boisterous winds from the north and east, melt the snow, which converting brooks into rivers and rivers into seas, in four or five days the ice is rent from its groaning banks in such mighty sheets as it shakes the earth for twenty miles. Nature being thus in convulsions, the winds turn her fit into madness, by driving ice upon ice, whose thunders cease not till the ocean swallows up the whole.

It is but natural to suppose that the summers in Connecticut are much hotter than those in England; nevertheless, from the clearness and serenity of the sky, the climate is healthy both to natives and foreigners of all nations. Connecticut is a hospital for invalids of the Islands and southern provinces; but, in general, they no sooner amend their own constitution, than the pestilence, which rages in that province, drives them to Rhode-Island or New-York, where fanaticism is lost in irreligion.

The people of Connecticut reckon time almost five hours later than the English. The longest day consists of fifteen hours, the shortest of nine. The brightness of the sun, moon, and stars, together with the reverberated rays on ice, snow, water, trees, mountains, pebbles, and flat stones, dazzle and weaken the eyes of the New-Englanders to such a degree, that, in general, they are obliged to use glasses before they are fifty years of age. For the most part, also, they have bad teeth, which has been ascribed to the extreme heats and colds of summer and winter; but, as the Indians and negroes in the same climate have remarkably good teeth, it may be said, with great reason, that the many indulgences of the one, and the temperance of the other, and not the heats and colds, are the causes of good and bad teeth.

_Soil and Produce._--The soil is various in different parts of the province: in some black, in others brown, and elsewhere red, but all rich. Some plains are sandy and of a whitish colour, and they produce rye, beans, and Indian-corn. The meadows and lowlands are excellent pasturage, and yield great crops of hay. The hills and uplands have a rich, deep soil, but are subject to droughts in July and August, which in many places are relieved by water drawn from rivers, ponds, and brooks, in troughs and ditches. The crops of European grain are always good, when the snow, which in general is the only manure, covers the earth from December to March. One acre generally yields from twenty to thirty bushels of wheat; of Indian-corn, from forty to sixty bushels on even land, and from thirty to forty on hilly land; but it is to be observed, that one bushel of it raised on hilly land weighs thirteen pounds more than a bushel raised on river land. All European grains flourish here, and the grass is as thick, and much longer than in England. Maize, or Indian-corn, is planted in hillocks three feet apart, five kernels and two pumpkin-seeds in a hillock, and between the hills are planted ten beans in a hillock; so that, if the season prove favourable, the beans and the pumpkins are worth as much as the corn. If from an acre the crop of corn be twenty bushels, add the beans and pumpkins, and it will be equal to sixty bushels; so, if there be sixty bushels of corn, a proportionate growth of beans and pumpkins will render the product equal to one hundred and eighty bushels. One man plants an acre in a day; in three days he hoes the same three times; and six days more suffice for plowing and gathering the crop. For these ten days’ work the price is thirty shillings; and, allowing ten shillings for the use of the land, the whole expense is two pounds, and no more, while the corn is worth two shillings a bushel. The gain is seldom less than 300, and often 600 per cent. It is thus that the poor man becomes rich in a few years, if prudent and industrious.

The limits of Connecticut are reckoned to comprise 5,000,000 acres, half of which is supposed to be swallowed up in rivers, ponds, creeks, and roads. The inhabitants are estimated at 200,000, so that there remains but twelve and a half acres for each individual. Let it now be considered that the people buy no provisions from other provinces, but, on the contrary, export full as much as they consume, and it will appear that each person has in fact only six and a quarter acres for his own support, two of which must be set apart for the growth of wood, the only fuel of the colony. Should I, then, not be justified in saying that Connecticut is as good and flourishing land as any part of Great Britain?

The face of the country resembles Devonshire, Gloucestershire, Surrey, and Kent. The farmers divide their lands into four, five, and ten acres, with stone walls or post and rails. The roads from north to south are generally level and good; from east to west hilly, and bad for carriages. The various fruits are in greater perfection than in England. The peach and apple are more luscious, beautiful, and large; 1000 peaches are produced from one tree; five or six barrels of cider from one apple tree. Cider is the common drink at table. The inhabitants have a method of purifying cider by frost and separating the watery part from the spirit, which, being secured in proper vessels, and colored by Indian-corn, becomes in three months so much like Madeira wine, that Europeans drink it without perceiving the difference. They make peachy and perry, grape, cherry, and currant wines, and good beer of pumpkin, molasses, bran of wheat, spruce, and malt. The spruce is the leaves and limbs of the fir tree; their malt is made of maize, barley, oats, rye, chets, and wheat. The pumpkin, or pompion, is one of the greatest blessings, and held very sacred in New-England. It is a native of America. From one seed often grow forty pumpkins, each weighing from forty to sixty pounds, and, when ripe, of the colour of a marigold. Each pumpkin contains about 500 seeds, which, being boiled to a jelly, is the Indian infallible cure for the strangury. Of its meat are made beer, bread, custards, sauce, molasses, vinegar, and, on thanksgiving days, pies, as a substitute for what the Blue Laws brand as anti-christian minced pies. Its skin, or shell, serves as a cap to cut the hair by, (as already mentioned,) and very useful lanthorns. There are no trees, grain, or fruits, growing in England but what will grow in Connecticut. The English oak has been thought much superior to the American. Whatever policy may be in this opinion, I will venture to say there is no truth in it in respect to the white oak in Connecticut, which is tough, close, hard, and elastic as the whalebone dried. The red, black, and chestnut oak are, indeed, much inferior to the white oak. The ash, elm, beech, chestnut, walnut, hazel, sassafras, sumach, maple, and butternut, are the chief timber trees of this province, and grow to an amazing bulk. The last is a native of America, and takes its name from a nut it produces, of the shape and size of a pullet’s egg, which contains a meat much larger than an English walnut, in taste like fresh butter; it also makes an excellent pickle. The butternut furnishes fine but tender boards; and its bark dyes black, and cures cutaneous disorders. In February this tree yields a sap, of which are made sugar, molasses, and vinegar. The upland maple also affords a sap equally good, and both saps make a pleasant beverage without boiling, and the best punch ever drank in Connecticut.

