General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great BritainPeters, Samuel
History
General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great Britain
Peters, Samuel
Connecticut -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Connecticut -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
In 1772 the Rev. Mr. Moyley, a missionary from the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, at Litchfield, was presented by the Grand
Jury for marrying a couple belonging to his parish, after the banns
had been duly published, and consent of parents obtained. The Court
mildly fined Mr. Moyley 20_l._ because he could not show any other
license to officiate as a clergyman than what he had received from the
Bishop of London, whose authority the Court determined did not extend
to Connecticut, which was a chartered government. One of the Judges
said: “It is high time to put a stop to the usurpations of the Bishop
of London, and to let him know that, though his license be lawful, and
may empower one of his curates to marry in England, yet it is not so
in America; and if fines would not curb them in this point,
imprisonment should.”
The second county in the Kingdom of Connecticote, and the most
mountainous in the whole province, is _Litchfield_, which produces
abundance of wheat, butter, cheese, iron ore, &c., and has many iron
works, foundries, and furnaces. It contains the following fourteen
towns:
_Litchfield_ is watered by two small rivers. An elegant meeting-house
and decent court-house, with steeple and bells, ornament the square,
where three roads meet. The best street is one mile long. It resembles
Dartford. The township is twelve miles square, and forms five
parishes, one of which is episcopal.
Though Litchfield is the youngest county of Connecticut, yet in 1766
it set an example to the rest worthy of imitation. The province had
always been greatly pestered by a generation of men called “quacks,”
who, with a few Indian nostrums, a lancet, a glister-pipe, rhubarb,
treacle-water mixed with Roman bombast of _vena cava_ and _vena
porta_, attacked fevers, nervous disorders, and broken bones, and, by
the grace of perseverance, subdued Nature, and helped their patients
to a passage to the world of spirits before they were ready. The
surgeons and physicians who were not quacks formed themselves into a
society for the encouragement of literature and a regular and
wholesome practice. But their laudable endeavours were discountenanced
by the General Assembly, who refused to comply with their
solicitations for a charter; because the quacks and the people said,
“If the charter were granted, the learned men would become too rich by
an monopoly, as they did in England.” The answer to this question was,
“Would it not be better to permit a monopoly to preserve the health
and lives of the people, than to suffer quacks to kill them and ruin
the province?” The reply proved decisive in that fanatical Assembly,
viz. “No medicine can be serviceable without the blessing of God. The
quacks never administer any physic without the prayers of the
minister.” One doctor proposed the trial of a dose of arsenic--whether
it would not kill any one who would take it, though twenty ministers
should pray against it. He was called a profane man, the petition was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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