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LIFE 
 
 ROGEE WILLIAMS, 
 
 FOUNDER OF THE 
 
 STATE OF RHODE ISLAND. 
 
 WILLIAM GAMMELL, A. M. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN BROWN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 " He was the first in modern Christendom to assert in its plenitude the 
 doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the 
 law, and in its defence he was the liarbinger of Milton, the precursor and 
 superior of Jeremy Taylor." — Bancroft. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 GOULD, KENDALL & LINCOLN. 
 
 59 Washington Street. 
 
 18 4 6. 
 
1^2 
 
 Entcrrd according to act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
 
 Charles C. Little and James Brown, 
 
 in tlie Clurii's oliice of tlie District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 STERBOTrPED AT THE 
 BOSTON TTPE AND «rXBEOTyPE FOUNDRT. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In preparing the following sketch of Roger 
 Williams, the writer has consulted nearly all the 
 works of New England history, from which ma- 
 terials might be derived for the illustration of 
 his life and character. He is, however, by far 
 the most indebted to the elaborate " Memoir," 
 prepared by the late Mr. Knowles, a work of 
 great fulness and accuracy of information re- 
 spectmg not only the immediate subject to which 
 it relates, but also the general affairs of New 
 England in that early age. This work, which 
 probably contains all that can now be known 
 concerning the Ufe of the calumniated founder 
 of Rhode Island, renders the task of a subse- 
 quent biographer comparatively easy. The nar- 
 rative of Mr. Knowles has been generally com- 
 pared with the original authorities on which he 
 relies, and in all cases his statements have been 
 found to be correct. 
 
 In selecting and arranging the materials, 
 which are thus suppHed, the aim of the 
 present writer has been, to confine himself to 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 those which are best fitted to illustrate the per- 
 sonal character of this eminent man, and to 
 furnish the means of estimating aright the ser- 
 vices he rendered to his own and to subse- 
 quent times. He has sought to give a plain 
 and faithful narrative of a series of events, 
 which seem the more remarkable, as, by the 
 lapse of time, we are further separated from the 
 period in which they occurred. These events, 
 indeed, furnish a sad and perplexing commen- 
 tary upon the principles of the Puritans, while 
 they serve to impart the aspect of heroism to 
 the life of him, whom the Puritans persecuted 
 and banished. They are now well understood, 
 and are regarded as, in some sense, among the 
 anomalies of history ; yet they can never lose 
 their interest and importance. So long as men 
 shall continue to differ on religious subjects, and 
 require the exercise of Christian charity and lib- 
 erality, so long may they learn lessons of the 
 highest practical value from the life of him, who 
 has been justly styled " the apostle of religious 
 liberty." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LIFE OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 
 BY WILLIAM GAMMELL. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Preface 3 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 His early Life. — His Education. — The Influ- 
 ences that formed his Character and Opinions, 
 
 — He arrives at Boston 5 
 
 * CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Puritan Settlements in Massachusetts. — 
 The Principles on which they ivere founded. 
 
 — The Views of Williams. — The Charges of 
 the Magistrates against him. — His Settlement 
 at Salem. — His Removal to Plymouth, and 
 
 the Cause 12 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 His Reception at Plymouth. — His Discontent 
 there, and Return to Salem. — Results of his 
 Residence at Plymouth. — The Puritans* Dread 
 of Anabaptists 21 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 His second Residence in Salem. — His Disap- 
 probation of the Ministers' Meeting. — Trear 
 Use concerning the King''s Patent. — Troubles 
 with the Magistrates on Account of it. — Con- 
 duct of Williams. — He preaches upon the 
 Duty of Women'' s loearing Veils. — Also 
 against the Cross in the Military Colors, — 
 His Character and Standing in Salem. . . 28 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 His Doctrine of the Freedom of Conscience. — 
 The Difficulty in which it involves him with 
 the Clergy and Magistrates. — His Opposition 
 to the Freeman'' s Oath. — The Persecution of 
 the Magistrates extends to the People of Sa- 
 lem. — He is deserted by his Church. — The 
 Judgment of the Clergy. — The Decree of 
 Banishment. — He leaves Salem 38 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 His Wanderings after his Banishment. — He 
 visits Massasoit, and begins a Settlement at 
 Seekonk. — He crosses the River, and lays the 
 Foundations of Providence 54 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The principal Indian Tribes of New England, 
 — Williams'' s Intercourse with them. — His 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 Views of their Rights, and his Influence with 
 them. — Freedom of the Colony at Providence. 
 
 — Its Government limited to civil Things. — 
 Circumstances in which Williams is placed. . QS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Pequot War. — The Services Williams ren- 
 ders the Government of Massachusetts. — His 
 Agency saves the Colonies from Destruction. 
 ■^—His Letter to Governor Winthrop. — Issue 
 of the War. — Manner in which his Services 
 are regarded hy 3Iassachusetts 79 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Inadequacy of Legislation for the Suppression of 
 Heresy. — Account of Mrs. Hutchinson and 
 her Controversy in Massachusetts. — Her Ad~ 
 herents are received at Providence. — They 
 settle on Rhode Island. — Williams'' s Agency 
 in the Purchase of the Island. — Relations of 
 the Colony at Providence with 3Iassachusetts. 
 
 — Account of Samuel Gorton. — His Settle- 
 ment at Pawtuxct. — His Difliculties with the 
 People of Providence 94 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Neio England Confederacy. — The Colo' 
 nies in Rhode Island excluded. — They appeal 
 to the King. — Williams is appointed their 
 Agent, and sails for England. — Obtains a 
 Charter. — Publishes the Bloody Tenet. — 
 
Vni CONTENTS. 
 
 He returns to Rhode Island with the Char- 
 ter. — His Reception at Providence. — His 
 Pacijication of the Indians. — Organization 
 of a Government under the Charter. — Spirit 
 of its early Legislation 113 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Private Life of Williams. — Dissensions in Rhode 
 
 Island. — Coddington* s Commission. Op' 
 
 pressive Policy of the United Colonies. — 
 Treatment of John Clarke and others in Mas- 
 sachusetts. — Dissatisfaction with Coddington. 
 
 — Williams and Clarke are appointed Agents 
 
 of the Colony. — They sail for England. . 130 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 State of public Affairs in England. — Williams's 
 Occupations while there. — Coddington' s Com- 
 mission revoked. — Letter of the General As- 
 sembly to Williams. — His Intercmirse with Sir 
 Henry Vane, Cromwell, and Milton. — His 
 literary Labors. — His Return to Providence. 
 
 — Reorganization of the Govcrninent. — He 
 
 is elected President of the Colony. . . . 144 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 Character of his Administration. — He acts as 
 Mediator between the United Colonics and the 
 Indians. — Sjnrit of Disorder in the Colony. 
 
 — Williams's Letter to the Town of Provi- 
 dence. — Cundtut of William Harris.— Wil' 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Hams attempts to conciliate the other Colonies. 
 
 — Their Efforts to compel Rhode Island to 
 persecute the Quakers. — Her liberal Policy 
 towards them 160 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 He retires from the Presidency. — Charles the 
 Second grants a new Charter to the Colony. 
 
 — Williams appointed an Assistant in the 
 Government. — His Labors for the Indians. — 
 His Controversy with the Quakers. — King 
 Philiph War. — The Services of Williams 
 during the War. — Its Residts. — Tlie Close 
 
 of his Life, and his Death 178 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 His religious Opinions. — His Views respecting 
 the Clergy. — Political Opinions. — Character 
 as a Writer. — General Remarks 197 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. — Charges against Rhode Island. . . . 209 
 No. II. — Account of Roger Williams's Writings. 213 
 
ROGER W I LLI AMS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 His early Life. — His Education. — The Influ^ 
 ences that formed his Character and Opinions. 
 — He arrives at Boston, 
 
 Our only knowledge of the life of Roger 
 Williams, previous to his arrival in America, is 
 derived from tradition; and even this tradition 
 rests upon no very certain evidence. No allu- 
 sion is found in his writings, nor has any trace 
 of documentary history been discovered, which 
 can guide us to definite information concerning 
 this period of his life. His peculiarities of opin- 
 ion, and his subsequent exclusion from the sym- 
 pathies of the colonies, undoubtedly contributed 
 to render the interest of the early annahsts of 
 New England, in his personal history, far less 
 than in that of most of the other leading men 
 of his time. Not one of them appears to have 
 taken any pains to inquire into his origin, or to 
 
6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 preserve, for the gratification of posterity, any 
 account of his life and fortunes while living in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 According to the traditions which have been 
 preserved concerning him, he was born in Wales, 
 in the year 1599. His parents were in the mid- 
 dle ranks of life, but of the character and cir- 
 cumstances of his family, or of the place of his 
 birth, nothing can now be ascertained. He is 
 said to have received his education at the uni- 
 versity of Oxford, under the patronage of Sir 
 Edward Coke, whose interest in him was first 
 excited by an incident, which may have been 
 characteristic of the early bias of his mind. He 
 ws^s struck with the young man's appearance at 
 church, and his devout attention during public 
 worship, and one day found that he was taking 
 notes of the sermon. Sir Edward afterwards 
 sent for him, and became so well pleased with 
 his talents and character, that he obtained per- 
 mission of his parents to place him at one of 
 the colleges at Oxford. His name, however, 
 cannot now be found on any of the rolls of the 
 university, and, from the fact that Sir Edward 
 Coke was himself* a graduate of Cambridge, it 
 has been doubted whether Williams did not 
 also receive his education at the same seat of 
 learning. 
 
 Tlie whole of the tradition relating to the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 7 
 
 patronage of Sir Edward Coke may well be 
 called in question ; for, at best, it rests upon no 
 very satisfactory foundation. It is certain, how- 
 ever, from his own statements, as well as from 
 the character of his writings, that Mr. Williams 
 received a classical education, and it is in a 
 very high degree probable, that he pursued his 
 studies at one of the famous seats of learning, 
 which, until a recent period, have given to Eng- 
 land nearly all her educated men. After the 
 close of his residence at the university, he is 
 said to have commenced the study of the law, 
 under the guidance of his illustrious patron ; but 
 his inclinations, which were early subjected to 
 the influence of strong religious feelings, led him 
 soon to abandon this pursuit, and enter upon 
 the study of theology. This was a study, which 
 largely engrossed the minds of most of the edu- 
 cated men of that age, and to which the growth 
 and culture of his own spiritual nature had al- 
 ready given him a decided and controlling bias. 
 " From my childhood," says he, near the close 
 of his life, " now above threescore years, the 
 Father of lights and mercies touched my soul 
 with a love to himself, to his only-begotten, 
 the true Lord Jesus, and to his Holy Scriptures." 
 The religious character, whose germs were thus 
 early planted, grew and ripened with his years, 
 amidst the retirement of his secluded studies, 
 
8 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and bore fruits in a life of piety and virtue, 
 which won for him the inspect and confidence 
 of those with whom he was associated. His 
 mind was enriched and expanded with the best 
 learning of the age ; and it is probable, that his 
 preparation for the sacred profession to which 
 he was looking forward, was, for the time, un- 
 usually thorough and complete. He was admit- 
 ted to orders in the established church, though 
 it is not known by what bishop, or in what 
 year, he was ordained. It is also said, that he 
 was appointed to the charge of a parish, while 
 in England ; but of this no mention whatever 
 is made in his writings, which now exist. 
 
 But, though so little can now be ascertained 
 concerning his personal career in early life, yet 
 the history of that troubled and exciting period 
 of English affairs enables us to form no doubt- 
 ful estimate of the influences that lent their aid 
 in forming his opinions and shaping his char- 
 acter. He had grown to manhood at a time 
 when society in England was in one of those 
 transition states, which mark the departure of 
 an old and the forming of a new era. The 
 principles of the reformation, which had first 
 been preached in England by Wickliflfe and his 
 followers, were slowly and silently working out 
 their legitimate results in the institutions both 
 of the church and the state, not less than in the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 9 
 
 minds of the people. Their influence was re- 
 sisted by the prerogative of the monarch and the 
 power of the hierarchy, and the rites of a cor- 
 rupted church were still imposed, by statutes of 
 uniformity, upon the free consciences of English- 
 men, The great contest, which had commenced 
 with the reformation, between the worn-out 
 forms of a preceding age and the principles of 
 civil and religious freedom, was at that time 
 waged with unabated zeal. It is evident, from 
 numerous passages in his subsequent writings, 
 that Roger Williams, while in England, was no 
 indifferent spectator of the events which marked 
 the age. Into the controversy which then di- 
 vided the English church, he had undoubtedly 
 thrown himself with all the energy of his ardent 
 and sanguine temperament. He had thoroughly 
 studied the principles at issue between the two 
 parties, and, with no wavering faith, had em- 
 braced the tenets of the persecuted Puritans, 
 who then constituted the most pious portion of 
 the established church. He thus became the 
 associate and friend of Cotton and Hooker, and 
 seems to have had occasional intercourse with 
 Vane and Cromwell. 
 
 But, in addition to the views which he held 
 in common with these and other eminent Puri- 
 tans of his time, the lessons of history, and the 
 workings of his clear and far-seeing mind, had 
 
10 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 forced upon his conviction another principle, 
 which, even before he left his native country, 
 had settled itself firmly in his faith. This prin- 
 ciple was the inalienable freedom of the con- 
 science, the responsibility of man to God alone 
 in all matters of religious belief and worship. 
 It had been held, and occasionally asserted, in 
 some modified form, by the friends of freedom 
 in a former age, and was, indeed, a legitimate 
 result of the spirit and doctrines of the reforma- 
 tion ; but in the mind of Roger Williams alone, 
 in modern times, does it appear to have been 
 first conceived in the length and breadth of its 
 universal application. 
 
 Holding such views, it is not surprising that 
 he should have been among the earliest to join 
 the bands of emigrants, who were preparing to 
 seek an asylum for their persecuted worship 
 upon the shores of New England. Some of his 
 acquaintances had already preceded him to the 
 new world, while the Puritans, in every part of 
 England, were looking with anxious interest to 
 the colonies, which had thus been planted be- 
 yond the sea. Yielding to the general impulse 
 which then so widely prevailed, he embarked at 
 Bristol, on the 1st of December, 1630, in the 
 ship Lion, Captain Pierce, master, (the same ship, 
 which, in successive passages, bore so many of 
 the emigrants to New England,) and, after a 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 11 
 
 tempestuous voyage of sixty-six days, arrived at 
 Boston, on the 5th of February, 1631. 
 
 He was now in the thirty-second year of his 
 age, and in the full maturity of all his powers, 
 having already acquired a reputation for elo- 
 quence and piety, which had spread widely in 
 England, and had preceded him to America. 
 His arrival at Boston is mentioned by Governor 
 Winthrop, in his Journal, as of " a godly min- 
 ister," and was doubtless hailed, by the churches 
 of the infant settlements of Massachusetts Bay, 
 as an accession to their strength of the precious 
 gifts of piety and learning. They little antici- 
 pated the startling doctrines he would put forth ; 
 and he had no intimation of the singular destiny, 
 that was preparing for him, amid the unknown 
 wilderness to which he had come. 
 
 When he embarked at Bristol, he had been 
 recently married, and was accompanied by his 
 wife, Mrs. Mary Williams, a lady, who hved to 
 share his changeful fortunes among the check- 
 ered scenes through which he subsequently 
 passed, but of whose early history even less is 
 known than of that of her husband. 
 
1^ AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Puritan Settlements in Massachusetts. — 
 The Principles on which they were founded. 
 — The Vieivs of Williams. — The Charges of 
 the Magistrates against him. — His Settlement 
 at Salem. — His Removal to Plymouth, and 
 the Cause. 
 
 The settlements composing the colony oi 
 Massachusetts Bay were established in the year 
 1628, and the two years following. The first 
 company of emigrants settled at Salem in 1628, 
 and was under the direction of the enterprising 
 and fearless Endicott. In the year 1630, there 
 arrived in the bay another band of Pilgrims, 
 who, like their brethren of Plymouth, had al- 
 ready organized a commonwealth, and elected 
 their officers, under a charter from the King, 
 which henceforth was to be administered within 
 the territory of the colony, of whose existence 
 and rights it contained the guaranty. This com- 
 pany was by far the most wealthy and most 
 cultivated of all the bands of emigrants, who 
 had yet arrived in New England. There were 
 among its members men of large hereditary 
 fortune, and of gentle blood ; scholars versed 
 in all the learning of the times ; civilians long 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 13 
 
 practised in the study of public affairs; and 
 clergymen whose learning and piety had won 
 the highest respect of their parishes in England. 
 At the head of all was Winthrop, whom they 
 had chosen Governor, a man of the noblest 
 virtues, whose warm enthusiasm was tempered 
 by miid and gentle benevolence, and whose 
 bland and high-bred manners were fitted to 
 command the love and respect of his associates, 
 and, even amidst the privations of the wilderness, 
 to throw an air of dignity and a charm of pro- 
 priety over every scene of life upon which he 
 entered. 
 
 We may well pause, for a moment, to con- 
 sider the principles which the fathers of Massa- 
 chusetts had incorpomted into their common- 
 wealth, and upon which they had erected the 
 fabric of their society. It is a mistake, as has 
 often been remarked, to suppose that they came 
 to New England with any notions of unlimited 
 freedom of conscience. It was no part of their 
 aim, in bidding farewell to their native island, 
 to build, across the ocean, an asylum for the 
 persecuted of every name. Even the possibility of 
 such a state of society had never dawned upon 
 their minds. " The emigrants," as has justly 
 been said, " were a body of sincere believers, 
 desiring purity of religion, not a colony of philos- 
 ophers, bent upon universal toleration." They 
 
14 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 had come to -' this outside of the world," as 
 they deemed it, to enjoy, unmolested, their own 
 worship, and to practise, without hinderance or 
 restraint, the principles of their own faith. They 
 were generally members of the established church 
 of England, but desired that the principles of 
 the reformation should be applied still more 
 thoroughly to purify her doctrines, and elevate 
 and spiritualize her worship. It was to escape 
 oppression for themselves, not to secure the boon 
 of freedom to others ; to carry into practice their 
 own views of Christian worship, and their own 
 doctrines of civil liberty, not to open a temple for 
 the disciples of every faith and the adherents ot 
 every creed ; that they had braved the ocean 
 and the wilderness, and begun to plant their civil 
 and religious institutions beneath these unpropi- 
 tious skies. 
 
 To secure the accomplishment of this object, 
 the dearest which their hearts could cherish, all 
 tlieir legislation was designed, and all the ar- 
 rangements of their society were framed. It 
 was in accordance with this, that they reserved 
 to themselves the right of admitting only whom 
 they pleased as freemen of the colony ; and within 
 a little more than a year a.fter their arrival, they 
 " ordered and agreed that, for time to come, no 
 man should be admitted to the freedom of the 
 body politic, but such as arc members of some 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 15 
 
 of the churches within the Hmits of the same." 
 It was the aspiration of tlie Puritans to form a 
 Christian repubhc, after the model of the Jewish 
 theocracy, in which the laws of Moses should 
 constitute the rules of civil life. Their system, 
 thus educed from the highest sources of author- 
 ity, tolerated no contradiction and allowed of 
 no dissent. The mandates of public sentiment, 
 not less than the enactments of the General 
 Court, in the infant colony, were as stern and 
 unyielding as had been the statutes of uniformity, 
 from whose tyrannical operation they had fled 
 when they embarked for the shores of the new 
 world. Wrapped in their singular and somewhat 
 original social system there lay the germs both 
 of immense good and immense evil ; of a moral 
 energy that was to bless the world by the re- 
 sults it has produced, and of dissensions that 
 were to rend their youthful republic, and kindle 
 the fires of intolerance and fanaticism even upon 
 the spots most sacred to freedom. 
 
 Such were the principles on which the colony 
 of Massachusetts Bay had been founded, and 
 such was its spirit during the first year of its 
 existence, in the course of which Roger Wil- 
 liams landed upon its shores, and became one 
 of its residents. Like the colonists who had 
 preceded him, he had come hither for conscience' 
 sake, to find, for the profession and the practice 
 
16 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of his religious faith, a freedom which England 
 had refused to grant. Here, then, we may well 
 suppose, Mr. WilKams had expected to reahze 
 the visions of his imagination, and find a state of 
 society in which he could cherish and express 
 the great doctrines which had taken full pos- 
 session of his soul. He was among those with 
 whom, in the essential points of Christian faith 
 and morals, he entirely agreed. In the applica- 
 tions of his great principle of the freedom of 
 conscience, however, there were constantly pre- 
 sented occasions of infinite disagreement. 
 
 Scarcely had he stepped ashore at Boston, 
 when he found the whole civil and ecclesiasti- 
 cal authorities of Massachusetts arrayed in hos- 
 tility against him. In the asylum of the exiled 
 Puritans, intolerance had also found a home. 
 The same odious principle, which, by uniting 
 the church with the civil power, had given rise 
 to all the persecutions, that, during three cen- 
 turies, had stained the soil of England with 
 martyrs* blood, and driven into exile some of the 
 master-spirits of her people, was also incorporated 
 into the society of the New England Pilgrims. 
 Its form and aspect, indeed, were changed, 
 but its spirit was still the same. Its action was 
 chastened by the straitened circumstances of 
 exile, and of an infant state ; but it still author- 
 ized the civil magistrate to watch over the opin- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 17 
 
 ions of men, to punish for errors of doctrine, and 
 for neglect of religious duties, and was destined, 
 by its subsequent applications, to destroy the har- 
 mony and quiet of the New England colonies, 
 and to fix upon the escutcheon of some of them 
 the foulest stains. 
 
 A few weeks after his arrival, Mr. Williams 
 was invited by the church at Salem to become 
 assistant to their pastor, the Reverend Mr. Skel- 
 ton ; but the magistrates of the colony had heard 
 of his opinions, and immediately interposed their 
 remonstrances with the people of Salem to pre- 
 vent his settlement. The reasons of this inter- 
 ference on the part of the authorities, as alleged 
 in the letter, which they addressed to the church 
 at Salem, are, first, that Mr. Williams had re- 
 fused to join with the congregation at Boston, 
 because they would not declare their repentance 
 for having had communion with the churches of 
 England while they lived there ; secondly, that 
 he " had declared his opinion, that the magistrate 
 might not punish a breach of the Sabbath, nor 
 any other offence that was a breach of the first 
 table." 
 
 With respect to the former of these charges, 
 it is diiTicult now to determine, precisely, how 
 much importance he attached to the sin of which 
 he thus called the Boston church to declare 
 their repentance. It is, however, certain that 
 
 VOL. IV, 2 
 
iS AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 he was not alone in thinking the Puritans had 
 done wrong in holding communion with those, 
 whose power and resources were constantly em- 
 ployed in crushing the spirit of true piety in 
 England. It was, in his estimation, allowing a 
 compromise with sin. It was lending an indi- 
 rect sanction and connivance to a church, whose 
 usages he deemed corrupt, and whose govern- 
 ment he regarded as tyranny. Whatever views 
 may now be entertained of this sentiment, it will 
 scarcely be pretended that it furnished any 
 ground for the magistrates to prevent the settle- 
 ment of Mr. Williams in the ministry to which 
 he had been ordained, and to which he was now 
 called by the suffrages of the church in Salem. 
 The second of the above charges, it will be 
 seen, relates to his declaration of the great doc- 
 trine, to the vindication and elucidation of which 
 he was to devote his life. His doctrine was in 
 direct conflict with both the opinions and the 
 practices of the colony of Massachusetts, whose 
 counsellors and elders considered themselves the 
 appointed guardians of the orthodoxy of the peo- 
 ple ; and in that age they could conceive of 
 no other mode of executing their trust, than by 
 inflicting civil penalties upon every one who 
 ventured to dissent even in the most unimpor- 
 tant particulars from the prevailing faith. The 
 opinion of Roger Williams, which was then urged 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 19 
 
 in proof of his unsuitableness to become a min- 
 ister of the gospel, has long since become the 
 common sentiment of the American people, and 
 is fast spreading itself over the civilized world, 
 everywhere, in its course, giving peace to the 
 distracted elements of society, and placing on a 
 sure basis the institutions both of government 
 and religion. 
 
 Mr. Williams, however, had already removed 
 to Salem, where, on the 12th of April, 1631, he 
 was settled as a minister of the church, not- 
 withstanding the opposition of the magistrates, 
 who at the time were assembled at Boston. On 
 the 18th of the following May, after having 
 been duly propounded, he was admitted a free- 
 man of the colony, and took the usual oath of 
 allegiance prescribed in such cases. He was 
 now, in the fullest sense of the word, a citizen 
 of the colony, and one of the ministers of its 
 oldest church. He had thus identified himself 
 with its interests by the most significant acts 
 which a citizen can perform, and was doubtless 
 as ready to labor in its service, and to share its 
 burdens, as any of those who had been appointed 
 to preside over its aflfairs. The people of Salem 
 had extended to him their confidence, and his 
 life and ministry there had confirmed their re- 
 spect and attachment, and were giving promise 
 
20 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of a long career, as their guide, and teacher, and 
 friend. 
 
 But his settlement here was destined to be 
 brought to an early close. The act of the 
 church in calling him to be their minister, con- 
 trary to the advice of the Governor and General 
 Court, had awakened the stern displeasure of 
 those functionaries, and was not easily forgiven. 
 His own opinions, also, which he had taken no 
 pains to disguise, had excited the suspicions of 
 the magistrates and elders of the colony ; and, 
 true to their united trust, as the guardians of 
 the popular faith, they did not allow him to re- 
 main in peace at a post to which he had been 
 invited in disregard of their wishes and advice. 
 For the sake of private opinions, therefore, which 
 did not in the least affect his relations to the 
 civil power, as a citizen, he and his church were 
 continually harassed and disturbed. At length, 
 after the lapse of a few months, as is thought, 
 at the close of the summer, he removed from 
 Salem, and sought a residence in the colony of 
 Plymouth, beyond the persecuting jurisdiction of 
 the Court of Massachusetts Bay. This removal 
 was undoubtedly dictated by prudence and a de- 
 sire for peace and quiet, and was not the result 
 of his own independent choice ; for in the ven- 
 erable pastor^ and among the people of Salem, 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 21 
 
 he had found friends, whose interests in his 
 ministry, respect for his character, and attention 
 to his welfare, had enhsted in their behalf his 
 warmest feelings of regard, which he long con- 
 tinued to cherish. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 His Reception at Plymouth, — His Discontent 
 there, and Return to Salem. — Results of his 
 Residence at Plymouth, — The Puritans' Dread 
 of Anahajftists. 
 
 Mr. Williams removed to Plymouth prob- 
 ably in the month of August, 1631. He was 
 received there with the respect which his repu- 
 tation as a minister, and his high personal char- 
 acter, were so well calculated to call forth. He 
 v/as entertained by the Governor and the lead- 
 ing citizens, and after some time, having been ad- 
 mitted to the church, was settled as assistant 
 to the pastor, the Reverend Ralph Smith. The 
 Puritans who had come over in the Mayflower, 
 and settled at Plymouth, had, from the first, 
 manifested a more liberal spirit than their neigh- 
 bors, who had subsequently settled in the Bay. 
 
22 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Before they embarked upon their perilous voy- 
 age, they had resided for some time in Hol- 
 land, and become entirely alienated from the 
 established church of England. It is probable 
 that, on this account, the views of Roger Wil- 
 liams, concerning the propriety of holding com- 
 munion with that church, were, to say the least, 
 less offensive to them than to their brethren of 
 Massachusetts. However this may have been, 
 they seem to have been ready to receive him 
 among them with the most cordial fellowship, 
 and with more than usual attention and respect. 
 Governor Bradford says his teaching was " well 
 approved, for the benefit whereof," he adds, "I 
 shall bless God, and am thankful to him ever 
 for his sharpest admonitions and reproofs, so far 
 as they agreed with truth." 
 
 But though he had now fixed his residence 
 beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of Massa- 
 chusetts, he had not removed from the reach of 
 that disposition which displays itself in every 
 age, and in all conditions of society, to dis- 
 trust and annoy those who are in advance of 
 prevailing opinions, or at variance with existing 
 institutions. It is the usual destiny of such men 
 to be misunderstood and suspected by their 
 contemporaries, and often to be proscribed as 
 the enemies of the state, even while they are 
 studiously cherishing its dearest interests. Thus 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 23 
 
 was it with Roger Williams at Plymouth. His 
 sentiments of freedom, and his earnest declara- 
 tion of the rights of the soul, though they seem 
 never to have provoked the action either of the 
 church or of the civil authorities, were not long 
 in awakening the suspicions of the principal men 
 of the colony. It is probable, also, that many 
 were the more ready to detect the heresy that 
 lurked in his views on this subject, from a sym- 
 pathy with their brethren of the neighboring 
 colony, and a knowledge of the reputation he 
 had acquired as the advocate of a dangerous 
 freedom while resident at Boston and Salem. 
 So faithful, however, was his preaching, so ex- 
 emplary and beneficent was his daily life, that 
 he retained the affections and respect of the 
 people, even while many of them were distrust- 
 ful of the liberal principles, which he promul- 
 gated. His own feelings, however, were never 
 so strongly enlisted in the people of Plymouth, 
 as they had been in those of the town where 
 he had first been settled as a minister of the 
 gospel. It may be, indeed, that he had never 
 regarded his removal to Plymouth as anything 
 more than a temporary retirement from the storm 
 of an excited and virulent pubhc sentiment in 
 the sister colony. His heart still turned to Sa- 
 lem, and longed to renew the hopes and the 
 interests with which he had first entered upon 
 
24 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 his ministry there ; and, accordingly, after an ab- 
 sence of about two years, on receiving an invi- 
 tation from the people of that town to resume 
 his place among them, he left Plymouth in the 
 month of August of the year 1633. 
 
