preferment demonstrated that his defeat in the election was for political, and not for personal, reasons; that it was a popular choice from the strong men of the three towns, ratified by the General Court, to leadership in a field wherein all might find a wider range for the liberty they were hungry to exercise, the democratic right of self-government.

CHAPTER VII.

Ludlow's Initiative-Occupation-Conflicting Interests—Indians— Dutch - Plymouth Men-Saltonstall's Company - Ludlow's Firmness and Diplomacy-"Ye Controversie "- Underhill's Notice-Brewster's Letter-Vane's Demand-First ComersFirst Winter-Sufferings and Losses-Spring of 1636—Organization of Court-Laws and Ordinances-Important Measures— Administration of Justice-Ludlow de Facto Governor and Chief Justice-The Massachusetts "Agreement" Fulfilled.

FROM the beginning, in 1630, Ludlow had been identified with the interests of the people of Dorchester; and now this "principal lay citizen," well knowing that possession was nine points of the law (and he alone of the commission from Massachusetts knew what the law was), at once assumed the responsibility of organization, and the occupancy of the domain very dimly defined as "the Ryver of Conecticott" in the agreement.

Who

This was no easy task. It was one of finesse, of diplomacy, and finally one of arms. were the parties already represented there, and zealous to maintain their claims or rights?

First, the Indians, original land-owners and proprietors, the Sequins and Nawaas of the river valley, hemmed in by the Mohawks on the west, and on the east by the conquerors of the river tribes, the Pequots, who could set a thousand warriors in the field; the Dutch, who had discovered the country, bought lands of the natives, established trade with them, and built the "House of Hope" at Hartford, ten years before any Englishman came to the "Quonehtacut"; the men of Plymouth, who had been treated with scant courtesy at Boston, as to the Connecticut occupation, and then had set up a trading house at Windsor, on lands purchased of the Indians; and lastly, the company sent out by Saltonstall under the Say and Sele patent, which also sought to settle at Windsor, finding the pioneers from Plymouth in possession, and a party from Dorchester breaking ground and arranging for the arrival of the people from that plantation. It was long before "ye controversie ended."

It is needless to follow in detail the many steps to the end of the fierce and bitter strife for domination and ownership of the coveted lands. It resulted in the supremacy of the Dorchester claimants, by the withdrawal of

the Dutch, the abandonment of their territorial claim by young Winthrop and his party and their settlement at Saybrook, and the ultimate driving out of the Plymouth men, with whom an adjustment was last made.

"The trading house at the mouth of the Farmington, which William Holmes and his Plymouth company had built, despite the blustering of the Dutch, seemed to the practical, godly people of Dorchester set apart for their own uses; and it became the rallying point of the congregation guided and inspired by John Wareham, and in secular affairs by Ludlow."

Who won the victory in this contest for the Dorchester man? Who stood unmoved in the storm of promises, persuasions, and threats, and with signal ability and tact and force held fast to the possession of their new homes, for the little band of his people, and saved them from disaster? Sir Richard Saltonstall answered these queries for all time in a letter describing the efforts of his company to seize the lands, when he said of Ludlow, "He was the cheffe man who hindered it."

The Dutch cared more for trade than colonization; and their claims of discovery, of purchase, of sovereignty, vanished when Capt.

John Underhill pasted this notice on the doors of their "House of Hope," at Hartford: "I, John Underhill, do seize this house and land for the State of England, by virtue of the commission granted by the Providence Plantation"; and the General Court of Connecticut sequestrated all the property, on its own authority, despite the duplicate sales and title deeds of the braggart captain.

The demands of Saltonstall and his company, represented by Francis Stiles and his men, instructed to impale in ground where Saltonstall appointed them, were set aside by the Dorchester pioneers under Ludlow, on the ground of prior right to this "Lord's waste and for the present altogether void of inhabitants."

The real controversy as to the Dorchester usurpation is set in a clear light in a letter of Jonathan Brewster, the leader of the Plymouth men, who had been two years on the ground, and who had purchased from the Indians the open meadows-the bone of contention on the right bank of the Connecticut, from opposite Podunk River northward nearly seven miles. Brewster writes, July 6, 1635 :