Connecticut too is a colony of Massachusetts. As early as the year 1634, several persons, among whom was Mr. Hooker, a favourite minister of the church, applied to the general court of Massachusetts for permission to pursue their fortunes in some new and better land. This permission was not granted at that time; and, it being then the received opinion that the oath of a freeman, as well as the original compact, bound every member of the society so as not to leave him the right to separate himself from it without the consent of the whole, this emigration was suspended. The general court, however, did not long withhold its assent. The country having been explored, and a place selected on the west side of the river Connecticut, a commission was granted to the petitioners to remove, on the condition of their still continuing under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, some few huts had been erected the preceding year in which a small number of emigrants had wintered; and, the fall succeeding, about sixty persons traversed the wilderness in families. In 1636, about one hundred persons, led by Pynchon, Hooker, and Haynes, followed the first emigrants, and founded the towns of Hartford, Springfield, and Weathersfield. There are some peculiarities attending this commission and this settlement, which deserve to be noticed. The country to be settled was, confessedly, without the limits of Massachusetts; yet Roger Ludlow was authorised to promulgate the orders which might be necessary for the plantations; to inflict corporal punishment, imprisonment, and fines; to determine all differences in a judicial way; and to convene the inhabitants in a general court, if it should be necessary. This signal exercise of authority grew out of the principle, solemnly asserted by the general court of Massachusetts, that the oath of fidelity to the commonwealth was binding, although the person should no longer reside within its limits.