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Excerpt from The Rev. Samuel Peters' LL. D. General History of Connecticut: From Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to Its Latest Period of Amity With Great Britain Prior to the Revolution; Including a Description of the Country, and Many Curious and Interesting Anecdotes
Island, were settled by emigrants from Eng land within half that period. Another rea son for the obscurity in which the Connecti tensians have hitherto been involved, is to be found among their own sinister views and purposes. Prudence dictated, that their deficiency in point of right to the soil they occupied, their wanton and barbarous persecutions, illegal practices, daring usur pations, etc. Had better be concealed than exposed to public view. To dissipate this cloud of prejudice and knavery, and to bring to light truths long concealed, is the motive of my offering the following sheets to the world. I am bold to assert, that Connecticut merits a fuller account than envy or ignorance has yet suffered to be given of it; and that l have followed the line of truth freely, and unbiassed by par-z tiality or prejudice. The reader therefore, will not. Be surprised, should I have placed the New Englanders in a different light from that in which they have yet appeared their characterizers have not been sufficiently unprejudiced, unawed by power, or unaf~ fected by the desire of obtaining it, always. To set them in the true one. Dr. Matherand Mr. Neal were popular writers; but at the time they extolled the prudence and pi ety of the colonists, they suppressed what are called in New England unnecessary truths. Governor Hutchinson who loved fame, and feared giving offence, publishell a few only of those truths; which failed not to procure him a proportionate share of popular distrust and odium. For my own part, I believe my readers will give me cre dit, for having neither the favor nor the fear of man before merin writing this history of Connecticut. I discard the one I court not the other. My sole aim has been to represent the country, the people and their transactions in proper colors.
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