 His residence at Plymouth, brief though it was, 
 had yet been marked by incidents of no incon- 
 siderable importance in their bearing upon his 
 subsequent career and destiny. It was here, 
 that his first child w^as born, a daughter, who 
 received her mother's name, and, we may natu- 
 rally suppose, constituted another most tender tie^ 
 that bound him to his family and his home. But 
 the most important among the incidents of his life 
 at Plymouth were the intercourse he held, and 
 the friendly intimacy he formed, with some of 
 the most celebrated chiefs of the various Indian 
 tribes, who came to promote alliance and prose- 
 cute trade with the colonists of New England. 
 Here he won the regard of the venerable Mas- 
 sasoit, the father of King Philip, and chief of 
 the Wampanoags, who, from the seat of his royal 
 race at Mount Hope, had often gone to brighten, 
 by friendly intercourse, the chain that bound him 
 to his early allies. Here, too, he conversed with 
 the Narragansett warriors, whose stern chiefs, the 
 aged and wise Canonicus, and the fierce though 
 generous Miantonomo, had broken through the 
 shyness of savage life, and sought to conciliate 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 25 
 
 the favor of their new neighbors. It is probable, 
 also, that, at this period of his life, he made 
 excursions into the domains of these wild war- 
 riors, and, in the rude cabins of the natives, 
 studied their strange characters and their man- 
 ner of life, and acquired the rudiments of their 
 uncouth language. In a letter written many 
 years afterwards, he says, '' God was pleased to 
 give me a painful, patient spirit, to lodge with 
 them in their filthy, smoky holes, even while I 
 lived at Plymouth and Salem, to gain their 
 tongue." The knowledge which he thus ac- 
 quired, and the friendships with the chiefs which 
 he thus cemented, proved of incalculable ad- 
 vantage to him, in the days when he was driven 
 forth an exile from the homes of civilized men, 
 to wander in the wintry forest, and seek, in the 
 comfortless dwellings of the heathen, the pro- 
 tection and the charities which Christians had 
 denied to him. 
 
 It is probable, also, that this acquaintance with 
 the Indians served to call his attention more 
 particularly to their moral condition, and to enlist 
 his earliest interest in their religious instruction, 
 and their conversion to Christianity. " My soul's 
 desire," says he, *' was to do the natives good ; " 
 and his whole life, passed amidst the perils and 
 privations of the wilderness, and in deeds of justice 
 
 i I 
 
S6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and beneficence to its rude dwellers, proves the 
 sincerity of his desire. 
 
 At the time when Mr. Williams asked a dis- 
 mission from the church at Plymouth, many of 
 its members sought to dissuade him from his 
 design of removing from the colony, and were 
 reluctant to grant his request. He was, at 
 length, however, dismissed, at the instance of 
 Mr. Brewster, the ruling elder, who, probably, 
 disliking his views, urged upon the church that 
 he held dangerous opinions, and was even taint- 
 ed with the heresy of Anabaptism ; and, if he 
 remained among them, " might run the same 
 course of rigid separation and Anabaptistry " as 
 had a "Sebaptist" of the name of John Smyth, 
 whom they had known in Holland. 
 
 Of all the forms of heresy known in that age, 
 none, save Papacy alone, seems to have been so 
 frightful to the imagination of the Puritans as 
 Anabaptism ; a term which defined, in some 
 vague manner, the views of a sect who bap- 
 tized again those who united with them from 
 other denominations. A portion of those con- 
 nected with this sect in Germany, about the mid- 
 dle of the sixteenth century, embracing the doc- 
 trines of civil freedom, and led on by demagogues 
 and fanatics, had united with Catholics and Lu- 
 therans in a fierce and sanguinary contest against 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 27 
 
 their feudal masters, and waged for years the fu- 
 rious strife known as the Rustic War. So deter- 
 mined were their bravery and perseverance, and so 
 wide-spread was the dismay which their fanatical 
 insurrection had caused, that their supposed tenets 
 and character had come to be regarded with 
 horror throughout the Christian world. They 
 had always contended most strenuously against 
 all prescriptive right, whether of priest or of 
 king; and the doctrines of republican liberty, 
 and of individual independence, which they as- 
 sociated with their religious faith, were generally 
 regarded, in that age when the divine right of 
 kings had scarcely been questioned, as the germs 
 of every species of anarchy and disorder. 
 
 The very mention of the name of Anabap- 
 tism called up a train of phantoms, that never 
 failed to excite the apprehensions of the early 
 Puritans. Hence it was, that when Mr. Brews- 
 ter suggested even the remotest association of 
 Roger Williams with this heresy, the church 
 at Plymouth were easily induced to grant the 
 dismission which he had requested. A consid- 
 erable number of its members, however, who 
 had become attached to his ministry, were also 
 dismissed at the same time, and removed with 
 him to Salem. 
 
28 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 His second llesidence in Salem. — His Disap- 
 probation of the Ministers^ Meeting. — Trea- 
 tise concerning the King^s Patent. — Troubles 
 with the Magistrates on Account of it. — Con- 
 duct of Williams. — He preaches upon the 
 Duty of Women's wearing Veils. — Also 
 against the Cross in the Military Colors. — 
 His Character and Standing in Salem. 
 
 The early historians of the colony of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay have displayed far greater zeal in 
 setting forth the errors of doctrine imputed to 
 Roger Williams, than in framing any connected 
 narrative of the events with vv^hich he vv^as so in- 
 timately associated. They have with one accord 
 been eager to vindicate the proceedings of the 
 magistrates against him, but seem never to have 
 imagined that so troublesome a person would 
 ever become an object of interest to posterity, 
 and still less that his most offensive principles 
 would ever be regarded as the birthright of 
 humanity. Hence there is a singular confusion 
 of dates in the accounts, which have been given 
 of his second residence in Salem ; and, in nar- 
 rating the events of this important period of his 
 life, we cannot always be sure that we are fol- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 29 
 
 lowing the order of time, or pursuing the per- 
 manent relations of historical cause and effect. 
 
 Mr. Williams probably returned to Salem, as 
 has already been mentioned, in the latter part 
 of August of the year 1633. He resided there 
 a year after his removal from Plymouth, exer- 
 cising his ministry *'by way of prophecy," as it 
 was termed, before he was settled as pastor of 
 the church. This event took place on the death 
 of his aged friend, Mr. Skelton, in the summer 
 of 1634. During this year, however, he was 
 often harassed by the magistrates and elders 
 of the colony, and was more than once sum- 
 moned before the General Court to answer for 
 his opinions. 
 
 Soon after his return to Salem, we find him 
 joining with his associate in the church, the 
 Reverend Mr. Skelton, in caUing in question the 
 expediency of a meeting of ministers, which had 
 been estabUshed in tlie colony for the discussion 
 of questions in theology, and for other similar 
 purposes of mutual improvement. The ground 
 of the exception thus taken by the Salem min- 
 isters is alleged by Governor Winthrop to have 
 been, a fear " that it might grow, in time, to a 
 presbytery, or superintendency, to the prejudice 
 of the churches' liberties." This apprehension 
 indicates a mind jealous of the interests of lib- 
 erty, and, perhaps, somewhat inclined to mag- 
 
30 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 nify the perils to which it is always exposed 
 from clerical or ecclesiastical associations. The 
 apprehension was undoubtedly groundless ; yet 
 it will scarcely be denied, that it was the nat- 
 ural result of an experience such as that of 
 Roger Williams had been, both in England and 
 the colonies. It served to strengthen, and call 
 forth more fully, the suspicions of his orthodoxy, 
 which had already been awakened in the minds 
 of the clergy, and was doubtless one in the 
 long train of circumstances, that led on the pro- 
 ceedings against him. 
 
 But it was not alone in trifling matters like 
 this, that the suspicious vigilance of the magis- 
 trates and the elders found occasions on which 
 to display itself. The workings of his free and 
 fearless mind soon gave cause for more serious 
 offence. During his residence at Plymouth, he 
 had drawn up and presented to the Governor 
 and Council of that colony, a treatise on the 
 nature of the right claimed by the monarchs of 
 the several nations of Christendom to dispose 
 of the countries of barbarous tribes, by virtue 
 of discovery. In this treatise, says Governor 
 Winthrop, "among other things, he disputed 
 their right to the land they possessed, and con- 
 cluded, that, claiming by the King's grant, they 
 could have no title, nor otherwise, except they 
 compounded with the natives." The offensive 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 31 
 
 manuscript, though it had never been published, 
 and was not even written in Massachusetts, he 
 was yet required to dehver to the Governor for 
 examination ; and, as was usual in all the im- 
 portant proceedings of the colonial government, 
 the advice of the ministers was taken, and he 
 was ordered to appear at the next Court, to re- 
 ceive censure. In the treatise he had written, 
 there were, the Governor proceeds to say, " three 
 passages whereat they were much offended. 
 First, for that he chargeth King James to have 
 told a solemn public lie, because in his patent 
 he blessed God, that he was the first Christian 
 prince that discovered this land. Secondly, for 
 that he chargeth him and others with blas- 
 phemy, for calling Europe Christendom, or the 
 Christian world. Thirdly, for that he did per- 
 sonally apply to our present King Charles, these 
 three places in the Revelations, viz." — The pas- 
 sages themselves, unfortunately for the reader's 
 curiosity, the Governor has failed to mention. 
 
 This treatise, if it was ever published, has 
 not been preserved ; and the only account, 
 which has been given of it, let it be remem- 
 bered, is that of the very magistrate by whom 
 it was required for examination. But, taking 
 even the version thus furnished, which, on the 
 very best construction, is liable to savor, in 
 some degree, at least, of an ex parte statement, 
 
32 . AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the act of the General Court can be regarded 
 as nothing less than a despotic exercise of ab- 
 solute power. It demanded from the privacy 
 of his own desk an unpublished manuscript, 
 which he had written within another jurisdic- 
 tion, on a great subject of abstract right and of 
 natural law, and summoned him to appear and 
 receive censure for the opinions it contained. 
 Why these opinions should have been thus 
 offensive to the fathers of Massachusetts, it is 
 now by no means easy to determine. They 
 did not essentially differ from the practice of 
 the early colonists, who, in all cases, made some 
 remuneration to the natives for the lands which 
 they occupied ; nor were they at all at variance 
 with the original instructions given by the British 
 cabinet to Endicott and the settlers at Salem. 
 The language of these instructions was, '' If any 
 of the salvages pretend right of inheritance to 
 all, or any part of the lands granted in our 
 patent, we pray you endeavor to purchase their 
 tytle, that we may avoid the least scruple of in- \ 
 trusion." * The great principle of natural right, f 
 on which those practices and instructions were 
 founded, had presented itself with surprising 
 clearness to the mind of Roger Williams, and 
 he fearlessly accepted the conclusions to which 
 
 * Bancroft, VdI. I. p. 346. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 33 
 
 it conducted him. So strongly had they taken 
 possession of his mind, that he addressed a let- 
 ter to the King himself, as he says, "not with- 
 out the approbation of some of the chiefs of 
 New England, then tender also upon this point 
 before God," " humbly acknowledging the evil 
 of that part of the patent, which respects the 
 donation of land."* 
 
 Had these opinions proceeded from a different 
 source, or been advocated with less clearness 
 and boldness, it is probable they might have 
 given less offence to the magistrates, and oc- 
 casioned their author far less trouble. But, 
 coming from one who was already an object 
 of suspicion, and calling in question, as they 
 plainly did, the principle of the King's patents, 
 they seemed, both to the Court and the clergy, 
 to be the expressions alike of heresy and sedi- 
 tion. It was, undoubtedly, on this account, that 
 the Court, who in this, as in other instances, 
 extended their jurisdiction over the opinions as 
 well as the actions of the people, thus arbitra- 
 rily summoned him to appear before them and 
 receive censure. 
 
 The conduct of Mr. Williams, under this 
 harassing treatment of the authorities, was such 
 as reflects the highest honor both upon the 
 
 * Reply to Mr. Cotton, p. 277. 
 VOL. IV. 3 
 
34 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 firmness and clearness of his understanding, and 
 upon the feelings of his heart. He comphed 
 with the orders of the Court, odious and offen- 
 sive to his sense of right as they must have 
 been, and wrote letters to the magistrates, al- 
 leging that his treatise had been written " only 
 for the private satisfaction of the Governor of 
 Plymouth ; " and, with expressions of penitence, 
 if he had committed any wrong, and of loyalty 
 to the King, though without renouncing his 
 opinions, he submissively offered the manuscript 
 to be burned. He has often been charged with 
 obstinacy and troublesome pertinacity ; but, in 
 this case, for once at least, he displayed a 
 spirit entirely the reverse, and which seems to 
 have surprised and subdued even his bitterest 
 persecutors ; for, says the historian, " they found 
 the matters not to be so evil as at first they 
 seemed." Thus were his firm adherence to the 
 principles of justice, and the clear convictions 
 of his reason, mellowed with the mild spirit of 
 Christian forbearance; and thus, even amidst 
 oppression and outrage, did he manifest that 
 sublime charity which thinketh no evil, which 
 suffereth long, and is kind. 
 
 It is not essential to the ends of this me- 
 moir to attempt even a sketch of any of the 
 numerous public disputes that so often and so 
 deeply agitated that age of controversy. Their 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 35 
 
 history is a melancholy record of the struggles, 
 and bigotry, and strife, through which our New 
 England society was made to pass, before it 
 emerged into the universal tolerance, the quiet 
 repose, the friendly association, of the different 
 forms of religious faith, which now characterize 
 our happy communities. With but few of these 
 was Roger Williams, in any manner, particu- 
 larly connected. During his second residence 
 at Salem, he is said to have preached to his 
 congregation upon the duty of women to wear 
 veils in all public assemblies, a question which 
 appears to have been quite seriously discussed 
 among the ministers of the colony. The doc- 
 trine was controverted by Mr. Cotton, who, 
 happening to preach at Salem while the ques- 
 tion was occupying public attention, showed, to 
 the satisfaction of his hearers, that the custom 
 ^' had no sufficient foundation in Scripture." 
 The introduction of such topics into the pulpit 
 was by no means confined to Roger Williams ; 
 for, in those days, the minister was in the habit 
 of discussing, in his sermons, every topic of 
 legislation and of manners, as well as of mor- 
 als and religion. John Eliot, the noble-minded 
 apostle to the Indians, and President Chaun- 
 cy, the head of Harvard College, preached 
 earnest and learned discourses on the practice / 
 of wearing wigs ; and, in 1649, the whole body I 
 
36 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the magistrates, with Endicott at their head, 
 signed a solemn protest against the custom of 
 men's wearing long hair, and requested the clergy 
 to preach against it, "as a thing uncivil and 
 unmanly, whereby men do deform themselves, 
 and offend sober and modest men, and do cor- 
 rupt good manners."* 
 
 In another of the ephemeral controversies of 
 the day, Mr. Wilhams appears to have taken a 
 larger share. The military ensign then estab- 
 lished as the colors of the several regiments of 
 the English army, contained, among its devices, 
 the sign of the cross. Williams delivered a 
 discourse on the unlawfulness of all ceremonies 
 and symbols, which had been borrowed from 
 the service of idolatry, or of Popery, on the 
 ground that their use tended to lead men back 
 to superstition and false religion. In accord- 
 ance with this doctrine, which, indeed, was one 
 of the favorite principles of the Puritans, Mr. 
 Endicott, one of the magistrates of Salem, or- 
 , dered the cross to be cut out of the colors ; an 
 ^ act which, in some of its features, bore the 
 appearance of treason against the King, and 
 which, for a time, was productive of no little 
 strife among the disputatious colonists of the 
 Bay. The matter was referred to the Governor 
 
 * Hutchinson's Hisl. of Mass. Vol. 1. p. 143. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 37; 
 
 and the General Court, and stirred deeply 
 the fountains of public sentiment, and was at 
 length settled only by a species of compromise, 
 by leaving the odious symbol out of the colors 
 of the companies in the colony, and retaining 
 it in the flag of the castle, and in those of the 
 shipping in the harbor. 
 
 The incidents narrated above occurred during 
 the period in which Mr. Williams had been 
 performing the duties of a minister in Salem, 
 in the capacity of assistant to the pastor of the 
 church. By the assiduity and faithfulness with 
 which he had discharged these duties, and the 
 character he had ever maintained in the com- 
 munity, he won for his ministry the respect of 
 the people, and attained to high standing and 
 influence, both as a clergyman and a citizen. 
 Accordingly, on the death of Mr. Skelton, he 
 was invited by the church to become their 
 teacher. Against this invitation, as against that 
 which had been given him on a former occa- 
 sion, the Court sent their decided remonstrance, 
 and requested the church at Salem not to 
 ordain him. The church, however, with a be- 
 coming independence, disregarded the remon- 
 strance, and Mr. Williams was regularly insti- 
 tuted in the pastoral office in August, 1634. 
 This act was regarded by the Court as a high- 
 handed conteniDt of their authority, which was 
 
38 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 not soon forgiven, and, as a subsequent chap- 
 ter will show, was at length punished in a most 
 remarkable and characteristic manner. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 His Doctrine of the Freedom of Conscience. — 
 The Difficulty in which it involves him with 
 the Clergy and Magistrates. — His Opposition 
 to the Freeman's Oath. — The Persecution of 
 the Magistrates extends to the People of Sa- 
 lem. — He is deserted by his Church. — The 
 Judgment of the Clergy. — The Decree of 
 Banishment. — He leaves Salem. 
 
 From the period of Mr. Williams's final set- 
 tlement as the teacher of the church in Salem, 
 may be dated the beginning of the controversy 
 with the clergy and Court of Massachusetts, 
 which, at length, terminated in his banishment 
 from the colony. He was surrounded by men, 
 both in ecclesiastical and civil life, whose minds 
 were, as yet, incapable of forming a concep- 
 tion of the great principle of spiritual freedom, 
 which had taken full possession of his soul, 
 and which was now gradually moulding all his 
 opinions, and, by unseen agencies, shaping the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 39 
 
 destiiiy, which the future had in store for him. 
 He behoved that no human power had the 
 right to intermeddle in matters of conscience ; 
 and that neither church nor state, neither bish- 
 op nor priest nor King, may prescribe the 
 smallest iota of religious faith. For this, he 
 maintained, a man is responsible to God alone. 
 This principle, now so familiar and well-es- 
 tablished, was, in all its applications, entirely at 
 variance with the whole structure of society in 
 the colony of Massachusetts ; and every new as- 
 sertion of it on the part of Mr. Williams, or 
 of any of the doctrines which he had connected 
 with it, was sure to lead him into new collision 
 with the authorities. Hence it was, that every| 
 expression of his opinions seemed to be heresy, 
 and almost every act of his life a protest 
 against the legislation and the customs of the 
 people among whom he lived. His preaching 
 was faithful, his doctrines on all the great essen- 
 tials of Christian faith were sound, and his life 
 was of blameless purity. Yet he was fast falling 
 beneath the ban both of civil and ecclesiastical 
 proscription. His own church had expressed 
 their confidence in his character; but beyond 
 his fellow-citizens of Salem, there was none 
 that extended to him the hand of fellowship, 
 or expressed the slightest sympathy with the 
 great truths that were struggling in his mind. 
 
40 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The occurrences, which have already been 
 related, had undoubtedly , confirmed the preju- 
 dices of the magistrates, and exerted an impor- 
 tant influence in hastening on the severe pro- 
 ceedings, which were finally adopted against 
 him. It has also been said that these occur- 
 rences were deemed more flagrant and dan- 
 gerous in consequence of a feeling of jealousy, 
 which existed at that time between Boston and 
 Salem. Boston was the residence of the Gov- 
 ernor and of most of the Council. It was also 
 the capital of the colony, and the centre of 
 both civil and religious influence and authority. 
 It would not be strange, therefore, if the views 
 of a minister of Salem should be regarded with 
 suspicion more readily than would have been 
 the case with a minister of Boston. The repu- 
 tation of Mr. Williams among his own townsmen 
 was of high order and of unsullied purity. He 
 had brought with him to Salem some of the in- 
 habitants of Plymouth, who were attached to his 
 ministry, and it may have been feared that, in 
 connection with other causes, his resolute spirit 
 and popular talents would give an importance 
 to the town that might eclipse the metropolis. 
 However this may have been, but few ses- 
 /sions of the Court were held, during his second 
 residence in Salem, at which he was not sum- 
 moned to appear, or at which his opinions oi 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 41 
 
 conduct were not, in some manner, the subject 
 of complaint and reprobation. A few months 
 after his settlement as pastor of the church, 
 we find him again obnoxious to the Court for 
 having publicly called in question the King's pat- 
 ent, and also "for usual terming the churches 
 of England antichristian." Again, in the fol- 
 lowing April, 1635, the Governor and assistants 
 summoned him to appear at Boston. " The oc- 
 casion was," as appears from the Journal of 
 Governor Winthrop, " that he had taught publicly 
 that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath 
 to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby 
 have communion with a wicked man in the 
 worship of God, and cause him to take the 
 name of God in vain. He was heard before 
 all the ministers, and very clearly confuted." 
 So says the Governor. Had Mr. Williams given 
 a version of the argument, the result might 
 have been stated differently. 
 
 The opinion of Mr. Williams, here referred 
 to, seems to have been called forth on the oc- 
 casion of the Court's enacting what is known 
 by the name of the " Freeman's Oath." This 
 oath was appointed from an apprehension of 
 " Episcopal and malignant practices against the 
 country," in order to test the fidelity of the 
 people of the colony. It in reality changed the 
 obliarations of alleoiance from the government of 
 
42 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 King Charles to the government of Massachusetts, 
 and, by an order of the Court, was imposed upon 
 every man of sixteen years of age and upwards, 
 upon tlie penalty of his being punished, in case 
 of refusing to take it, at the discretion of the 
 Court. Williams opposed the oath, as contrary 
 to the charter, and as inconsistent with the 
 duty of British subjects ; and, in the course of 
 his opposition, he developed his singular views 
 of the nature of an oath. His great principle 
 of the liberty of conscience led him to doubt*^ 
 the right of the colony to impose an oath; and 
 his opposition was so determined, that ^' the 
 government was forced to desist from that pro- 
 ceeding." 
 
 His opinions upon this subject appear to 
 have been maintained by a train of reason- 
 ing peculiar to himself; and, though unfolded 
 somewhat at length in some of his subsequent 
 writings, they are yet by no means easy of full 
 comprehension. He seems to have regarded an 
 oath as in some sense an act of worship, which 
 was to be entered upon only on the most se- 
 rious occasions, and with devout feelings, and 
 which, like any other act of worship, the civil 
 magistrate had no right to enforce against the 
 consent of the individual. His opinions, it would 
 appear, were formed while living in England ; 
 it may be, from an observation of the iight 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 43 
 
 manner in which oaths were administered, and 
 of the offensive formaUty of kissing the Bible, 
 which was usually connected with their admin- 
 istration. In his reply to George Fox, he de- 
 clares, that he has submitted to the loss of 
 large sums in the courts of England, rather 
 than yield to these formalities, though he did 
 not object to taking the oath without them; 
 which the judges, he says, were unwilling to ad- 
 jjiit, without an act of Parliament. 
 
 The controversy with the authorities of Mas- 
 sachusetts, in which the principles of Williams 
 had impelled him to engage, was now becoming 
 every day more violent, and running into almost 
 every act of the Court, and every relation of 
 social life. They still maintained a connection 
 with the Church of England, and manifested a 
 respect for its institutions. Williams retained a 
 vivid recollection of its intolerant acts, and boldly 
 declared its ^' bloody tenet of persecution," as 
 he termed it, to be ^'most lamentably contrary 
 to the doctrine of Jesus Christ." The magis- 
 trates enacted a law, requiring every man to at- ; 
 tend public worship, and to contribute to its j 
 support. This he denounced as an open viola- 
 tion of natural rights, and the prolific source of 
 every form of persecution. " No one," said he, 
 " should be bound to maintain a worship against 
 his own consent." Tlie ablest divines were ap- 
 
44 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 pointed to reason with him, and to confute the 
 heresies that seemed wrought into his very be- 
 ing. But it was all in vain. His opinions were 
 misrepresented, and carried out to absurd and 
 unauthorized conclusions, and these were charged 
 upon him as essential parts of his doctrine ; but 
 he contented himself simply with denying what 
 he did not believe, and reiterating, with irre- 
 pressible boldness, the faith which he held. This 
 faith set a clear and well-defined hmit to the 
 exercise of the civil power. "It extends," said 
 he, with singular accuracy and clearness of per- 
 ception, '* only to the bodies, and goods, and out- 
 ward estates of men ;" with conscience and with 
 religious opinions " the civil magistrate may not 
 intermeddle, even to stop a church from apostasy 
 and heresy." These were the opinions that in- 
 flamed the whole body of the divines, and called 
 down upon his head the sternest censures from 
 both the civil and ecclesiastical heads of the 
 colony. 
 
 While affairs were in this condition, the peo- 
 ple of Salem preferred to the Court a claim for 
 a tract of land lying in Marblehead Neck ; but 
 the Court, as a punishment for the contempt of 
 autliority the town had shown in setthng Mr. 
 Williams, refused to allow the claim. The reason 
 of the refusal was imbodied in the decision it- 
 self. This reckless mingling together of mat- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 45 
 
 ters entirely separate and independent, Williams 
 taught his church strongly to resent, as an act 
 of flagrant injustice. In conjunction with the 
 church, he wrote " letters of admonition unto 
 all the churches, whereof any of the magistrates 
 were members, that they might admonish the 
 magistrates of their injustice." * This course, in 
 our times, would be called appealing to the peo- 
 ple ; for the members of the churches alone 
 were freemen of the colony, and in the absence 
 of that great redresser of wrongs, the public 
 presSjf it was the only mode in which the gen- 
 eral sense of justice could be effectually ad- 
 dressed. But the democratic principle was then 
 in its infancy, and the right of instruction to 
 the deputies of the people, now so frequently 
 exercised, was at that time but imperfectly un- 
 derstood. The Court, therefore, were not to be 
 diverted by any apprehension of popular disap- 
 probation. The act of Williams and his church, 
 in thus presuming to appeal from the decision 
 of the magistrates to the tribunal of public sen- 
 timent, seemed to them little less than open 
 rebellion ; and at the next meeting of the Court, 
 
 * Master John Cotton's Reply to Roger Williams. 
 
 f The first newspaper in the American colonies was 
 commenced at Boston, in 1704. It was called "Tiie Bos- 
 ton NeAvs-Letter." 
 
46 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ' the deputies of Salem were deprived of their 
 seats until the letter had been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained, and ample apology had been made for 
 their participation in its authorship and doc- 
 trines. 
 
 J The town of Salem submitted to the dis- 
 franchisement, and its deputies made the apology 
 which was demanded, though not till after Mr. 
 ;Endicott, the principal deputy, had suffered im- 
 ;prisonment for his adherence to the doctrines of 
 the letter. Williams, at this juncture, addressed 
 another letter to his church, urging them to re- 
 nounce all communion with the other churches 
 of the colony ; but they had been humbled by 
 the magistrates, and refused any longer to second 
 ;;the views of their teacher. 
 
