The assembly met as usual in October, 1687; but their records show that they were in profound doubt and distress. Andros was with them, accompanied by some sixty regular soldiers, to enforce his demand for the charter. It is certain that he did not get it, tho the records, as usual, are cautious enough to give no reason why. Tradition is responsible for the story of the charter oak. The assembly had met the royal governor in the meeting-house; the demand for the charter had been made; and the assembly had exhausted the resources of language to show to Andros how dear it was to them, and how impossible it was to give it up. Andros was immovable; he had watched that charter with longing eyes from the banks of the Hudson, and he had no intention of giving up his object now that the king had put him in power on the banks of the Connecticut. Toward evening the case had become desperate. The little democracy was at last driven into a corner, where its old policy seemed no longer available; it must resist openly, or make a formal surrender of its charter. Just as the lights were lighted, the legal authorities yielded so far as to order the precious document to be brought in and laid on the table before the eyes of Andros. Then came a little more debate. Suddenly the lights were blown out; Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, carried off the charter, and hid it in a hollow oak-tree on the estate of the Wyllyses, just across the "riveret;" and when the lights were relighted the colony was no longer able to comply with Andros's demand for a surrender. Altho the account of the affair is traditional, it is difficult to see any good grounds for impeaching it on that account. It supplies, in the simplest and most natural manner, a blank in the Hartford proceedings of Andros which would otherwise be quite unaccountable. His plain purpose was to force Connecticut into a position where she must either surrender the charter or resist openly. He failed: the charter never was in his possession; and the official records assign no reason for his failure. The colony was too prudent, and Andros too proud to put the true reason on record. Tradition supplies the gap with an exactness which proves itself. Having done all that men could do, Treat and his associates bowed for the time to superior force. Andros was allowed to read his commission, and Treat, Fitz-John and Wait Winthrop, and John Allyn received appointments as members of his council for New England. John Allyn made what the governor doubtless considered to be the closing record for all time. But it is noteworthy that the record was so written as to flatter Andros's vanity, while it really put in terms a declaration of over-powering force, on which the commonwealth finally succeeded in saving her charter from invalidation, it is as follows: