general Governor over New-England, the submissive applications of the Connecticut colonists could no further be regarded than in allowing them their choice, whether to be annexed to New-York or the Massachusets. They preferred the latter; and, accordingly, Sir Edmund Andros having been appointed Captain-general over all New-England, the charter of Connecticut was surrendered to him. It is very remarkable that Mr. Neal, Hutchinson, and other historians of New-England, have artfully passed over in silence this transaction of the surrender of Connecticut Charter to Sir Edmund Andros, the General Governor over New-England. They have represented the magistrates of Connecticut as not having resigned their charter, but by an erroneous construction put on their humble supplication to James II. by the Court of London; whereas the fact is, they resigned it, _in propria forma_, into the hands of Sir Edmund Andros, at Hertford, in October, 1687, and were annexed to the Massachusets-Bay colony, in preference to New-York, according to royal promise and their own petition.[26] But the very night of the surrender of it, Samuel Wadsworth, of Hertford, with the assistance of a mob, violently broke into the apartments of Sir Edmund, regained, carried off, and hid the charter in the hollow of an elm; and, in 1689, news arriving of an insurrection and overthrow of Andros at Boston, Robert Treat, who had been elected in 1687, was declared by the mob still to be Governor of Connecticut. He daringly summoned his old Assembly, who, being convened, voted the charter to be valid in law, and that it could not be vacated by any power without the consent of the General-Assembly[27] They then voted that Samuel Wadsworth should bring forth the charter; which he did in a solemn procession, attended by the High-sheriff, and delivered it to the Governor. The General Assembly voted their thanks to Wadsworth, and twenty shillings as a reward for _stealing_ and hiding their charter in the elm. Thus Connecticut started from a dependent county into an independent province, in defiance of the authority that had lately been paid such humble submission. None should be surprized to find the People shewing more deference to Abimeleck, King of Mohegin, than to George, King of England; since a vote of men, whose legislative and even corporate capacity had been annihilated, has prevailed, for more than eighty years, over a just exertion of royal prerogative.[28] Nevertheless, this unconstitutional Assembly, whose authority under an assumed charter has been tacitly acknowledged by the British Parliament, have not at all times been unchecked by the Corporation of Yale College. That College, by a charter received from this self-erected Government, was enabled to give Bachelors and Masters degrees; but the Corporation have presumed to give Doctors degrees. When the General Assembly accused them of usurping a privilege not conferred by their charter, they retorted that “to usurp upon a