 When, on a former occasion, in his treatise 
 concerning the patent, he had been charged by 
 the Court with disowning his allegiance to the 
 King, he had explained his views, and had given 
 his book to the Governor to be burned. But 
 now his principles and his conduct required no 
 explanation, and by him, at least, they were not 
 to be retracted. They were the deepest-seated 
 principles of his moral nature, and could be sur- 
 rendered only with existence itself. Alone in 
 his maintenance of them, when his townsmen 
 and his church had all yielded to the mandate 
 of power, and deserted him ; when even his wife, 
 
HOG Ell VvILLlAMS. 47 
 
 it may be fearing the consequences that were \ 
 already threatening her family, added her en- / 
 treaties, and even her reproaches, to swell the 
 tide that was setting against him ; he stands 
 boldly forth, the sublimest moral object of the 
 time, and calmly waits the storm that is fiercely 
 driving towards him. The ministers, with Mr. 
 Cotton and Mr. Hooker at their head, sent a 
 committee to Salem, to deal with him, and cen- 
 sure him ; but he disowned their spiritual juris- 
 diction, and declared himself '^ ready to be bound, 
 and banished, and even to die in New Eng- 
 land," rather than renounce the clear convic- 
 tions, which had been fastened more firmly upon 
 his understanding by the persecutions he had 
 suffered. He felt that a great principle was 
 committed to him to maintain and defend ; that , 
 '• the removal of the yoke of soul-oppression " ) 
 was worthy to task his best energies, and to call 
 forth the costliest sacrifices. He plainly de- 
 lighted himself with anticipating the results of 
 the spiritual freedom for which he was contend- 
 ing, and pictured to his imagination the bless- 
 ings that would follow in its train ; and he 
 bound himself to the conclusion, expressed in 
 his own strong language, that, '' as it will prove 
 an act of mercy and righteousness to the en- 
 slaved nations, so it is of binding force to en-/ 
 gage the whole and every interest and con- 
 
.48 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 / science to preserve the common liberty and 
 
 • peace." 
 
 The controversy having arrived at a crisis Hke 
 this, the ministers, at the request of the court, 
 assembled to consider his case, and to give their 
 advice to the magistrates. They '' professedly 
 declared " that he deserved to be banished from 
 the colony for maintaining the doctrine " that 
 the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even 
 to stop a church fiom apostasy and heresy," 
 and that the churches ought to request the magis- 
 trates to remove him. Thus was the opinion 
 of the ecclesiastical authorities plainly and fully 
 declared, and the sentence of the civil power 
 was not long delayed. 
 
 In July, he was summoned to Boston, to an- 
 swer to the charges brought against him at the 
 General Court, which was then in session. He 
 was here, before the highest tribunal of the col- 
 ony, solemnly charged with the crime of main- 
 taining the follov/ing dangerous opinions. First, 
 That the magistrate ought not to punish the 
 breach of the first table, otherwise than in such 
 cases as did disturb the civil peace. Secondly, 
 That he ought not to tender an oath to an un- 
 jegenerate man. Thirdly, That he ought not to 
 pray with such, though wife, child, &c. Fourthly, 
 That a man ought not to give thanks after sac- 
 
R O G S II W 1 L L I A M S . 49 
 
 rameiit, nor after meat." * These several charges 
 may have represented his opinions very imper- 
 fectly ; but even supposing them to be perfectly 
 accurate expressions of the views which he really 
 entertained, they yet seem strange matters for 
 the action of a civil tribunal of legislators and 
 magistrates. 
 
 In the trial of Roger Williams, if trial it may 
 be called, there appears to have been no ex- 
 amination of witnesses, and no hearing of coun- 
 sel. In all the colony, there were none to raise 
 a question of jurisdiction, save alone the indi- 
 vidual accused ; and in raising this question his 
 very crime consisted. The charges were the sub- 
 ject of long and serious debate, which terminated 
 in allowing him and the church in Salem '' time 
 to consider these things till the next General 
 Court, and then, either to give satisfaction, or to 
 expect the sentence." The interval, we may 
 readily imagine, was a period of no common 
 excitement among the churches and towns of 
 Massachusetts Bay. The contest was one that 
 could not fail to awaken the deepest interest 
 among men entertaining views of government 
 and religion like those prevalent among the early 
 Puritans. On one side was arrayed the whole 
 power of the civil government, supported by the 
 
 * Winthrop's Journal , Vol. L p. 162. 
 voh. IV. 4 
 
50 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 united voice of the clergy, and by the general 
 sentiment of the people ; on the other was a 
 single individual, a minister of the gospel, of dis- 
 tinguished talents and of blameless life, w^ho yet 
 had ventured to assert the freedom of conscience, 
 aibd to deny the jurisdiction of any human author- 
 ity in controlling its dictates or decisions. The 
 purity of the churches, and the cause of sound 
 doctrine, were thought to be in peril, and all 
 waited with eager expectation to know the issue 
 of this first schism that had sprung up among 
 the Pilgrim bands of New England. 
 
 The next General Court was held in October, 
 1635. Mr. Williams was again summoned be- 
 fore the Court, and appeared for the last time. 
 His opinions had not changed. He had been 
 deserted by most of those, who at first had made 
 common cause with him ; but he still stood firm, 
 the undaunted champion of the principles which 
 he had espoused. The Court themselves were 
 as little inclined to abandon the ground they 
 had taken. Instructed by the advice they had 
 received from the ministers, they decided, though 
 not by a large majority of the members, that he 
 
 i should depart out of their jurisdiction within six 
 
 i weeks. 
 
 The following is the act of banishment, as it 
 stands upon the colony records. " Whereas, 
 Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 51 
 
 church of Salem, hath broached and divulged 
 divers new and dangerous opinions against the 
 authority of magistrates ; as also writ letters of 
 defamation, both of the magistrates and churches 
 here, and that before any conviction, and yet 
 maintaineth the same without any retractation ; it 
 is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams 
 shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six 
 weeks now next ensuing, which if he neglect 
 to perform, it shall be lawful for the Governor 
 and two of the magistrates to send him to some 
 place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any 
 more without license from the Court." 
 
 The records also contain the following decree, 
 which was passed at the same Court, and which 
 serves to illustrate the inquisitorial spirit of the 
 tribunal, which banished Roger Williams, and 
 which, in so many other instances, asserted its 
 jurisdiction over the thoughts and the opinions 
 of men. " Mr. Samuel Sharpe is enjoined to 
 appear at the next particular Court, to answer 
 for the letter, that came from the church of Sa- 
 lem, as also to bring the names of those that 
 ivill justify the same, or else to acknowledge his 
 offence under his own hand, for his own par- 
 ticular." * 
 
 The sentence of banishment was passed or 
 
 * Savage's Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 167, note. 
 
5'2 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the 3d of November ; all the ministers, save one, 
 approving it. Though it must have been an- 
 ticipated, and perhaps even hoped for, yet its 
 final passage was productive of no small re- 
 action and excitement among the more quiet 
 citizens and the sober-minded laymen of the col- 
 ony. Especially in Salem, it is said, the whole 
 community was in an uproar. The time was 
 soon after extended so as to allow him to re- 
 main till spring. But his presence was soon 
 found to endanger too much the orthodoxy of 
 the people. It was complained to the Court, 
 that he still persisted in maintaining and utter- 
 ing his opinions ; that many of the people, " ta- 
 ken with an apprehension of his godliness," re- 
 sorted to his house to listen to his teachings, 
 and that he was preparing to withdraw with 
 them from Massachusetts, and form a settlement 
 upon Narragansett Bay. 
 
 The neighborhood of a new colony, thus 
 founded upon the principles of Roger Williams, 
 was the subject of no very agreeable anticipa- 
 tion to the fathers of Massachusetts; and upon 
 receiving the information, they determined to 
 send him to England, by a ship tf.en lying in 
 the harbor ready for sea. 
 
 For this purpose, he received another sum 
 mons to attend the Court at Boston. It was 
 now winter. His health was impaired by the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 53 
 
 labors he had endured, and the excitements 
 through which he had passed. Injustice and 
 oppression, the desertion of his friends, and the 
 hard speeches of his enemies, had wounded his 
 spirit, though they had not imbittered the feel- 
 ings of his heart. He sent an answer, refusing 
 to obey the summons of the Court, which was 
 borne to Boston by '' divers of the people of 
 Salem," alleging, at the same time, as a reason 
 of his refusal, the ill health from which he was 
 suffering. 
 
 But the magistrates were not thus to be de- 
 feated. They sent a small sloop, or pinnace, 
 to Salem, with a warrant to Captain Underbill 
 to apprehend him, and carry him on board the 
 ship, which was to sail immediately for Eng- 
 land. When, however, the officers went to his 
 house, they found his wife and children, but 
 he had already gone three days before. 
 
 Had the warrant of the magistrates found 
 him still in Salem, the name of Roger Wil- 
 liams would have been linked with far other 
 scenes and achievements than those with which 
 it is now forever associated. He would have 
 been transported back to England, and, in- 
 stead of becoming the founder of a state in 
 the American confederacy, and passing his life 
 in the comparative obscurity of a New England 
 settlement, he might have vindicated the cause 
 
64 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of freedom in the British Parhament, and be- 
 come a sharer in the triumphs and defeats 
 through which it passed in that age of revolu- 
 tion and crime ; in England, as in America, he 
 would still have asserted the same great princi- 
 ples ; and history might have blazoned his bril- 
 liant deeds, and recorded his name with those 
 of Hampden, and Milton, and Sir Henry Vane, 
 his friends and illustrious compeers in the same 
 noble cause. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 His Wanderings after his Banishment. — He vis- 
 its Massasoit, and begins a Settlement at See- 
 TconJc. — He crosses the River, and lays the 
 Foundations of Providence. 
 
 It was in circumstances like these, that the 
 founder of Rhode Island was compelled to 
 leave the colony, to which he had fled to es- 
 cape the yoke of ecclesiastical tyranny in Eng- 
 land. It was like a second exile, rendered the 
 more difficult to be borne, because of the hands 
 by which it was forced upon him, and the 
 wintry solitude into which it drove him forth. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 55 
 
 The approbation which the ministers gave to 
 the act by which he was banished, was much 
 more nearly unanimous than the vote of the 
 magistrates by which it had been passed. In- 
 deed, the whole proceeding had its origin in a 
 mistaken, though, doubtless, sincere regard for 
 the interests of religion. Though the language 
 of the sentence charges him with defamation 
 of ^^.e magistrates, yet it was only in denying 
 their jurisdiction in matters of conscience, and 
 in condemning their unjust proceedings, that 
 this defamation consisted. It was not pretend- 
 ed that he had violated any law, that he had 
 been guilty of any immoral act, or even that 
 he had proved faithless to any trust, either as 
 a minister or a citizen ; his opinions were his 
 only crimes, and for these, and these alone, 
 did the Court of Massachusetts decide to send 
 him from their jurisdiction. 
 
 From the narrative which has already been 
 given, it is plain that the head and front of his 
 offending consisted in his maintaining, that the 
 civil magistrate has no right to interfere with 
 religious opinions. Of the truth of this princi- 
 ple, and of its paramount importance to the 
 well-being of society, there is no longer any 
 room for question. It is now the cherished 
 sentiment of the people of this country, and is 
 rapidly extending its sway throughout the Prot- 
 
56 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 estant world. In the mind of Roger Williams, 
 even at an early period of life, it was clearly 
 conceived, and earnestly pressed to its legit- 
 imate results ; though it was there mingled with 
 other opinions, with which it had no natural 
 connection. It may also be admitted, that, while 
 in Massachusetts, he advocated his principle 
 with too urgent a zeal, and with too little re- 
 gard for the prevailing opinions of the age ; 
 but, after making every allowance that either 
 justice or charity can claim, his banishment 
 must still be regarded as an arbitrary proceed- 
 ing, utterly without foundation either in jus- 
 tice or in state necessity. It was the offspring 
 of a principle that would justify every species 
 of tyranny, and it will forever remain among 
 the few spots that tarnish the escutcheon of 
 Massachusetts, otherwise radiant with unnum- 
 bered virtues. 
 
 At the period to which this narrative relates, 
 how different was the aspect of New England 
 from that which she now presents ! From 
 the shores of Massachusetts Bay to tiie shores 
 of the Narragansett, is now a pleasant excur- 
 sion of a few hours, through busy villages and 
 cultivated fields, and across a region diversified 
 everywhere with the innumerable occupations 
 and the ever-cheerful sights and sounds of civ- 
 ilized life. But, at the time of Roger Wil- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 57 
 
 liams's banishment, none of these had even begun 
 to be. The only settlements of white men, in 
 the district now comprising the states of Mas- 
 sachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, 
 were scattered along the coast from Cape Cod 
 to Portsmouth. The colonists, in that early day, 
 had seldom travelled far into the interior. The 
 whole extent of country stretching northward 
 from the ocean, between Boston or Plymouth on 
 the east, and the Pawtucket or Seekonk River on 
 the west, now embracing several thickly-peopled 
 counties of the state of Massachusetts, was then 
 a wide wilderness, interspersed with thick for- 
 ests, and presenting scarcely a single dwelling 
 of civilized man. 
 
 It was in January, 1636, the sternest month 
 of a New England winter, when Roger Wil- 
 liams left his wife and babes in Salem, in order 
 to escape the warrant, that would have con- 
 ducted him to the ship then waiting to bear him 
 to England. He went forth an exiled man, to 
 trust his life and fortunes to the rough chances 
 of the wilderness, that then skirted the colonies 
 of Plymouth and of Massachusetts Bay. Seldom 
 has an exile for opinion's sake been driven 
 from a Christian community to encounter more 
 severe necessities, or endure more crushing pri- 
 vations. He was without companions, and with- 
 out a place of refuge from the severities of the 
 
58 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 pitiless season. Though he has left no detailed 
 account of his wanderings, yet here and there 
 a scattered allusion, in his writings, tells us how 
 wretched must have been his exiled condition. 
 In a letter to his friend Major Mason, written 
 thirty-five years afterwards, he speaks of still 
 feeUng its effects. ''I was sorely tossed," says 
 he, " for fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter sea- 
 son, not knowing what bread or bed did 
 mean." * 
 
 In the absence of authentic narrative, the 
 imagination calls up the desolate aspect of 
 New England two hundred years ago, and pic- 
 tures the scene of his ^' sorrowful flight." Be- 
 fore him spread the wide forest, covered with 
 the deep snows of midwinter, tracked by wild 
 beasts, whose numbers and ferocity civilization 
 had not yet diminished, and diversified only by 
 occasional groups of the inhospitable dwellings 
 of the Indians. Behind him were his family 
 and his home, in the settlements from which he 
 had been banished for conscience' sake. Pro- 
 vided only with the poorest means of subsist- 
 ence, separated from the commonest charities 
 
 * Upon this period in the life of the fatlier of Rhode 
 Island, one of the gifted sons of that state has founded 
 the epic narrative of " JFhat Cheer, or Roger JVilliams in 
 Banishment^'' an liistorical poem of unusual fidelity to his- 
 tory, and containing passages of great beauty and pathos. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 59 
 
 of civilized life, how heavily must those dreary 
 weeks have rolled away ! The winter's storm 
 roars in the forest, the howl of the wolf and 
 the scream of the panther are borne upon the 
 blast; but his only shelter is a hollow tree, or 
 the comfortless cabins of the savages. Yet this 
 outcast man, whom rulers had banished, whom 
 churches and clergy had proscribed, bears with 
 him, in his desert wanderings, a great doctrine 
 of Christian ethics, an eternal principle of civil 
 right, of inestimable importance to all mankind. 
 He alone comprehends it in its true signifi- 
 cance ; and, as an apostle commissioned from 
 Heaven, he alone has preached it to a blind 
 and bigoted age. If he perishes amidst the 
 fury of the storm, or from the rage of wild 
 beasts, or of savage men, there is not another 
 in New England, perhaps not in Christendom, 
 who fully comprehends it, and dares assert it. 
 
 But he was not destined thus to perish. In 
 the days of his prosperity, he had assiduously 
 cultivated the friendship of the Indians, who 
 visited the settlements of the colonists. He had 
 thus acquired the use of their language, and 
 now, in his time of need, when he presented 
 himself at their squalid cabins, a houseless wan- 
 derer, they received him to their rude hospital- 
 ity. "These ravens," says he, "fed me in the 
 wilderness." And, in after hfe, he ever ac- 
 
60 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 knowledged, with pious gratitude, the Provi- 
 dence that watched over him, and protected 
 him amidst the sufferings and perils through 
 which he passed. 
 
 Of the incidents that befell him in his soli- 
 tary wanderings, after leaving Salem, a few 
 words will suffice to tell all that can be gleaned 
 from his writings ; and this is to be gathered 
 rather from incidental allusions than from any- 
 narrative he has left. These are found mainly 
 in the letter to Major Mason, to which refer- 
 ence has already been made. It bears date at 
 Providence, June 22d, 1670, and makes men- 
 tion of the following interesting fact, that serves 
 to show how the spirit of humanity, at least in 
 some of the Massachusetts magistrates, struggled 
 with the perverted sense of duty, which dic- 
 tated his banishment. At the time of his leav- 
 ing Salem, Governor Winthrop, who, the year 
 before, had been supplanted in the chief magis- 
 tracy of the colony by Thomas Dudley,* wrote 
 to Williams " to steer his course to the Narra- 
 gansett Bay and Indians," as a region as yet 
 unappropriated by any of the patents of the 
 King. " I took," says he, " his prudent motion 
 as a hint and voice from God ; and, waiving all 
 
 * Mr. Haynes, the successor of Dudley, was Governor 
 wlien Williams was banished. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 61 
 
 Other thoughts and motions, I steered my course 
 from Salem, (though in winter snow, which I 
 feel yet,) unto these parts, wherein I may say, 
 Feniel ; I have seen the face of God." 
 
 It would appear that, when he fled from Sa- 
 lem, he made his way through the forest to 
 the lodges of the Pokanokets, who occupied the 
 country north from Mount Hope as far as 
 Charles River. Ousemaguin, or Massasoit, the 
 famous chief of this tribe, had known Mr. Wil- 
 liams when he lived in Plymouth, and had often 
 received presents and tokens of kindness at his 
 hands ; and now, in the days of his friendless 
 exile, the aged chief welcomed him to his cabin 
 at Mount Hope, and extended to him the pro- 
 tection and aid he required. He granted to 
 him a tract of land on the Seekonk River, to 
 which, at the opening of spring, he repaired, 
 and where " he pitched and began to build and 
 plant." * At this place, also, at the same time, 
 he was joined by a number of his friends from 
 Salem. Here he doubtless thought his wander- 
 ings were ended, and, with the friends who had 
 come to share his exile, he hoped to plant a 
 settlement that should be free forever from 
 
 * The spot, which was selected as the site of the new\ 
 settlement, is near the beautiful bend in the river, now \ 
 known as "Manton's Cove," a short distance above the | 
 upper bridoe, directly eastward of Providence. ^ 
 
62 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 " the yoke of soul-oppression," which the author- 
 ities of Massachusetts Bay had sought to fasten 
 on their necks. 
 
 But scarcely had the first dweUing been 
 raised in the new settlement, scarcely had the 
 corn, which they had planted, appeared above 
 the ground, when he was again disturbed, and 
 obliged to move still further from Christian 
 neighbors and the dwellings of civilized men 
 " I received a letter," says he, " from my ancient 
 friend, Mr. Winslow, then Governor of Plymouth, 
 professing his own and others' love and respect 
 for me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was 
 fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they 
 were loth to displease the Bay, to remove but 
 to the other side of the water; and then, he said, 
 I had the country before me, and might be as 
 free as themselves, and we should be loving 
 neighbors together." * 
 
 With the advice given him in this friendly 
 manner, and apparently without any sinister de- 
 sign, his experience had now taught him the 
 wisdom to comply. He accordingly soon aban- 
 doned the fields which he had planted, and the 
 dwelling he had begun to build, and embarked 
 in a canoe upon the Seekonk River, in quest of 
 another spot, where, unmolested, he might rear 
 
 * Letter to Mason. Mass. HisL Coll. Vol. I. p. 275. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 63 
 
 a home and plant a separate colony. There 
 were five others, who, having joined him at 
 Seekonk, bore him company in the excursion in 
 which he thus went forth to become the founder 
 of a city and a state. Tradition has handed 
 down, among the sons of these earliest citizens 
 of Rhode Island, the course and incidents of 
 their singular voyage. As the little bark, thus 
 freighted with the fortunes of a future state, was 
 borne along on the waters of the Seekonk, Wil- 
 liams was greeted by some Indians, from the 
 heights that rise on the western banks of the 
 stream, with the friendly salutation, ^ What 
 cheer, Netopl What cheer V and first came to land 
 at the spot now called Slate Rock, in the rear 
 of the mansion of His Excellency Governor 
 Fenner.* 
 
 After exchanging salutations with the Indians, 
 and, as is probable, obtaining some additional in- 
 formation concerning the country which stretched, 
 in summer's beauty, before him, he again em- 
 barked, and, coasting along the stream, passed 
 
 * The adjacent estate still bears the name of " What- \ 
 cheer." This land, Roger Williams says, he planted with ; 
 his own hands ; and by him it was conveyed to James Ellis, j 
 who soon after sold it to Arthur Fenner, the first of the j 
 ancient and respected family to whom it has ever since | 
 belonged. JSfetop means " friend." Williams's Key, p. 2. / 
 
64 A3IERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 round the headlands, now known as Fox Point, 
 and India Point, up the harbor, to the mouth 
 of the Mooshausic River. Here he landed, and, 
 upon the beautiful slope of the hill that ascends 
 from the river, he descried the spring around 
 which he commenced the first ^' plantations of 
 Providence." 
 
 It was in the latter part of June, 1636, as 
 well as can be ascertained, that Roger WilHams 
 and his companions began the settlement at the 
 mouth of the Mooshausic River. A little dis- 
 tance north of what is now the centre of the 
 city, the spring is still pointed out, which drew 
 the attention of the humble voyagers from See- 
 konk. Here, after so many wanderings, was the 
 weary exile to find a home, and to lay the 
 foundations of a city, which should be a per- 
 petual memorial of pious gratitude to the super- 
 intending Providence which had protected him 
 and guided him to the spot. How changed is 
 the scene in the lapse of two hundred years ! 
 Art and Wealth have covered with their beau- 
 tiful mansions the hill-side that rose in luxuriant 
 verdure before him, and Learning has erected 
 her halls upon its summit. The solitary place 
 has become a thickly-peopled city, the abode of 
 wealth and of elegance, and, instead of the deep 
 silence of nature, that then reigned over the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 65 
 
 scene, there are now heard, over hill, and plain, 
 and water, the hum of the spindle, the bustle 
 of trade, and the cheerful murmurs of busy 
 hfe. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The principal Indian Tribes of New England, 
 
 — Williams^ s Intercourse with them. — His Views 
 of their Rights, and his Influence with them, 
 
 — Freedom of the Colony at Providence. — Its 
 Government limited to civil Things. — Cir- 
 cumstances in which Williams is placed. 
 
 Of the numerous Indian tribes that occupied 
 the territory of New England at the period of 
 its first settlement by the whites, the most im- 
 portant were the Pokanokets, the Pequots, with 
 their tributaries, the Mohegans, and the Narra- 
 gansetts. The Pokanokets were scattered from 
 Mount Hope, over the region now comprised in 
 the counties of Bristol and Plymouth, in the 
 state of Massachusetts. This tribe, hke most of 
 the others on the coast, had been greatly re- 
 duced by the ravages of the pestilence, which, 
 a short period before the arrival of the Eng- 
 lish, had swept away such multitudes of the 
 
 VOL. IV. 5 
 
6o AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 aboriginal race. The Pequots and Mohegans 
 possessed the greater part of the state of Con- 
 necticut. They were the fiercest and most war- 
 like of all the New England tribes, and in their 
 intercourse with the English, they perpetually 
 manifested their treacherous and hostile spirit. 
 They were confident of their own strength, and 
 embraced, with savage eagerness, every oppor- 
 tunity which presented itself to avenge the en- 
 croachments, which the strangers were gradually 
 making upon their native domain. 
 
 The Narragansetts held beneath their sway 
 the greater part of what is now the state of 
 Rhode Island, together with the islands of the 
 bay, and a portion of Long Island. Though shy 
 of the English, they were the most intelligent 
 and civilized, the most generous and faithful, of 
 all the New England Indians. They had culti- 
 vated agriculture, and others of the simpler arts 
 of life, and were also the manufacturers of nearly 
 all the ivampumpeag in use among the natives 
 as money. They were a numerous and powerful 
 tribe ; and, though they had gradually lost their 
 savage relish for war, they still could muster 
 from four to five thousand fighting men from 
 their own and the tributary tribes. 
 
 The language of the several tribes of New 
 England seems to have been essentially the 
 same. Indeed, Roger Williams himself informs 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 61^ 
 
 US, thatj with his knowledge of the Narragansett 
 tongue, he " had entered into the secrets of 
 those countries wherever the Enghsh dwell, about 
 two hundred miles, between the French and 
 Dutch plantations ; " and he adds, that " with this 
 help a man may converse with thousands of the 
 Indians all over the country." It is probable, 
 also, that the same language, though with the 
 modifications of various dialects, extended among 
 the tribes of New York, New Jersey, and Dela- 
 ware. This singular, and, as it has been rep- 
 resented, exceedingly copious and versatile lan- 
 guage has been made the subject of much curious 
 inquiry among the philologists of our own and 
 of other lands. The people who spoke it have 
 long since vanished from the hills and forests of 
 New England ; but the language itself has sur- 
 vived them in the pious though humble labors 
 of their benefactors. Specimens of its endless 
 words and its unique structure are still to be 
 found in the '* Key," which Williams wrote, in 
 tile '' Grammar " of John Eliot, and especially 
 in the few scattered copies that remain of the 
 Indian Bible, which the noble-minded apostle 
 toiled away the best years of his life in trans- 
 lating. 
 
 With these several tribes, whose names and 
 locaUties we have thus incidentally mentioned, 
 Mr. Williams, during the remainder of his life 
 
68 . AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was thrown into frequent, and, in some instances, 
 most intimate association. He was always their 
 friend, the vindicator of their rights, the inter- 
 preter of their treaties, and the pacificator of 
 their quarrels. He thus acquired an influence 
 over them far superior to that of any other per- 
 son of his time. 
 
 The spot at which he had landed, and where 
 he began to plant the new settlement, was with- 
 in the territory belonging to the Narragansetts. 
 Canonicus, the aged chief of the tribe, and Mi- 
 antonomo, his nephew, had visited the colonies 
 of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, while Wil- 
 liams resided there, and had learned to regard 
 him, in virtue of his being a minister, as one 
 of the sachems of the English. He had also 
 taken special pains to conciliate their good-will 
 and gain their confidence, and " spared no cost 
 towards them, in tokens and presents to Ca- 
 nonicus and all his, many years before he came 
 to Narragansett in person." Indeed, there is 
 reason to believe, that, at an early period after 
 his arrival in New England, on finding himself 
 so widely at variance with his Puritan brethren, 
 he conceived the design of withdrawing from the 
 colonies, and settling among the Indians, that he 
 might labor as a missionary for their civilization 
 and conversion to Christianity ; and for this pur- 
 pose, as it would appear, he then had '' several 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 69 
 
 treaties " with the Narragansett sachems, and re- 
 ceived from them the promise of a tract of land 
 within their jurisdiction. The design of removing 
 thither he probably ceased to entertain some 
 time before his banishment ; yet now, when he 
 was driven into the territory of the friendly sa- 
 chems, he avails himself of the promise they had 
 formerly made, and receives from them a grant 
 of the land at Providence, on which he had 
 settled with his companions. 
 
 In all his dealings with the Indians, Mr. Wil- 
 liams was governed by a strict regard to the 
 rights, which, he had always contended, belonged 
 to them as the sole proprietors of the soil. He 
 justly conceived that it belonged to them alone 
 to give away the lands, which they and their 
 fathers had occupied for centuries. In accord- 
 ance with this principle, the assertion of which 
 had given so much offence in Massachusetts, 
 he waits for no patent from the King to con- 
 fer upon him, as a favor from *his majesty, the 
 territory he sought to possess, but goes directly 
 to the great sachems of the country, and pur- 
 chases of them a clear title to the lands "lying 
 upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshausic 
 and Wanasquatucket." The sachems, also, in 
 consideration of his many kindnesses and ser- 
 vices to them, ceded to him, as a gratuity, all 
 the land lying between the above-named rivers 
 
?0 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 and the Pawtuxet. The terms of these grants 
 are sufficiently general to give rise, in these 
 days, to endless litigation ; and, at different pe- 
 riods in the early history of the town, they were 
 productive of no little uncertainty and dispute. 
 It must be admitted that they reflect but little 
 credit on the legal education, which the founder 
 of Rhode Island is said to have pursued under 
 the direction of Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 Of the settlement at Providence Roger Wil- 
 liams was the earliest projector, and the sole 
 negotiator with the Indians. It was by his in- 
 fluence, and at his expense, that the purchase 
 was procured from Canonicus and Miantonomo, 
 who partook largely of the shyness and jealousy 
 of the English so common to their tribe. He 
 says, " It was not thousands nor tens of thousands 
 of money, that could have bought of them an 
 Enghsh entrance into this bay." It was done by 
 " that language, acquaintance, and favor with the 
 natives," which he had acquired, and which he 
 knew so well how to use. He was, in every 
 sense, the father of the infant colony. By great 
 charge and travel, he secured the land on which 
 it was planted, and established a loving and 
 peaceable neighborhood with the sachems around, 
 by presents and gratuities, of which he also sus- 
 tained the cost. In order to raise the funds 
 needed for this purpose, and for removing his 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 71 
 
 wife and family to the new settlement, he was 
 obHged to mortgage his house and land in 
 Salem. 
 
