those of the present. The orthography in which much of this work appears, only shews that the mode of spelling at that day was the fashion of the times, which is clearly evidenced by the writings of Cotton Mather and other learned men, whose orthography is much the same. I have not been very particular in most of the work to preserve the ancient spelling, which would necessarily occupy much more time, and render the type setting far more laborious and difficult.- -That the morality or religion of the puritans are implicated by this publication, I cannot do less than deny. For each and every act contained in this work shews their actions were intended to be strictly governed by that Law Book first given to man. That they were enthusiastic, perhaps bigoted, superstitious, highly excited and zealous in the pursuit of their object, cannot be doubted, when their laws punishing Quakers and others are examined. Even the Blue Laws are highly honorable and praiseworthy to the authors of them, so far as their pure intentions towards God and their fellow men were concerned. The suppressing, or rather neglecting, their publication for one hundred and eighty-two years, is far more reprehensible than any thing contained in the Blue Laws themselves. (A few of them have been published in Barber's Antiquities of New-Haven.) A small work called the Blue Laws of Connecticut appeared a few years since, compiled by Silas Andrus, Esq., of Hartford, which were nothing more than the early colony laws of Connecticut, and which did not contain a single law known anciently as a Blue Law.

The reader in this work will find that our ancestors did not hesitate to call things by their right names, either in conversation or upon record. They have spoken in plain scripture language, and it should no more offend the delicacy of any person than should the language of the Bible itself. Though I have latinized some few expressions to avoid offending females, rather than to expunge any part of the laws and render the code imperfect, antiquarians will at once chide me for so doing, and reply, that a law made for a rule of action at any day, should not be secreted under a Latin phrase, and that a public act to govern the people, whether delicate or vulgar, should come to all classes, and be preserved and published in its ancient purity or impurity of language.

A few ancient orders and resolutions taken from the State rec

ord, which are highly amusing and entertaining to all classes of society, are also embraced in this collection of antiquities; and also the journal of the Dutch commissioners, Van Ruyven, burgomaster Van Cortlandt, &c., from New-York to Hartford, in 1663.*

At the close of this work are a few extracts upon the subject of witchcraft, from Mather's Magnalia and other ancient publications, which are printed in the words and figures of the original, as written by the authors at the time it was supposed the cases mentioned took place, and to several of which they claim to have been eye witnesses.

Much has been said in this country upon the subject of Salem withcraft, and in later years, Salem has been the butt and ridicule for her former belief in demonology and withcraft, which has been done without reflecting that the influence of credulity is contagious, and that individuals will trust the evidence of others in despite of their own senses. Excited passions upon this subject, operated upon the minds of men, and being rather inclined to believe in supernatural and marvelous events and sights, the public mind became satisfied of its reality and its danger. But Salem has not been alone in the belief of hobgoblins and ghosts. Neither did witchcraft originate in this country. Even Pharaoh had wizzards. Saul was met by a witch. The Romans had laws against witchcraft. It arose at a period when the Christians deemed the gods of the Mahomedan or heathen nations as perfect fiends, and their priests as wizzards. Fortune-telling, mystical or magical cures, intercourse with familiar spirits, fairies and withcraft, have ever been much the same thing, depending upon the spirit of the times and the popular superstition when it existed. Prosecutions for withcraft have been from the earliest period, even in the Roman empire, and in the middle ages; as in the case of the Duchess of Gloucester. Prosecutions in the fourteenth century, for witchcraft, united with the charge of heresy, in Sweden and Spain, were not uncommon. In England it was usually a crime connected with politics and state offences. In the sixteenth century, impostures, countenanced by individual catholic priests, and some

*This was probably the first formal diplomatic embassy that ever took place in this country, from one independent province or colony to another, to settle an affair of government.

puritan clergymen, as in the case of Dugdale. And I might follow the rage of this strange frenzy from age to age, and country to country, to the Salem withcraft, which existed at a time when there were more fairies and jugglers in every part of Europe and this country, than had existed at any previous period. These supernatural and strange ideas of familiar spirits, by the first settlers at Plymouth, Salem, &c., were brought with them from England, and the punishment of the offence at Salem was the same as in England at the time, derived from the law they had lived under before their embarkation to this country.

The reader, from these remarks, will not conclude that I make them in justification of the heretical frenzy of those concerned in the withcraft of Salem, but rather to shew that at that time the strong passion for supernatural events existed in every part of the world to a greater or less extent. Connecticut and Virginia had laws at the same time, punishing the crime of witchcraft with death. But be it spoken to the honor and good sense of Connecticut, that although a few persons were tried for the crime of familiarity with Satan, that her records are not stained with the disgrace of a sentence executed upon any of her citizens for the crime of witchcraft. Though like the other colonies, Connecticut had a law at the time, punishing the offence with death. However, but two adjudicated cases are found on her record, where a jury returned verdict of guilty, and even in these cases the court acquitted the prisoners and rejected the verdict for an informality in the complaint filed.

As Connecticut has often smarted by the ridicule of other States for her Blue Laws, in days of yore, I have collected a few of the ancient Blue Laws of Massachusetts, New-York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, together with some from that part of the island of Barbadoes, then settled by the English near the same period of time, which I have included in this volume, all of which retain the strong blue tinge of the laws of Connecticut; and most evidently, from the spirit of the times when they were enacted, was much the same, not only in Europe, but throughout the settled parts of this country. All which, I most cheerfully submit to the perusal of literary antiquarians, giving them the assurance that nearly the whole work is matter of record in this country, which can be referred to for its authenticity. Some few of the Blue Laws (as no

record was made of a part of them, or if made has been lost,) I depend upon tradition, or a worse source, Peters' history, for their authenticity. But a record is made of all such as were enacted as early as 1655, and some from the first settlement of the New-Haven colony.

There has been added to this work, by request of a gentleman by the name of S. G. Welles of New-Lebanon, in the state of New-York, a few pages, embracing the religious tenets of "The United Society of Believers, commonly called Shakers," which I insert for the accommodation of the Shakers, and that the public generally may obtain a more thorough knowledge of the tenets of their religion, which has not been generally understood by the public.

I have also added several laws from the record of the Plymouth colony, some of which were enacted more than two hundred years since, by the first settlers, and have with care preserved the orthography of the original records; together with many other records of ancient times, which I hope may not only instruct, but amuse the antiquarian.

HARTFORD, April 2, 1838.