Here are many iron mines, nay, mountains of iron ore; and, if they had been attended to with the same diligence as the farms, they would have supplied Great Britain with iron, to the great prejudice of Sweden and other European nations. For this commercial loss the inhabitants are indebted to their own quarrels, jealousy, and religious feuds, together with the intrigues of their neighbours. Some pig and bar iron they send, out of pure spite or folly, to New-York and Boston, to be shipped for England by the merchants there, who always pay so much less for it as the duty on Swedish iron amounts to, so that Connecticut allows a duty to these merchants which they do not pay themselves.

English, Barbary, and Dutch horses abound in this province; they are not so heavy, but more mettlesome and hardy than in England. Here are more sheep than in any two colonies in America; their wool also is better than that of the sheep in any of the other colonies, yet not so fine and good as the English. A common sheep weighs sixty pounds, and sells for a dollar, or 4_s._ 6_d._ The horned cattle are not so large as the English; yet there have been a few instances of oxen six years old weighing 1900 pounds each. The fat hogs here excel any in England; many weigh five or six hundred pounds. Connecticut pork is far superior to any other.

There are only two small parks of deer in Connecticut, but plenty of rabbits, hares, grey, black, striped and red squirrels, otters, minks, raccoons, weasels, foxes, whapperknockers, woodchucks, cubas, and skunks. The following description of the four last-mentioned animals may be new to the reader:

The whapperknocker is somewhat larger than a weasel, and of a beautiful brown colour. He lives in the woods on worms and birds; is so wild that no one can tame him, and, as he never quits his harbour in the daytime, is only to be taken by traps in the night. Of the skins of these animals--which are covered with an exceedingly fine fur--are made muffs, at the price of thirty or forty guineas apiece; so that it is not without reason the ladies pride themselves on the possession of this small appurtenance of female habiliment.

The woodchuck, erroneously called the badger by some persons, is of the size of a large raccoon, in form resembles a Guinea pig, and, when eating, makes a noise like a hog, whence he is named woodchuck, or chuck of wood. His legs are short, but his claws sharp, teeth strong, and courage great on occasions of self-defence. He burrows in the earth, feeds on clover and pumpkin during summer, and sleeps all the winter. His flesh is good to eat, and his skin makes excellent leather.

The cuba I suppose to be peculiar to New-England. The male is of the size of a large cat; has four long tushes sharp as a razor; he is very active in defending himself, and, if he has the first blow, will spoil a dog before he yields. His lady is peaceable and harmless, and depends for protection on her spouse, and, as he has more courage than prudence, always attends him to moderate his temper. She sees danger, and he fears it not. She chatters at him while he is preparing for battle, and, if she thinks the danger is too great, she runs to him and clings about his neck, screaming her extreme distress; his wrath abates, and by her advice they fly to their caves. In like manner, when he is chained, and irritated into the greatest rage by an impertinent dog, his lady, who is never chained, will fly about his neck and kiss him, and in half a minute restore him to calmness. He is very tender of his family, and never forsakes them till death dissolves their union. What further shows the magnanimity of this little animal, he never manifests the least anger towards his lady, though I have often seen her extremely loquacious, and, as I guessed, impertinent to him. How happy would the rational part of the creation become if they would follow the example of these irrational beasts! I the more readily suppose the cuba to be peculiar to New-England, not only from my never having yet seen the creature described, but also on account of its perverse observance of carnival and neglect of _carême_.