 Unlike the Pilgrims, who had organized their 
 commonwealth simply for securing liberty for 
 their own faith and worship, Roger Williams, in 
 framing the organization of the new colony, did 
 not lose sight of the great principle of spiritual 
 freedom, for which he had contended while in 
 Massachusetts. This principle was as broad as 
 humanity itself, and he did not fail to perceive 
 its application to others, as readily and clear- 
 ly as to himself. The persons who accompa- 
 nied him from Seekonk, and the others who 
 soon after joined him at Providence, came 
 without any solicitation from him ; yet he re- 
 ceived them with the utmost kindness. He 
 prescribed to them no conditions of their ad- 
 mission to the colony, and exercised over them 
 no personal control, but freely shared with 
 them all that the friendship of the Indians had 
 given him to bestow. By the deeds of the 
 sachems of Narragansett, the lands at Provi- 
 dence were conveyed to him alone, and " were 
 his as much as any man's coat upon his back.'' 
 He might have retained them as his own per- 
 manent fee, and, like the founders of Pennsyl- 
 vania and Maryland, having secured Ihem by a 
 charter from the King, he might have contin- 
 
TS AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ued the unquestioned proprietary of the entire 
 domain. He thus might have amassed wealth 
 and dignities, and bequeathed them as a legacy 
 to his children. 
 
 Such, however, was not the policy which he 
 adopted. He desired that the new settlement 
 might be "for a shelter for persons distressed 
 for conscience," and he welcomed with an open 
 hand all who came to him for refuge. He 
 chose to found the infant commonwealth in the 
 simple principles of pure democracy, and reserved 
 to himself no more either of authority or of 
 land than he freely distributed to his associates. 
 Though, in procuring the land, he had proba- 
 bly parted with the whole of his little property, 
 he yet gave it all, as a free gift, to the persons 
 who had united with him in forming the set- 
 tlement. The town subsequently voted him the 
 sum of thirty pounds, not as purchase money, 
 or as compensation for his services and expen- 
 ditures, but as " a loving gratuity," which, how- 
 ever, was to be paid from the common fund ap- 
 pointed to be created by the payment of thirty 
 shillings by each person, who should subsequently 
 be admitted a member of the colony. 
 
 Thus was the first settlement within the ter- 
 ritory of Rhode Island commenced, in the spirit 
 of generous liberality and mutual confidence, 
 and with the utmost degree of personal free- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 73 
 
 dom that can consist with the existence of civil 
 society. The httle community thrived beneath 
 the genial influence of unrestricted 'freedom ; 
 it was gradually enlarged by emigrations from 
 the neighboring colonies and from England ; 
 for the ships that now covered the Bay of 
 Massachusetts came crowded with emigrants to 
 the new world. They bore to the shores of 
 New England, not the modey throng of home- 
 less and wretched beings, who now crowd the 
 steerage of our packet ships, but mainly the in- 
 telligent and the virtuous, who had been perse- 
 cuted for conscience' sake, and who preferred 
 a life of exile to the disabilities and privations 
 to which they were subjected at home. Among 
 them were often found persons of superior ed- 
 ucation, and of large estates, mingled with the 
 adventurous spirits, who sought in the distant 
 colonies a freer range of action and opinion, and 
 a wider sphere of enterprise. Many of these 
 came to the plantations at Providence, where 
 the opinions and conduct of individuals were the 
 least subjected to the scrutiny of the public. 
 
 The persons who thus joined the settlement 
 of Roger Williams bound themselves to con- 
 form to the principles on which it had been 
 founded, and also to be governed by the orders 
 and agreements of the majority. They were ad- 
 mitted to the fellowship of the settlers by sub- 
 
f4 AMERICAN BIOGRAiPHY. 
 
 scribing the following instrument, which stands 
 without date in the earliest records of the col- 
 ony, and was undoubtedly the first form of 
 civil government which the inhabitants adopted. 
 
 " We, whose names are here underwritten, 
 being desirous to inhabit in the town of Provi- 
 dence, do promise to submit ourselves, in active 
 or passive obedience, to all such orders or 
 agreements as shall be made for public good 
 of the body in an orderly way, by the major 
 consent of the present inhabitants, masters of 
 families, incorporated together into a township, 
 and such others whom they shall admit into 
 the same, only in civil things." 
 
 This earliest form of the social compact, 
 adopted by the settlers at Providence, is re- 
 markable alike for its simplicity, and for the 
 entire freedom it guaranties to each individual 
 in every sphere of life, save in civil things alone. 
 It embodies the principle for which Roger Wil- 
 liams had contended ever since his arrival in 
 America, and for the maintenance of which he 
 had been persecuted by the Court of Massachu- 
 setts, and, it is believed, is the first form of 
 government recorded in history that contains 
 an express practical recognition of the rights 
 of conscience. This instrument was undoubt- 
 edly written by the father of the colony him- 
 self. It breathes his spirit, and bears the im- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 75 
 
 press of his character. While it expressly limits 
 the power of the body politic to the civil rela- 
 tions of the people, it at the same time care- 
 fully guards against any exaggerated notions or 
 wild misapplications of personal freedom, by 
 strictly binding every individual to obey the 
 orders and agreements of the majority of the 
 "masters of families." It was the perfection 
 of civil freedom, without any alloy of licen- 
 tiousness, while it left the conscience undis- 
 turbed in its allegiance to God alone. The 
 spirit, which was thus infused into the govern- 
 ment and social organization of the colony, at 
 the very beginning of its existence, has never 
 ceased to characterize the legislation of Rhode 
 Island ; and, to this day, its influence is still 
 felt among the people. It is a prominent fact 
 in her history, that her citizens have ever been 
 distinguished for the vigilance with which they 
 have watched over the rights of conscience ; 
 and not a single act of religious intolerance has 
 ever disgraced the statute-book of the state. 
 While, it may be, in other things she has 
 learned salutary lessons from her sister states, in 
 this respect, at least, they are largely indebted 
 to the success of her experiment, and the in- 
 fluence of her well-sustained example.* 
 
 * See Appendix, No. I. 
 
76 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The government of the town remained in 
 the hands of its citizens, and was administered 
 in the simple forms of a pure democracy for a 
 number of years. No mention is found, in the 
 records, of any authority delegated to individuals 
 by the body politic before the year 1640.* No 
 officers were appointed, except a town treas- 
 urer; for none was needed, since every ques- 
 tion affecting the public weal, whether of a 
 legislative or a judicial character, could well be 
 arbitrated in the assembly of the people. This 
 feature in the organization of the new society 
 was a novelty among the settlements of New 
 England, and gave rise to the reproach, that 
 the settlers at Providence were opposed to 
 magistrates. But the fact was far otherwise. 
 Amidst the simple forms and harmonious inter- 
 ests of a newly-planted community, that claimed 
 no jurisdiction in matters of opinion, the office 
 of magistrate would have been little else than 
 a needless sinecure. The " orders and agree- 
 ments of the majority " determined the action 
 of each individual, and it is not improbable 
 that the personal influence of their leader often 
 proved an efficient aid in allaying the bicker- 
 ings and strifes, that sprang up among the cit- 
 izens of the little commonwealth. The numer- 
 
 * Staples's ^innals of Providence. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 77 
 
 ous declarations in his writings, pertaining to the 
 subject, and the pubUc acts of his hfe, show that 
 he fully understood the principles of civil gov- 
 ernment, and clearly perceived the eternal dis- 
 tinction that subsists between real freedom and 
 the specious but worthless theories that arrogate 
 its name. 
 
 In this humble manner were laid the founda- 
 tions of the settlement at Providence, and the 
 earliest beginnings of the state of Rhode Island. 
 But other and more pressing necessities, than 
 that of providing for the well-being of the town, 
 must also have claimed the attention of its found- 
 er, even during the first months, of its existence. 
 He had been obliged to leave the fields he had 
 planted at Seekonk, just as the corn was ap- 
 pearing above the ground; and when he arrived 
 at the mouth of the Mooshausic, it was already 
 too late to raise a harvest from the lands he 
 there purchased of the Indians. The crops he 
 might have raised by the labors of husbandry 
 were thus in a great measure cut off; and, oc- 
 cupied as he must have been during the re- 
 mainder of the season, he could have done but 
 little towards providing for the wants of his 
 family. A dwelling was to be reared, and the 
 comforts of civilized life were to be gathered, 
 upon a spot till now never trodden by white 
 men. The summer was already far advanced, 
 
78 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and, as he looked forward to the approach of 
 winter, he must have beheld, in the distance, 
 the hungry forms of poverty and want hastening 
 towards his door. He was shut out from all 
 intercourse with the towns of Massachusetts 
 Bay, and must have depended, for the subsist- 
 ence of his family, mainly upon his casual suc- 
 cess in fishing, or upon the scanty supplies of 
 the Indians. 
 
 In the course of the autumn, he was visited 
 by Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, of whom he 
 speaks as " a great and pious soul," and who, 
 as he gratefully acknowledges, " put a piece of 
 gold into the hands of his wife for their sup- 
 ply ; " an incident which, especially when taken 
 in connection with his own touching allusion to 
 it, shows how nearly he was exposed to " neces- 
 sity's sharp pinch." His straitened circumstances 
 were doubtless rendered the more aggravated 
 and difficult to be borne, by the consideration 
 that they were brought about by the foolish and 
 bigoted legislation of men, with whom he had 
 made a common cause in coming to New Eng- 
 land for conscience' sake, who themselves were 
 exiles, and had tasted the bitter sorrows of a life 
 in the wilderness. It would not have been 
 strange, considering the weakness of our nature, 
 had the treatment which he received from Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, and the severe privations that 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 79 
 
 followed from it, embittered his spirit, and 
 shrouded it in the sullen glooms of settled hos- 
 tility to the magistrates and elders of that col- 
 ony. But no such result was produced in the 
 mind of Roger Williams. He harbored no feel- 
 ings of revenge for the injuries he had received. 
 He seems only to have pitied the weakness and 
 regretted the delusion from which they sprang; 
 and he employed the first opportunity, that was 
 presented to him, in requiting the people, who 
 had persecuted and banished him, with the am- 
 plest benefits and the noblest self-sacrifices. 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 The Pequot War. — The Services Williams ren- 
 ders the Government of Massachusetts. — His 
 Agency saves the Colonies from Destruction. 
 — - His Letter to Governor Winthrop. — Issue 
 of the War. — Maimer in which his Services 
 are regarded by Massachusetts. 
 
 Seldom does the page of history glow with a 
 brighter illustration of the spirit of forgiveness, 
 and of Christian magnanimity, than is presented 
 in the conduct of Roger Williams towards the 
 
80 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 authorities of Massachusetts, immediately after 
 his banishment, and while the recollection of his 
 wrongs was yet fresh in his mind. The cir- 
 cumstances, as will appear from the narrative, 
 were those of extreme peril ; and the founder of 
 Providence was the only person, who could avert 
 the calamities that threatened to overwhelm the 
 English settlements in New England. Had he 
 then been wanting in the noblest impulses of 
 generosity and duty, the settlements of the early 
 Pilgrims of Plymouth and Massachusetts might 
 have been destroyed amidst the horrors of In- 
 dian massacre and conflagration. 
 
 The Pequot Indians, who, as we have already 
 stated, had always proved treacherous and hostile 
 to the English, now threatened a universal in- 
 surrection, for the purpose of driving them for- 
 ever from the lands they had acquired. In the 
 summer of 1636, they attacked a party of tra- 
 ders in a sloop, near Block Island, and mur- 
 dered John Oldham, one of the company ; and, 
 having buried the hatchet with all the neighbor- 
 ing tribes, were endeavoring to unite them in a 
 general league, for the entire extermination of 
 the colonies. The frustration of their designs 
 of savage vengeance, and the preservation of 
 New England from the merciless atrocities of 
 Indian war, were accomplished by Roger Wil- 
 liams. Upon receiving intelligence of the niur- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 81 
 
 der of Oldham, and the designs of the Pequots, 
 a few weeks after his removal to Providence, 
 he was the first to communicate the information 
 to the Governor of Massachusetts. And to him, 
 whom they had so recently driven into exile, 
 and who was still under the ban of their pro- 
 scription, did the authorities of the colony com- 
 mit the work of conciliating the Indians, and 
 preventing the league, which might have brought 
 desolation and bloodshed to all their homes. 
 
 Mr. Williams accepted the hazardous and diffi- 
 cult commission of mediating with the Narra- 
 gansetts, by whose example the course of the 
 other tribes would be governed, and of opposing 
 the influence and designs of the Pequots. It 
 was an enterprise of no common difficulty and 
 peril, and it is not claiming too much for his 
 influence with the Indians, to say, that he was 
 the only man in New England who could have 
 successfully executed it. In his letter to Major 
 Mason, he mentions the leading incidents con- 
 nected with the undertaking, and we follow the 
 simple narrative he there gives. Upon receiving 
 letters from Governor Vane, requesting him to 
 use his utmost and speediest endeavors to hin- 
 der and break the league, he embarks alone, 
 without delay, in his canoe, scarcely informing 
 his wife of the perilous voyage, and hastens 
 over the troubled waters of the Narragansett, 
 
 VOL. IV. 6 
 
1^ AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 "cutting through a stormy wind and great seas, 
 every minute in hazard of Hfe," to the dwelhngs 
 of Canonicus and Miantonomo. The Pequot 
 ambassadors were already there, urging every 
 consideration that could arouse the vengeance of 
 these high-spirited though generous chiefs. They 
 pictured before them the gloomy destiny, that 
 was already settling down upon the Indian race, 
 and pointed out to them the means by which 
 the ancient possessors of the soil might regain 
 the domain they had lost, and drive the white 
 men from the country. The influences thus 
 brought to bear upon their minds were well 
 calculated to rouse the hostile feelings of a 
 jealous and suspicious race, and the Narragan- 
 setts were already wavering. 
 
 In the midst of the savage passions thus 
 powerfully at work in the hearts of the Indians, 
 Williams passed three days and nights at the 
 sachem's house, mingling with the Pequot am- 
 bassadors, whose hands were still reeking with 
 the blood of the English they had slain, and 
 " from whom he nightly looked for their bloody 
 knives at his own throat also." But his ardu- 
 ous and perilous mission was crowned with suc- 
 cess. The sachems, whose friendship he had 
 long before acquired, yielded to his counsels. 
 He was enabled to " break in pieces the Pequot 
 negotiation and design, and to make and finish, 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 83 
 
 by many travels and charges, the Enghsh league 
 with the Narragansetts and Mohegans against 
 the Pequots." 
 
 The treaty, the terras of which were thus 
 arranged by the negotiations of Mr. Williams 
 with the Narragansetts, was ratified by the two 
 contracting parties, at Boston, in October, 1636. 
 Miantonomo, the chief of the tribe, and two 
 sons of Canonicus, with a large number of at- 
 tendants, made a visit, at the time, to the au- 
 thorities of Massachusetts Bay, by whom they 
 were received with much parade and demonstra- 
 tion of respect, and with whom they established 
 a perpetual alliance of offence and defence 
 against the hostile Pequots, that was to be bind- 
 ing alike upon themselves and their posterity. 
 The treaty was at first written in the English 
 language ; but, the Indians finding it difficult to 
 understand it, from the imperfect explanations 
 the magistrates were able to give, it was sent, 
 probably at their own request, to Providence, 
 to be interpreted to them by Mr. Williams ; a 
 fact, which demonstrates the confidence placed 
 in his integrity and friendship by both Indians 
 and English. 
 
 Thus was the whole negotiation dependent 
 upon him alone. He broke the league which 
 the Pequots were striving to form, and saved the 
 feeble settlements of New England from the hor- 
 
84 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 rors of a universal savage war. He arranged 
 the terms of the treaty with the Narragansetts, 
 and at last interpreted to them its language, and 
 won for its stipulations the reluctant confidence 
 of their suspicious natures. All this was effected, 
 as he has inform.ed us, only at great cost and 
 travel, and at the sacrifice of many private in- 
 terests, that were pressing themselves upon his 
 attention. The pacification which he thus ac- 
 complished was more useful and more glorious 
 than conquest, and was the fruit of a heroism not 
 less worthy of admiration. It was achieved by 
 the self-sacrificing exertions of a spirit too gen- 
 erous to remember its wrongs, and too elevated 
 to think of its own necessities. 
 
 But the services of Roger Williams to the peo- 
 ple, who had banished him, did not end here. The 
 Pequots, though foiled in their attempts to estab- 
 lish a league with the neighboring tribes, could 
 not be dissuaded from their purposes of ven- 
 geance. With them the only question was, 
 whether they should wait, in sullen inaction, the 
 slow progress of the extinction which tliey fore- 
 saw was their inevitable doom, or rush at once 
 upon their enemies, and decide their destiny by 
 a single onset of savage ferocity. They resolved 
 upon the latter course, and, almost in the fury 
 of desperation, determined single-handed to un- 
 dertake the war. The murders which they per- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 85 
 
 petrated, and the cruertortures they inflicted upon 
 some captives they seized, sent a chill of horror 
 through the settlements of New England. The 
 alarm was increased by their attack on the fort 
 at Saybrook; and the three colonies of Plym- 
 outh, Massachusetts, and Connecticut resolved 
 immediately to invade the territory of the Pe- 
 quots, and, if possible, to destroy the tribe, who 
 had vowed perpetual vengeance upon all the 
 English. 
 
 During the war, which continued for nearly 
 a year, Mr. Williams was the constant adviser 
 of the colonies, especially of the authorities of 
 Massachusetts Bay, in all the difficult questions 
 that were presented for their decision, and the 
 watchful guardian of all their interests in their re- 
 lations with the friendly Indians. He received the 
 troops that marched from Boston against the Pe- 
 quots, under General Stoughton, and entertained 
 them at his own house in Providence, and accom- 
 panied them to Narragansett in the expedition, 
 when, at the request of the commander, he re- 
 turned to be a medium of communication between 
 the army and the people of the colony. He readi- 
 ly sacrificed every private interest, and periled his 
 life in their cause. His devotion to their affairs 
 could not have been more constant and faithful, 
 had they never done him an injury, and had his 
 happiness and his fame been identified with theirs. 
 
86 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 His conduct, during the whole of this gloomy 
 period in the history of New England, was such 
 as entitles him to the perpetual gratitude of the 
 people of Massachusetts ; for he was the instru- 
 ment in the hands of Providence of saving her 
 and her sister colonies from utter destruction. 
 The subjoined letter, written to his friend Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop, in the course of the Pequot 
 war, will serve to bring to view more fully the 
 character of the services he rendered to the gov- 
 ernment at Boston. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " The latter end of the last week, I gave 
 notice to our neighbor Princes of your inten- 
 tions and preparations against the common ene- 
 my, the Pequots. At my first coming to them, 
 Canonicus (tnorosus CBque ac harharus senex) was 
 very sour, and accused the English and myself 
 for sending the plague amongst them, and threat- 
 ening to kill him especially. 
 
 " Such tidings, it seems, were lately brought 
 to his ears by some of his flatterers and our 
 ill-willers. I discerned cause of bestirring my- 
 self, and staid the longer, and at last, through the 
 mercy of the Most. High, I not only sweetened 
 his spirit, but possessed him that the plague and 
 other sicknesses were alone in the hand of the 
 one God who made him and us, who, being dis- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 87 
 
 pleased with the EngHsh for lying, stealing, idle- 
 ness, and uncleanness, (the natives' epidemical 
 sins,) smote many thousands of us ourselves, 
 with general and late mortalities. 
 
 " Miantonomo kept his barbarous court lately 
 at my house, and with him I have far better 
 dealing. He takes some pleasure to visit me, 
 and sent me word of his coming over again 
 some eight days hence. They pass not a week 
 without some skirmishes, though hitherto little 
 loss on either side. They were glad of your 
 preparations, and in much conference with them- 
 selves and others, (fishing, de industria, for in- 
 structions from them,) I gathered these obser- 
 vations, which you may please, as cause may 
 be, to consider and take notice of; 
 
 " 1. They conceive, that to do execution to 
 purpose on the Pequots will require, not two 
 or three days and away, but a riding by it, and 
 following of the work, to and again, the space 
 of three weeks or a month ; that there be a 
 failing off and a retreat, as if you were de- 
 parted, and a falling on again, within three or 
 four days, when they are returned again to their 
 houses securely from their flight. 
 
 " 2. That, if any pinnaces come in ken, they 
 presently prepare for flight, women, and old men, 
 and children, to a swamp, some three or four 
 miles on the back of them, a marvellous great 
 
88 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and secure swamp, which they called Ohomo' 
 wauke, which signifies owl's nest, and by an- 
 other name, CajppacommocJc, which signifies a ref- 
 uge or hiding-place, as I conceive. 
 
 *' 3. That, therefore, Niantick (which is Mi- 
 antonomo's place of rendezvous) be thought on 
 for the riding and retiring to of vessel or ves- 
 sels, which place is faithful to the Narragansetts, 
 and at present enmity with the Pequots. 
 
 "4. They also conceive it easy for the Eng- 
 lish, that the provisions and munitions first ar- 
 rive at Aquetneck, called by us Rhode Island, 
 at the Narragansett's mouth, and then a mes- 
 senger may be despatched hither, and so to 
 the Bay, for the soldiers to march up by land to 
 the vessels, who otherwise might spend long time 
 about the cape, and fill more vessels than needs. 
 
 " 5. That the assault should be in the night, 
 when they are commonly more secure and at 
 home, by which advantage, the English, being 
 armed, may enter the houses, and do what exe- 
 cution they please. 
 
 " 6. That, before the assault be given, an am- 
 bush be laid behind them, between them and 
 the swamp, to prevent their flight, &c. 
 
 '' 7. That, to that purpose, such guides as shall 
 be best liked of, be taken along lo direct, es- 
 pecially two Pequots, viz., Wequash and Wut- 
 tackquiackommin, valiant men, especially the 
 
R O G E 11 W I L L I A M S . 89 
 
 latter, who have lived there three or four years 
 with the Narragansetts, and know every pass 
 and passage among them, who desire armor to 
 enter their houses. 
 
 '' 8. That it would be pleasing to all natives 
 that women and children be spared, &c. 
 
 " 9. That, if there be any more land travel 
 to Connecticut, some course would also be taken 
 with the Wunnashowatuckoogs, who are confed- 
 erates with and a refuge to the Pequots. 
 
 " Sir, if any thing be sent to the Princes, I 
 find that Canonicus would gladly accept of a 
 box of eight or ten pounds of sugar, and, in- 
 deed, he told me he would thank Mr. Governor 
 for a box full. 
 
 " Sir, you may please to take notice of a 
 rude view how the Pequots lie. [Here follows, 
 in the original, a map of the Pequot and Mo- 
 hegan country.] 
 
 *' Thus with my best salutes to your worthy 
 selves, and loving friends with you, and daily 
 cries to the Father of mercies for a merciful 
 issue to all these enterprises, I rest, 
 
 " Your worship's unfeignedly respective, 
 " Roger Williams." 
 
 The Pequot war was terminated by the cel- 
 ebrated battle fought near the fort on Mystic 
 River, in May, 1637. It ended only in the 
 
do AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 extinction of the race. The forces of the Eng- 
 lish, that were engaged in the battle, were the 
 troops of Connecticut, with about twenty men 
 from Massachusetts, and some hundreds of 
 friendly Indians, the whole under the command 
 of Major Mason, who had received the ensigns 
 of authority at Hartford, from the fathers of the 
 colony, amidst the solemn services of religion. 
 
 A few days after the battle, the remaining 
 troops, under General Stoughton, arrived from 
 Massachusetts, and the few scattered bands of 
 the Pequots were hunted from their hiding- 
 places. Every village was destroyed, every field 
 was laid waste, and the surviving remnant of 
 the race, about two hundred in number, sur- 
 rendering to their subjugators, were either sold 
 into slavery by the colonists, or merged in the 
 tribes that surrounded them. Their warriors 
 had nearly all perished in battle. Sassacus, 
 their principal sachem, was treacherously mur- 
 dered by the Mohawks, to whom he had fled 
 for protection. Not a single family remained to 
 keep alive the Pequot name in the land of 
 their ancestors. It was the beginning of the 
 work of Indian extermination, which has since 
 been so fearfully consummated. It conveyed a 
 terrible lesson of the power of the English, but 
 one that was justified, in most of its features, 
 at least, by the circumstances in which the col- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 91 
 
 onies were placed. They had done all in their 
 power to avert the sad necessity ; but, when it 
 could no longer be avoided, they determined to 
 strike a blow that would not require to be re- 
 peated. It sent terror through all the tribes of 
 New England, and secured the peace of the 
 country through an entire generation. The 
 homes of the Pilgrims were safe from midnight 
 marauders, their intercourse with the Indians 
 was established on a friendly footing, and the 
 pursuits of industry were crowned with liberal 
 rewards beneath the genial auspices of protract- 
 ed peace. 
 
 Thus ended the first of the hopeless strug- 
 gles, which the natives of New England made 
 to withstand the melancholy doom which they 
 too plainly saw was approaching them. The 
 circumstances of the case left to the settlers no 
 other alternative than a war of utter extermina- 
 tion. The stern necessity that was placed upon 
 them involved either their own destruction or 
 the extinction of the treacherous and hostile 
 tribe. 
 
 We have seen the part which Roger Wilhams 
 bore in the whole course of the troubles with 
 the Pequots, and may well conclude, that to 
 his active agency and superior knowledge of 
 the Indian character and language their suc- 
 cessful issue may in no small degree be attrib- 
 
92 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 uted. His perilous enterprise at the com- 
 mencement of hostilities, and his indefatigable 
 perseverance amidst all difficulties, secured the 
 alliance of the Narragansetts, and his judicious 
 counsels and accurate information dictated the 
 plan and guided the progress of the campaign. 
 The colony of Massachusetts Bay proclaimed a 
 solemn thanksgiving at the close of the war, 
 and received in triumph their General and his 
 troops as they returned from the victory. But 
 they passed no vote of thanks, and presented 
 no civic rewards, to him, who had done for 
 them what soldiers could not have effected, who 
 had performed, in breaking the designs of the 
 Pequots, what has been well pronounced to be 
 "the most intrepid and most successful achieve- 
 ment in the whole war; an action as perilous 
 in its execution as it was fortunate in its 
 issue."* 
 
 Some hearts, indeed, as he himself relates, 
 were touched with relentings towards him; and 
 even Governor Winthrop moved the question in 
 the Council, and it was debated, whether he 
 had not merited not only to be recalled from 
 banishment, but also to be honored with some 
 mark of favor, ''It is known," he significant- 
 ly adds, " who hindered, who never promoted, 
 
 * Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 399. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 93 
 
 the liberty of other men's consciences." * The 
 authorities basely suffered the occasion to pass 
 by without any expression of gratitude for his 
 services, or of the estimation in which they 
 deserved to be held. The decree of banish- 
 ment was never revoked, and the principles of 
 the founder of Rhode Island were rendered 
 scarcely less odious to the ministers and Gen- 
 eral Court of Massachusetts by his becoming 
 the benefactor and savior of the colony. They 
 were deemed prejudicial to the interests of re- 
 ligion, and, therefore, dangerous to the state ; 
 and no degree of private worth or amount of 
 public services could atone for the heresy of 
 his opinions. It is not strange that the natural 
 feelings of some proved treacherous to the 
 wretched fallacies in which their understandings 
 were involved. The magistrates could accept 
 his services to the state, and confide to his 
 negotiation its most vital interests; but, as guar- 
 
 * Letter to Mason. The allusion is to Governor Dud- 
 ley, who was distinguished above some others of the 
 magistrates for Iiis zeal against heresy. The subject 
 seems occasionally to have awaked "the indignant muse" 
 within him. At his death, some verses, written in his 
 own hand, were found upon his person, containing the 
 following characteristic couplet; 
 
 " Let men of God, in court and churches, watch 
 O'er such as do a toleration hatch." 
 
94 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 dians of the popular faith, they could not al- 
 low him to step his foot within their jurisdiction, 
 because he denied their authority in matters of 
 conscience. So great was the perversion, which 
 mistaken views of religious duty were suffered 
 to work in the impulses and affections of the 
 otherwise generous and noble-minded fathers of 
 Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Inadequacy of Legislation for the Suppression 
 of Heresy, — Account of Mrs. Hutchinson 
 and her Controversy in Massachusetts. — Her 
 Adherents are received at Providence. — They 
 settle on Rhode Island. — Williams's Agency 
 in the Purchase of the Island. — Relations of 
 the Colony at Providence with Massachusetts. 
 — Account of Samuel Gorton. — His Settle- 
 ment at Pawtu^et. — His Difficulties with the 
 People of Providence. 
 
