s proper legal
form.

After the receipt of the charter and its proclamation in the colony and
after a slight readjustment of the government to meet the few changes
required, the general court of Connecticut proceeded to enforce the full
territorial rights of the colony. The men of Connecticut had made up
their minds, now that the charter had come, to execute its terms to the
uttermost and to extend the authority of the colony to the farthest
bounds, so that, next to the government of the Bay, Connecticut might
be the greatest in New England. The court took under its protection the
towns of Stamford and Greenwich, and on the ground that the whole
territory westward was within its jurisdiction warned the Dutch governor
not to meddle. It accepted the petition of Southold on Long Island and
of certain residents of Guilford, both of the New Haven federation, for
annexation, and, sending a force to Long Island to demand the surrender
of the western towns there, it seized Captain John Scott, who was
planning to establish a separate government over them, and brought him
to Hartford for trial. It informed the towns of Mystic and Pawcatuck,
lying in the disputed land between Connecticut and Rhode Island, that
they were in the Connecticut colony and must henceforth conduct their
affairs according to its laws. The relations with Rhode Island were to
be a matter of later adjustment, and no immediate trouble followed; but
Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor, protested angrily against Connecticut's
claim to Dutch territory and brought the matter to the attention of the
commissioners of the United Colonies. On one pretext or another, the
latter delayed action; and the matter was not settled until England's
seizure of New Amsterdam in 1664 brought the Dutch rule to an end and
made operative the royal grant of the territory to the Duke of York,
thus stopping Connecticut in her somewhat headlong career westward and
taking from her the whole of Long Island and all the land west of the
Connecticut River. If maintained, this grant would have reduced the
colony by half and would have materially retarded its progress; but
Connecticut eventually saved the western portion of her territory as far
as the line of 1650. However, her people could do no more crowding on
into the region beyond, for the province of New York now lay directly
across the path of her westward expansion.

But with New Haven her success was complete. That unfortunate colony,
whi