of a company in the field
a-training," it had lately been "openly spoken by them, that, if they
had but two hundred friends that would stand by them, they would not
care for Old or New England."

The messengers returned to Leete, and made an application for "aid
and a power to search and apprehend" the fugitives. "He refused to
give any power to apprehend them, nor order any other, and said he
could do nothing until he had spoken with one Mr. Gilbert and the
rest of his magistrates." New Haven, the seat of government of the
Colony, was twenty miles distant from Guilford. It was now Saturday
afternoon, and for a New-England Governor to break the Sabbath by
setting off on a journey, or by procuring horses for any other
traveller, was impossible. An Indian was observed to have left
Guilford while the parley was going on, and was supposed to have gone
on an errand to New Haven.

Monday morning the messengers proceeded thither. "To our certain
knowledge," they write, "one John Meigs was sent a-horseback before
us, and by his speedy and unexpected going so early before day was to
give them an information, and the rather because by the delays was
used, it was break of day before we got to horse; so he got there
before us. Upon our suspicion, we required the Deputy that the said
John Meigs might be examined what his business was, that might
occasion so early going; to which the Deputy answered, that he did
not know any such thing, and refused to examine him." Leete was in no
haste to make his own journey to the capital. It was for the
messengers to judge whether they would use such despatch as to give
an alarm there some time before any magistrate was present, to be
invoked for aid. He arrived, they write, "within two hours, or
thereabouts, after us and came to us to the Court chamber, where we
again acquainted him with the information we had received, and that
we had cause to believe they [the fugitives] were concealed in New
Haven, and thereupon we required his assistance and aid for their
apprehension; to which he answered, that he did not believe they
were; whereupon we desired him to empower us, or order others for it;
to which he gave us this answer, the he could not, or would not, make
us magistrates... We set before him the danger of that delay and
their inevitable escape, and how much the honor and service of his
Majesty was despised and trampled on by him, and that we supposed by
his unwillingness to assist in the