The skunk is also peculiar to America, and very different from the pole-cat, which he is sometimes called. He is black, striped with white, and of the size of a small raccoon, with a sharp nose. He burrows in the earth like a fox, feeds like a fox on fowls and eggs, and has strong teeth and claws like a fox. He has long hair, and thick, good fur; is the beauty of the wilderness; walks slowly, and cannot run as fast as a man; he is not wild, but very familiar with every creature. His tail, which is shaggy and about one foot in length, he turns over his back at pleasure, to make himself appear larger and higher than he really is. When his tail is thus lying on his back he is prepared for war, and generally conquers every enemy that lives by air, for on this lies his only weapon: about one inch from his body or rump, in a small bladder or bag, which is full of essence, whose tint is of the brightest yellow, and odour somewhat like the smell of garlic, but far more exquisite and piercing than any volatile spirit known to chemists. One drop will scent a house to such a degree that musk, with the help of brimstone and tar burnt, will not expel it in six months. The bladder in which this essence lies is worked by the animal like an engine, pump, or squirt; and when the creature is assaulted, he turns his head from his enemy and discharges from his tail the essence, which fills the neighbouring air with a mist that destroys the possibility of living in it. I have seen a large house-dog, by one discharge of the skunk, retire with shame and sickness; and, at another time, a bullock bellowing as if a dog had held him by the nose. Were it not for man, no creature could kill this animal, which, instead of the lion, ought to be crowned king of animals, as well on account of his virtues and complaisance as his courage. He knows his forte; he fears nothing, he conquers all; yet he is civil to all, and never gives, as he will not take, offence. His virtues are many. The wood of calambac, which cures fainting-fits and strokes of the palsy, and is worth its weight in gold, is far less valuable than the above-mentioned essence of this animal. The bag is extracted whole from the tail, and the essence preserved in glass; nothing else will confine it. One drop sufficiently impregnates a quart of spring water, and half a gill of water thus impregnated is a dose. It cures hiccups, asthmatic, hysteric, paralytic, and hectic disorders, and the odour prevents faintness. The flesh of this animal is excellent food, and its oil cures sprains and contractions of the sinews.

The feathered tribe in Connecticut are the turkey, geese, ducks, and all kinds of barn-door poultry; innumerable flocks of pigeons, which fly to the south in the autumn; cormorants of all sizes; hawks, owls, ravens, and crows; partridges, quails, heath-hen, blackbirds, snipes, larks, humility’s, whippoorwills, dew-minks, robins, wrens, swallows, sparrows, the flax, crimson, white, and blue birds, &c. &c.; to which I may add the humming-bird, though it might wantonly be styled the empress of the honey-bees, partaking with them of the pink, tulip, rose, daisy, and other aromatics.

The partridges in New-England are nearly as large as a Dorking fowl, the quail as an English partridge, and the robin twice as big as those in England. The dew-mink, so named from its articulating those syllables, is black and white, and the size of an English robin. Its flesh is delicious. The humility is so called because it speaks the word humility, and seldom mounts high in the air. Its legs are long enough to enable it to outrun a dog for a little way; its wings long and narrow; body maigre and of the size of a blackbird’s; plumage variegated with white, black, blue, and red. It lives on tadpoles, spawn, and worms; has an eye more piercing than the falcon, and the swiftness of an eagle; hence it can never be shot, for it sees the sparks of fire even before it enkindles the powder, and by the extreme rapidity of its flight gets out of reach in an instant. It is never known to light upon a tree, but is always seen upon the ground or wing. These birds appear in New-England in summer only; what becomes of them afterwards is not discovered. They are caught in snares, but can never be tamed.

The whippoorwill has so named itself by its nocturnal songs. It is also called the Pope, by reason of its darting with great swiftness from the clouds to the ground and bawling out Pope, which alarms young people and the fanatics very much, especially as they know it to be an ominous bird. However, it has hitherto proved friendly, always giving travellers and others notice of an approaching storm by saluting them every minute by Pope! pope! It flies only a little before sunset, unless for this purpose of giving notice of a storm: It never deceives the people with false news. If the tempest is to continue long, the augurs appear in flocks, and nothing can be heard but Pope! pope! The whippoorwill is about the size of a cuckoo, has a short beak, long and narrow wings, a large head, and mouth enormous, yet is not a bird of prey. Under its throat is a pocket, which it fills with air at pleasure, whereby it sounds forth the fatal word Pope in the day, and Whip-her-I-will in the night. The superstitious inhabitants would have exorcised this harmless bird long ago, as an emissary from Rome and an enemy to the American Vine, had they not found out that it frequents New-England only in the summer, and prefers the wilderness to a palace. Nevertheless, many cannot but believe it a spy from some foreign court, an agent of antichrist, a lover of persecution, and an enemy of protestants, because it sings of whipping, and of the Pope, which they think portends misery and a change of religion.

The principal insects are the hornet, bull-fly, glow-bug, humble-bee, and black and yellow wasp.

The bull-fly is armed with a coat of mail, which it can move from one place to another, as sliders to a window are moved. Its body is about an inch long, and its horns half an inch, very sharp and strong. It has six feet, with claws as sharp as needles, and runs fast. In sucking the blood or juice of its prey, the creature holds the same in its claws; otherwise the prey is carried between its horns.

The glow-bug both crawls and flies, and is about half an inch long. These insects fly, in the summer evenings, nearly seven feet from the ground, in such multitudes that they afford sufficient light for the people to walk by. The brightness, however, is interrupted by twinklings; but they are instantaneous and short as those of the eye, so that darkness no sooner takes place than it vanishes.

