In August, 1656, Gookin reported to Thurloe that he had personally visited Connecticut, New Haven, New Plymouth, and the Bay, but had received the subscription of only about 300 persons,1 for the most part young persons under family government, and many of them females of low estate. The poor people of New England, he tells Thurloe, were so reduced in circumstances as to be entirely unable to remove and sustain a colony.2

Thurloe, V, 509, August 23, 1656.

2 Thurloe, V, 509.

VIII. AN EXAMINATION OF PETERS'S "BLUE LAWS."

By WALTER F. PRINCE,

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

AN EXAMINATION OF PETERS'S "BLUE LAWS."'

By WALTER F. PRINCE.

The most famous portion of Peters's book is, of course, that which treats of the blue laws. It is that which rouses in its adversaries the bitterest agonies of disgust. For sixty years. patriotic souls have assailed the authenticity of these laws, and the nays have had it by a large majority. "The false blue laws invented by the Rev. Samuel Peters" are words which confront us from a title page. "The so-called blue laws of New Haven never had any existence except in the imagi nation of Samuel Peters,"3 says a historian of Connecticut. "Peters not only invented the blue-law code, but he forged legal cases for its application," another writer declares. "The greater part of these probably never had an existence, as standing laws or otherwise," chimes in another, more moderately. "The only authority for the blue laws is this Mr. Peters" is another declaration. "The entire list is a fabrica

The

1 Properly the second part of a paper entitled "Peters' Book and 'Blue Laws.' first part, the "Book," discussed the so-called “General History of Connecticut" as an interesting problem for internal analysis. Not content to accept the general crude and facile hypothesis of falsehood to account for all its misstatements, the attempt was made to discover the author's sources and the use he made of them. The result was to show him a phenomenal blunderer, confounding and even compounding persons, writings, events, and dates; a credulous lover of the curious and bizarre, like Cotton Mather, rely. ing much on popular traditions and possessing no critical capacity whatever; a victim of various biases, sectarian, patriotic, and egoistic, which colored his vision; the possessor of a fatal gift of sarcasm and humor, which often protruded itself in the wrong places. It was found that there was at least a substratum of truth in the most of his statements about New England and its people, though some, so far as appears, were utterly devoid of foundation. The motive assigned for writing the book was not revenge, but the desire to become bishop in some green New England pasture of a needy and peril-environed flock. All references to Peters's book are to McCormick's edition of 1876 for the reason that this is more frequently available.

2True and False Blue Laws," J. Hammond Trumbull, Hartford, 1876.

"Hist. of Conn.," E. B. Sanford, p. 43.

4 Rev. C. Hammond in Conn. Valley Hist. Soc. Papers, 1881, p. 105.

Chas. Deane in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical Hist. of America," Vol. III, p. 372. "W. L. Kingsley in Methodist Review, Jan., 1878, p. 83.

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tion. It is the baseless invention of an embittered Tory," asserts a distinguished judge. "The blue law myth,"2 mutters a learned professor. The list of such references is by no means closed with the following sweeping statement from the pen of a high authority: "The legend of the blue laws is the invention of Samuel Peters, a mendacious refugee, who in 1781 published in England a 'History of Connecticut.' Included in this odd medley of fact and fiction are these grotesque enactments, which never existed except in the imagination of the author of this book."3 When scholars and professionals of such exalted rank agree so emphatically, and when those who have ventured to differ have defended their position so weakly, one may well hesitate before he renews the attempt. Nevertheless we plunge and cross the fatal Rubicon.

Embodied in sentiments such as those just quoted, which to-day are current in the best writers and which pass almost without question, three propositions are distinctly discernible.

1. The Blue Laws never existed in New Haven.-It must be that mental reference is had to the more quaint examples of Peters, for none can fail to know that some at least of the laws stated by him were genuine laws in New Haven. Yet

"Judicial and Civil Hist. of Conn.," Dwight Loomis and J. G. Calhoun, p. 70.

Study of a Commonwealth Democracy," Prof. A. Johnston, p. 105.

3" Colonial Era," Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, p. 130.

4 Such as Prof. De Vere in "Americanisms," New York, 1873, p. 273, and S. J. McCormick in his preface and notes to Peters' History. See also Sprague's Annals, Vol. V, p. 195, where Rev. Dr. Chapin says, "Among other ridiculously false charges made against Peters is this that he forged or invented the so-called blue laws of Connecticut-a charge which is sufficiently disproved by the fact that that celebrated code was in existence and common use before he was born," which is equivalent to saying a thing is so because it is. Exception should be made of an article by the well-known historical scholar John Gilmary Shea, entitled, "The blue laws of Connecticut," and published in the American Catholic Quarterly Review for July, 1877. I was not so fortunate as to see this essay till my own was nearly completed. Its tone is calm and judicial, but it amounts to a very effectual refutation of those who persist in involving Peters's blue laws in a general damnation. But Shea confined his investigation to the codes of New Haven and Connecticut given in Trumbull's book. Consequently he fails to find the authentication of statutes whose date was later than those codes, or whose locus was Massachusetts. The range of his investigation being so circumscribed, he is too easily satisfied in some cases with mere resemblances between specifications of Peters and certain laws of New Haven and Connecticut, not the real sources of those specifications. Neither did he study the codes of New Haven and Connecticut quite carefully enough, or he could not have written "Several of the other laws as given by Peters have some foundation, such as those against fornication, adultery," etc. This is too moderate a defense for statements which correctly present the essential content of the laws on fornication and adultery, leaving out definition and amplification. He had not observed the indebtedness of Peters to Neal. Nevertheless Mr. Shea's article is the most critical one on the "blue laws" question yet printed. His interest is keenest in reference to laws which affected Catholics, yet he does not seem to labor under an anti-Puritan bias.