 If any illustrations were needed of the utter 
 inefficiency of even the most watchful vigilance 
 of the civil or ecclesiastical authorities, in se- 
 curing uniformity of religious sentiment in the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 95 
 
 minds of a people, they are presented, in the 
 most striking manner, in the early history of 
 the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The settlers 
 at Salem, in the first year of their town, in 
 their zeal for the Puritan faith, had sent home 
 to England John and Samuel Browne, two of 
 their leading and most enterprising fellow-emi- 
 grants, by the return of the very ship in which 
 they arrived. Their offence consisted in setting 
 up a worship in Salem according to the forms 
 of the Common Prayer, and the liturgy of the 
 established church. Thus was Episcopacy ban- 
 ished as soon as it appeared, and its leaders 
 transported, like criminals, beyond the sea. Six 
 years later, the General Court of the colony, 
 guided by the advice of the clergy, had passed 
 a decree of perpetual banishment against Roger 
 Williams, for asserting the freedom of con- 
 science. Many others, at different periods, had 
 been summoned to the bar of the same tri- 
 bunal, to answer for their opinions. Of these, 
 some had given satisfactory explanations, while 
 others had either voluntarily retired from Mas- 
 sachusetts, or been forced beyond her jurisdic- 
 tion Still strange opinions multiplied among 
 the people, in spite of all the exertions that were 
 made to suppress them, until, at a synod held 
 at Cambridge, on the 30th of August, 1637, 
 and attended by the ministers and magistrates 
 
96 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the whole colony, there were found, to the 
 dismay of the Puritans, not less than eighty-two 
 errors in doctrine, requiring their condemnation. 
 Of these, by far the most important, and the 
 most dreaded, were the principles at that time 
 promulgated by Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who, in 
 the summer of 1636, with her husband, had 
 arrived at Boston. She was a woman of rare 
 endowments of intellect, and brilliant qualities 
 of both person and character. Her mind, tinged 
 with a shade of fanaticism, was of that impas- 
 sioned and fervid cast, which enabled her to 
 clothe her peculiar doctrines in the charms of 
 a fascinating eloquence, and easily to subject 
 to her sway the opinions of those, who were 
 not entirely quiescent beneath the despotism of 
 the prevailing theology of the times. The char- 
 acter of her opinions, and the theological strife 
 to which they gave occasion, have often been 
 described in the histories of the period to which 
 this narrative relates, and they need not here 
 be repeated. The questions at issue were, in 
 most respects, the same as have perplexed the 
 minds and divided the opinions of Christians in 
 every age of the church, and about which uni- 
 formity of sentiment is never to be hoped for. 
 At this period, however, they broke out into a 
 controversy in every way the most remarkable 
 in our history, which raged for more than a 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 0T 
 
 year, and was terminated only by the banish- 
 ment of Mrs. Hutchinson, and some of her most 
 influential adherents, and the subjection of the 
 remainder to such restrictions and disabilities 
 as eventually drove them from the colony. 
 
 This celebrated controversy was greatly pro- 
 tracted by the distinguished abilities and high 
 standing of many of those, who espoused the 
 cause of Mrs, Hutchinson. Boston was the 
 principal seat of the new opinions. Governor 
 Vane, at that time the chief magistrate of the 
 colony, avowed himself on the side of the 
 heresy, and actually wrote against the enact- 
 ments which the Court had passed concerning 
 it. Mr. Cotton, also, at whose house the Gov- 
 ernor then resided, gave at least the indirect 
 sanction of his influential name to the same 
 views. But the only one among the clergy, 
 who stood forth as a leader of the party, that 
 thus rose in rebellion against the spiritual au- 
 thorities of the age, was John Wheelwright, the 
 brother of Mrs. Hutchinson. In a fast-day ser- 
 mon, he had earnestly vindicated his doctrines, 
 and, on being censured by the Court for sedi- 
 tion, had increased their exasperation against 
 him by threatening to appeal to the King. A 
 synod of the ministers and delegates of all the 
 churches was called to pass judgment upon the 
 questions, which thus divided the opinions of 
 
 VOL. IV. 1 
 
98 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the colony. After a protracted session of three 
 weeks, during which time the numerous errors 
 of doctrine reported to the synod were the 
 subject of long and angry debate, they pro- 
 nounced against them their decided condemna- 
 tion. But the strife only became the more furious, 
 and the denunciations of both parties the more 
 vehement; until, at length, the General Court 
 summoned to its bar Mrs. Hutchinson, and Mr. 
 Wheelwright, and Mr. Aspinwall, the leading 
 advocates of the heretical opinions, and placed 
 them on trial for heresy. The trial resulted in 
 the banishment of the persons named above 
 from the jurisdiction of the colony. The magis- 
 trates, at the same time, proceeded to a measure 
 still more remarkable. Upon the pretence of 
 their having meditated an armed insurrection, in 
 threatening to appeal to the King, the remain- 
 ing adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson were required 
 to give up the arms and ammunition in their 
 possession, and were forbidden, upon penalty of 
 a fine, to buy or borrow any others, until per- 
 mitted by the Court.* By this order, nearly sixty 
 of the citizens of Boston, and many in the ad- 
 jacent towns, were deprived of the right to keep 
 fire-arms, enjoyed by the other inhabitants of the 
 colony. 
 
 * Savage's JFiiithrop, Vol. 1. p. 247. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 99 
 
 A large number of the people, who had been 
 thus proscribed as heretics by the General Court, 
 departed from Boston, under the guidance of 
 John Clarke and William Coddington, wdth the 
 intention of forming a settlement upon the shores 
 of Delaware Bay. In their journey southward, 
 they w^ere kindly received and " lovingly enter- 
 tained," at Providence, by Roger Williams, who 
 advised them to settle on Narragansett Bay, and 
 recommended either Sowams* or Aquetneck as 
 a suitable site for their plantation. In order to 
 ascertain whether these places came within the 
 patents of the neighboring colonies, the emigrants 
 sent Mr. Williams, with a deputation of their 
 company, to Plymouth, to make the necessary 
 inquiries. At Plymouth they were told, that 
 Sowams was ^' the garden of their patent," and 
 were advised to go to Aquetneck, where they 
 might plant a colony, and be free from the juris- 
 diction of any of their neighbors. Accordingly, 
 on the return of the embassy to Providence, the 
 emigrants decided to abandon their journey south- 
 ward, and settle upon the beautiful island, whose 
 luxuriant soil and salubrious climate spread their 
 attractions before them. They obtained a grant 
 
 * Sowams is now Barrington. Aquetneck was named 
 Jsle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island, in 1644, as is supposed 
 from some resemblance to the Island of Rhodes in the 
 Mediterranean Sea. H L Hist. Coll. Vol. IV. p. 88. 
 
100 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the island from the chiefs of the Narragan- 
 setts, to whom it belonged, and at the end of 
 March, 1638, commenced the settlement at 
 Portsmouth, near its northern extremity. The 
 price paid to the sachems was forty fathoms of 
 white beads. In addition to this, the settlers 
 bought the lands of the native occupants, in 
 some instances paying for them twice over, to 
 satisfy conflicting claims ; so that, with the pres- 
 ents that were given, and the money that was 
 paid, the purchase is said to have been one of 
 the dearest that had then been made of lands 
 in New England. 
 
 In negotiating the purchase of Rhode Island, 
 the settlers were mainly dependent upon the ex- 
 ertions of Mr. Williams, who, upon this occasion, 
 displayed the same obliging spirit, which always 
 animated him, when the interests of others were 
 to be promoted, or their rights maintained. His 
 sympathies were strongly enlisted in behalf of 
 the exiled band, who had separated from their 
 brethren in Massachusetts for opinion's sake, 
 and he lent the aid of his powerful influence 
 with the Indian princes, in procuring for them 
 a spot whereon to build a home. It was un- 
 doubtedly by his exertions, aided by the honored 
 name of Sir Henry Vane, that the grant of 
 Rhode Island was first obtained; and it was at 
 his suggestion, that the liberal compensations and 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 101 
 
 gi'atuities were paid to the natives, which se- 
 cured to the colonists a peaceful possession, and 
 rendered their commonwealth so flourishing and 
 happy. He has left an account of his agency 
 in this transaction, in a letter, written in 1658, 
 at a period when, in consequence of the questions 
 which had been raised, he judged it ^^ not un- 
 seasonable to declare the rise and bottom of the 
 planting of Rhode Island." 
 
 " It was not price, nor money," says he, " that 
 could have purchased Rhode Island. It was ob- 
 tained by love ; by the love and favor which that 
 honorable gentleman, Sir Henry Vane, and my- 
 self, had with that great sachem, Miantonomo, 
 about the league, which I procured between the 
 Massachusetts English and the Narragansetts, in 
 the Pequot war. It is true, I advised a gratuity 
 to be presented to the sachem and to the na- 
 tives ; and because Mr. Coddington and the rest 
 of my loving countrymen were to inhabit the 
 place, and to be at the charge of the gratuities, 
 I drew up a writing in Mr. Coddington's name, 
 and in the names of such of my loving coun- 
 trymen as came up with him, and put it into as 
 sure a form as I could at that time, for the 
 benefit and assurance of the present and future 
 inhabitants of the island." 
 
 Here, upon the most beautiful and fertile isl- 
 and along the coast of New England, beyond 
 
102 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY^ 
 
 the jurisdiction of a jealous court; amidst the 
 refreshing breezes and the varying scenery of 
 the ocean, did the persecuted heretics of Mas- 
 sachusetts at length dwell in quiet ; " an out- 
 cast people from the over-zealous colonies," as 
 they styled themselves, " bearing with the sev- 
 eral judgments and consciences of each other." 
 The little colony thrived beneath the favorable 
 influences of its genial situation, and the spirit- 
 ual freedom guarantied to its inhabitants soon 
 extended itself to the southern shores of the isl- 
 and, and to the other islands of the bay. This 
 secluded settlement was the retreat of Mrs. 
 Hutchinson ; where, having a more limited thea- 
 tre of action, and removed from those who de- 
 nounced her views, and especially from a civil 
 authority that asserted jurisdiction in matters of 
 opinion, she laid aside her character of theologi- 
 cal reformer, and led the quiet life of a private 
 lady; as, perhaps, she might always have done, 
 had not her peculiar opinions, and her early de- 
 parture from womanly propriety, been magnified 
 to undue importance by the indiscreet censures 
 of the over-zealous ministers and magistrates of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The eventful life of this celebrated woman 
 was brought to a close so melancholy and tragi- 
 cal, as, at any other period than one of ex- 
 traordinary bigotry and severity, would have 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 103 
 
 changed every feeling of anger and resentment 
 into pity and sorrow. On the death of her hus- 
 band, in 1642, she removed her residence to 
 Long Island, where, in the year following, she 
 was murdered by the Indians, with her whole 
 family, comprising sixteen persons, with the ex- 
 ception of one daughter, who was carried away 
 into an unknown captivity. Her tragical death, 
 and the extinction of her family, served but to 
 confirm her enemies in Massachusetts in their 
 convictions of her wickedness, and the justice of 
 their proceedings against her. They were con- 
 fidently regarded as a revelation of the judg- 
 ment of God against her destructive heresies, 
 which, even in the distant wilderness to which 
 she had fled, could not escape the righteous 
 retributions of Heaven. 
 
 Such is ever the spirit of intolerance. It 
 narrows and dwarfs the intellect by the fallacies 
 it employs, and the suspicions it engenders. It 
 steels the heart, and crushes its generous sym- 
 pathies, and converts even the misfortunes and 
 sufferings of its victims into justifications of its 
 own severities. 
 
 The events, which we have thus narrated, 
 had an important influence upon the affairs of 
 the settlement at Providence, and the narration 
 of them was necessary in order to illustrate the 
 spirit of the time, and the character of the in- 
 
J104 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 dividual whose life we are tracing. They pre- 
 sent his character and principles in striking con- 
 trast with those of the other leading men of that 
 day. They imposed upon him offices of disin- 
 terested benevolence, the performance of which 
 must have engrossed his attention and consumed 
 his time, even while the support of his family 
 and the interests of his colony were subjects of 
 pressing solicitude. The arbitrary proceedings, 
 adopted by the government of Massachusetts 
 Bay against Mrs. Hutchinson and her adherents, 
 drove from that colony many of its citizens, and 
 in this manner contributed largely to the growth 
 of the plantations at Providence, where the 
 refugees were sure to be welcomed with a ready 
 and generous hospitality. The offspring of Mas- 
 sachusetts, it thus became the home of the dis- 
 affected and the banished, whom she had cast 
 out from her citizens. It could hardly be ex- 
 pected that the persons, whom she had thus 
 driven into exile, would entertain very favorable 
 opinions of the justice of the proceedings against 
 them. A letter written from Providence, and 
 complaining of the acts of the General Court, 
 and the prevailing spirit of the colony, was 
 brought to the notice of the authorities. In 
 consequence of this, it was ordered, that, if 
 any one of the settlers at Providence should be 
 found within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 105 
 
 he should be brought before one of the magis- 
 trates, and, if he gave his sanction to the letter, 
 he should be sent home, and forbidden to come 
 again into the jurisdiction, upon pain of im- 
 prisonment and further censure.* 
 
 Acts like this, however, seem to have pro-, 
 duced no change' in the spirit or conduct ofl 
 Williams. He still exerted himself on every oc- 
 casion to preserve the peace of New England, 
 to maintain the rights of the natives, and to 
 conciliate their good-will towards all the col- 
 onies. His spirit and conduct are well exem- 
 plified in the course, which he pursued with 
 respect to the murder of an Indian, near Paw- 
 tucket, by four Englishmen, who had been ser- 
 vants in Plymouth, and had absconded from 
 their masters. The murderers fled to Providence, 
 where they were, at first, kindly received by Mr. 
 Williams, who was as yet ignorant of their crime. 
 They had scarcely departed, when intelligence 
 was brought him of the murder, and of the ex- 
 citement and alarm it produced among the In- 
 dians. He immediately despatched messengers 
 for the apprehension of 'the men, and repaired 
 himself to the spot, where the murdered man 
 was found, and received from him, just as he 
 was dying, an account of the affair. The men 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. I. p. 256. 
 
106 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 were soon apprehended, and brought to Provi- 
 dence ; and, by the advice of Governor Winthrop, 
 they were carried to Plymouth, within whose ju- 
 risdiction the crime had been committed. One 
 of them subsequently escaped ; but the remaining 
 three were tried and executed, in the presence 
 of Mr, Williams and some Indians of the tribe, 
 to which the murdered man belonged, whom he 
 invited to accompany him to witness the justice 
 which white men awarded to the murderer of 
 an Indian. 
 
 Conduct like this, in vindication of the rights 
 of the natives, and in promoting the peace and 
 happiness of all the inhabitants of the country, 
 did not fail to secure the abiding confidence of 
 the Indian chiefs. In every question that arose 
 between them and the English, he was made 
 their adviser, and often became the mediator 
 between the parties. In the year 1640, there 
 were rumors abroad of new mischiefs plotting 
 among the Indians. The Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts strengthened the defences of the colony, 
 and sent an agent to the Narragansetts, to as- 
 certain the truth of the rumors, and to invite 
 the sachem to Boston, for the purpose of re- 
 newing a good understanding with the author- 
 ities. The reports were all denied by Mianto- 
 nomo, who expressed his readiness to come to 
 Boston, provided Mr. Williams could accompany 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 107 
 
 him as his friend and adviser. But the Court of 
 Massachusetts refused to relax their sentence of 
 banishment against him, even to allow a tem- 
 porary visit to the colony, on an errand so dis- 
 interested and important to its peace and well- 
 being. 
 
 The sternness with which Massachusetts ad- 
 hered to the letter of the sentence, and the act 
 of exclusion which she passed against all the in- 
 habitants of Providence, operated exceedingly to 
 their disadvantage. Boston was then the principal 
 mart of trade in New England, and, by the act 
 of the Court, those who had been forbidden to 
 enter Massachusetts were obliged to forego many 
 of the comforts of life, which could only be ob- 
 tained there, as well as the profits of the trade 
 they might have carried on with the inhabitants. 
 Roger Williams himself complains, that many 
 thousand pounds would not repay the losses he 
 sustained in being thus debarred from commerce 
 with the English and natives of Massachusetts., 
 In referring to this period of his life, he says his 
 " time was spent day and night, at home and 
 abroad, on the land and water, at the hoe and 
 at the oar, for bread." He was poor, and obliged 
 to labor constantly for his support ; and, even 
 with his utmost exertions, in those early times, 
 he and his fellow-settlers at Providence must 
 often have been reduced to privations and suf- 
 
108 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ferings, which their prosperous and wealthy 
 descendants can now but inadequately conceive. 
 
 Among the turbulent spirits, whose erratic 
 career was connected with the life of Roger 
 Williams, was Samuel Gorton, a wild and rest- 
 less enthusiast, who arrived at Boston in 1636. 
 He soon removed to Plymouth, where, falling into 
 a difficulty with the minister and the authorities, 
 he was sentenced to pay a fine, and to give 
 bonds for his subsequent good behavior. From 
 Plymouth, he went to Rhode Island, where it 
 is stated, though upon insufficient grounds, that 
 he was tried as a disturber of the peace, and 
 condemned to be publicly whipped. He at 
 length came to Providence, where Roger Wil- 
 liams, with his usual humanity, received him to 
 his hospitality, and offered him a shelter. Here 
 he soon became the occasion of no small diffi- 
 culty to the inhabitants, whose simple compact 
 of voluntary association rendered social feuds of 
 easy growth. The town was already distracted 
 by the disputes, which had grown out of the 
 division of the lands, and the ambiguous lan- 
 guage in which the title was originally conveyed 
 to Williams. 
 
 Gorton, having purchased a tract of land at 
 Pawtuxet, in the south part of the Providence 
 purchase, was soon joined by some of his ad- 
 herents^ who had been disfranchised at Newport. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 109 
 
 A quarrel immediately sprang up between them 
 and the inhabitants of Providence, which long 
 disturbed the peace of the colony, and came 
 well nigh ending in violence and bloodshed. 
 The parties became exasperated, and went forth 
 against each other with arms, bent upon settling 
 the controversy by blows. But Mr. Williams, 
 mortified at the existence of so disgiaceful a 
 feud, pacified the combatants, and persuaded 
 them to retire without violence. Yet this did 
 not settle the strife. No arbitration could allay 
 the stormy passions which had been excited. 
 The infant colony, at that time without a gov- 
 ernment, and under no control save that of 
 the popular sentiment, was completely distracted 
 by the controversy. In this state of things, a 
 few individuals of the weaker party sent an ap- 
 peal to Massachusetts for aid, in settling the 
 peace of the colony. The application was re- 
 fused ; but the act itself prepared the way for 
 a series of attempts, on the part of Massachusetts, 
 to usurp the control of affairs at Providence, 
 until, at length, she asserted absolute jurisdiction 
 over the whole settlement. 
 
 To this proceeding of his fellow-planters Mr. 
 WilUams seems never to have given the slight- 
 est sanction, though the opposite has been fre- 
 quently affirmed. He was opposed to the prin- 
 ciples of Gorton, and was displeased with his 
 
no AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 conduct; yet he would not withhold from him 
 the hospitality and shelter he sought. He evi- 
 dently regarded him as a man of troublesome 
 opinions and wayward impulses, but not on 
 this account to be driven from the colony. Ac- 
 cordingly, Gorton was allowed to purchase land 
 at Providence, though he never signed the com- 
 pact by which the inhabitants bound themselves 
 to each other ; a circumstance which renders 
 his conduct still more ungrateful and repre- 
 hensible. 
 
 A year or two later, the feud still remaining 
 unabated, four of the residents at Pawtuxet, who 
 were opposed to Gorton, gave in their alle- 
 giance to Massachusetts, in order that he might 
 be brought to punishment. The authorities of 
 the Bay, in those days, were seldom very scru- 
 pulous about extending their jurisdiction, and 
 immediately began to exercise the prerogatives 
 of government over the citizens of Providence. 
 Gorton and his adherents obeyed the dictates 
 of prudence, and removed beyond the Pawtuxet 
 River, the southern boundary of Providence, to 
 Shawomet, or Warwick, where they purchased 
 lands of the natives, and commenced a settle- 
 ment. But the authorities of Massachusetts were 
 not thus to be defeated. They set up a plea 
 of jurisdiction even here, and sent an armed 
 force, with orders to seize Gorton, and bring 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. Ill 
 
 him to Boston for trial. The trial, which pro- 
 ceeded on a general charge of his being an 
 enemy of religion, and a disturber of the peace, 
 terminated in a severe sentence, by which he 
 and his associates were doomed to imprison- 
 ment during the winter, and compelled to hard 
 labor with an iron chain bolted fast upon their 
 limbs. 
 
 These unfortunate men, whose only crimes 
 were their wild and fanatical opinions, were 
 separated from each other, and imprisoned in 
 sohtude in several of the towns about Boston; 
 they were forbidden, upon penalty of death, to 
 speak to any one save an officer of the church 
 or of the colony ; and, at the close of a dreary 
 winter's confinement, barely escaping with their 
 lives, were banished from Massachusetts. Gor- 
 ton, accompanied by two of his associates, after- 
 wards went to England, where they represented 
 their wrongs to the Earl of Warwick and the 
 Commissioners for the Plantations, and obtained 
 from them a full recognition of their title to 
 the lands at Shawomet, and an order to the 
 authorities of Massachusetts to allow them un- 
 molested possession of their rights. 
 
 These events were eminently fitted to suggest 
 lessons and reflections, which did not fail to 
 affect the sagacious mind of Mr. Williams. He 
 had already had abundant opportunities of learn- 
 
112 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing the arbitrary and inquisitorial spirit of the 
 neighboring colony ; but he probably had not 
 before been fully aware of the tendency to tu- 
 mult and trouble existing among the members 
 of his own settlement, or of the absolute ne- 
 cessity of some more efficient organization than 
 the simple bond of a common faith in the same 
 principles of civil freedom, and the compact of 
 town fellowship, which had hitherto bound them 
 together. In connection also with subsequent 
 proceedings on the part of the other colonies 
 of New England, these events prepared the way 
 for important changes in the affairs of Prov- 
 idence, which opened new*spheres for the benev- 
 olent enterprises and exertions of its founder. 
 
 They also illustrate, as fully as records can do 
 it, the difficulties with which the heterodox col- 
 ony was so long obliged to contend, and are 
 sufficient to satisfy every candid reader, that 
 Massachusetts Bay had but slender claims upon 
 the gratitude of her offspring for any assistance 
 she rendered, in relieving the necessities or mit- 
 igating the trials incident to an infant settle- 
 ment in the wilderness. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 113 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The New England Confederacy, — The CoIo' 
 nies in Rhode Island excluded, — They appeal 
 to the King, — Williams is appointed their 
 Agent, and sails for England, — Obtains a 
 Charter, — Publishes the '^Bloody Teiiet." — 
 He returns to Rhode Island with the Char- 
 ter, — His Reception at Providence, — His 
 Pacification of the Indians, — Organization 
 of a Government under the Charter, — Spirit 
 of its early Legislation, 
 
 The year 1643 was rendered memorable by 
 the establishment of the earliest confederacy 
 among the colonies of New England. It was 
 a union of great importance to the interests 
 of those embraced in it, and may be regarded 
 as, in some sort, the germ of the subsequent 
 confederations which have marked the history 
 of the American people. The objects which 
 were proposed in its formation were mutual 
 protection against the depredations of the In- 
 dian tribes, who were now every year becoming 
 more formidable by their acquisition of fire- 
 arms, and against the encroachments of the 
 Dutch and the French, whose plantations skirt- 
 ed the settlements of the English, together with 
 
 VOL. IV. 8 
 
114 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the preservation of the hberty and peace of the 
 gospel, and the advancement of the kingdom of 
 Jesus Christ. The league, which contained the 
 articles of the union, was signed at Boston, on 
 the 19th of May, by the commissioners of the 
 several colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, 
 Connecticut, and New Haven. 
 
 By the terms of the confederacy, it was ar- 
 ranged that two commissioners should be annu- 
 ally chosen by each colony, to meet successively 
 at Boston, Hartford, New Haven, and Plymouth, 
 once in a year, or oftener, if the exigencies of 
 the times should require, who should form a 
 kind of central government, with power to de- 
 termine all questions relating to war and peace, 
 and provide for the general administration of 
 justice, and the common welfare of all the 
 colonies. The independence, however, of each 
 of the several governments was strictly pre- 
 served ; for the local jurisdiction remained 
 unimpaired, and the commissioners, in reality, 
 could do little more than discuss the matters 
 submitted to them, and recommend, for the 
 adoption of the colonies, the measures they 
 might deem expedient. They had no power 
 to enforce a single decree, or to alter or annul 
 a single proceeding of the colonial assemblies. 
 
 The colony at Providence, formed, as it had 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 115 
 
 been, principally of the outcast and banished 
 from the other settlements of New England, 
 was not invited to join the confederacy ; and 
 her subsequent application for admission, like 
 that of the settlers on Rhode Island, was stern- 
 ly refused. The reason alleged at the time 
 was the want of a regular charter of govern- 
 ment, though, from the fact that, when this 
 objection was removed, the refusal was still 
 persisted in, we may well infer that other con- 
 siderations determined the action of the con- 
 federate colonies. The entire separation of re- 
 ligion from the control of the civil power, and 
 the cathoHc and tolerant spirit which charac- 
 terized the inhabitants of Providence, were \ 
 peculiarly offensive to their neighbors, and un- | 
 doubtedly constituted the principal cause of 
 the exclusion of the colony from the New Eng- 
 land confederacy. The spirit which banished 
 Roger Williams from Massachusetts had lost 
 none of its sternness and severity, and would 
 now regard with no favorable disposition the 
 plantations which embodied his principles, and 
 w^ere growing up beneath his care. The in- 
 habitants of Providence were thus left exposed 
 to all the inconveniences and dangers incident 
 to an isolated position, among barbarians on 
 the one hand, and powerful and united neigh- 
 bors on the other. In every emergency, they 
 
116 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 must rely on their own resources, and trust to 
 their own unaided strength. Had the httle 
 state, stung by this ingratitude and humiha- 
 tion, retahated the injuries she had received, 
 it would have been no extraordinary act, and 
 would have found, at least, some palliation in 
 the political necessities to which she was re- 
 duced. So great was the influence of her 
 founder with the Indians, that their friendship 
 might easily have been withdrawn from the 
 other colonies, and her admission to the con- 
 federacy been compelled by the troubles she 
 might thus have occasioned them. 
 
 No such spirit, however, was harbored in 
 the minds of Williams and his associates. Their 
 influence, while it was able to protect their 
 colony amidst the perils which threatened its 
 existence, was exerted, in every instance, to ap- 
 pease the vengeance of the savages, and pro- 
 tect the lives and interests of their countrymen; 
 and, had their views been oftener regarded, the 
 early annals of New England might have been 
 free from, at least, some of the blots that now 
 darken their pages. 
 
 The increasing prosperity of the colonies at 
 Providence, and on Rhode Island, together with 
 their exclusion from the confederacy, and the 
 frequent declarations made by their enemies, 
 that they had no authority for civil govern- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 117 
 
 merit, at length induced them to unite in seek- 
 ing the favor and protection of the mother 
 country. The mission was intrusted to Mr. 
 Wilhams. It was one of considerable difficulty, 
 and of vast importance ; for upon its success- 
 ful accomplishment depended even the exist- 
 ence of the colony. He accepted the high 
 trust thus committed to him, and, by reason 
 of his exclusion from the territories of Massa- 
 chusetts, proceeded to New York, to embark 
 for England. And here, while waiting for the 
 ship to go to sea, an opportunity was pre- 
 sented him to exert his influence with the In- 
 dians, and save the colony at Manhattoes from 
 a desolating war. The Indians of Long Island, 
 exasperated by the wanton cruelties of the 
 Dutch, had risen against them in great fury. 
 They had burned the house and murdered the 
 family of Mrs. Hutchinson, and assaulted the 
 dwelHng of Lady Moody, an inhabitant of the 
 island, who had lately removed from Massa- 
 chusetts. It was by the intercession of Wil- 
 liams, and that peculiar influence, which, more 
 than any other man, he possessed with the In- 
 dians, that their fury was appeased, and peace 
 restored to the settlements of the Dutchmen. 
 
 In the course of the summer of 1643, he set 
 sail from New York for his native land. Of the 
 length or the incidents of the voyage he has 
 
118 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 left no written account. He beguiled its weari- 
 some days by preparing a " Key to the In- 
 dian Languages," which he drew up, as he 
 says, " as a private help to my own memory, 
 that I might not, by my present absence, hghtly 
 lose what I had so dearly bought in some few 
 years' hardship and charges among the barba- 
 rians." It was published soon after his arrival 
 in England, and was the first attempt which 
 had then been made to explain, in English, the 
 language and manners of the North American 
 Indians. It contains much valuable information, 
 and is still regarded as one of the best expo- 
 sitions of the subjects to which it relates. 
 