The humble-bee is almost as large as the humming-bird, but cannot fly near so fast. It builds its nest in the ground, where it makes a honey-comb of the size of a man’s hand, and fills it with bees’-bread, wax, and honey, excelling that of the honey-bee in taste. Two or three begun, and having shortly multiplied to about forty, the young ones leave home as soon as they can fly, to begin new settlements. These bees are wrongly named: they are warriors, and only want a quantity of poison to be more fatal than rattle-snakes.

The honey-bees can sting but once, while the humble-bee will sting a thousand times. Their body is black and white; wings of a Doric colour; sight piercing, hearing quick, and temper cruel.

Among the reptiles of Connecticut are the black, the water, milk, and streaked snakes, all harmless. The belled or rattle-snakes are large, and will gorge a common cat. They are seldom seen from their rocky dens. Their bite is mortal if not speedily cured; yet they are generous, and without guile; before they bite they rattle their bells three or four times, but after that their motion is swift and stroke sure. The Indians discovered and informed the English of a weed, common in the country, which, mixed with spittle, will extract the poison.

The toads and frogs are plenty in the spring of the year. The tree-frogs, whippoorwills, and whooping owls, serenade the inhabitants every night with music far excelling the harmony of the trumpet, drum, and jews-harp.

The tree-frog cannot be called an insect, a reptile, or one of the winged host; he has four legs, the two foremost short, with claws as sharp as those of a squirrel; the hind-legs five inches long, and folding by three joints. His body is about as big as the first joint of a man’s thumb. Under his throat is a wind-bag, which assists him in singing the word I-sa-ac all the night. When it rains, and is very dark, he sings the loudest. His voice is not so pleasing as that of the nightingale; but this would be a venial imperfection, if he would but keep silence on Saturday nights, and not forever prefer I-sa-ac to Abraham and Jacob. He has more elasticity in his long legs than any other creature yet known. By this means he will leap five yards up a tree, fastening himself to it by his fore legs, and in a moment will hop or spring as far from one tree to another. It is from the singing of the tree-frog that the Americans have acquired the name of Little Isaac. Indeed, like a certain part of them, the creature appears very devout, noisy, arbitrary, and phlegmatic, and associates with none but what agree with him in his ways.

The oysters, clams, quauhogs, lobsters, crabs, and fish, are innumerable. The shad, bass, and salmon, more than half support the province. The sturgeon is made no use of. From the number of seines employed to catch the fish passing up to the lakes, one might be led to suppose the whole must be stopped; yet, in six months’ time they return to the sea with such multitudes of young ones as to fill Connecticut River for many days, and no finite being can number them.

_Population and Inhabitants._--Connecticut, in proportion to its extent, exceeds every other colony of English America, as well in the abundance of people as in cultivation of soil. The number of the first settlers at Saybrook, in 1634, was 200; in 1636, at Hertford, 106; in 1637, at Newhaven, 157; in all, 463. In 1670 the residents of these three settlements amounted to 15,000, of whom 2000 were men capable of bearing arms; the rest old men, women, and children. In 1680 the residents were 20,000; in 1770, 200,000. Hence it appears that the people of Connecticut did, during the 90 years, double their number ten times over. Should the 200,000 which existed in Connecticut in 1770 double their number in the same manner for the ensuing 90 years, the province will, in the year 1860, contain 2,000,000; and if the fighting men should then be in the same proportion to the rest of the inhabitants as they were in 1670, they will amount to no less than 266,000. I see no reason in Nature why it may not be so.

Since 1670, emigration from Europe, or elsewhere, to Connecticut, has been trifling, in comparison to the emigration from Connecticut to New-Jersey, Newhampshire, Massachusets-Bay, Nova-Scotia, &c.

_Manufactures._--The inhabitants manufacture coarse and fine flannels, linen, cotton and woollen cloths, woollen stockings, mittens, and gloves, for their own use; they spin much cotton and flax, and make common and the best kind of beaver hats. Ship-building is a great branch of business in Connecticut, which is carried on much cheaper than in Europe, by means of saw-mills worked by water. The planks are cut by a gang of ten or twelve saws, more or less, as occasion requires, while the carriage is backed but once. Great part of the ship-timber is also cut by water. Anchor-making is done by water and trip-hammers, without much fatigue to the workmen. Distilling and paper-making increase every year. Here are many rope-walks, which want neither hemp nor flax; and formerly here were rolling and slitting works, but they have been suppressed by an act of Parliament, to the ruin of many families.

_Commerce._--The exports of Connecticut consist chiefly of all sorts of provisions, pig and bar iron, pot and pearl ashes, staves, lumber, boards, iron pots and kettles, anchors, planks, hoops, shingles, live cattle, horses, &c. &c. To what amount these articles are annually exported, may be judged from the following very low estimate:

Pork 98,750_l._
Beef 100,000
Mutton 5,000
Horses 40,000
Wheat 340,000
Butter, cheese, rye, oats, onions, tobacco, cider,
maize, beans, fowls, eggs, tallow, and hides 90,000
Ships’ anchors, cables, cordage, pig and bar
iron, pots, kettles, pot and pearl ashes,
boards, and lumber 250,000
-------
918,750_l._

besides hay, fish, &c. &c. The salmon, large and small, are exported both pickled and dried.

