[The facts in this Memoir were obtained through the obliging
instrumentality of Prof. Kingsley of Yale College.]
Jonathan Law, Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, descended from
Richard Law, who came from England in the year 1640, and was one of
the first settlers in the town of Stamford, Ct., in 1641. He left one
son, Richard, who afterwards moved to Milford in that State, where his
son Jonathan, his only son and the subject of this Memoir, was born,
Aug. 6, 1674. His mother was Sarah, daughter of George Clark, Sen., a
planter. He was educated at Harvard College, then the only Academical
Institution in New England, and received his degree of Bachelor of
Arts in 1695. The law was the profession which he selected, and after
passing through the course of studies usual at that period, he was
admitted to the bar, and fixed his residence in his native town in
1698. He soon became distinguished as a lawyer and an advocate, and
after a few years was made Chief-Judge of New Haven County Court. This
office he held for five years, and in May, 1715, he was transferred to
the Bench of the Superior Court of the Colony, as one of the Associate
Judges, where he continued, with the exception of one year, till 1725.
At the annual election in 1717, he was chosen an Assistant, an office
of great trust and importance, being ex officio a Legislator, a member
of the Governor's Council, and a judicial Magistrate throughout the
Colony. This station he resigned in 1725, on his election to the
office of Lieutenant-Governor, and the same year he was appointed by
the General Assembly CHIEF-JUSTICE of the Superior Court, both which
offices he held until the year 1742; when he was elected Governor, and
continued in that office until his death, which, after a short and
painful sickness of three days, occurred at Milford, Nov. 6, 1750, at
the age of 76 years. He left seven sons and a widow, his fifth wife.
A funeral Oration in Latin was delivered on the occasion in the chapel
of Yale College, by Mr. Stiles, then senior Tutor in that Institution,
and afterwards its distinguished President. It portrays in the most
glowing colors, the mild virtues of his private life, and the singular
success of his public administration.
During this period, there was a time when religious dissensions, which
originated in the excessive zeal of itinerant preachers, had made their
way into sober and regular ecclesiastical communities, by which means
they were greatly disturbed, and the Colony was convulsed almost to its
centre.
Early in the eighteenth century, a wonderful attention to religion
had been excited in various parts of Connecticut. It seems to have
been a genuine revival, not unmingled, perhaps, with some slight alloy
of enthusiasm. Soon after this the celebrated Mr. Whitefield, whose
sincere and honest piety Cowper has immortalized in the most glowing
colors, whose eloquence vanquished on one occasion even Franklin's
philosophical caution, after preaching with the greatest applause and
effect, at the South, came to New England at the pressing invitations
of the clergymen of Boston. On his return, he passed through
Connecticut, where the people crowded to hear him, and sunk under the
weight of his powerful Christian eloquence. His example seems to have
been followed by others of weaker intellect and less judgment; by
men, who mistook the illusions of their own minds, for the operations
of the Holy Spirit. There was particularly a Mr. Davenport of Long
Island, who had been a sound and faithful minister, but, unfortunately,
partook of the same spirit, and by his precepts and example, encouraged
the wildest extravagances of sentiment and conduct. Some of the "New
Lights," (as they were called,) boldly proclaimed their intimate
communion with the Almighty, in raptures, ecstacies, trances, and
visions. A few of the clergy were not free from these errors, and
forsook their own charge to labor in the vineyards of others. In some
counties, lay-preachers sprang up, who pretended to divine impulses and
inward impressions, and professed a supernatural power of discerning
between those that were converted, and those that were not. Confusion
prevailed at their meetings, and instead of checking these unseemly
disorders, the leaders labored to increase and extend them. Such
excesses threw a shade on real piety, and threatened to subvert the
foundations of pure and genuine Christianity throughout the Colony.
The Legislature, between whom and the church there was then a much
closer connection than at this day, in consequence of the numerous
applications made to them for their interference and protection,
enacted laws, the severity of which was not justifiable, but may, in
some measure, be palliated when we consider the magnitude of the evil.
A heated zeal and a misguided conscience, rather, perhaps, than a
contempt of the authority of government, gave rise in some counties to
loud murmurs and great dissatisfaction.
Governor Law, although an ardent friend of the gospel system in its
original purity, opposed with all the energy he possessed, this wild
spirit of fanaticism. To him was its suppression, in no small degree,
to be attributed. With the skill of an experienced pilot, he kept
his eye always fixed on the star of civil and religious liberty, and
steered the political bark unhurt, amidst the dangers that surrounded
it. It was to these troubles that President Stiles alluded in the
Eulogy before spoken of, when, after paying a just compliment to his
predecessors, he adds:
"_Sed gloria Conservandæ reipublicæ ac perite per procellas
intestinas periculosissimasque confusiones fortiter et clementer
administrandæ sit soli sapienti et illustrissimo_ LAW."
It was during this term of service, likewise, that the expedition
against Cape Breton was undertaken. The plan was formed by Gov. SHIRLEY
of Massachusetts, and was executed by raw, undisciplined troops,
ignorant of the arts of regular warfare, with the most brilliant
success. He saw the great importance of this enterprise, and labored,
with unwearied industry, to prevent its failure.
Governor Law was unquestionably a man of high talents and
accomplishments, both natural and acquired. He was well acquainted with
civil and ecclesiastical subjects, and gradually rose, by the force of
his own exertions, to the highest honors of the State. He was of a mild
and placid temper, amiable in all the relations of domestic life, and
seems to have well discharged the duties imposed on him.
* * * * *
First-love is pure without a stain,
The heart can never fondly love again;
One holy shrine will in the bosom rest,
And only one within a faithful breast.
True love's a steady, bright, unchanging ray,
And not the idle preference of a day;
A fadeless flower which will for ever bloom
Through years, in absence, and beyond the tomb.
_Sacred Poems, by Mrs. Bruce, London._