with his knife cut gashes across his breast, saying, "I cross out my account." When weakened with loss of blood, he was about to fall from the table, his own sword was held under him, which put an end to his misery.

At other houses, similar acts of cruelty were perpetrated. In the whole, twenty-three persons were killed, twenty-nine carried prisoners to Canada, and mostly sold to the French. Remembering kindness as well as injury, they spared one woman, who, thirteen years before, had conferred a favour on one of the party. Many houses were burned, and much property was plundered; and so expeditious were the Indians, that they had fled beyond reach before the neighbouring people could be collected.

The war thus commenced, was prosecuted with vigour. The French, by giving premiums for scalps, and by purchasing the English prisoners, animated the Indians to exert all their activity and address, and the frontier inhabitants endured the most aggravated sufferings. The settlements on Oyster river were again surprised; twenty houses were burned, and nearly one hundred persons were killed or made prisoners, Other towns were attacked, many persons slain, and many carried into captivity. The peace of Ryswick in 1697, closed the distressing scene. In 1703 another war began, which continued ten years.

In 1719, above one hundred families, mostly Presbyterians, emigrated from the north of Ireland, and settled the town of Londonderry. They

introduced the foot spinning wheel, the manufacture of linen, and the culture of potatoes. They were industrious, hardy, and useful citizens.

From 1722 to 1726, the inhabitants again suffered the afflictions of an Indian war. Following the example of the French, the government offered premiums for scalps, which induced several volunteer companies to undertake expeditions against the enemy. One of these, commanded by Captain Lovewell, was greatly distinguished, at first by its successes, and afterwards by its misfortunes.

Long after the transfer from Mason to Allen, some defect in the conveyance was discovered, which rendered it void. In 1746, John Tufton Mason, a descendant of the original grantee, claiming the lands possessed by his ancestors, conveyed them for fifteen hundred pounds, to twelve persons, subsequently called the Masonian proprietors. They, to silence the opposition, voluntarily relinquished their claims to the lands already occupied by others.

They also granted townships on the most liberal terms. Reserving certain portions of the land for themselves, for the first settled ministers, and for schools, they required merely that the grantees should, within a limited time, erect mills and meeting-houses, clear out roads, and settle ministers of the gospel. In process of time, nearly all the Masonian lands, being about one-fourth of the whole, were in this manner granted; and contention and law suits ceased to disturb the repose, and to impede the prosperity of the colony.

CHAPTER IV.

CONNECTICUT.

IN 1631, Viscount Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and others, obtained from the Plymouth Company, in England, a grant of the territory which now constitutes the state of Connecticut; and so little was then known of the geography of the new world, that the grant was made to extend, in longitude, from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea. In the same year, the Indians, living on Connecticut river, having invited the colony of Plymouth to make a settlement on their lands, governor Winslow and others visited the country, and selected a place near the mouth of the little river in Windsor, for the erection of a trading house.

The Dutch at New York, apprized of this project of the English, and determined to anticipate them immediately despatched a party, who erected a fort at Hartford. In September, 1633, a company from Plymouth, having prepared the frame of a house, put it on board a vessel, and, passing the fort, conveyed it to the place previously selected. In October, they raised, covered, and fortified it with palisades. The Dutch, considering them intruders, sent, the next year, a band of seventy men to drive them from the country, but finding them strongly posted, they relinquished the design.

In the autumn of 1635, many of the inhabitants of Dorchester and Watertown, in Massachusetts, having heard of the fertile meadows on Connecticut river, removed thither, and began settlements at Weathersfield and Windsor. During the next winter, their sufferings from famine were extreme. So destitute were they of provisions, that many, in dread of starvation, returned, in December, to Massachusetts. In their journey through the dreary wilderness, at this inclement season, they encountered indescribable hardships.

In the same autumn, Mr. Winthrop arrived from England, with instructions from the patentees to erect a fort at the mouth of the river, and make the requisite preparation for planting a colony. The fort was but just completed when a party, sent for the same purpose, by the Dutch, at New York, arrived in a vessel, but were not permitted to land.

The next spring, those who had been compelled by famine to revisit Massachusetts, returned to Connecticut. In June, the Reverend Mr. Hooker, of Cambridge, and about one hundred men, women, and children, belonging to his congregation, travelling through the wilderness, laid the foundation of Hartford. They were nearly two weeks on their journey; they drove their cattle with them, and subsisted, by the way, upon the milk of their

COWS.

In 1637, all the settlements in New England were involved in hostilities with the Pequods, a tribe of Indians inhabiting New London and the country around it. Some account of this war has

been given in the history of Massachusetts. Previous to any expedition against them, they had killed many of the emigrants to Connecticut, had captured others, and tortured them to death. In the short war which followed, their surviving brethren, for bravery in battle and fortitude in suffering were not surpassed by any portion of the English troops.

At first, the emigrants acknowledged the authority of Massachusetts. In January, 1639, the freemen, having convened at Hartford, adopted a constitution for themselves. They ordained that two general courts, or assemblies, should be held annually, one in April, the other in September; that at the court held in April, styled the court of election, the freemen should choose a governor, six magistrates, and all the public officers; that to the other, the several towns should send deputies, who, in conjunction with the governor and magistrates, were authorized to enact laws, and perform all necessary public services. No general court could be adjourned or dissolved, without the consent of a major part of the members.

In the same year, George Fenwick, one of the patentees, came over with his family, and settled at the mouth of the river. In honour of Lord Say and Seal, and Lord Brook, he called the place Saybrook. Others afterwards joined him; and for several years, they were governed by their own magistrates and laws. In 1644, Mr. Fenwick, for seven thousand dollars, assigned to the general court of Connecticut, the fort at Saybrook, and all the rights conferred by the patent from the