In the above statement of exports I have allowed only for horses bred in the colony, and not for those brought for exportation from Canada and other northern parts, which are very numerous. The calculation of the wheat, the common price of which is three shillings sterling per bushel, is founded upon the allowed circumstance of the exportation being equal to the consumption, viz. 2,600,000 bushels among 200,000 persons, according to the acknowledged necessary portion of thirteen bushels to one person. The pork is estimated according to the reputed number of houses in the province, viz. 30,000, allowing one and a quarter barrels for each house, at 2_l._ 10_s._ per barrel.

The imports in 1680, when the number of inhabitants was 20,000, amounted to 10,000_l._, i. e. at the rate of 10_s._ for each individual. Supposing the increase of imports only to keep pace with that of the people, they would, in 1770, when the province contained 200,000 souls, amount to 100,000_l._; but I believe that to be not above one-quarter of their value.

Boston, New-York, and Newport, have the greatest share of the exports of Connecticut, and pay for them in English or Dutch goods at cent. per cent. profit to themselves, upon a moderate computation. What few of them are sent from the colony to the West Indies, are paid for honourably in rum, molasses, sugar, salt, brandy, cotton, and money.

Consequences very prejudicial attend the commerce of Connecticut, thus principally carried on through the medium of the neighbouring colonies. I will here point out one material instance: Connecticut pork, a considerable article of exportation, excels all others in America, and fetches a halfpenny per pound more. Of this difference in the price the merchants in New-York, Boston, &c. have taken care to avail themselves, by mixing their own inferior pork with that of Connecticut, and then selling the whole at the full price of the latter. This fair dealing was managed thus: The pork of Connecticut was packed up in barrels, each of which, according to statute regulations, must weigh 220 lbs. and contain not more than six legs and three half heads. The packer is to mark the barrel before it is shipped, and is liable to a heavy punishment if there should be found four half heads and seven legs in the barrel when it is delivered for exportation. But of large pork, two legs and half a head will be a sufficient proportion of those parts in a barrel. This gives the New-York and Bostonian merchants an opportunity of taking out the best part of the Connecticut pork, and substituting in its place an equal weight of their own, whereby it often happens that four legs and two half heads are found in a barrel of reputed Connecticut pork. Though it then remains a barrel according to the statute, it cannot but be supposed that the practice must greatly hurt the credit of Connecticut pork with all who are not apprised that it passes through the renounded provinces of Massachusets-Bay and New-York.

The people of Connecticut have long been sensible of the many great impositions and disadvantages which beset their commercial system; yet, though sufficient power is in their own hands, they have no inclination or resolution to attempt a reformation of it. The reason is, the mutual animosities and rancour subsisting between the dominions of New-London, Hertford, and Newhaven, each of which prefers the general ruin of the province to a coalition upon any terms short of conquest. The seeds of this discord were thus sown by these two insidious neighbours. The port of New-London is by far the best in the province, and extremely well calculated for its capital and grand commercial emporium; and about fifty years since, a number of merchants there began to export and import goods, seemingly to the satisfaction of the whole colony, but to the great displeasure and chagrin of those of New-York and Boston, whom it threatened with ruin. Something was necessary to be done. The poor Bostonians, according to custom, privately sent for their faithful allies at Hertford, to infuse into them an idea that their town ought to be the capital, and not New-London, which belonged to the Dominion of Sassacus, who had murdered so many christians; adding that, if they would engage in such an attempt in favour of Hertford, the Boston merchants would supply them with goods cheaper than they could buy them at New-London. The good people at Hertford, forgetting their river was frozen for five months in the year, remembering how they had obtained their Charter, hating Sassacus, and loving self, immediately gave in to the designing Bostonians’ suggestions, and refused to receive any more goods from New-London. The friendly Mynheers of New-York played off a similar trick upon Newhaven, and promised to support that town as the capital of the colony. The plots succeeded. Contentions and quarrels arose among the three parties, the effects of which remain to this day. The merchants of New-London were obliged to quit Connecticut, and the trade of the province was chiefly divided between New-York and Boston, at cent. per cent. disadvantage to an ill-natured colony, and at the same time advantage to its cunning neighbours. When party spirit yields to self-interest, New-London will again become the emporium of Connecticut, where merchants will settle and import goods from foreign countries at 35_l._ per cent. extra profit to the consumers, and 15_l._ per cent. extra profit to themselves, and withal save as much in the exports from Connecticut, by taking the full price and bounty of its goods at foreign markets, instead of yielding the same to the people of New-York and Boston, who have too long kept 200,000 as negroes on their own farms, to support twice 20,000 artful citizens. Thus has Connecticut, by contention and folly, impoverished and kept in obscurity the most fruitful colony in America, to support the fame and grandeur of Boston and New-York among the trading nations of Europe. When I view the less fertile soil of Boston, the conscience of merchants, the pride of the pretended Gospel ministers, the blindness of bigotry, and the mercantile ignorance of farmers, I forgive Boston, New-York, and Rhode-Island, but condemn Connecticut. I will leave a legacy to the people of my native country, which possibly may heal their divisions, and render them partial to their own province, as the Bostonians are to theirs. It consists of two lines:

“But if men knaves and fools will be,
They’ll be ass-ridden by all three.”

