Samuel Peters

“ 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 ministers and churches of New Haven were universally and utterly against them. Mr. Davenport, and others in this colony, were also strong in the opinion that all government should be in the Church. No person in the colony could be a freeman unless he was a member in full communion. But, in Connecticut, all orderly persons possessing a freehold to a certain amount might be made free of the corporation. Those gentlemen who were so strong in their opposition were jealous that a union would mar the purity, order, and beauty of their churches, and have an influence on the civil administrations. ”

“ Nevertheless, if a traveller softens his tone, and avoids the imperative mood, he will find every civility from those very people, whose natural temper are full of antipathy against all who affect superiority over them. This principle is, by long custom, blended with the religious doctrines of the province; and the people believe those to be heretics and Americans who assent not to their supremacy. Hence they consider the kingly Governors as the short-horns of Antichrist, and every Colony in a state of persecution which cannot choose its own Governor and magistrates. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If bishops are necessary, let America have them; if they are not necessary, let them be extirpated from the face of the earth; for no one can be an advocate for their existence merely for the support of pomp, pride, and insolence, either in England or America.
The English and Dutch have always kept their colonies under a state of religious persecution, while the French and Spanish have acted with generosity in that respect towards theirs. ”

“ After a solemn invocation of the Divine Majesty, he proceeded to represent to the planters that they were met to consult respecting the settlement of civil government, according to the will of God, and for the nomination of persons who, by universal consent, were in all respects the best qualified for the foundation-work of a church. He enlarged on the great importance of the transactions before them, and desired that no man would give his voice in any matter until he fully understood it, and that all would act without respect to any man, but give their vote in the fear of God. ”

“ 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 [Pg 180] 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? ”

“ Of all the wonders of the English Church, the greatest is that the rulers of it should hold episcopacy to be an institution of Christ, and that the Gospel should be spread among all nations, and, at the same time, should refuse the American Churchmen a bishop, and the fanatics and heathen all opportunities of enjoying the Gospel dispensation in the purity and lustre with which it shines in the Mother Country. ”

“ Where superstition reigns, fanaticism will be minister of state; and the people, under the taxation of zeal, will shun what is commonly called vice with ten times more care than the polite and civilized christians who know what is right and what is wrong from reason and revelation. Happy would it be for the world, if reason and revelation were suffered to [Pg 228] control the minds and passions of the great and wise men of the world, as superstition does that of the simple and less polished! ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are as many suits of conscience before the justices of the peace, and ministers, and deacons; so that the sum annually expended in law in the whole colony is amazing. It was not without reason, therefore, that the judges, the lawyers, the ministers and deacons, the sheriffs and constables, opposed the stamp-act with all their might. They told the people that, if this act took place, their liberties would be destroyed, and they would be tried by King’s judges without jury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What christian would wish to travel 4000 miles to rob an unoffending savage of what he holds by the law of Nature? That is not the God or Dominion that any christian ever sought for. The first settlers of America had views very different from those of making it a christian country; their grand aim was to get free from the insolence of their elder brethren, and to aggrandise themselves in a new world at the expense of the life, liberty, and property of the savages. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ A million of Churchmen in America had been considered as not worthy of one bishop, while eight millions in South-Britain were scarcely honoured with enough with twenty-six: an insult on common justice, [Pg 250] which would have extinguished every spark of affection in America for the English Church, and created an everlasting schism, like that between Constantinople and Rome, had not the majority of the American episcopal clergy been possessed of less ambition than love and zeal. ”

“ England, as if afraid to venture her Constitution in America, had kept it at an awful distance, and established in many of her colonies republicanism, wherein the democratic absorbs the regal and aristocratic part of the English Constitution. The people naturally imbibed the idea that they were superior to kings and lords, because they controlled their representatives, governors, and councils. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Persons who supposed Churchmen in Connecticut possessed of less zeal and sincerity than the various sects among the dissenters, are under a mistake; for they have voluntarily preferred the Church under every human discouragement, and suffered persecution rather than persecute. Conducting themselves upon this truly christian though impolitic principle, they have, in the space of sixty years, humanized above sixty thousand puritans, who had ever been hating and persecuting one another ”

“ 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. ”

“ But Joshua had as little honour as virtue and loyalty: he supported himself many years by signing deeds, and gulled the English through their own imprudence in neglecting to make a law for recording them.—These colonists, having driven out the Heathen, and got possession of a land which flowed with milk and honey, expelled the Dutch, as a dangerous set of heretics;—and Hooker, after doing so much for this new Dominion, expected the homage from every Church which is only due to a Bishop. ”

“ In 1768 the inhabitants of Connecticut River were as much alarmed by an army of caterpillars as those of Windham were at the frogs; and no one found reason to jest at their fears. Those worms came in one night and covered the earth, on both sides of the river, to an extent of three miles in front and two in depth. They marched with great speed, and eat up everything green for the space of one hundred miles, in spite of rivers, ditches, fires, and the united efforts of 1,000 men. ”

“ It is egregiously absurd to judge of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal, and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East-Indies, lust; in New-England, superstition. These four blind deities govern Jews, Turks, christians, infidels, and heathen. Superstition is the most amiable. She sees no vice with approbation, but persecution, and self-preservation is the cause of her seeing that. ”

“ Governor Leet and the principal gentlemen in Guilford and New Haven had no ill opinion of the judges. If they had done wrong in the part they had acted, they viewed it as an error in judgment, and as the fault of great and good men, under peculiar and extraordinary circumstances. They were touched with compassion and sympathy, and had real scruples of conscience with respect to delivering up such men to death. ”