About this time Sir Edmund and his suite, and more than sixty regular troops, came to Hartford, where the Assembly were sitting, and demanded the Charter, and declared the government under it dissolved. The Assembly were extremely reluctant and slow with respect to any resolve to surrender the Charter, or with respect to any motion to bring it forth. The tradition is, that Governor Treat represented the great expense and hardships of the colonists in planting the country; the blood and treasure which they had expended in defending it, both against the savages and foreigners; to what hardships and dangers he himself had been exposed for that purpose; and that it was like giving up his life now to surrender the patent and privileges so dearly bought and so long enjoyed. The important affair was debated and kept in suspense until the evening, when the Charter was brought and laid upon the table where the Assembly was sitting. By this time a great number of people were assembled, and men sufficiently bold to enterprise whatever might be necessary or expedient. The lights were instantly extinguished, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner, carried off the Charter and secreted it in a large, hollow tree, fronting the house of the Hon. Samuel Wyllys, then one of the magistrates of the colony. The people appeared all peaceable and orderly. The candles were relighted, but the patent was gone, and no discovery could be made of it or of the person who had conveyed it away. It was said that the Charter was delivered up, and that same evening the apartments of Sir Edmund were entered and the patent abstracted; but this does not appear to have been the case. Sir Edmund assumed the government, and the records of the colony were closed in the following words: “At a General Court at Hertford, October 31, 1687, His Excellency Sir Edmund Andros, Knight, and Captain-General, and Governor, of his Majesty’s territories and dominions in New England, by order from his Majesty James II., King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, the 31st of October, 1687, took into his hands the government of the Colony of Connecticut, it being by his Majesty annexed to Massachusets and other colonies under his Excellency’s government. “FINIS.” Sir Edmund appointed officers civil and military. His Council at first consisted of forty persons, and afterward of nearly fifty. Four among the number--Governor Treat, John Fitz Winthrop, Wait Winthrop, and John Allen, Esquires--were of Connecticut.--ED. NOTE.