 Mr. Williams arrived in England in the midst 
 of the civil war which then distracted the na- 
 tion, and but a short time after the popular 
 party had seen Hampden, the purest and no- 
 blest of their leaders, cut down by the foe on 
 the field of Chalgrove. The fate of the Eng- 
 lish monarchy was suspended on the crisis. The 
 nation was hurried on through a series of tu- 
 multuous events. The Parliament gained the 
 ascendency ; Charles the First was sent to the 
 scaffold, and the ambition of Cromwell found a 
 way for the accomplishment of its vast schemes 
 of aggrandizement. This disturbed state of pub- 
 lic affairs was, on the whole, favorable to the 
 objects of Mr. Williams. The Parhament, as yet 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 119 
 
 distrustful of their position, and uncertain re- 
 specting the issues of the revokition they had 
 set on foot, were willing to conciliate the favor 
 of the colonies, and intrusted their afiairs to the 
 administration of the Earl of Warwick, as Gov- 
 ernor-General and Lord High Admiral of the 
 colonies in America, with a council composed 
 of five peers and twelve commoners. Among 
 the commoners who sat at the council-board 
 of the Earl of Warwick was Sir Henry Vane, 
 the early friend of Roger Williams, and his il- 
 lustrious compeer in advocating the doctrines 
 of religious freedom. By him Mr. Williams was 
 received with a cordial welcome, and presented 
 to the commissioners of the colonies, who list- 
 ened to his views with marked attention, and, 
 in the name of the King, granted him a char- 
 ter for the towns of Providence, Portsmouth, 
 and Newport, to be entitled " The Incorpora- 
 tion of Providence Plantations in the Narragan- 
 sett Bay in New England." The instrument 
 bore the date of March 14th, 1644, and con- 
 veyed to the inhabitants of these towns full pow- 
 er and authority to adopt such a form of civil 
 government, and '' to make and ordain such 
 civil laws and constitutions, as they, or the great- 
 est part of them, shall by free consent agree 
 unto." The charter distinctly recognized the 
 principle on which the colony was founded, 
 
120 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and which the inhabitants had carefully cher- 
 ished, that government should concern civil 
 things alone ; and within this sphere it imposed 
 no limitation, save only that the ordinances that 
 might be adopted should not conflict with the 
 laws of England. 
 
 During his residence in England, notwith- 
 standing the engrossing nature of his mission, 
 and the civil strifes that were raging around 
 him, Mr. Williams found leisure to write and 
 publish his famous book called "The Bloody 
 Tenet' of Persecution for Cause of Conscience." 
 In this, the ablest of his works, in the form of 
 a dialogue between Truth and Peace, he dis- 
 cusses the doctrines of religious freedom, for 
 which he had always contended, and in the 
 maintenance of which he had made so many 
 sacrifices. The work was printed in London, 
 without the author's name, in 1644. It \vas 
 dedicated to the High Court of Parliament, and 
 from the beauties of its style, and the great in- 
 terest of the subject, was fitted to command 
 unusual attention, especially at that early dawn 
 of intellectual liberty in England. Mr. Cotton, 
 of Boston, wrote a reply, which, in accordance 
 with the quaint and singular taste of the age, 
 he entitled " The Bloody Tenet washed and 
 made white in the Blood of the Lamb." After 
 some time, Mr. Williams published a rejoinder, 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 121 
 
 which, in the same style then so common in 
 theological writings, he called " The Bloody 
 Tenet yet more bloody by Mr. Cotton's En- 
 deavor to wash it white." 
 
 The question at issue between these two emi- 
 nent disputants has long since been decided on 
 the side of Mr. Williams, by the general voice 
 of the Protestant world ; and the writings to 
 which it gave rise now only serve to show how 
 far he strode before even the most gifted spirits 
 of his time in the perception and assertion 
 of the rights of the soul. Though the writings 
 of Cotton and of Williams conduct the reader 
 to widely different conclusions, and are distin- 
 guished from each other by marked character- 
 istics, yet the controversy, on both sides, waa 
 conducted in a spirit of courtesy and candor' 
 unusual in that age of bitter strife and severe 
 personahties. 
 
 The errand of Mr. Williams in England was 
 now accomplished, and in the summer of 1644 
 he embarked for America. Thirteen years had 
 passed since he first set sail, a youthful emi- 
 grant to the untried settlements of the new 
 world. How changed was now his condition ! 
 He had suffered persecution at the hands of 
 his brethren, and tasted the bitterness of a win- 
 try exile ; but he had also become the father 
 of a new colony, which embodied a great prin- 
 
122 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ciple of civil society, now for the first time put 
 in practice ; and he was bearing with him across 
 the Atlantic a charter, which guarantied its ex- 
 istence and exercise for ever. He arrived at 
 Boston on the 17th of September, 1644, and 
 landed in the forbidden territory of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, by virtue of the following letter which 
 had been given to him in England, signed by 
 several members of both houses of Parliament, 
 and addressed " to the Governor and Assistants, 
 and the rest of our worthy friends in the Plan- 
 tation of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." 
 
 "Our much honored Friends, 
 
 "Taking notice, some of us of long 
 time, of Mr. Roger Williams's good affections 
 and conscience, and of his sufferings by our 
 common enemy and oppressors of God's people, 
 the prelates, as also of his great industry and 
 travels in his printed Indian labors, in your 
 parts, (the like whereof we have not seen ex- 
 tant from any part of America,) and in which 
 respects it hath pleased both houses of Par- 
 liament to grant unto him, and friends with 
 him, a free and absolute charter of civil gov- 
 ernment for those parts of his abode, and withal 
 sorrowfully resenting, that, amongst good men, 
 (our friends,) driven to the ends of the world, 
 exercised with the trials of a wilderness, and 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 123 
 
 who mutually give good testimony each of the 
 other, (as we observe you do of him, and he 
 abundantly of you,) there should be such a 
 distance ; we thought it fit, upon divers con- 
 siderations, to profess our great desires of both 
 your utmost endeavors of nearer closing, and 
 of ready expressing those good affections (which 
 we perceive you bear to each other) in effec- 
 tual performance of all friendly offices. The 
 rather because of those bad neighbors you are 
 likely to find too near you in Virginia, and the 
 unfriendly visits from the west of England, 
 and from Ireland. That however it may please 
 the Most High to shake our foundations, yet 
 the report of your peaceable and prosperous 
 Plantations may be some refreshings to your 
 true and faithful friends." 
 
 This letter was delivered to the authorities 
 of Massachusetts, but it wholly failed to soften 
 their temper towards Mr. Williams, further than 
 to allow him to proceed unmolested to Prov- 
 idence. The magistrates, says Hubbard, upon 
 the receipt of the letter, examined their hearts, 
 but saw no reason to condemn themselves for 
 their former proceedings against him. The he- 
 retical colony, now that it had received a char- 
 ter from the Council, and its founder had been 
 applauded and honored by some of the leading 
 
124 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 members of the government in England, was 
 an object of even greater distrust and suspicion 
 than before. The heresies, which the fathers of 
 Massachusetts had so often attempted to de- 
 stroy, seemed now secure beneath the protec- 
 tion of a separate government, and, in their 
 estimation, were clothed with greater importance 
 and power of mischief. 
 
 But new honors awaited the return of Mr. 
 Williams to his own colony. The news of his 
 arrival at Boston had gone before him, and, as 
 he proceeded on his journey homeward, along 
 the scenes he once traversed as an exile, he 
 found the waters of the Seekonk covered with 
 canoes, containing the whole population of Provi- 
 dence, who had come out to welcome his return 
 and bear him back in triumph. It was a fitting 
 expression of the gratitude and esteem in which 
 the citizens of the colony held the character and 
 services of its founder and greatest benefactor. 
 
 The inhabitants of the several settlements, em- 
 braced in the charter of Mr. Williams, were 
 not prepared to enter at once upon the organ- 
 ization of a common government, in accordance 
 with its provisions. Many local questions were 
 to be decided, and jarring interests were to be 
 harmonized. Besides this, the distracted state 
 of affairs in England created party divisions 
 among the colonists of America. In this way 
 
 1 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 125 
 
 the hopes and plans of Mr. Williams were de- 
 ferred. But his services, as the pacificator of 
 the Indians, were again immediately put in 
 requisition, in settling the difficulties which had 
 sprung up, in his absence, between the colonies 
 and the Narragansetts. Miantonomo, the sachem 
 of the tribe, the early and tried friend of the 
 fathers of RJiode Island, had been put to death 
 in circumstances which gave to the deed the 
 aspect of wanton cruelty and injustice. In vio- 
 lation of an existing treaty, he had made war 
 upon Uncas, the Mohegan chief, and was de- 
 feated and taken prisoner in battle. The con- 
 queror carried the Narragansett warrior to Hart- 
 ford, where he placed him in prison, and sub- 
 mitted his fate to the commissioners of the United 
 Colonies. It was in their power to save him, 
 had such been their inclination ; but they asked 
 the advice of " five of the most judicious el- 
 ders," who, seeing in the unfortunate sachem 
 not only the violator of the treaty, but the friend 
 of Roger Williams and Samuel Gorton, gave 
 their opinion that he deserved to die. The 
 commissioners accepted the decision, and Mian- 
 tonomo was escorted, by a guard of soldiers, 
 into the territory of the Mohegans, where he was 
 put to death by Uncas, in the presence of some 
 English, who were sent to witness the shameful 
 deed. Had this act been the simple dictate of 
 
126 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 barbarian revenge, it would have occasioned no 
 surprise to those who are famihar with the stern 
 customs of savage warfare ; but that it should 
 have been sanctioned and advised by Christian 
 ministers, even at this distant day mantles the 
 cheek with a blush of shame, at the weakness 
 of principle and the bitterness of feeling which 
 it betrays. 
 
 It was not strange that the tribe burned to 
 avenge the murder of their chief, for whose 
 ransom, they alleged, they had paid the wampum 
 which was stipulated. They soon commenced a 
 war with the Mohegans, which they also threat- 
 ened to extend to all the colonies of New Eng- 
 land, except those at Providence and on Rhode 
 Island, to which they had always been friendly, 
 and from which, in return, they had received 
 nothing but kindness. The commissioners held 
 an extraordinary session in Boston, at which they 
 received a letter from Roger Williams, informing 
 them of the hostile determinations of the Narra- 
 gansetts. No time was to be lost. It was im- 
 mediately ordered, that three hundred men be 
 sent to the aid of the Mohegans, the allies of the 
 English. Two messengers were also despatched 
 to the Narragansetts, to appease, if possible, their 
 vengeance and prevent the war. 
 
 The sachems of the tribe had already sent for 
 Mr. Williams to advise them ; and, on the arrival 
 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 127 
 
 of the messengers, he acted as their interpreter, 
 and united his influence with theirs to allay the 
 hostile passions of the natives. By his media- 
 tion, Passacus, the brother and successor of Mi- 
 antonomo, was induced to go to Boston, attended 
 by other chiefs of the tribe, where he concluded 
 a treaty with the commissioners, which crushed 
 forever the power, the independence, and the 
 pride of the Narragan setts. The treaty was con- 
 cluded on the 4th of August, 1645. By its pro- 
 visions, the sachems agreed to pay to the com- 
 missioners two thousand fathoms of wampum, 
 as a remuneration for the expenses of the war, 
 and left at Boston a child of Passacus, together 
 with the children of some others of the chiefs, 
 as hostages of their fidelity. Thus, again, were 
 the settlements of New England saved from the 
 desolations of Indian war, mainly by the dis- 
 interested exertions and great personal influence 
 of Mr. Williams. 
 
 The several towns of the Providence Planta- 
 tions at length agreed on a form of govern- 
 ment, framed in accordance with the powers 
 granted to them in the charter. It was adopted 
 in a general assembly of the people of the col- 
 ony, held at Portsmouth, in May, 1647; and, 
 among its leading provisions, it required the an- 
 nual election of a President and four assistants, in 
 
128 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whom should be vested the executive power, 
 and who should constitute the Supreme Court 
 of trials for all cases of appeal from the local 
 authorities of the towns. The legislative As- 
 sembly was composed of six commissioners, from 
 each of the towns, who should make laws, and 
 order all the general affairs of the colony ; but, 
 so jealous were the people of the exercise of 
 any delegated authority, that the towns reserved 
 to themselves the power of annulling any law, 
 which their representatives might pass. The 
 organization of the new government was a con- 
 summation of great importance in the history of 
 the little colony ; and to bring it about had 
 enlisted the strongest interests and efforts of 
 Mr. Williams. He strenuously sought to remove 
 the petty jealousies, which the settlements had 
 been in the habit of indulging towards each 
 other, and to heal the divisions by which the 
 people, composed as they were of many dis- 
 cordant spirits and tenacious consciences, had 
 long been distracted. It was, undoubtedly, in 
 accordance wRh his own counsels, and to re- 
 move every occasion of complaint on the part of 
 the inhabitants of Rhode Island, that the office 
 ' of President of the colony, which so naturally 
 belonged to himself, was bestowed upon Mr. 
 John Coggeshall, of Newport, at the first General 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 129 
 
 Assembly of election, while he accepted the 
 humbler place of assistant for the town of Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 Among the acts passed at this first meeting 
 of the colonial Assembly, was a resolution ma- 
 king honorable mention of the services of Mr. 
 Wilhams in negotiating the charter, and, " in 
 regard to his so great trouble, charges, and good 
 endeavors," granting him the sum of one hun- 
 dred pounds, to be levied upon the three towns 
 of the province, viz., fifty pounds from New- 
 port, thirty pounds from Portsmouth, and twenty 
 pounds from Providence. Inadequate as this 
 compensation was to remunerate him even for 
 the actual expenses incurred in his important \ 
 mission, the whole of the sum was never paid. \ 
 The poverty of the people may be pleaded as 
 some slight extenuation of so gross neglect ; but 
 it is to be feared, that, in consequence of the 
 party divisions, which then existed in the colony, 
 as well as of the imperfect authority with which 
 the government was invested, the obligations of 
 public indebtedness were but slightly felt, and 
 reluctantly acknowledged. 
 
 At the same general meeting of the colony 
 was adopted a code of laws, fashioned, in the 
 main, after the existing laws of England, but 
 strictly confining its regulations to civil things 
 alone, and expressly declaring, in one of its pro- 
 
 VOL. IV. 9 
 
130 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 visions, that '^ otherwise than in what is herein 
 forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences 
 persuade them, every one in the fear of his 
 God." 
 
 Such were the early government and the 
 legislation of Rhode Island. It was the simple 
 embodiment of the principles of her founder, 
 and displays a spirit of freedom, and a practical 
 wisdom, that stand out in bold contrast with the 
 prevailing views of the older colonies, and would 
 do honor to the statesmen and legislators of 
 any age. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Private Life of Williams. — Dissensions in Rhode 
 Island. — Coddington's Commission. — Op- 
 pressive Policy of the United Colonies. — 
 Treatment of John Clarke and others in Mas- 
 sachusetts. — Dissatisfaction with Coddington. 
 — Williams and Clarice are appointed Agents 
 of the Colony. — They sail for England. 
 
 During the years through which we have fol- 
 lowed the fortunes of Mr. Williams up to the 
 present point, some important changes had taken 
 place in his private affairs. The character of 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 131 
 
 minister of the gospel, in which he first ap- 
 peared in New England, and in which he was 
 banished from Massachusetts, had been gradually 
 laid aside. It is probable, that he had not 
 wholly ceased from preaching; but, some alter- 
 ation having taken place in his views of the 
 Christian ministry, and the affairs of the colony 
 having almost constantly occupied his attention, 
 he seems never to have held, for any length of 
 time after his removal to Providence, the office 
 of teacher of a church. His family, too, had 
 been gradually increased by the births of six 
 children, all of whom were now of a tender 
 age. In order to provide for the support of 
 his family, as well as to repair the fortunes, 
 which persecution and sacrifice had impover- 
 ished, soon after his return from England he 
 erected a trading-house, in the country of the 
 Narragansetts, at which he now spent the greater 
 part of his time. Here, for many years, he car- 
 ried on an honorable traffic with the Indians, 
 and, at the same time, instructed them in the 
 truths of Christianity, and acted as their advi- 
 ser in all their diplomacy with the settlements 
 around them. 
 
 He was still, however, regarded as a citizen 
 of Providence, and, as such, was successively 
 elected to many of the higliest offices of the 
 town and the colony, and found frequent ocn/ 
 
132 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 casions on which to put forth his exertions for 
 their welfare. The petty strifes and local feuds, 
 which had so long delayed the organization of 
 government under the charter, were not wholly 
 brought to an end by that event. The causes 
 which gave rise to them are long since for- 
 gotten, and were, probably, in themselves ex- 
 ceedingly trivial and unimportant. The several 
 towns of the province, settled as they had been 
 mainly by refugees from the other colonies, com- 
 prised persons of every form of religious faith, 
 and every shade of political opinion. They 
 early became the asylum of all sorts of con- 
 sciences, so that, as was reproachfully said, if 
 a person had lost his conscience, he might be 
 sure to find it in some of the towns of Rhode 
 Island. Among a population so promiscuously 
 collected, it is not strange that some should 
 have mistaken the true idea of religious free- 
 dom, and extended the shield of conscience over 
 matters and opinions with which it had no 
 proper connection. The harmony of Providence 
 was early disturbed, in this way, by the quarrels 
 of troublesome and heady persons, who grew 
 restive beneath the wholesome restraints that 
 were imposed upon them. From all such strifes, 
 however, Mr. Williams appears to have studi- 
 ously kept aloof; for his name is seldom men- 
 tioned in connection with them, save when he 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 133 
 
 steps forward to calm the agitated waters, and 
 enjoin harmony upon the excited and turbulent 
 citizens. His efforts were often crowned with 
 success, though he frequently had the mortifi- 
 cation of seeing the principles of religious free- 
 dom, which, in his own mind, were clearly 
 separated from all licentiousness, ridiculously 
 perverted to justify the silliest absurdities of 
 opinion, or the most irregular extravagances of 
 conduct. 
 
 One of the principal difficulties, which, at this 
 time, disturbed the peace of the colony, arose 
 from the extraordinary proceedings of Mr. Cod- 
 dington, the leading inhabitant of the Island of 
 Rhode Island. From the very organization of 
 the government under the charter, he arrayed 
 himself in the opposition, and seems to have 
 left no effort untried to overturn and destroy it. 
 Uniting with himself a faction composed prob- 
 ably of persons accustomed to take their opinions 
 from him, he first petitioned the colony of Plym- 
 outh to take the island under its jurisdiction ; 
 and when this application failed, notwithstand- 
 ing he had been elected President, in the mean 
 time he went to England, to endeavor to set 
 aside the charter which Mr. Williams had pro- 
 cured, and destroy the union of the towns, which 
 had been organized by its provisions. In this 
 endeavor he was successful ; though by what 
 
134 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 representations he induced the Council of State, 
 who then governed the country, so soon to an- 
 nul the former instrument, has never been clearly 
 understood. He returned in 1651, bringing with 
 him a commission, erecting the islands of Rhode 
 Island and Canonicut into a separate govern- 
 ment, and also appointing him Governor, for life, 
 of the new colony, with a Council to be nomi- 
 nated by the people and approved by himself. 
 
 The arrival of a charter, whose operation would 
 inevitably destroy the existing government, and 
 clothe a single individual with unwonted power, 
 created no ordinary sensation among the towns 
 of the province. In Newport and Portsmouth, 
 especially, the excitement ran so high as al- 
 most to lead to violence, and the opposition, 
 which Mr. Coddington encountered in the ex- 
 ercise of his new authority, was abundantly suf- 
 ficient to show, that the whole proceeding was 
 without the sanction, and contrary to the wishes, 
 of a majority of the people. The effect of the 
 measure, however, was, for a time, to sever the 
 islands from the other towns of the colony, and 
 to place them under the jurisdiction of a sepa- 
 rate government. 
 
 But these internal dissensions were not the 
 only troubles to which the Plantations at Provi- 
 dence were subjected. The several portions of 
 the territory were still subjects of tlic pressing 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 135 
 
 claims of the other colonies ; and that the little 
 republic escaped the partitioning, which has so 
 often been the destiny of feeble states, among 
 powerful and ambitious neighbors, is to be 
 attributed to the firmness and perseverance of 
 her citizens, rather than to the forbearance or 
 negligence of the colonies that surrounded her, 
 Plymouth had at different times laid claim to 
 the Island of Rhode Island. Massachusetts still 
 asserted her jurisdiction over the people at Paw- 
 tuxet ; and, soon after the return of Mr. Wilhams 
 from England, she had sent him an order, while 
 acting as President of the colony, forbidding him 
 to exercise any of the functions of government, 
 and alleging that the whole territory was hers, 
 by virtue of a charter, which had been grant- 
 ed by the Parliament. Though these claims of 
 Massachusetts were never allowed within the 
 territory either of Providence or of Rhode Isl- 
 and, yet she did not fail to exercise her power, 
 sometimes in a most despotic way, over the 
 citizens of these colonies, whenever they were 
 found within her own proper jurisdiction. Among 
 the acts of her authorities towards these unof- 
 fending assertors of the freedom of conscience, 
 the following are of so tyrannical a nature, as 
 to remind the reader of the dark deeds record- 
 ed of the inquisition, in countries on which the 
 light of the reformation has never shone. 
 
136 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The Reverend John Clarke, Mr. Obadiah 
 Holmes, and Mr. John Crandall, three citizens 
 of Newport, were appointed, by the church at 
 that place, to visit one William Witter, a mem- 
 ber of that church, then resident at Lynn, who, 
 on account of his great age, had requested a 
 visit from his brethren, for the purpose of Chris- 
 tian intercourse and improvement. They pro- 
 ceeded in a peaceable manner, like Christian 
 men, on this benevolent mission, and arrived at 
 the house of Mr. Witter on Saturday. The 
 next day being the Sabbath, Mr. Clarke was 
 invited to preach at the house to the members 
 of the family, and such of the neighbors as might 
 chance to come in. While he was speaking 
 from some text of the Bible relating to tempta- 
 tion, he was suddenly interrupted by the ap- 
 pearance of two constables, who silenced his 
 preaching, and arrested him and his companions, 
 by virtue of the following order, signed by one 
 of the magistrates, viz. 
 
 ^^ By virtue hereof, you are required to go to 
 the house of William Witter, and so to search 
 from house to house for certain erroneous persons, 
 being strangers, and them to apprehend, and in 
 safe custody to Jceep, and to-morrow morning, at 
 eight o'clock, to bring before me J' 
 
 They were detained, through the Sabbath, in 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 137 
 
 the custof'/ of the officers, and on the following 
 ciay >verc - it to Boston by the magistrate, and 
 committed to prison. On being brought before 
 the Court for trial, they were defended by Mr. 
 Clarke, in a speech which not a little puzzled 
 the Massachusetts magistrates, with the dilem- 
 mas which it proposed. " At length, however," 
 says Mr. Clarke, " the Governor stepped up, and 
 told us we had denied infant baptism, and, 
 being somewhat transported, told me I had de- 
 served death, and said he would not have such 
 trash brought into their jurisdiction." 
 
 The trial resulted, as was to be expected, in 
 the conviction of the prisoners, and they were 
 sentenced by the Court to pay a fine, Mr. 
 Clarke of twenty pounds, Mr. Holmes of thirty 
 pounds, and Mr. Crandall of five pounds, or, 
 in case of their refusal of payment, to be whipped. 
 The fines they of course refused to pay, as they 
 acknowledged neither the justice of the sentence 
 nor the jurisdiction of the Court. They were ac- 
 cordingly remanded to prison, from which, after a 
 few weeks, Mr. Clarke and Mr. Crandall, by the 
 interposition of their friends, were set at liberty, 
 and suffered to return to Newport. Mr. Holmes 
 was detained longer, and at length, before being 
 discharged, was whipped with thirty lashes upon 
 his back, inflicted with unusual severity. 
 
138 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Proceedings like these, of which the early 
 annals of Massachusetts furnish a melancholy list 
 of examples, can be fully explained only by re- 
 minding the reader, that the victims of this in- 
 quisitorial power were regarded as heretics, and 
 that, in the estimation of the Puritans of that 
 colony, heresy was a crime before which every 
 civil offence faded into comparative insignifi- 
 cance.* Mr. Clarke and his companions were 
 Baptists, the disciples of a sect, which the fa- 
 thers of Massachusetts had seen rapidly increas- 
 ing among the people of the colony, in spite 
 of the severe laws which they had promulgated 
 against its tenets and its worship. These peo- 
 ple had always been fostered in Rhode Island ; 
 and now, that any of their ministers had ven- 
 tured to set up their persecuted worship on the 
 soil of the Puritan commonwealth, though within 
 the sanctuary of a private dwelling, and even 
 without proclaiming any of their peculiar tenets, 
 they were punished with the utmost rigors of 
 the law. Two other persons also, who were 
 present at the punishment of Mr. Holmes, and 
 who expressed some sympathy with his suffer- 
 ings, and admiration of the spirit with which he 
 endured them, were immediately arrested by the 
 
 * For an account of these transactions, see Backus's 
 History of Mio England, Vol. I. p. 207. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 139 
 
 officers, and, when brought before the Court, were 
 sentenced to a fine and miprisonment. 
 
 It would have been difficult for the author- 
 ities of Massachusetts to point out the par- 
 ticular law, which had been violated in either 
 of these instances, in any of its Kteral provisions. 
 It was enough for them, that the spirit of the 
 whole legislation of the colony was opposed to 
 heresy, and that the ministers sanctioned and 
 commended all their measures for its suppression. 
 Such was the zeal of the people, at that time, 
 for defending the Puritan faith, that, when here- 
 tics were to be punished, the Court did not 
 scruple to disregard all limits to their authority, 
 and to overleap the bounds of their jurisdiction. 
 
 In this condition of the affairs of the colony, 
 while the citizens were at variance with each 
 other, and were subjected, without redress, to 
 every species of tyranny and indignity, which 
 their neighbors of Massachusetts chose to prac- 
 tise upon them, it was obvious to all that their 
 only safety was to be found in maintaining the 
 union of the towns, v/hich had been formed un- 
 der the charter of Mr. Williams. Amidst the 
 confficting claims, which the other colonies had 
 interposed, it was clear that neither of the sec- 
 tions into which the province had been divided 
 could long maintain an independent existence. 
 The Indians also, taking advantage of the dis- 
 
140 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sensions of the colonists, began to cuiiiiini, civ^p- 
 redations, which the commissioners of the United 
 Colonies were unwilling to prevent, and which 
 the several towns were too feeble to punish. 
 
 The inhabitants of the islands in the bay, 
 who had formerly opposed the measures of Mr. 
 Coddington, now dreaded the prospect of being 
 subjected to his power. His sympathies seem 
 to have strongly inclined to the regal side of the 
 great question, which then agitated the British 
 empire, while those of the great body of the 
 people had always been with the Parliament. 
 And it is highly probable, that they entertained 
 serious apprehensions that the administration of 
 the new Governor, who owed his elevation not 
 to the suffrages of the colony, but to the power 
 of the Council in England, might prove unfa- 
 vorable to popular rights and privileges. Their 
 only hope, therefore, plainly lay in an appeal to 
 the Council of State for the abrogation of Mr. 
 Coddington's commission, and the restoration of 
 the charter, which had been granted to Mr. Wil- 
 liams. With a full impression of these views, 
 and very soon after the events which we have 
 narrated above had occurred, nearly all the in- 
 habitants of Newport, and a large number of 
 those of Portsmouth, united in an attempt to ac- 
 complish this most desirable object, on which 
 the very existence of their settlements seemed 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 141 
 
 to depend. They appointed Mr. John Clarke 
 to proceed as their agent to England, and rep- 
 resent their condition to the Council, which then 
 governed the country. The appointment was in 
 every way a most fortunate one. He was a 
 man of liberal education, and bland and courtly 
 manners, and was fully acquainted with the af- 
 fairs of the people he was appointed to repre- 
 sent, having resided among them for many years 
 as a physician, and as a minister of the church 
 at Newport. 
 
 At about the same time, and influenced doubt- 
 less by nearly the same considerations, the two 
 towns of Providence and Warwick, which had 
 still continued to maintain the government under 
 the original charter, made proposals to Mr. Wil- 
 liams again to cross the Atlantic, and cooperate 
 with Mr. Clarke, for the purpose of procuring 
 the interposition of the Council in adjusting 
 the difficulties, which had sprung up in the col- 
 ony. These proposals he at first absolutely de- 
 clined, though not from any diminution of his 
 interest in the colony, but from reluctance again 
 to leave his family, and his inability to incur 
 the expense of so great an undertaking. It may 
 be, too, that he was influenced by his former/ 
 experience of the thankless nature of services 
 rendered to the state, and called to mind the 
 meagre and reluctant remuneration he had re- 
 
142 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ceived for his labors and expenditures in pro- 
 curing the charter. 
 
