154 CONNECTICUT’S INFLUENCE 
confused by the consolidation that has come since. 
There were three or four towns on the Piscataqua as 
a beginning for New Hampshire; there were ten or 
twelve towns about Boston harbour; two or three in 
Plymouth colony; two or three more on Rhode Island 
besides Roger Williams’s plantation at Providence, 
and presently Gorton’s at Warwick; then there was a 
lonely fortress at Saybrook; and lastly, the federation 
of Connecticut and the scattered molecules of New 
Haven. The first result of so much dispersal had been 
a deadly war with the Indians, and although the anni- 
hilation of the Pequots served as a dreadful warning 
to all red men, yet danger was everywhere so immi- 
nent as to make some kind of union necessary for 
bringing out in case of need the military strength 
of these scattered communities. Thus arose the fa- 
mous New England confederation of 1643, in which 
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Ha- 
ven united their fortunes." Now when the question of 
forming this federation came up, New Haven could 
not very well afford to be left out. She possessed only 
the territory which she had bought from the Indians, 
while Connecticut, with an audacity like that of old 
world empires, claimed every rood of land the occu- 
pants of which had ever paid tribute to the extin- 
1« This act of sovereignty was undertaken without any consultation with 
the British government or any reference to it. The Confederacy received 
a serious blow in 1662, when Charles II. annexed New Haven, without its 
consent, to Connecticut; but it had a most useful career still before it, for 
without the aid of a single British regiment or a single gold piece from 
the Stuart treasury, it carried New England through the frightful ordeal of 
King Philip’s War, and came to an honoured end when it was forcibly dis- 
placed by the arbitrary rule of Andros. It would be difficult to overstate 
the importance of this New England federation as a preparatory training 
for the greater work of federation a century later.” 
