Assembly," says Dr. Trumbull, "met as usual, in October, and the government continued according to charter, until the last of the month. About this time, Sir Edmund with his suite, and more than sixty regular troops, came to Hartford when the assembly were sitting, and demanded the charter, and declared the government under it to be dissolved. The assembly were extremely reluctant and slow with respect to any resolve to surrender the charter, or with respect to any motion to bring it forth. The tradition is, that Governor Treat strongly represented the great expense and hardships of the colonists in planting the country; the blood and treasure which they had expended in defending it, both against the savages and foreigners; to what hardships and dangers he himself had been exposed for that purpose; and that it was like giving up his life, now to surrender the patent and privileges so dearly bought and so long enjoyed. The important affair was debated and kept in suspense until the evening, when the charter was brought and laid upon the table where the assembly were sitting. By this time great numbers of people were assembled, and men sufficiently bold to enterprise whatever might be necessary or expedient. The lights were instantly extinguished, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner carried off the charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree, fronting the house of Hon. Samuel Wyllis, then one of the magistrates of the colony. The people appeared all peaceable and orderly. The candles were officiously relighted, but the patent was gone, and no discovery could be made of it, or the person who carried it away. Sir Edmund assumed the government, and the records of the colony were closed in the following words:

'At a General Court at Hartford, Oct. 31st, 1687, his excellency Sir Edmund Andross, knight, and captain general and governor of his Majesty's territories and dominions in New England, by order of his Majesty James II. King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, the 31st of October, 1687, took into his hands the government of the Colony of Connecticut, it being by his Majesty annexed to Massachusetts, and other Colonies under his Excellency's government. FINIS.'"

The Regicides.-Soon after the restoration of monarchy in England, many of the Judges who had condemned King Charles I. to death were apprehended. Thirty were condemned, and ten were executed as traitors; two of them, Colonels Goffe and Whalley, made their escape to New-England, and arrived at Boston, July 1660. They were gentlemen of worth, and were much esteemed by the colonists for their unfeigned piety. Their manners and appearance were dignified, commanding universal respect.

Whalley had been a Lieutenant General, and Goffe, a Major General in Cromwell's army. An order for their apprehension, from Charles II. reached New-England soon after their arrival. The King's commissioners, eager to execute this order, compelled the Judges to resort to the woods and caves, and other hiding places; and they would undoubtedly have been taken had not the colonists secretly aided and assisted them in their concealments. Sometimes they found a refuge in a cave on a mountain near NewHaven, and at others in cellars of the houses of their friends, and once they were secreted under the Neck bridge in New-Haven while their pursuers crossed the bridge on horseback.

While in New-Haven they owed their lives to the intrepidity. of Mr. Davenport, the minister of the place, who when the pursuers arrived, preached to the people from this text, Take councul, execute judgment, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noon day, hide the outcasts, betray not him that wandereth. Let my outcasts dwell with thee Moab, be thou 'a covert to them from the face of the spoiler. Large rewards were offered for their apprehension, or for any information which might lead to it. Mr. Davenport was threatened, for it was known that he had harbored them. Upon hearing that he was in danger they offered to deliver themselves up, and actually gave notice to the deputy governor, of the place of their concealment; but Davenport had not preached in vain, and the magistrate took no other notice than to advise them not to betray themselves."

"On the 13th of October, 1664, they left New Haven, and arrived at Hadley the latter part of the same month. During their abode at Hadley the famous Indian war, called " King Philip's. War," took place. The pious congregation of Hadley were ob

serving a Fast on the occasion of this war; and being at public. worship in the meeting house, Sept. 1st, 1675, were suddenly surrounded by a body of Indians. It was customary in the frontier towns, and even at New Haven, in these Indian wars, for a select number of the congregation to go armed to public worship. It was so at Hadley at this time. The people immediately took to their arms, but were thrown into great confusion. Had Hadley been taken, the discovery of the Judges would have been unavoidable. Suddenly, and in the midst of the people there appeared a man of very venerable aspect, and different from the inhabitants in his apparel, who took the command, arranged and ordered them in the best military manner. Under his direction, they repelled and routed the enemy, and thereby saved the town. He immediately vanished, and the inhabitants could account for the phenomenon in no other way, but by considering that person as an angel sent of God upon that special occasion for their deliverance; and for some time after, said and believed, that they had been saved by an angel. Nor did they know otherwise, till fifteen or twenty years after, when at length it became known at Hadley that the two Judges had been secreted there. The angel was Goffe, for Whalley was superannuated in 1675. The last account of Goffe is from a letter dated Ebenezer, (the name they gave their several places of abode,) April 2, 1669.' Whalley had been dead some time before. The tradition at Hadley is, that they were buried in the minister's cellar, and it is generally

supposed that their bodies were afterwards secretly conveyed to New Haven, and placed near Dixwell's."

