When he entered the room he took the governor's seat and ordered
the king's commission to be read, which appointed him governor of
all New England. He then declared the old government to be
dissolved and asked that the charter under which it had been
carried on should be given up to him. The Assembly was obliged to
recognize his authority and to accept the new government; but a
story of that famous meeting has been handed down in Connecticut
from one generation to another telling how the people contrived
to keep their charter, the document they loved because it
guaranteed their freedom.

"The Assembly sat late that night," says the story, "and the
debate was long." When Sir Edmund Andros asked for the charter it
was brought in and laid on the table. Then Robert Treat, who had
been Governor of Connecticut, rose and began a speech. He told of
the great expense and hardship the people had endured in planting
the colony, of the blood and treasure they had expended in
defending it against "savages and foreigners," and said it was
"like giving up life now, to surrender the patent and privileges
so dearly bought and so long enjoyed." Suddenly, while he was
speaking, all the candles went out. There was a moment of
confusion; then some one brought a tinder-box and flint and the
candles were relighted. The room was unchanged; the same number
of people were there; but the table where the charter had lain
was empty, for in that moment of darkness the charter had
disappeared.

No one knew who had taken it. No one could find it. No one saw
the candles blown out. Was it done on purpose, or did a door or a
window fly open and a gust of the night wind put them out? It