_Revenue and Expenditure._--In 1680 the whole corporation were estimated to be worth 120,000_l._ They had 30 small vessels, 26 churches, and, as above mentioned, 20,000 inhabitants. If their value had increased only in proportion with the inhabitants, who, as I have said, amounted to 200,000 in 1770, the corporation would then have been worth no more than 1,200,000_l._, a sum not equal to 10_s._ per acre, though in a great measure cultivated, and surrounded with stone walls which alone cost 10_s._ by the rod; but in that year, viz. 1770; land sold in Connecticut from 4_l._ to 50_l._ per acre; their vessels, also, had increased to about 1200, and the churches--least in proportion--to about 300. The true method, therefore, of forming the valuation of Connecticut in 1770, is not by calculating upon this State in 1680, but by estimating the number of its acres, appreciating them by purchases then made, and adding a due allowance for the stock, &c. Now, Connecticut has been reputed to contain 2,500,000 solid acres, which, at the very moderate price of 8_l._ each, are worth 20,000,000_l._ sterling; and 14,000,000_l._ being added as a reasonable allowance for stock, shipping, &c. the whole valuation of Connecticut would amount to 34,000,000_l._ The annual income, supposing the 2,500,000 acres and stock rented at 10_s._ per acre, one with another, would be 1,250,000_l._ A list of rateables, called the General List, is the foundation upon which the revenue is raised in Connecticut, being the valuation of a man’s property by the year. It is formed in the following manner:

One acre of land, per annum 0_l._ 10_s._
One horse 3 00
One house 3 00
One ox 3 00
One swine 1 00
One cow 3 00
One two-year-old heifer 2 00
One yearling do. 1 00
One poll or male, between 16 and 60 years 18 00
One lawyer for his faculty 20 00
One vessel of 100 tons 10 00
--------------
65_l._ 10_s._

Every person annually gives his list, specifying the property he possesses, to the selectmen, who send the sum total of each town to the General Assembly, when a tax of one shilling, more or less, according to public exigencies, is imposed on each pound.

According to the general list of the colony for 1770, I have underrated its annual worth, which then was fixed at 2,000,000_l._; for, though that list includes the poll-tax of 18_l._ per head for all males above sixteen and under sixty years of age, the faculty tax, and the tax on shipping, all which may amount to 600,000_l._, there nevertheless remains a surplus of 150,000_l._ above my calculation. But, supposing a tax of one shilling in the pound (the common colonial assessment) on 1,250,000_l._, the produce will be 62,500_l._, exclusive of the poll, faculty, and other taxes. Small, however, as this assessment is, it has never been collected without much difficulty and clamour; yet the people lose, by trading with Boston, New-York, and Newport, in exports and imports, 600,000_l._ annually; and that for nothing but to oblige the traders of those towns, and disoblige one another.

The annual expenditure of the colony is as follows:

Salary of Governor 300_l._ 00_s._
“ Lieutenant-Governor 150 00
“ Treasurer 150 00
“ Secretary 150 00
“ the twelve assistants in Council
with the Governor 800 00
“ 146 Representatives 2,500 00
“ 300 Ministers, 100_l._ each 30,000 00
Allowance for contingencies 28,450 00
------------------
Total 62,500_l._ 00_s._

The above-mentioned list of the colony, including the poll-tax, &c. would afford 32,500_l._ more for contingencies.

_Religion and Government._--Properly speaking, the Connectitensians have neither, nor ever had; but, in pretence, they excel the whole world, except Boston and Spain. If I could recollect the names of the multifarious religious sects among them, it might afford the reader a pleasant idea of the prolific invention of mankind. I shall mention a few of the most considerable, specifying the number of their congregations:

CONGREGATIONS.
Episcopalians 73
Scotch presbyterians 1
Sandemanians 3
Ditto Bastard 1
Lutherans 1
Baptists 6
Seventh-day ditto 1
Quakers 4
Davisonians 1
Separatists 40
Rogereens 1
Bowlists 1
Old Lights 80
New Lights 87
---
300

An account of some of these sects is to be found in the history of Munster; but the Bowlists, Separatists, and Davisonians are peculiar to the colony. The first allow of neither singing nor prayer; the second permit only the elect to pray; and the third teach universal salvation, and deny the existence of a hell or devils. The presbyterians and episcopalians are held by all to be the enemies of Zion and the American Vine; nay, the former are even worse hated than the Churchmen, because they appear to be dissenters, and are not genuine enemies to episcopacy, but “hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Some travellers have called the fanatical sects of Connecticut by the general name of Legionists, because they are many; and others have called them Pumguntums, Cantums, &c. because they groan and sing with a melancholy voice their prayers, sermons, and hymns. This disgusting tone has utterly excluded oratory from them; and did they not speak the English in greater perfection than any other of the Americans, few strangers would disoblige them with their company. Their various systems are founded upon those of Peters, Hooker, and Davenport, of which I have already spoken; yet the modern teachers have made so many new-fangled refinements in the doctrine and discipline of those patriarchs, and of one another, as render their passions for ecclesiastical innovation and tyranny equally conspicuous. But the whole are enveloped with superstition, which here passes for religion, as much as it does in Spain, France, or among the savages.