 Such, however, were the importunities of the 
 citizens, and such his own patriotic interest in 
 the colony, over whose growth he had watched 
 with parental care, that he at length accepted 
 the appointment which was conferred upon him, 
 and prepared again to embark for the shores 
 of England. Some eiTort was made, among the 
 inhabitants of the towns, to raise the funds ne- 
 cessary for defraying the expenses of the voy- 
 age. The measures which were devised, howev- 
 er, do not appear to have been effectual, for the 
 adequate sum was not provided, and he was 
 obliged to sell his trading-house m Narragansett, 
 in order to obtain the means of making the 
 voyage, and of supporting his family during his 
 absence. In this act, which seems to have been 
 the offspring of pure necessity, he not only re- 
 linquished the profits of the lucrative traffic he 
 had been carrying on, amounting, as he says, to 
 a hundred pounds per annum, but he also 
 parted with what must have been his chief de- 
 pendence for the livehhood of himself and his 
 family. It is only when we thus consider the 
 circumstances in which he was placed, that he 
 was a husband and a father, surrounded by a 
 large family, whose immediate wants he must 
 supply, and for whose education and future well- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 143 
 
 being he must make provision, that we can 
 fully appreciate the disinterested spirit that im- 
 pelled him to the sacrifices he made, and the 
 labors he performed. It led him to disregard 
 the limits of a narrow prudence, and to turn a 
 deaf ear to the suggestions of mere personal 
 interest, whenever an opportunity was presented 
 of benefiting the colony he had founded, or of 
 advancing the great principle for which he had 
 contended and suffered. 
 
 At length, having completed the requisite 
 preparations for his long absence from home, he 
 joined Mr, Clarke at Boston, where they em- 
 barked together in November, 1651. It was not 
 without considerable molestation and embarrass- 
 ment from the authorities and people of Mas- 
 sachusetts, that Mr. Williams was allowed to 
 pass through their territory for the purpose of 
 taking ship for England. He alludes to these 
 in his subsequent letters, though he furnishes 
 us no means of judging of their nature or op- 
 eration. Though no longer in any degree able 
 either to harm the orthodoxy or disturb the 
 peace of the colony, yet the authorities were 
 opposed to the objects of his mission, and, it 
 may be, dreaded the representations, which the 
 envoys from Rhode Island had it in their pow- 
 er to make to the government of the mother 
 country of the condition of New England. Taci- 
 
144 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tus, the great historian of the worst ages of the 
 Roman repubhc, has remarked it as a principle 
 of human nature, that we hate those whom we 
 have injured; and the treatment which Roger 
 Wilhams, while living, and which his memory, 
 after he was dead, received from the colony 
 that banished him, would seem to furnish some 
 corroboration of the justness of the remark. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 State of public Affairs in England. — Williams^ s 
 Occupations while there. — Coddington^ s Com- 
 mission revoJced. — Letter of the General As- 
 semhly to Williams. — His Intercourse with Sir 
 Henry Vane, Cromwell, and Milton. — His 
 literary Labors. — His Return to Providence, 
 — Reorganization of the Government. — He 
 is elected President of the Colony. 
 
 We now find Mr. Williams a second time 
 in England, in the service of the colony at 
 Providence. The mother country was still in 
 the midst of the momentous revolution, which 
 had already commenced when he last visited 
 her shores. The interval had been marked by 
 
ROGER WILLIAMo. 145 
 
 great events. The King, Charles the First, had 
 been brought to the scaffold ; the monarchy, the 
 peerage, and the connection of the church with 
 the government, had been abolished by law; and 
 the Long Parliament, through its Council of 
 State, ruled the realm of England. During the 
 period of his residence there, another change, 
 perhaps still more extraordinary, was added to 
 those with which the age was crowded. Crom- 
 well, impelled, it may be, by considerations of 
 state necessity, as well as by motives of per- 
 sonal ambition, forcibly dissolved the Parliament, 
 and from the ruins of the monarchy erected 
 for himself a throne of even more than kingly 
 power. The public mind was agitated to an 
 unwonted degree by these astonishing changes ; 
 new theories of government were broached, and, 
 as never fails to happen in these transition 
 states of the social system, tumults and fac- 
 tions distracted the nation. 
 
 Of the events that marked the period, Roger 
 Williams was no indifferent spectator ; and we 
 have reason to regret, that no other memorials 
 have been preserved of his residence in Eng- 
 land, than such as may be gleaned from the 
 incidental allusions contained in the letters he 
 wrote to his friends in America. These, though 
 few in number, are yet sufficient to show that 
 he was intimately acquainted with many of the 
 
 VOL. IV. 10 
 
146 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 / leading personages of the time, and must have 
 ' been cognizant of much of its secret history, 
 and the hidden springs of its stirring events. 
 Soon after their arrival in England, Mr. Wil- 
 liams and Mr» Clarke presented a petition to 
 the Council of State, in behalf of the colony 
 they had come to represent. This w^as referred 
 to a committee on foreign affairs for investiga- 
 tion and final decision. The envoys of Rhode 
 Island encountered a strong opposition, in the 
 prosecution of their objects, from some of the 
 members of Parliament, from many of the min- 
 isters of both the Presbyterian and Independ- 
 ent churches, and other influential persons, most 
 of w^hom were in the interest of the other colo- 
 nies of New England. But they found an effi- 
 cient and unwavering coadjutor in Sir Henry 
 Vane, whose spirit and principles were kindred 
 with those of Roger Williams, and who had 
 early befriended the colony which he had found- 
 ed as an asylum for the persecuted assertors of 
 religious freedom. He was at this time at the 
 height of his influence as a statesman, and in 
 the full splendor of his prosperity. He was a 
 prominent member of the Council, of which he 
 had been chosen President, and held the high 
 office of Treasurer and Commissioner of the 
 Navy, in the exercise of which he administered 
 nearly the whole foreign affairs of the common- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 147 
 
 wealth. And, more than all, in an age of fanat- 
 icism and revolution, when the wildest opinions 
 were asserted, and the most reckless conduct 
 justified, he was ever the fearless, unwavering 
 advocate of regulated liberty, and the consist- 
 ent, though earnest and enthusiastic exemplar 
 of simple-hearted piety. 
 
 In the mean time, however, while the question 
 was still pending, an order was passed by the 
 Council of State vacating Mr. Coddington's com- 
 mission, and confirming the charter which had 
 formerly been granted to the colony, until a 
 final adjudication of the case could be had. 
 This measure, so favorable, and so full of prom- 
 ise to the interests he was seeking to promote, 
 Mr. Williams, in his letter to the towns of Prov- 
 idence and Warwick, ascribes to the mediation 
 of Sir Henry Vane with the Council, and speaks 
 of him as, " under God, the sheet anchor of our 
 ship." The order of the Council was brought^ 
 to Newport in the early part of the year 1653, | 
 and contained directions to the several Planta- 
 tions immediately to unite themselves again un- 
 der the common government of the charter, as 
 they had been before any obstruction to its au- 
 thority had arisen. Such, however, were now 
 the jealousies which had sprung up anew during 
 the separation of the colony, that the order was 
 not obeyed ; and, though Mr. Coddington's rule 
 
148 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 seems to have been brought to an end, yet the 
 settlements on the island, and those on the main 
 land, continued for a year and a half to main- 
 tain their separate governments. 
 
 Mr. Williams, with his associate, still remained 
 in England, to watch the progress of events, and 
 sustain the petition they had presented to the 
 Council. The final adjustment of the claims of 
 the colony was delayed in part by the war be- 
 tween England and Holland, which then en- 
 grossed the attention of the government, and 
 also by the determined opposition which these 
 claims encountered from the agents and influen- 
 tial friends of the other New England colonies. 
 The two parties stood in the Parliament, and 
 before the Council, according to the represen- 
 tation of Williams, '^ as two armies, ready to 
 engage, observing the motions and postures each 
 of the other, and yet shy of each other." Dur- 
 ing the absence of Mr. Williams, at a meeting 
 of the General Assembly, held at Providence, 
 a letter was addressed to him, expressing the 
 thanks of the Assembly for his " care and dil- 
 igence " in promoting the interests of the colony, 
 and presenting their opinion, that, in case the 
 charter should be finally renewed, " it might 
 tend much to the weighing of men's minds, 
 and subjecting of persons who have been re- 
 fractory to yield themselves over as unto a set- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 149 
 
 tied government, if it might be the pleasure of 
 the honorable State to invest, appoint, and em- 
 power himself to come over as Governor of the 
 colony, for the space of one year." An inti- 
 mation like this, coming from men who had al- 
 ways been distinguished for their jealousy of 
 every form of delegated power, was indeed re- 
 markable, and conveys a strong expression of 
 their confidence in his integrity, and their high 
 appreciation of his services. His own wisdom, 
 also, and the disinterested principles on which 
 he acted, are not less strikingly illustrated in 
 the fact, that he entirely disregarded so flatter- 
 ing a temptation to the acquisition of political 
 power. The letters which he wrote to his towns- 
 men while absent contain no aspirations for 
 self-aggrandizement. The only solicitudes they 
 express are for the welfare of his family, and 
 the harmony and prosperity of the colony ; 
 and his most frequent admonitions were, " that 
 no private respects, or gains, or quarrels, may 
 cause them to neglect the public and common 
 safety, peace, and liberties." 
 
 The character of Mr. Williams, and his po- 
 sition while in England, would naturally throw 
 him into the society of some of the most dis- 
 tinguished men of the time. He spent a num- 
 ber of weeks at Belleau, the beautiful estate of 
 Sir Henry Vane, in Lincolnshire, where he doubt- 
 
150 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 less often mingled in that company of kindred 
 minds, who used so frequently to assemble to 
 discuss, with their illustrious leader, the deep 
 questions of theology, or to devise plans for the 
 happiness and security of the periled and dis- 
 tracted commonwealth. He was in habits of 
 intimate association with Cromwell, who dis- 
 cussed with him the affairs of the state, and 
 drew forth from him his views of the Indians, 
 and his singular adventures among them, in the 
 wilds of New England ; with Harrison, the Ma- 
 jor-General of the army ; with Lawrence, the 
 Lord President of the Council of State; aud with 
 many others in Parliament, and at the helm of 
 public affairs. He also formed an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with Milton, who was then Latin 
 Secretary to the Council, and already rapidly 
 rising to the zenith of his renown as a states- 
 man and a poet. The Paradise Lost had not 
 yet been written; but the republican bard had 
 sung many of his sweetest sonnets, and had 
 published in prose some of those noble vindi- 
 cations of liberty, " of which all Europe rang 
 from side to side." Younger than Williams by 
 more than nine years, he was now in the fresh- 
 ness of early manhood, and the full vigor of 
 his great powers. The infirmities and disasters 
 of his later life had not yet darkened the hopes 
 or damped the ardor of his spirit. In their fre- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 151 
 
 quent companionship, with the interchange of 
 congenial views, and the expression of common 
 principles and aims, they appear to have min- 
 gled the study of languages and literature ; and 
 for the Dutch, which the poet acquired from 
 the teachings of Williams, he opened, in return, 
 the rich stores of his varied learning in many 
 difterent tongues. In these high associations, 
 and in the familiar conversations to which they 
 naturally gave rise, he would, doubtless, often 
 recur to his favorite themes, the inalienable free- 
 dom of the conscience, and the separation of 
 religion from the civil power ; and the free dec- 
 laration of his opinions, and the simple narra- 
 tive of his sufferings, must have exerted an 
 important influence upon the eminent men in 
 whose society he mingled, an influence, indeed, 
 which history cannot now very distinctly trace, 
 but which may have produced its results in the 
 liberal policy of the Protector, and the lessons 
 of toleration, which he enjoined upon the colo- 
 nies in New England. 
 
 In dwelling upon these scenes and incidents 
 of Mr. WilUams's residence in England, one can- 
 not fail to be reminded of the contrasts they 
 present to -the humble life he had so recently 
 left. Yet, in this society of scholars and states- 
 men, with whose brilliant fortunes he might easily 
 have identified his own, he did not forget the 
 
152 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 colony with whose interests he was charged. 
 His spirit was not elated, nor was his attention 
 ever diverted from the objects he had left his 
 home to accomplish. In order to obtain a live- 
 lihood while engaged in their prosecution, he de- 
 voted a portion of his time to the instruction of 
 some young gentlemen in the languages, prob- 
 ably the sons of his friends, who, from a respect 
 for his character, and a desire to aid his fortunes, 
 furnished him with this occupation for his leisure 
 hours. And it deserves to be mentioned, as a 
 proof of his extensive scholarship, that he thus 
 taught the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and 
 Dutch, some of them at least, " not by grammar 
 rules," but, as he says himself, by words, phrases, 
 and constant talk, as we teach our children Eng- 
 lish. He was also engaged in some philanthropic 
 labors undertaken for the benefit of the poor in 
 London, who had been reduced to the extremity 
 of suffering by the civil wars, which then dis- 
 turbed the nation. 
 
 The labors in the mining districts had been 
 stopped amidst the tumults of the times, and the 
 price of coals and every species of fuel had be- 
 come so high, in the metropolis, as to place it 
 utterly beyond the reach of the poorer classes 
 of the people, who gave vent to their despera- 
 tion in every kind of pillage and conflagration. 
 Tlie sympathies of Mr. Williams were excited 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 153 
 
 by their miserable condition, and he appears 
 to have enhsted his personal services in the 
 execution of the plans, which were devised for 
 alleviating their sufferings and quieting their 
 discontents. It was also during the same period, 
 the winter of 1652, and while thus engaged in 
 the service of the city and the Parliament, that 
 he found leisure to prepare for the press, and 
 to publish, his rejoinder to Mr. Cotton's answer 
 to his " Bloody Tenet of Persecution," which he 
 entitled "The Bloody Tenet yet more bloody 
 by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it white." 
 At about the same time, he also published his 
 " Hireling Ministry none of Christ's ; or, a Dis- 
 course touching the propagating the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ," and his " Experiments of Spiritual 
 Life and Health, and their Preservatives," two 
 essays, mainly of a controversial character, relat- 
 ing to the questions of theology and church gov- 
 ernment, at that time so much discussed both in 
 England and the colonies. 
 
 Early in the summer of 1654, Mr. Williams 
 returned to Providence. The final determina- 
 tion of the question pertaining to the renewal 
 of the charter had not yet been accomplished; 
 but the accounts which he received of dis- 
 agreements and troubles in the colony, together 
 v/ith the unprotected condition of his family, 
 and the great expensiveness of a residence in 
 
154 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 England, induced him to leave the remainder of 
 the business in the hands of Mr. Clarke, and 
 return to his turbulent and excited fellow-citi- 
 zens, that, if possible, he might harmonize their 
 differences, and establish the government he had 
 labored so assiduously in instituting. He bore 
 with him an order from the Lord Protector's 
 Council, addressed to the authorities of Massa- 
 chusetts, and requiring them to allow him, in 
 future, either to land or to embark within their 
 jurisdiction, without being molested. The order 
 was obeyed, on his landing at Boston, by the 
 Governor, Mr. Bellingham, under his own hand ; 
 but it was not till two years after, and then 
 at his own repeated solicitation, that it was 
 formally acknowledged by the General Court, and 
 entered upon the records of the colony. 
 
 On his arrival at Providence, and his return 
 to the bosom of his family, the first object 
 which engaged his attention was the restoration 
 of union among the several towns of the colony, 
 and the reorganization of the government, in ac- 
 cordance with the order of the Council of State, 
 passed two years before. To accomplish this, 
 he soon perceived, was an undertaking of no 
 common difficulty. Jealousies and feuds, grown 
 inveterate by the lapse of time, still separated 
 the towns from each other, and distracted the 
 citizens among themselves. So predominant bad 
 
tlOGER WILLIAMS. 155 
 
 this narrow and selfish spirit become, among the 
 people of Providence, that they seemed willing 
 to forego, for the sake of its petty gratification, 
 the whole advantage of colonial union, and even 
 to call in question the disinterestedness and the 
 value of the services, which Mr. Williams and 
 his associate had rendered by their agency in 
 England. Returning thus to a people, many 
 of whom were too ignorant or too prejudiced 
 to appreciate the blessings they enjoyed, it was 
 not strange that he felt wounded at their un- 
 grateful requital of his sacrifices, and seemed to 
 himself to have been laboring in vain while en- 
 gaged in their service. 
 
 Impressed with these considerations, very soon 
 after his return, he addressed a calm and con- 
 ciliatory letter to the citizens of Providence, in 
 which he recounts with modesty, yet with great 
 dignity and firmness, the sacrifices he had made 
 in their behalf, for which he had " reaped nothing 
 but grief, and sorrow, and bitterness." He la- 
 ments, in earnest and pathetic language, the dis- 
 tractions of the colony, points out the perversi- 
 ties of temper in which they had their origin, 
 and urges the citizens to bury their animosities, 
 and unite themselves again in establishing the 
 only government under which they could hope 
 to maintain an independent existence. He also 
 
\ 
 
 156 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 presented to the town a letter from Sir Henry 
 Vane, addressed to the inhabitants of the colony 
 of Pvhode Island, which he had brought with him 
 from England. In this letter, the generous- 
 minded writer mildly reproaches the colonists 
 with their " headiness, tumults, disorders, and in- 
 justice, of which," says he, '' the noise echoes into 
 the ears of all, as well friends as enemies, by 
 every return of ships from those parts," and 
 strongly urges upon them the appointment of 
 commissioners, in behalf of the several interests, 
 that they thus " might put a stop to their grow- 
 ing breaches and distractions, silence their ene- 
 mies, encourage their friends, and honor the 
 name of God." 
 
 Persuasives like these, coming from the best 
 friends of the colony, did not fail to produce a 
 salutary effect upon the minds of the people of 
 Providence. A meeting of the town was soon 
 after held, at which commissioners were appoint- 
 ed to meet with those, who should be appointed 
 from the other towns, for the purpose of re- 
 organizing the government of the province. This 
 conciliatory example was immediately followed 
 by the three remaining towns, in which were 
 appointed commissioners for the reunion of the 
 colony. At length, on the 31st of August, 
 1654, a meeting of the commissioners of all the 
 
 \ 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 157 
 
 towns was held, and the articles of union finally 
 agreed upon. All laws, which had been enacted 
 before the separation of the colony, were to re- 
 main in force until repealed by the legislaturCj 
 and all local ordinances, which had been adopted 
 by either portion of the colony, during the period 
 of the separation, were still to be binding upon 
 those who adopted them, so long as they should 
 desire it. 
 
 Mr. Williams was also appointed, by the citi- 
 zens of Providence, to prepare an answer, in 
 behalf of the town, to the letter which Sir Henry 
 Vane had addressed to the people of the colony. 
 This service he readily undertook, and the ad- 
 mirable letter which he wrote has been pre- 
 served in the records of the town, bearing the 
 date of August 2Tth, 1654. It breathes the 
 spirit of elevated an4 generous patriotism, and 
 was fitted not only to gratify and honor the 
 person to whom it was addressed, but also to 
 subdue the mutual resentments, and unite the 
 discordant opinions, of those in whose name it 
 was sent. Commencing with, an expression of 
 regret, on account of the recent retirement 
 of Sir Henry from the councils of the com- 
 monwealth, he speaks of his ^' loving lines " to 
 the colony, as " the sweet fruits of his rest ; " 
 "as when the sun retires his briglitness from 
 
158 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the world, yet from under the clouds we per- 
 ceive his presence, and enjoy his light, and heat, 
 and sweet refreshing." He then proceeds to 
 narrate the history of the troubles which had 
 distracted the colony, points out the causes from 
 which they sprang, and sets forth, in glowing 
 terms, the blessings which the colonists have 
 enjoyed, inasmuch as " they have drunk of the 
 cup of as great liberties as any people under 
 the whole heaven." The letter concludes with 
 the earnest assurance, that the heart of their 
 friend shall no more be saddened by their di- 
 visions and disorders, and, in the name of the 
 whole colony, utters the hope " that, when we 
 are gone and rotten, our posterity and children 
 after us shall read, in our town records, your 
 pious and favorable letters, and loving kindness 
 to us, and this our answer, and real endeavor 
 after peace and righteousness." 
 
 The first general election after the reorgan- 
 ization of the government was held at Warwick, 
 '[on the 12th of September, at which Mr. Wil- 
 Riams was chosen President of the colony. At 
 /the same meeting of the citizens of the several 
 I towns, he v/as also appointed, in behalf of the 
 whole colony, in connection with Mr. Gregory 
 Dexter, to draw up and send '' letters of humble 
 thanksgiving " to his Highness the Lord Pro- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 159 
 
 tector, Sir Henry Vane, Mr. Holland, and Mr. 
 John Clarke, all which he was requested to sign 
 and seal in virtue of his office as President. 
 
 Thus was terminated the unhappy division of 
 the settlements of Rhode Island; a division, 
 which had extended through several years, and 
 had nearly destroyed the independent existence 
 of the colony. The auspicious union of the long- 
 separated towns was evidently brought about 
 mainly through the judicious and well-directed 
 efforts of Mr. Wilhams. He had identified him- 
 self with the interests of the people among 
 whom his lot was cast, and in their service he 
 allowed no difficulties to daunt him, no ingrati- 
 tude or folly to dishearten him. He succeeded 
 in his exertions when most men would have 
 been borne down by the opposition he met, or 
 would have turned away in disgust with the 
 narrow views and perverse tempers of those by 
 whom he was surrounded. 
 
160 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Character of his Administration. — He acts as 
 Mediator between the United Colonies and the 
 Indians. — Spirit of Disorder in the Colony. 
 
 — Williams'' s Letter to the Town of Provi- 
 dence. — Conduct of William Harris. — Wil- 
 liams attempts to conciliate the other Colonies. 
 
 — Their Efforts to compel Rhode Island to 
 persecute the Quakers. — Her liberal Policy 
 toivards them. 
 
 The administration of Mr. Williams, as Presi- 
 dent of the colony, lasted for two years and a 
 half, and was marked by many important inci- 
 dents, though the scanty records of the times 
 now afford but imperfect means for their illus- 
 tration. The office which he held was at that 
 time encompassed with more than ordinary dif- 
 ficulty and perplexity. The people of the several 
 towns had, indeed, united themselves under a 
 common jurisdiction ; yet the public sentiment of 
 the colony was still in an unsettled state, and 
 its civil affairs were in such a condition as to 
 render them most difficult of management. The 
 government, which had been adopted under the 
 provisions of the charter, had, from the begin- 
 ning, been wanting in efficiency, and had proved 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 161 
 
 itself, in many respects, inadequate to the ex- 
 igencies even of an infant society. The towns 
 were severally too independent of each other, 
 were bound together by too feeble ties, and pos- 
 sessed too many checks upon the colonial As- 
 sembly, readily to make those sacrifices of local 
 interest, which the general good always demands. 
 The colony had just emerged from a protracted 
 strife, in which it had been almost annihilated, 
 and there were then no established usages to 
 control the habits of the people, to mark the 
 limits of authority, or regulate the manner in 
 which it should be exercised. The citizens, too, 
 were singularly and often ridiculously jealous of 
 every demonstration of official power, and were 
 too much disposed to set up their own personal 
 wills against the action of the constituted au- 
 thorities. A mistaken idea of freedom of con- 
 science had taken possession of many of their 
 minds, and was adding its aid to native ob- 
 stinacy and the spirit of faction, in producing 
 results, both of opinion and conduct, disastrous 
 to the peace and harmony of the colony. 
 
 The manner in which Mr. Williams admin- 
 istered the office of President, in this troubled 
 state of public aflfairs, well illustrates his char- 
 acter, and furnishes a practical commentary upon 
 his views of civil government, which have been 
 so often misunderstood and misrepresented. He 
 
 VOL. IV. 11 
 
162 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was both conciliatory and firm ; inclined to hu- 
 mor the prejudices of the people, so far as they 
 were harmless, but never to sacrifice to their 
 clamors any real interest of the community, or 
 to shrink from the performance of any official 
 duty, however much opposed to their will. His 
 acts as a magistrate were commended to the 
 colonists by the influence of his personal char- 
 acter, and the services he had rendered the state, 
 so that his authority was seldom resisted or 
 called in question, even amidst " the headiness 
 and tumults " by which he was surrounded. 
 
 Soon after entering upon the duties of his 
 presidency, an opportunity was presented for 
 him again to interpose his kind offices in behalf 
 of the Indians, whose interests and relations to 
 the New England colonies never failed to oc- 
 cupy a considerable share of his attention. 
 There was a prospect of hostilities again spring- 
 ing up between the United Colonies and some 
 of the neighboring tribes, and he aimed to put 
 a stop to the rising feud, and scatter the gather- 
 ing clouds of war. For this purpose, he ad- 
 dressed a letter to the General Assembly of 
 Massachusetts, in which he " humbly prays their 
 consideration, whether it be not only possible, but 
 very easy, to live and die in peace with all the 
 natives of this country." He urges upon them a 
 pacific policy, as the only one becoming a 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 163 
 
 Christian state, by appealing to their gratitude 
 to the Indians, who had received them, and given 
 them land, when their own countrymen had 
 driven them away ; to their regard for the honor 
 of God, whose power had been displayed in the 
 conversion of so many Indians to the Christian 
 faith ; to their horror of the sore calamities of 
 war, and their veneration for the bright examples 
 of peace, presented in the sacred Scriptures. 
 Massachusetts, with a spirit that does honor to 
 her early fathers, declared herself against the 
 war, although it had been already determined on 
 by the commissioners of the United Colonies, and 
 the troops who had marched against the In- 
 dians returned to their homes, after a bloodless 
 though by no means dishonorable campaign.* 
 
 During the early part of the presidency of 
 Mr. Williams, one of the restless spirits, of whom 
 so many were at this time congregated in Rhode 
 Island, busied himself in circulating, among the 
 citizens of Providence, a seditious tract against 
 the authority of civil government, and maintain- 
 ing that it was ^' contrary to the rule of the 
 gospel to execute judgment upon transgressors 
 against the private or public weal." This doc- 
 trine, springing up so naturally beneath the un- 
 restricted freedom of opinion, which was then 
 
 * Hutchinson, Vol. I. p. 187. 
 
164 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 enjoyed, was obviously, in its tendency, destruc- 
 tive of the very ends of society ; yet, in the un- 
 settled state of the colony, it was sure to find 
 advocates and followers, some of whom, perhaps, 
 might think it sanctioned by the principles of 
 Roger Williams himself. Indeed, he was evi- 
 dently inclined to the maxim, " the world is gov- 
 erned too much ; " and his views of civil liberty 
 would undoubtedly lead him to allow to every 
 citizen the utmost degree of personal freedom, 
 consistent with the order and well-being of so- 
 ciety. 
 
 But of this freedom he perfectly understood 
 the nature, and clearly distinguished the bound- 
 ary line, which separates it from every form of 
 licentiousness. Accordingly, when a doctrine so 
 fatal to its true interests was avowed in the col- 
 ony, he immediately set the whole weight of his 
 influence and his authority to oppose it. Though 
 holding the highest office to which the suff'rages 
 of the people could raise him, he did not wait 
 to study the popular will, but boldly declared 
 his abhorrence of " such infinite liberty of con- 
 science," as was thus attempted to be set up. 
 He addressed a letter to the town, setting forth 
 the principles on which the state was founded, 
 and denying, in the most explicit manner, that 
 he had ever given the slightest sanction to these 
 doctrines of lawless license. The letter itself is 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 165 
 
 a sufficient vindication of his fame from every 
 suspicion of radicalism, and is, at the same time, 
 an exposition of the doctrine of freedom of con- 
 science, so full and so explicit as to leave nothing 
 further to be desired for its illustration. The 
 following is the letter as it is quoted by Mr. 
 Knowles from the records of Providence. 
 
 " That I should ever speak or write a tittle, 
 that tends to such infinite liberty of conscience, 
 is a mistake, which I have ever disclaimed and 
 abhorred. To prevent such mistakes, I at pres- 
 ent shall only propose this case ; There goes 
 many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls 
 in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, 
 and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or 
 a human combination or society. It hath fallen 
 out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, 
 Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship ; 
 upon which supposal, I afiirm that all the liberty 
 of conscience, that ever I pleaded for, turns upon 
 these two hinges ; that none of the Papists, 
 Protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come 
 to the ship's prayers or worship, or compelled 
 from their own particular prayers or worship, if 
 th§y practise any. I further add, that I never 
 denied, that, notwithstanding this liberty, the com- 
 mander of this ship ought to command the ship's 
 course, yea, and also command that justice, 
 peace, and sobriety be kept, and practised, both 
 
166 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 among the seamen and all the passengers. If 
 any of the seamen refuse to perform their ser- 
 vice, or passengers to pay their freight; if any 
 refuse to help, in person or purse, towards the 
 common charges or defence ; if any refuse to 
 obey the common laws and orders of the ship, 
 concerning their common peace or preservation ; 
 if any shall mutiny and rise up against their 
 commanders and officers ; if any shall preach 
 or write that there ought to be no commanders 
 or officers, because all are equal in Christ, 
 therefore no masters or officers, no laws nor 
 orders, no corrections nor punishments ; I say, 
 I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is 
 pretended, the commander or commanders may 
 judge, resist, compel, and punish such trans- 
 gressors, according to their deserts and merits. 
 This, if seriously and honestly minded, may, if 
 it so please the Father of Lights, let in some 
 light to such as willingly shut not their eyes." 
 This letter of Mr. Williams, full and explicit 
 as it is respecting the authority of government 
 and the duty of citizens, did not entirely erad- 
 icate the impracticable and absurd notions of 
 individual freedom, which were propagated %y 
 the turbulent spirits, that infested the colony. 
 It is plain, that the principles of religious lib- 
 erty were very imperfectly understood among the 
 people at large, and that its name was con- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 167 
 
 stantly liable to be used, among those who were 
 impatient of restraint, as a pretext for their ob- 
 stinate adherence to the absurd doctrines they 
 had embraced. 
 
