Rhode Island
were restive under the petty tyranny of Andros, and when they heard of
the imprisonment of the despot at Boston, in 1689, they assembled at
Newport, resumed popular government under the old charter, and began a
new independent political career. From that time, until the enforced
union of the colonies for mutual defence, at the breaking out of the
French and Indian war, the inhabitants of Rhode Island bore their share
in the defensive efforts, especially when the hostile savages hung along
the frontiers of New York like an ill-omened cloud. The history of that
commonwealth is identified with that of all New England, from the
beginning of King William's war, soon after, to the expulsion of Andros.

Six years after the charter was hidden in the oak, Andros was succeeded
by Governor Fletcher who made an attempt to control Connecticut, but was
humbled and prevented and, in fact, driven away by Captain Wadsworth.

In 1689, the charter was brought out from the long place of concealment,
a popular assembly was convened, Robert Treat was chosen governor, and
Connecticut again assumed the position of an independent colony.

The name of Captain Wadsworth will ever be dear to the people of
Connecticut, and so will the venerable oak which concealed their
charter.

CHAPTER VII.

TWO MEN WHO LOOK ALIKE.

I, to the world, am like a drop of water,
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
So I, to find a mother, and a brother,
In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.
--Shakespeare.

Mr. George Waters, the escaped slave from Virginia, lived very quietly
at the home of Mrs. Stevens. His daughter was constantly with him, save
when he made strange and unknown pilgrimages. During these mysterious
visits, she stayed at the house of Mrs. Stevens.

Cora was a quiet little maid, whose hopes seemed crushed by some
calamity. She never forgot that her father, the once proud man, had been
arrested and sold as a slave. That long period of servitude, the flight
and the fight were things which never faded from her mind. In the eyes
of Charles Stevens, there was something singularly attractive about this
child. She was so strange, so silent and melancholy, that he felt for
her the keenest sympathy. She lived in the shadow of some dark mystery,
which he could not fathom. Her strange father was non-co