Feeling the weight of these considerations, the colonists have been obliged to found their claim to the country on their charter, which was obtained in 1662--more than twenty-six years after they had taken possession. Here, again, they are destitute of support, for the king, any more than his subjects, could not give to others the property of the Duke of Hamilton unless his title had been proved to be forfeited by due course of law. But the charter created no title; it merely conferred on the people the authority of a legal corporation, without conveying any title to the lands. And, indeed, the prevarications of the colonists themselves with regard to the charter-claim sufficiently explode it. Whenever they find their property affected by any duty, custom, etc., imposed by Parliament, and warranted by charter, they allege that they got the lands in possession by their own arms, without the aid of the King and Parliament of Great Britain; as Charles II. allowed in granting the charter, which conveyed no title, but was founded upon the title they possessed before the date of it. At other times, when these selfish temporizers find it convenient either for promoting their own, or preventing their neighbors’ encroachments, they then plead their charter as the one only thing needful to prove their right of land even to the South Sea itself. In short, and upon the whole, possession, begun in usurpation, is the best title the inhabitants of Connecticut ever had, or can set up, unless they can prove they hold the lands by a heavenly grant, as the Israelites did those of Canaan. This heavenly title was, indeed, set up by Peters, Hooker, and Davenport, the first three ministers that settled Connecticut, and is generally believed through the Colony to this day. They thus syllogistically stated it: “The heathen are driven out, and we have their lands in possession; they were numerous, and we but few; therefore, the Lord hath done this great work, to give his beloved rest.” This much for the various pretensions of the occupiers of Connecticut in regard to their right to the soil. I shall now give some account of the proceedings of the first settlers with respect to their religious and civil establishments, and of their political transactions, etc. The party which settled at Saybrook, under George Fenwick, Esquire, and the Rev. Thomas Peters, in 1634, contented themselves, in framing the polity of their civil constitution, with the laws of England and a few local regulations.