The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, in one of his sermons, gave them the following character: “I have found,” said he, “the people of Connecticut the wisest of any upon the continent; they are the best friends and the worst enemies; they are hair-brained bigots on all sides, and they may be compared to the horse and mule, without bit and bridle. In other colonies I have paid for food and lodging, but could never spend one penny in fruitful Connecticut, whose banks flow with milk and honey, and whose sons and daughters never fail to feed and refresh the weary traveller, without money and without price.” On Saturday evenings the people look sour and sad; on the Sabbath they appear to have lost their dearest friends, and are almost speechless; they walk softly; they even observe it with more exactness than did the Jews. A Quaker preacher told them, with much truth, that they worshipped the Sabbath, and not the God of the Sabbath. These hospitable people, without charity, condemned the Quaker as a blasphemer of the holy Sabbath, fined, tarred, and feathered him, put a rope about his neck, and plunged him into the sea; but he escaped with life, though he was about seventy years of age. In 1750 an episcopal clergyman, born and educated in England, who had been in holy orders above twenty years, once broke their sabbatical law by combing a discomposed lock of hair on the top of his wig; at another time, for making a humming noise, which they called whistling; at a third time, by walking too fast from church; at a fourth, by running into church when it rained; at a fifth, by walking in his garden and picking a bunch of grapes: for which several crimes he was complained of by the Grand Jury, had warrants granted against him, was seized, brought to trial, and paid a considerable sum of money. At last, overwhelmed with persecution and vexation, he cried out: “No Briton, nay, no Jew, should assume any public character in Connecticut till he has served an apprenticeship of ten years in it; for I have been here seven years, and strictly observed the Jewish law concerning the Sabbath, yet find myself remiss in respect to the perfect law of liberty!” The people are extremely fond of strangers passing through the colony, but very averse to foreigners settling among them; which few have done without ruin to their characters and fortunes, by detraction and lawsuits, unless recommended as men of grace by some known and revered republican protestant in Europe. The following story may be amusing: