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

February, when there was a very great and fearful storm of wind and rain. But when he had once entered the sealing of the Charter and the final accomplishment of his great work for Connecticut, personal casualties and elemental convulsions. seemed to have lost their significance. He felt that this little Almanac had fulfilled its purpose, and that, if it contained no other entry, there was enough already recorded to make it precious for ever.

Under that Charter the two Colonies at Hartford and New Haven were happily united, as you know, in 1665, and John Winthrop became the first Governor of the whole of Connecticut as it now stands on the map, and continued in that office until his death.

Meantime, however, and indeed more than twenty years before the union of these two Colonies into one State, another and even more interesting and more important union had been formed. I mean the great confederation of the New England Colonies in 1643, the original model and example of that larger confederation which carried us through our War of Independence, and under which American liberty was vindicated and established, and of that still nobler and more precious Union under which we now live. That confederation was the exclusive work of Massachusetts and Connecticut, embracing as it did only the four Colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, of New Haven and Connecticut, which were afterwards incorporated into two Commonwealths.

As one of the Commissioners to the little Congress of this Confederation, your Connecticut Governor Winthrop came to Boston in 1676, and here was taken ill, and here died, after a life as distinguished for moral beauty as it was for public services. He left a son, however, in Connecticut, who succeeded to the favor which his father had enjoyed, and who, after serving for several years as Commander of the Connecticut Forces, and after representing the Colony for four years at the Court of William and Mary, where he was engaged in successfully vindicating the Charter which his father had procured, became Governor of the State in his turn in the year 1698, and continued such for nine years, until his death in 1707. And he, too, hap

pened to be in Boston when the day of his visitation arrived, and thus both your Connecticut Governors were laid down to rest in the same tomb in which the old Governor of Massachusetts, the father of the one and the grandfather of the other, had been previously laid in the year 1649. And their tomb remaineth with us unto this day, in the old King's Chapel Burying Ground; and there, by the leave of the City Fathers, whose favor in this respect I beg to bespeak in advance, I hope to find a resting place for myself, and to mingle my dust with that of those good old Massachusetts and Connecticut Governors, whenever my far humbler and less important career shall have been brought to a close.

I have said enough, Mr. President, and perhaps more than enough, — about the early Governors of Connecticut, and about John Winthrop in particular, both to fulfil the requisitions of the call which you have made upon me, and also to substantiate my own claim to be present here this evening, by some better title than that of a mere guest.

And now let me only say, in drawing to a close, that none of us, I think, need feel ashamed in tracing our descent to these old Connecticut Colonies; that none of us, on the contrary, can feel any thing but a just pride in looking back over the history of the old Commonwealth into which those Colonies were afterwards incorporated. That history, from the days of its early Governors to this hour, has been a distinguished and a memorable one.

Nowhere have religion and piety been more sincere and more fervent than in that land of Davenport and Hooker; nowhere have morality and virtue been more pure and undefiled; nowhere has patriotism been more disinterested and self-sacrificing; nowhere has freedom been more boldly and earnestly defended; nowhere has education been more diligently cultivated and wisely cared for. It is a significant fact that our City Fathers are at this moment engaged in summoning the Superintendent of the Connecticut Free Schools to take charge of our own Boston Schools. Well may we all feel proud of a State which has given a Jonathan Edwards to the cause of Metaphysics and of Theology; an Oliver Ellsworth to the Supreme Bench of the

Nation; a Noah Webster to Philology and Lexicography; a succession of Wolcotts and Wadsworths and Ingersolls to the line of Civilians and Statesmen; a still longer succession of Trumbulls to adorn almost every department of literary or of public life, whether of civil or of military service, of History, Poetry, or the Fine Arts; a State which has given a Ledyard, and a Nathan Hale to the catalogue of youthful heroes and martyrs; which has given a Barlow, a Dwight, a Percival, a Pierpont, a Halleck, a Sigourney, to the Muses; which has given and is still giving a Silliman to Science. Time would fail me in attempting to go through the whole catalogue of Connecticut worthies. But I must not forget that though Massachusetts may claim, I believe, to have given birth to Israel Putnam and Roger Sherman, it was from Connecticut that they both came forth in their full-armed maturity to serve their country so nobly in the field and in the forum.

Sir, it has been common, I know, to impute to the Connecticut character a little more than its rightful share of the wooden clock and nutmeg ingredients, and to associate with it an excess of Yankee ingenuity, invention, and thrift. And now and then the rigor of certain Connecticut Blue Laws is made the subject of not unnatural jest and ridicule. But for my own part, I have often thought that a more perfect type and pattern of the true old Puritan character was to be found there, than almost anywhere else in New England or on earth; more of that unsophisticated, straight-backed integrity, and more of that uncompromising reverence for the principles of morality and the ordinances of religion, which characterized the old New England Colonists. And this is a sort of character, let me add, Mr. President, sadly wanting, I fear, in these days, and in these great cities of ours; and if Connecticut has any of it still to spare, I hope and trust that she may communicate it freely and liberally to other parts of the country. Let her sons and daughters cherish that character and take it with them, whenever they migrate, whether to the East or the West, and let them hold fast to it in their new homes, whether in the cities or on the plains. Let it be seen, at any rate, like the stream of their own beautiful River, pervading the very heart of New England, per