I will instance that of an infant, in 1761. Some children were piling sand-heaps in Hertford, when a boy, only four years old, hearing it thunder at a distance, left his companions and ran home to his mother, crying out, “Mother, mother, give me my book, for I heard God speaking to me!” His mother gave him his book, and he read A, B, C, D, &c.; then gave up his book, saying, “Here, mother, take my book; I must go to my sand-houses: now I am not afraid of all the thunder and lightning in the world.”

As to their government, we may compare it to the regularity of a mad mob in London, with this exception: the mob acts without law, and the colonists by law. They teach that legal righteousness is not saving grace. Herein they are right; but it appears they believe not their own doctrine, for legal righteousness is their only shield and buckler. In January County Court, at Hertford only, 1768, there were about 3000 suits on the docket; and there are four of these courts in a year, and perhaps never less suits at a court than 2000.

In the course of this work my readers must necessarily have observed, in some degree, the ill effects of the democratical constitution of Connecticut. I would wish them to imagine, for I feel myself unable adequately to describe, the confusion, turbulence, and convulsion arising in a province where not only every civil officer, from the governor to the constables, but also every minister, is appointed as well as paid by the people, and faction and superstition are established. The clergy, lawyers, and merchants or traders, are the three efficient parties which guide the helm of the government. Of these, the most powerful is the clergy, and, when no combinations are formed against them, they may be said to rule the whole province; for they lead the women captive, and the women the men; but when the clergy differ with the lawyers and merchants, the popular tide turns. In like manner, when the clergy and lawyers contend with the merchants, it turns against these; and is the same when the clergy and merchants unite against the lawyers. This fluctuation of power gives a strange appearance to the body politic at large. In Hertford, perhaps, the clergy and merchants are agreed, and prevail; in Weathersfield, the clergy and lawyers; in Middletown, the lawyers and merchants; and so on, again and again, throughout the colony. Thus the General Assembly becomes an assembly of contending factions, whose different interests and pursuits it is generally found necessary mutually to consult in order to produce a sufficient coalition to proceed on the business of the State.--_Vos ipsos pseudo-patres patriæ, veluti in speculo aspicite?_--Sometimes, in quarrels between the merchants and lawyers of a particular parish, the minister is allowed to stand neuter; but, for the most part, he is obliged to declare on the one side or the other; he then, remembering from whence he gets his bread, espouses that which appears to be the strongest, whether it be right or wrong, and his declaration never fails to turn the adverse party.--_En rabies_ _vulgi!_--I must beg leave to refer my readers to their own reflections upon such a system of government as I have here sketched out.

The historians of New-England boast much of the happiness all parties there enjoy in not being subject, as in England, to sacramental test by way of qualification for preferment in the State; on which account, with peculiar propriety, it might be called a free country. The truth is, there never has been occasion for such a test-act. The Assemblies never appointed any, because the magistrates are annually chosen by the people, of whom the far greater part are church members; and this church-membership, in its consequences, destroys all liberty in a communicant, who is necessitated to swear to promote the interests of that church he is a member of, and is duly informed by the minister what that interest is. The minister is the eye of conscience to all freemen in his parish, and tells them that they will perjure themselves if they give their votes to an episcopalian, or any person who is not a member of the Church of the _Sober Dissenters_. Those freemen dare not go counter to the minister’s dictate, any more than a true Mussulman dare violate the sacred law of Mahomet. What need, then, is there of a civil test, when a religious test operates much more powerfully, and will ever keep Churchmen, Separatists, Quakers, Baptists, and other denominations from governmental employments in Connecticut, and confine them to the Old and New Lights; whilst the test act in England prevents no dissenter from holding any civil or military commission whatsoever? Upon this subject Mr. Neal has exerted himself in so signal a manner, that he ought to be styled the Champion of New-England. He represents that there were two State factions in New-England: the one out of place he calls spies and malcontents, chiefly because they had no share in the government. He adds, p. 615: “I can assure the world that religion is no part of the quarrel; for there is no sacramental test for preferment in the State.”--Many people in New-England have not been able to assign a reason for Mr. Neal’s choosing to hide one truth by telling another, viz. that there was no statute in New-England to oblige a man to receive the sacrament among the _Sober Dissenters_ as a qualification for civil office. This assertion is really true; and when Mr. Neal speaks a truth, he, above all men, ought to have credit for it. But Mr. Neal well knew it to be the truth, also, that no man could be chosen a corporal in the train-band unless he was a member of the Church of the _Sober Dissenters_, because then every voter was subject to a religious test of the Synod or Consociation. Mr. Neal, indeed, seems to think that a civil test is heresy itself, but that a religious test is liberty, is gospel, and renders “all parties of christians in New-England easy--a happy people.” The reason, however, of his muffling truth with truth, was, he wrote for the Old Lights and against the New Lights for hire; the New Lights being the minority, and out of place in the State. Those two sects differed about the coercive power of the civil magistrate. The Old Lights held that the civil magistrate was a creature framed on purpose to support ecclesiastical censure with the sword of severity; but the New Lights maintained that the magistrate had no power or right to concern himself with Church excommunication, and that excommunication was all the punishment any one could undergo in this world, according to the rules of the Gospel. These were, and always have been, two great articles of faith in New-England; nevertheless, Mr. Neal says he can assure the world that “religion is no part of the quarrel.” I hope Mr. Neal did not mean to quibble, as the New-Englanders generally do, by Jesuitism, viz. that religion is peaceable and admits not of quarrels; and yet, if he did not, he meant not a full representation of the matter, for he well knew that the difference in respect to the intent and power of the magistrates was a religious point, and formed the partition wall between the Old and New Lights. The civilians and magistrates were too wise to countenance the New Lights, who promised little good to them; while the Old Lights gave them a power of punishing, even unto death, those whom they had anathematized, and who would not submit to their censures by penitence and confession. The Old Lights, in short, supported the practice of the inquisitors of Spain and Archbishop Laud--the ostensible occasion of their ancestors flying from England to the wilderness of America.

