The first constitution of Connecticut was adopted January 15, 1639, by the free planters of the three towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, who convened at Hartford for the purpose. It was an admirably contrived instrument, providing for the freedom and liberties of themselves and their posterity. Some fifty years ago, Doctor Trumbull remarked, respecting it, that it was "one of the most free and happy institutions of civil government which has ever been formed. The formation of it at so early a period, when the light of liberty was wholly darkened in most parts of the earth, and the rights of men so little understood in others, does great honor to their ability, integrity, and love to mankind. To posterity, indeed, it exhibited a most benevolent regard. It has continued with little alteration to the present time." The NEW HAVEN colony was settled in the spirit that influenced the comers to the other parts of New England, and eminently so. The establishment of the Church of God on its true basis, and the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, was the object of the emigrants; and they proceeded to secure the fair inheritance by the wisest counsels and the most efficient action. The company who first constituted the settlement, was a rare assemblage of choice spirits. Among them were John Davenport, a distinguished minister in London, and Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, wealthy merchants of the same city, and eminent for their abilities and integrity. They with their associates arrived at Boston in the summer of 1637, and would have been gladly retained in the Massachusetts colony, had they consented. Strong inducements were held out to them to fix their residence there, but they wanted more room than they could find in the vicinity of Boston for themselves and the large number of friends whom they expected to follow them. Their principal reason, however, for migrating elsewhere, as suggested by the historian of Connecticut, was probably "the desire of being at the head of a new government, modeled, both in civil and religious matters, agreeably to their own apprehensions. It had been an observation of Mr. Davenport, that whenever a reformation had been effected in the church, in any part of the world, it had rested where it had been left by the reformers: it could not be advanced another step. He was embarked in a design of forming a civil and religious constitution, as near as possible to scripture precept and example." Their strict views, it seems, could not be fully met elsewhere.