THE WORTHIES OF CONNECTICUT. A SPEECH AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE SONS OF CONNECTICUT, I THANK you, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, for this kind and friendly reception. I thank you, Sons and Daughters of Connecticut, for the privilege of being present on this occasion as one of your guests. And yet you must pardon me for saying frankly at the outset, that I am not quite willing, to consider myself, or to be considered by you, as a mere guest here to-night. Indeed, before receiving your most obliging and complimentary invitation, I had resolved in my own mind, that, if no unforeseen obstacle should present itself, in the state of my engagements or of my health, I would venture to come here of my own accord, to assert my own individual and indefeasible right and title to be among you, and of you, at this Connecticut Festival. I do not forget, indeed, my filial relations and obligations to Massachusetts and to Boston. I have no wish, and no willingness, to ignore the State or the city of my birth, even for the purposes of this festive scene. Massachusetts is not a State, Boston is not a city, to be disowned even for an hour, by any one who is privileged to hail from them. But it would be unnatural for me to forget the ties which bind me to this Association. It would be ungrateful in me, if I did not remember that if I am not a Son of Connecticut, I am at least an own grandson. There, in the good old town of New London, once ruthlessly laid in ashes by an invading foe, but long ago built up in more than its original pride and beauty, and one of whose gallant whalers, I believe, has recently rescued from the Arctic icebergs that abandoned British Exploring Ship, whose restoration is at this moment exciting so much enthusiasm in Old London,- there my own father was born, and his father before him; and with the rise and progress of the ancient and honored Commonwealth of Connecticut, the family stock of which I am a humble branch, has been closely associated for good report or for evil report, during a considerable part of more than two centuries. You have done me the distinguished honor, Mr. President, of calling upon me to respond to the toast which has been proposed in memory of the early Governors of Connecticut, and you have thus distinctly designated a subject for my remarks which I could not pass over with propriety, even if I desired to do so. And I am not ignorant, Sir, that there were many among those early Governors who were eminently worthy of being remembered on such an occasion as this. There was John Haynes, — who had been the Governor of our own Massachusetts Bay in 1635, and who, having been chosen the first Governor of one of the Connecticut Colonies, under the Constitution adopted at Hartford on the 14th of January, 1639, continued to exercise that office with the highest ability and acceptableness every alternate year which was as often as the Constitution would permit his death in 1654. until There was Theophilus Eaton, the first Governor of the other of the Connecticut Colonies, under the Constitution adopted in that "large barn of Mr. Newman's," at Quinnipiac, afterwards New Haven, on the 4th of June, 1639,- and upon whose monument, erected at the public expense, on his dying after seventeen or eighteen years of continuous service in the Chief Magistracy, this quaint but pithy inscription may, I believe, still be read: "Eaton, so meek, so mild, so famed, so just, The Phoenix of our world here hides his dust, Then, too, there was Edward Hopkins, whose name is fragrant with the memory of numerous and noble benefactions in the cause of charity, education, and religion, both in Connecticut and in Massachusetts, and who will not soon be forgotten, I ween, by any one who has ever received a Detur for good conduct Ex testamento Edvardi Hopkins at Harvard College. And there were George Wyllys, and John Webster, and Thomas Welles, and Gurdon Saltonstall,-all of them men of distinguished integrity and ability, of eminent purity and piety, men of renown, famous in their generations, and whose public conduct and private characters reflect lustre on the community with which they were so early and so prominently associated. There may have been others, perhaps, equally worthy of commemoration, among what may fairly be entitled the early Governors of Connecticut. But you have seen fit to designate the name of John Winthrop, as one peculiarly worthy to be singled out on this occasion as the subject of remark, and it is not for me to draw the fitness of that selection into doubt. And if, in speaking of him, I should seem to be dealing too much with family names, the responsibility must be upon those who have assigned me the topic. I trust, however, sir, that I am capable of looking back through the vista of two hundred years, and of passing judgment upon the course and character of those who played conspicuous parts in that early period of New England history, whether upon a Connecticut or a Massachusetts stage, without any unbecoming display of partiality or of prejudice, even though some of them were of my own kith and kin. And if there be a purer, or nobler, or lovelier character in the history of Connecticut, whether in its earlier or its later periods, whether among Governors or among governed, than that of the younger Winthrop, or if there be any one who rendered to the infant Colony whose children are here assembled, more distinguished and valuable services during a longer term of years, I should rejoice to know his name, and to unite with you all in giving him the deserved priority and preeminence on this and on every other appropriate occasion. The younger Winthrop came over to America at first with no other view than that of being a humble fellow-laborer with his honored father in establishing the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. "For the business of New England," said he to his father in a beautiful letter written in 1629, when he was hardly twentyfour years old, and which furnishes an index to his whole career, "For the business of New England, I can say no other thing, but that I believe confidently that the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord, who disposeth all alterations by his blessed will, to his own glory and the good of his; and therefore do assure myself that all things shall work together for the best therein. And for myself, I have seen so much of the vanity of the world, that I esteem no more of the diversities of countries, than as so many inns, whereof the traveller that hath lodged in the best, or in the worst, findeth no difference when he cometh to his journey's end. And I shall call that my country, where I may most glorify God and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and with your leave, do dedicate myself (laying by all desire for other employment whatsoever) to the service of God and the company herein, with the whole endeavors both of body and mind." We find him, accordingly, following his father to New England at an early day, and proceeding at once to take an active part in the affairs of the Massachusetts Company. But being of an ardent and enterprising spirit, he was soon engaged in leading out little companies of colonists to other places, more or less remote from Boston and the neighboring settlements. He commenced by planting Agawam, now Ipswich, in 1633, which was doubtless considered a good deal of an expedition for that early period. But as early as 1635, four years before the date which you have adopted for this anniversary celebration, the great river of the Connecticut had attracted the attention not only of the colonists here, but of their friends in England; and in the course of that year the younger Winthrop is found beginning that little pioneer plantation at its mouth, under a commission from the Lords Say and Brook, in whose honor it was named Saybrook, and there we find him bearing, by their warrant, the title of Governor of Connecticut, for the first time that such a title was ever borne within the boundaries of the Commonwealth now known by that name. It was not, however, until 1657, just two centuries ago this very year, that he was elected Governor of one of the two Connecticut Colonies by the votes of the people. And it was while still holding this office, to which he had been duly re-elected, a few years afterwards, that he discharged the peculiar service which has rendered his name so memorable in Connecticut history; a service which has been celebrated in poetry as well as in prose, in song as well as in story; one of the later Governors of Connecticut, no other than brave old Roger Wolcott, the second in command to Sir William Pepperell in that marvellous siege of Louisburg, having taken it as the theme of an elaborate poem of 1500 or 1600 lines in length, and Miss Frances Manwaring Caulkins, the accomplished historian of New London, having also, within a few years past, made it the subject of another little poem, which I think I may safely say is as much better than Roger Wolcott's as it is shorter, and that is saying a great deal. I refer, of course, to Winthrop's mission to England in 1661, and to his having procured from the then recently restored Monarch, Charles II., the old Charter under which Connecticut lived and prospered for more than a hundred and fifty years, down even to the year 1818; the same Charter which, in the days of Sir Edmund Andros, was the subject of that bold withdrawal and concealment, and which gave celebrity and sanctity to the venerable Oak which has fallen at last, so sadly, within a few months past. Would that the winds of Heaven could have spared it still longer for the reverent gaze of still other generations! It is an interesting fact, that among the old family almanacs which have found their appropriate resting place in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is one which belonged to Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut, while he was in London for the purpose of procuring this very Charter. I have taken the liberty to bring it with me this evening. And here, in his own handwriting, — more legible than his father's, though that is not saying much, is the notable entry, made at the moment, and fixing a memorable date in New England history,-"This day, May 10, in the afternoon, the patent for Connecticut was sealed." He seems to have appreciated the importance of the event. Only two other entries are found in all the other blank leaves of this ancient Almanac; one on the 9th of January, where he mentions a dangerous fall which he had met with, and a providential escape from serious injury; and the other on the 18th of |