But Mr. Neal contented not himself with one mistake; he added, “that the people of New-England are a dutiful and loyal people.” They never merited this character, and they always had too much honesty and religion to claim it. From the first they have uniformly declared, in Church and State, that America is a new world, subject to the people residing in it, and that none but enemies of the country would appeal from their courts to the King in Council. They never have prayed for any earthly king by name. They have always called themselves republicans, and enemies to kingly government, to temporal and spiritual lords. They hate the idea of a Parliament, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons; they declare that the three branches should be but one, the king having only a single vote with the other members. Upon this point they have always quarrelled with the governors. They never have admitted one law of England to be in force among them till passed by their assemblies. They have sent agents to fight against the kings of England. They deny the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, which extends over America by a royal patent. They hold Jesus to be the only King, whom if they love and obey they will not submit, because they have not submitted, to the laws of the King of Great Britain.

Mr. Neal, furthermore, professes his want of conception why the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts should send missionaries into New-England, when Oliver Cromwell had, in 1640, instituted a society to propagate christian knowledge there. Mr. Neal might have learnt the cause of this phenomenon from the charter granted to the first-mentioned society by King William III., who was a friend to civil and christian liberty, and who endeavoured to suppress the intolerable persecutions in his days prevailing in New-England. But, besides, Mr. Neal could not but know that there were many Churchmen in New-England desirous of the use of the liturgy and discipline of the English Church; and for what reason should they not have ministers of their own persuasion, as well as the sober and conscientious dissenters? I hope my readers will not think me a partial advocate for the Church of England, which, perhaps, has lost the opportunity of civilizing, christianizing, and moderating the burning zeal of the dissenters of New-England, who were honest in their religion merely by the sinful omission of not sending a bishop to that country, who would have effected greater things among them than an army of 50,000 men. I avow myself to be liberal-minded towards all sects and parties; and, if I had power, I would convert all sorts of ministers into popes, cardinals, prelates, dominies, potent presbyters, and rich Quakers, that the world might be excused from hearing again of preaching, defamation, insurrections, and spiritual jurisdictions, which result more from pride, poverty, avarice, and ambition, than the love of peace and christianity.

It has been said by the deists, and other politicians, that ministers, by preaching, have done more hurt than good in the christian world. If the idea will hold in any part it will be in New-England, where each sect preaches, for Gospel, policy and defamation of its neighbour; whence the lower classes think that christianity consists in defending their own peculiar Church and modes, and subverting those of others, at any rate; while the higher ranks value religion and the Gospel as laws of a foreign country, and the merchants powwowers, subtle, cruel, and greedy of riches and dominion over all people. For this reason the savages have taken an aversion to the protestant religion, and they say they would rather follow Hobbomockow and the Roman priests than New-England christians, who persecute one another, and killed their ancestors with a pocky Gospel. With scorn they cry out: “We value not your Gospel, which shews so many roads to Kicktang; some of them must be crooked, and lead to Hobbomockow. We had, therefore, better continue Indians like our ancestors, or be Catholics, who tell us of only one way to Kicktang, or the invisible God.”

_Laws._--A stranger in the colony, upon hearing the inhabitants talk of religion, liberty, and justice, would be induced to believe that the christian and civil virtues were their distinguishing characteristics; but he soon finds his mistake in fixing his abode among them. Their laws grind the poor, and their religion is to oppress the oppressed. The poll-tax is unjust and cruel. The poor man is compelled to pay for his bread eighteen shillings per annum, work four days on the highways, serve in the militia four days, and pay three shillings for his hut, without a window in it. The best house and richest man in the colony pays no more!