"Colonel John Dixwell came from Hadley to New Haven before the year 1662, and was known here by the name of James Davids. During the seventeen years or more in which he lived in New Haven, nothing extraordinary occurred concerning him. From 1674, to 1685, the church had no settled minister with whom he might associate. The Rev. Nicholas Street, the minister at his first coming here, soon died. For above eleven years, the church was destitute of a pastor, and supplied by occasional and temporary preaching only, until Mr. Pierpont's settlement in 1685. With him the Colonel entered immediately into an open and unreserved communication; but this was only for the short space of three or four of the last years of his exile. During this short time, however, there was the greatest intimacy between them, which appears to have been concealed even from the minister's wife. For tradition says, that Madam Pierpont observing their remarkable intimacy, and wondering at it, used to ask him what he saw in that old gentleman, who was so fond of leading an obscure, unnoticed life, that they should be so intimate and take such pleasure in being together, for Mr. Dixwell's house being situated on the east corner of College and Grove streets, and Mr. Pierpont's near the corner of Elm and Temple streets, and their house lots being contiguous and cornering upon one another, they had beaten a path in walking across their lots to meet and converse together at the fence. In answer to his wife's question, Mr. Pierpont remarked; that the old gentleman was a very learned man, and understood more about religion, and all other subjects than any other person in the place, and that if she knew the value of him, she would not wonder at their intimacy."

"Colonel Dixwell carried on no secular business, but employed his time in reading and walking into the neighboring groves and woods adjacent to his house. Mr. Pierpont had a large library, from which, as well as from his own collection, he could be supplied with a variety of books. He often spent his evenings at Mr. Pierpont's, and when they were by themselves, retired to his study, where they indulged themselves with great familiarity and humor, had free and unrestrained conversation, upon all matters whether of religion or politics. But when in company, Mr. Pierpont behaved towards Colonel D. with caution and reserve. The Colonel spent much of his retirement in reading history, and as a token of his friendship for Mr. Pierpont, he, in his last will, presented him with Raleigh's History of the World.

After a pilgrimage of twenty nine years in exile from his native country, and banishment into oblivion from the world, of which seventeen years at least, probably more, were spent in New Haven by the name of James Davids, Esqr., Colonel Dixwell died in this place.

He and all the other Judges lived and died in the firm expectation of a revolution in England. This had actually taken place the November before his death, but the news not having arrived, he died ignorant of it, about a month before the seizure of Sir Edmund Andross at Boston. At his death, he discovered his true character to the people, and owned the name of John Dixwell, but requested that no monument should be erected at his grave, giving an account of his person, name, and character, alledging as a reason, "lest his enemies might dishonor his ashes"-requesting that only a plain stone might be set up at his grave inscribed with his initials, J. D. Esq., with his age and time of his death. Accordingly a plain rough stone was erected at his grave, close by the grave of Governor Eaton and Governor Jones, charged with an inscription as at first put up and engraved by his friends.

Whilst residing at New Haven, he was twice married, and at his death, he left a wife and two children. His will was afterwards exhibited, approved and recorded in the Probate office.

President Stiles, in his History of the Judges, says, "So late as the last French war, 1760, some British officers passing through New Haven, and hearing of Dixwell's grave, visited it, and declared with rancorous and malicious vengeance, that if the British ministry knew it, they would even then cause their bodies to be dug up and vilified. Often have we heard the crown officers aspersing and vilifying them; and some, so late as 1775, visited and treated the graves with marks of indignity too indecent to be mentioned." It was especially so, during Queen Anne's time, and even that of the Hanoverian family, there has been no time in which this grave has not been threatened by numerous sycophantic crown dependents, with indignity and ministerial vengeance."

Surrender of New Amsterdam to the English.-In 1664, Charles II. of England not wishing the Dutch to exercise authority in the midst of his colonies, determined to subject them to his will; for this purpose he made a grant to his brother, the Duke of York and Albany of all the territory claimed by the Dutch. Col. Richard Nicholls with several others were commissioned to take possession in the king's name, and to exercise jurisdiction. Col. Nicholls with four ships and an armed force arrived at Boston. Demanding and receiving assistance from Massachusetts and Connecticut, he about the 30th of August arrived in New York bay.

"One of the ships entered the bay of the North River, several days before the rest; and as soon as they were all come up, Stuyvesant sent a letter dated 12 of August, at Fort Anil, directed to the commanders of the English frigates, by John Declyer, one of the chief council, the Rev. John Megapolensis, minister, Paul Lunder Vander Grilft, major, and Mr. Samuel Megapolensis doctor in physic, with the utmost civility, to desire the reason of their approach, and continuing in the harbour of Nai'arlij, without giving notice to the Dutch, which (he writes) they ought to have

done.