150 CONNECTICUT’S INFLUENCE 
But it was not only in the league of the three river 
towns that the principles of town autonomy and feder- 
ation were asserted. Let us turn aside for a moment 
and consider some of the circumstances under which 
the sister colony of New Haven was founded. The 
headlong overthrow of the Pequots in the spring of 
1637 and the pursuit of the fugitive remnant of the 
tribe had made New England settlers acquainted with 
the beautiful shores of Long Island Sound. Just at 
that time a new company arrived in Boston from 
England. The general purpose of these newcomers 
was nearly identical with that of the magistrates in 
Boston.: They desired a theocratic government of 
aristocratic type in which the clergy and magistrates 
should possess the chief share of power, and they also, 
like the Boston clergy, were unwilling for the present 
to concede a definite code of laws. Why, then, did not 
this new party remain in the neighbourhood of Boston? 
They would have done much toward healing that 
complaint of poverty in men of which John Cotton 
spoke; and one would suppose moreover that after 
having recently suffered from so large a secession as 
that which founded the three river towns of Connecti- 
cut the Boston people would have been over-anxious 
to retain these newcomers in their neighbourhood. 
Nevertheless, it was amicably arranged that the new 
party, of which John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton 
were the leaders, should try its fortunes on the coast 
of Long Island Sound. Massachusetts colony of 
course had no authority to restrain them. If they 
chose to go outside the limits of the Massachusetts 
this was the true birth of American democracy, and the Connecticut Val- 
ley was its birthplace!” 