 The most troublesome manifestation of this 
 spirit was found in the proceedings of William 
 Harris, an influential inhabitant of Providence, 
 who attempted to inflame the minds of the peo- 
 ple a second time towards the constituted au- 
 thorities, by sending to all the towns of the 
 colony a violent and exciting pamphlet, which 
 is described, in the language of Roger Williams, 
 as being '' against all earthly powers. Parliaments, 
 laws, charters, magistrates, prisons, punishments, 
 rates, yea, and against all Kings and Princes." * 
 He subsequently declared, at a general meeting 
 of the colony, that he was ready to maintain 
 these doctrines with his blood. What action 
 was taken by the magistrates of the colony, in 
 relation to this extraordinary movement on the 
 part of a leading citizen, cannot now be very 
 clearly determined. It is plain, however, that 
 Mr. Williams regarded it as partaking of the 
 nature of treason against the authorities of Eng- 
 land, as well as against those of the colony. 
 
 A letter, which he received from Crom- 
 
 * George Fox digged out of his Burrowes. Boston. 
 1676. p. 20. 
 
168 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 well soon after this affair, addressed to the 
 " President, Assistants and Inhabitants of Rhode 
 Island," directing them to take care of the 
 peace and safety of the plantations, that there 
 arise no detriment or dishonor to their common- 
 wealth or themselves, served greatly to strengthen 
 his authority, and to increase the respect of the 
 people for the government. The General As- 
 sembly, in pursuance of the advice contained in 
 the Protector's letter, immediately passed an act, 
 declaring, that, " if any person or persons be found, 
 by the examination and judgment of the General 
 Court of Commissioners, to be a ringleader or 
 ringleaders of factions or divisions among us, 
 he or they shall be sent over, at his or their 
 own charges, as prisoners, to receive his or their 
 trial or sentence, at the pleasure of his High- 
 ness and the Lords of his Council." This ju- 
 dicious and timely action of the legislature, 
 founded, as it was, on the recommendation of 
 the Protector, exerted a salutary influence in 
 promoting peace and good order among the 
 people of the colony. Quiet reigned once more 
 among the settlements. Mr. Harris, with others of 
 the leading agitators, who had never been at rest 
 since the restoration of the charter, were sub- 
 dued by the prompt and resolute stand thus 
 taken by the authorities, and gave in their al- 
 legiance to the colony, and cried up government 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 169 
 
 and magistrates as much as they had cried them 
 down before. 
 
 This quiet, however, was only temporary. Mr. 
 Harris, whose mind seems to have been in- 
 herently prone to the wildest extremes, did not 
 utterly abandon the disorganizing doctrines he 
 had formerly avowed. He repressed them for 
 a time, but soon began to publish them again, 
 probably with still greater peril to the peace 
 and good order of the state ; so that Mr. Wil- 
 liams, near the close of his presidency, entered 
 a formal complaint against him, at the Gen- 
 eral Court of Commissioners, for high treason 
 against the commonwealth. The seditious pam- 
 phlet was read in the hearing of the Court, 
 together with Mr. Williams's accusation and Mr. 
 Harris's reply, and the Court decided that he 
 was guilty of maintaining, in substance, that any 
 one who can say, " it is his conscience, ought 
 not to yield subjection to any human order 
 amongst men." The question whether this really 
 amounted to treason, was very properly referred 
 to the judgment of the authorities in the moth- 
 er country, and the offender, in the mean time, 
 was bound " in good bonds to his good behavior 
 until their sentence be known." 
 
 These proceedings, sanctioned, as they were, 
 by many of the principal citizens, seem to have 
 alienated Mr. Harris from the interests of Prov- 
 
170 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 idence, and to have been the commencement 
 of a long and bitter quarrel between hmi and 
 Mr. Williams. The hostile feelings of both par- 
 ties were often expressed in the strongest terms, 
 and the most public manner, and seem to have 
 continued unabated to the end of life, aftbrd- 
 ing a melancholy instance of the weakness of 
 our nature, and the inadequacy even of com- 
 mon interests and common sufferings to keep 
 in subjection the evil passions of the human 
 heart. How far Mr. Williams deserves to be 
 blamed, either at the commencement or in the 
 prosecution of this controversy, cannot now be 
 determined. Yet, in a personal quarrel so bit- 
 ter and so protracted as this proved to be, it 
 seldom happens that the wrong lies wholly on 
 one side of the question. It is probable that 
 he allowed his feelings too much to affect his 
 official conduct, and that severity and personal 
 animosity were, perhaps, insensibly blended with 
 his discharge of the duty, which belonged to 
 him as a magistrate and a citizen. Cromwell 
 was at this time too busily occupied, in setthng 
 the affairs of his immediate government, to give 
 much attention to the petty seditions of a dis- 
 tant colony, and no answer was ever returned to 
 the question referred to him by the Court. The 
 accusation brought against Harris was, accord- 
 ingly, never prosecuted. 
 
ROGER WILLIAIMS. 171 
 
 While holding the office of President, Mr. 
 Williams also made a series of efforts to estab- 
 lish more amicable relations with the neighbor- 
 ing colonies, and particularly with Massachusetts. 
 She still asserted her jurisdiction over the people 
 at Pawtuxet, a portion of whom acknowledged 
 her authority, and thus occasioned incessant 
 trouble to the authorities at Providence. The 
 policy, which, from the beginning, she had pur- 
 sued towards the settlements of Rhode Island, 
 had become more and more vexatious and in- 
 jurious, as their population increased and their 
 interests multiplied. She allowed unrestricted 
 commerce between her citizens and the people 
 of every part of New England, the Dutch at 
 New York, and even, to a considerable extent, 
 with several of the tribes of Indians; but to the 
 inhabitants of the heterodox colony she pre- 
 scribed conditions and limitations, which op- 
 erated greatly to their disadvantage. Her laws 
 forbade the people of Rhode Island from pur- 
 chasing fire-arms or ammunition within her ju- 
 risdiction, and she had repeatedly refused to 
 relax anything in their execution, even when 
 solicited, in the midst of imminent peril from 
 the Indians, who, taking advantage of the 
 unprotected condition of the colony, and her 
 alienation from the other settlements of New 
 England, constantly threatened her with petty 
 
172 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 annoyances, and sometimes even with fearful 
 massacre. 
 
 In the hope of changing this oppressive pol- 
 icy, Mr. Wilhams, on the 15th of November, 
 1655, addressed a letter to " the General Court 
 of magistrates and deputies assembled at Bos- 
 ton," in which he earnestly remonstrated against 
 a system of legislation, which brought so many 
 grievances in its train, and by which the people 
 of Rhode Island " seemed to be devoted to the 
 Indian shambles and massacres." After a few 
 months, he wrote a letter to the Governor of 
 Massachusetts, and received from him, in return, 
 an invitation to visit Boston, that he might pre- 
 sent his requests to the General Court in per- 
 son. He accordingly prepared an address, which 
 he presented to the Court in the name of his 
 colony, in which he set forth the evils and op- 
 pressions which had been brought about by 
 their cruel legislation. So earnest were his rep- 
 resentations, and so unwearied was his perse- 
 verance, that he at length succeeded in wringing 
 from the stern and reluctant magistrates of the 
 Bay some of the favors, which he sought for 
 his fellow-citizens. These he immediately ac- 
 knowledged in a brief note to the Assembly, 
 full of expressions of gratitude and faithfulness 
 to their service. 
 
 This was tlie first time, since his banishment. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 173 
 
 that he had entered the territory of Massachu- 
 setts b}^ the permission of the authorities. On 
 former occasions, when he had landed at Boston, 
 on his return from England, he was protected 
 by an order from the Council; and once, when 
 he had gone thither to embark, he was sub- 
 jected to insult and molestation, as one who 
 bore the name of outlaw. The invitation to 
 visit Boston, sent to him by Governor Endicott, 
 was the beginning of more amicable relations ; 
 and, though his sentence of banishment was 
 never formally revoked, yet his reception in 
 Massachusetts seems to have been a practical 
 disavowal, on the part of the authorities, of any 
 intention longer to enforce its decree. 
 
 In July of the year 1656, the first Quakers 
 arrived at Boston. Deeply tinctured with the 
 fanaticism of the age, the early representatives 
 of this sect appear to have held in equal con- 
 tempt the authority alike of the church and 
 the state, and their fortunes in New England 
 are admirably fitted to illustrate the amazing 
 contrast between the spirit that ruled in Rhode 
 Island, and that which animated the people 
 and controlled the legislation of all the other 
 colonies. No sooner had these new heretics 
 landed in Massachusetts, than the guardians of 
 the colony set themselves to accomplish their 
 utter extermination. They were at first severe- 
 
174 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ly punished under the general statutes against 
 heresy. But, these proving ineffectual, the stern- 
 est enactments were proclaimed against them. 
 Heavy fines w^ere imposed on any, who should 
 bring Quakers into the colony, who should im- 
 port any of their books, attend their meetings, 
 or defend any of their heretical opinions. The 
 Quakers themselves were to be whipped with 
 twenty stripes, and kept at hard labor until they 
 could be transported from the colony. These 
 laws were subsequently made still more severe. 
 Every Quaker who should return, after having 
 been once banished, if a man, was to lose one 
 ear ; if a woman, to be severely whipped ; and, 
 after the second return, both men and women 
 were to have their tongues bored through with 
 a red-hot iron. The same punishment was also 
 to be inflicted upon every one, who should em- 
 brace their faith within the colony. The law 
 was still ineffectual, and the "accursed and per- 
 nicious sect" increased in spite of all the efforts 
 of the authorities to suppress them, until, in 
 October, 1658, a law was enacted, banishing 
 them on penalty of death in case they should 
 return. 
 
 Similar laws, though generally not so severe, 
 were also passed by the other colonies of New 
 England ; and the commissioners of these colo- 
 nies employed every means of persuasion to 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 175 
 
 induce Rhode Island to join in the general 
 persecution. They twice addressed the General 
 Assembly on the subject, urging them to with- 
 hold from the Quakers the privileges of citi- 
 zenship, and forbid them from taking up their 
 residence within the jurisdiction. But the au- 
 thorities of Rhode Island remained true to the 
 principles on which their society was constituted. 
 To both the communications, which were addressed 
 to them, they returned a respectful but decided 
 answer, that they had " no law whereby to pun- 
 ish any for only declaring by words their minds 
 and understandings concerning the things and 
 ways of God, as to salvation and an eternal 
 condition." They also, at the same time, ex- 
 pressed their disapprobation of the doctrines of 
 the Quakers, and their determination to require 
 of them, as of all others who should come to 
 their settlements, a strict performance of all 
 civil duties ; '' and, in case they refuse it, to 
 make use of the first opportunity to inform the 
 agent of the colony residing in England." 
 
 The reply, however, was not satisfactory to 
 the commissioners of the United Colonies, who 
 appear to have been incensed at the firm and 
 consistent policy pursued by the authorities of 
 Rhode Island. The commissioners wrote a third 
 time to the General Assembly, sternly threaten- 
 ing that the colony should be excluded from 
 
176 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 all relations of intercourse and trade with the 
 rest of New England, unless she immediately 
 joined in their exertions to accomplish the ex- 
 termination of the (Quakers. But the threats of 
 the commissioners were now as impotent as had 
 been their arguments on former occasions. The 
 colonists regarded with abhorrence these extra- 
 ordinary attempts to drive them from their 
 cherished principles, which had been distinctly 
 recognized in their charter, and interwoven with 
 all their legislation. Still, for the purpose of 
 protecting themselves against the threats of their 
 powerful and confederate neighbors, they deter- 
 mined to appeal to the government in England. 
 The General Assembly, at a meeting held at 
 Warwick, in November, 1658, appointed a com- 
 mittee to address a letter to Mr. Clarke, their 
 agent at the court of the Protector, in which, 
 after setting forth the measures which had been 
 adopted by the other colonies, they formally ap- 
 peal to his Highness and Council, that " they 
 may not be compelled to exercise any civil 
 power over men's consciences, so long as hu- 
 man orders, in point of civility, are not cor- 
 rupted or violated." 
 
 Thus ended the controversy between the New 
 England commissioners and the colony of Rhode 
 Island, respecting the toleration of Quakers. It 
 began near the close of the presidency of Mr. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 177 
 
 Williams, and was, doubtless, sustained on the 
 part of the colony, in a great degree, by his 
 agency and advice. The mild and tolerant pol- 
 icy, which she adopted, was in accordance with 
 the principles in which he had laid the founda- 
 tions of the commonwealth, and which had been 
 incorporated into all her early i!egislation. It 
 contrasts, in the happiest and most impressive 
 manner, with* that which was adopted by the 
 other colonies of New England, and furnishes 
 the most satisfactory evidence, that, amidst all 
 the controversial excitements and irregularities 
 of the times, the people of Rhode Island still 
 cherished the "soul liberty," in the maintenance 
 of which they had encountered the perils and 
 hardships of the wilderness. From this liberal 
 policy the colony was never induced to depart ; 
 and her history, up to the present day, presents 
 the rare, perhaps solitary instance of a state ex- 
 isting for more than two hundred years, whose 
 statute-book contains not a single law abridging 
 the freedom of the conscience, or in any man- 
 ner interfering with religious opinion or worship. 
 
 VOL. IV. 12 
 
178 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 He retires from the Presidency, — Charles the 
 Second grants a new Charter to the Colony. 
 — Williams appointed an Assistant in the 
 Government. — His Labors for the Indians. — 
 His Controversy with the Qualcers. — King 
 Philips s War. — The Services of Williams 
 during the War. — Its Results. — The Close 
 of his Life, and his Death. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have narrated the 
 principal events of the troubled period during 
 w^hich Mr. Williams occupied the post of Presi- 
 dent, or Governor, of the colony of Rhode Islands 
 He retired from the office in May, 1658, wheth- 
 er by a voluntary withdrawal, or by a failure to 
 secure the suffrages of his fellow-citizens, we 
 cannot now determine. His experience in the 
 office seems to have awakened no desire to 
 continue in it or return to it. He never again 
 aspired to the place of chief magistrate, though 
 he was, a few years afterwards, elected a deputy 
 from Providence, and repeatedly sat as an as- 
 sistant, or member of the upper house of the 
 colonial Assembly. He was also intrusted, by 
 his fellow-citizens of Providence, with all the 
 higher offices of the town, and especially with the 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 179 
 
 performance of most of those public duties 
 which required superior tact and wisdom. Af- 
 ter this period, however, he seems never to have 
 taken a very active part in the government of 
 the colony, though he did not neglect any op- 
 portunity, which his intelligent assiduity could 
 employ, for promoting its interests or advancing 
 the peace and social well-being of its people. 
 
 From the year 1651, when John Clarke and 
 Roger Wilhams were sent forth together in the 
 service of the colony, Clarke himself had re- 
 mained in England, the faithful and indefatiga- 
 ble agent of the people of Rhode Island. On 
 the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660, a 
 new commission was sent to him, urging him to 
 prosecute his agency with the utmost diligence 
 at the court of the restored monarch, whose 
 views, it was feared, might be unfriendly to the 
 interests of a colony, which owed its charter to 
 the Long Parliament. At length, on the 8th of 
 July, 1663, after a residence in England of 
 eleven years, he had the happiness of receiving 
 from the King a new charter for the colony, 
 instituting a government clothed with more per- 
 fect authority, and better suited to the condi- 
 tion of the people, and still recognizing in full 
 the same principle of unlimited freedom " in 
 matters of religious concernments," on which 
 the colony had been originally founded. Tiie 
 
180 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 charter was brought to New England by Cap- 
 tain George Baxter, and was presented to the 
 General Court of Commissioners at Newport, on 
 the 24th of November, 1663, and, on the fol- 
 lowing day, was read in the presence of ^'n 
 very great meeting and assembly of the free- 
 men of the colony." It was received by the 
 colonists with demonstrations of no common joy. 
 The sum of one hundred pounds was voted 
 to Mr. Clarke, their " trusty and well-beloved 
 friend," and thirty pounds to " George Baxter, 
 the most faithful and happy bringer of the 
 charter." The ancient record glows with the 
 animated scenes it describes. " The charter," 
 says the record, " was taken forth from the 
 precious box which held it, and was read by 
 Baxter in the audience and view of all the 
 people ; and the letters, with his majesty's royal 
 stamp and the broad ^seal, with much beseem- 
 ing gravity, were held up on high, and present- 
 ed to the perfect view of the people."* 
 
 In this instrument, the King, of his own au- 
 thority, appointed the first Governor and assist- 
 ants, who, according to its provisions, were to 
 continue in office till the first Wednesday of 
 May next ensuing. Benedict Arnold was cre- 
 
 * See Goddard's Address on the Occasion of the Change 
 in the Civil Government of Rhode Island, p. 17. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 181 
 
 ated Governor, and Roger Williams one of the 
 assistants ; and at the first meeting of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, under the new government, he 
 was appointed to transcribe the charter into the 
 permanent records of the colony. Immediate- 
 ly on the organization of the new government, 
 the prospects of the colony began to brighten. 
 New energy was infused into all its members. 
 In the following May, at the first general elec- 
 tion held by the people, Mr. Williams was 
 chosen an assistant, and, in connection with 
 Mr. Clarke, was appointed to make a revision 
 of the laws, that their requirements might be 
 better understood and more thoroughly enforced. 
 He was also appointed one of the commission- 
 ers to run the eastern boundary of the colony, 
 which had been the subject of a protracted dis- 
 pute both with Plymouth and Massachusetts. 
 
 The General Assembly, at the same time, in 
 virtue of the additional importance given to the 
 colony by the grant of a free charter, began 
 to put forth a more decided authority, and to 
 declare its decrees in a more peremptory tone, 
 respecting the disturbers of the public peace, 
 who still infested the settlements at Warwick 
 and Pawtuxet. Amidst these new and happy 
 auspices, the Assembly ordered that the word 
 Hope be inscribed over the anchor, which had 
 already been adopted as the device of the colo- 
 
182 AMEUICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 nial seal, and the words " Rhode Island and 
 Providence Plantations," the name given to the 
 province in the new charter, be written around 
 it, and that the same be henceforth the seal of 
 the colony. 
 
 Such were the circumstances in which the 
 second charter of Rhode Island went into op- 
 eration. It was the freest charter, that ever bore 
 the signature of a King, and was the astonish- 
 ment of the age in which it was granted. Like 
 that which preceded it, it secured the most per- 
 fect freedom in matters of conscience, and thus 
 guarantied the perpetual exercise of the great 
 principles on which the colony was founded. It 
 continued to be the fundamental law of Rhode 
 Island for nearly a hundred and eighty years, 
 protecting the rights and securing the happiness 
 of a long succession of generations, and " holding 
 forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing 
 civil state may stand, and best be maintained, 
 with a full liberty in religious concernments ; " 
 and when it was supplanted, in 1843, by the 
 present constitution of the state, it is believed to 
 have been the oldest charter of civil government 
 in the world. 
 
 For a period of many years after the new 
 organization of the government, but few memo- 
 rials can now be found of either the public or 
 the private life of Mr. Williams. As has been 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 183 
 
 already mentioned, he was a deputy or repre- 
 sentative from Providence, in 1667, and was 
 chosen assistant again in 1670 and the follow- 
 ing year, and also in 1677 ; but in the last 
 instance, he declined the office, probably on 
 account of the infirmities of age. His name 
 also frequently appears in the records of the 
 town, as moderator of its meetings, as the lead- 
 ing manager of public business, and especially 
 as a member of most of the committees that 
 were appointed to draft public documents, to 
 conduct negotiations with the Indians, or to set- 
 tle the disputes and strifes that were perpetually 
 springing up among the petulant burghers of that 
 day, respecting the boundaries of their lands, or 
 the limits of the town. 
 
 He had now passed the meridian of his life, 
 and had reached a period, when a man may 
 well sequester himself from public affairs, and, 
 amid leisure and repose, meditate the changes 
 through which he has passed, and prepare for 
 the still greater change that awaits him. But, 
 though sharing httle in the perplexities and toils 
 of the government, he did not become indif- 
 ferent to its prosperity or fame. He even 
 watched with parental care over its interests, and 
 was the author and adviser of many of the pub- 
 lic measures of the time, with which his name 
 does not now stand connected. He seems also 
 
184 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to have been in the habit, during this more re- 
 tired period of his hfe, of going once in a 
 month to the Narragansett country, the neighbor- 
 hood where, many years before, he had kept a 
 trading-house, for the purpose of preaching the 
 gospel to the Indians, and the scattered Enghsh 
 in those parts. And at a later day, when he 
 was no longer able to leave his fireside, he 
 wrote to Governor Bradstreet, of Massachusetts, 
 to consult how he might print the sermons he 
 had thus preached, for the benefit of the na- 
 tives. 
 
 Though his influence with the Indian tribes, 
 and especially with the Narragansetts, was greater 
 than that of any other person, yet he seems to 
 have encountered nothing but difficulty and dis- 
 couragement in his labors for their religious in- 
 struction. They were singularly averse to the 
 reception of Christianity ; and, though they would 
 listen to the teachings of Mr. Williams from 
 their respect for his character, yet the truths of 
 the gospel found no easy access to their dark- 
 ened understandings. Then, too, the amazing 
 difldculty, with which spiritual ideas were ex- 
 pressed in their rude and singular language, in 
 itself presented an obstacle almost insurmount- 
 able. He has himself declared how " hard it is 
 for any man to attain a little propriety of their 
 language in common things, so as to escape 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 185 
 
 derision among them, in many years, without 
 abundant conversing with them, in eating, trav- 
 elhng, and lodging with them ; " and refers for 
 proof to John Ehot, who, though he had devoted 
 his hfe to the study of their language and char- 
 acter, could not always make himself understood 
 when he taught them the truths of religion. 
 Cotton Mather says of the Indian words, that 
 they must have been growing in length from 
 the confusion of tongues at Babel, and Mr. Wil- 
 liams seems to have regarded the apostolic gift 
 of tongues as alone adequate to the task of 
 moulding their wild jargon into the clear ex- 
 pression of spiritual truth. His pious and gen- 
 erous-hearted labors, however, could not have 
 been altogether in vain. He may have roused 
 many a sluggish savage spirit to deep and earnest 
 questioning of the mysteries of life, or planted 
 the germs of virtue and piety in benighted 
 minds, whose immortal destiny is known to God 
 alone. 
 
 In the summer of 1672, Mr. Williams engaged 
 in his famous controversy with the Quakers. 
 Like most other controversies of the kind, it was 
 a profitless war of words, and has attached to 
 his memory an odium, which the motives that 
 led him to engage in it are far from justifying. 
 These motives he states to have been, first, the 
 vindication of the name of God from the dis- 
 
186 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 honor brought upon it by the Quakers; secondly, 
 to justify the colony for receiving them when 
 banished from the other colonies ; thirdly, the 
 hope that such a discussion would awaken " some 
 soul-consideration " among the people, and thus 
 save them from the errors he designed to ex- 
 pose. 
 
 The manners and modes of worship of the 
 first advocates of the Quaker doctrines, who ap- 
 peared in New England, were certainly suffi- 
 ciently opposed to the purity of religion, and, in 
 some mstances at least, to the proprieties and 
 decencies of civilized life. They excited the 
 attention of the multitude by their noisy fervors, 
 and sometimes wantonly provoked the persecu- 
 tions they received. They scorned the ordinary 
 courtesies of society, and gloried in rude man- 
 ' ners and contemptuous expressions. The men ' 
 would often insult the magistrates and ministers, 
 as they passed their houses, and the women' 
 laying aside the modesty of their sex, would 
 run naked through the streets. Notwithstanding 
 all this, they had been kindly received in Rhode 
 Island, when driven from every other colony in 
 New England, and were permitted to enjoy 
 there every civil right and immunity, and, like 
 all other citizens, to maintain undisturbed the 
 peculiarities of their doctrine and worship. For 
 this tolerant and truly magnanimous policy, this 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 187 
 
 clear-sighted deference to the supremacy of con- 
 science, the fair fame of the colony had been 
 traduced, and her citizens had been represented 
 as fostering and approving all the errors, which 
 her legislation had tolerated. 
 
 To the peculiar doctrines and practice of the 
 early Quakers, Williams had always been strong- 
 ly opposed. Though he never would allow them 
 to be put down, or in any way molested, by the 
 civil power, yet he regarded their notions as 
 injurious to pure Christianity, and their conduct 
 as pernicious to the morals and order of society. 
 To declare his views respecting the prominent 
 points of their belief, and to vindicate the col- 
 ony from the aspersions which had been cast 
 upon it for having received them to its juris- 
 diction, as we have seen, were among the mo- 
 tives which led him to engage in a controversy, 
 which, though somewhat in accordance with the 
 customs of that age, cannot now be regarded 
 with approbation. In the month of July, 1672, 
 he sent to George Fox, the distinguished founder 
 of the sect, who was then at Newport, a formal 
 challenge to a public discussion of fourteen prop- 
 ositions, into which he had drawn out his views. 
 The challenge was in these words, and was ad- 
 dressed " To George Fox, or any other of my 
 countrymen at Newport, who say they are the 
 apostles and messengers of Christ Jesus. In 
 
188 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 humble confidence of the help of the Most High, 
 I offer to maintain, in public, against all comers, 
 these fourteen propositions following, to wit; the 
 first seven at Newport, and the other seven at 
 Providence. For the time when, I refer it to 
 George Fox and his friends at Newport." The 
 propositions that accompanied the challenge af- 
 firmed, that the doctrines of the Quakers were 
 unscriptural, and contrary to the well-being of 
 society, and that, like Papacy, they tended to 
 persecution, to rebellion, and to despotism. 
 From some cause or other, they were not de- 
 livered to Fox, immediately on being sent to 
 Newport, and he left the colony without having 
 seen them. Mr. Williams always suspected, 
 though on what grounds is not precisely known, 
 that this was the result of a collusion between 
 him and his friends, who wished him to avoid 
 a public defence of his principles. 
 
 A discussion, however, was at length agreed 
 upon, and was commenced at Newport, on the 
 9th of August. Mr. Williams was then in the 
 seventy-third year of his age ; yet was he able 
 to row his boat, through a whole day, the dis- 
 tance of thirty miles, from Providence to New- 
 port, where he arrived, as he says, " towards 
 midnight, before the morning appointed." Three 
 members of the sect, which he had come to as- 
 sail, appeared as champions against him. Their 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 189 
 
 names were John Stubs, John Burnet, and Wil- 
 liam Edmundson. The two former he speaks 
 of as able and learned men ; the last, who was 
 the chief speaker, he characterizes as an ignorant 
 and boisterous brawler. The debate began in 
 the Quaker meeting-house, and lasted three days 
 in Newport, and, on the 17th of the same month, 
 was renewed at Providence, where it terminated 
 after a single day, having produced no other 
 effect than to exasperate the friends of both 
 parties, and set them still more violently against 
 each other. 
 
 That portion of the debate, especially, which 
 was held in Newport, appears to have been a 
 scene of tumult and confusion. The novel 
 gladiatorship attracted a crowd of spectators; 
 and, there being no moderator to preserve order 
 and see fair play between the combatants, all 
 took sides, and approved or condemned accord- 
 ing to their varying tastes and opinions. Wil- 
 liams complains that he was often rudely in- 
 terrupted ; and when his brother Robert, at that 
 time a schoolmaster in Newport, attempted to 
 protect him from interruption, his interference 
 was not allowed by the Quakers. Mr. Williams 
 afterwards wrote out the discussion in full, which 
 he published, together with an account of the 
 motives that led to it, and the manner in which it 
 was conducted. The book is entitled, " George 
 
190 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Fox digged out of his Burrowes ; or, an Offer 
 of Disputation on fourteen Proposals, made this 
 last Summer, 1672, (so called,) unto G. Fox, 
 then present on Rhode Island, in New England, 
 by R. W. ; " and, though displaying considerable 
 learning, and a certain species of logical acute- 
 ness, is distinguished by a bitterness and severity 
 of language unequalled in any other of his 
 writings. 
 
 In the summer of 1675, the jealousies and 
 hostilities, which had been so long gathering, in 
 dark and threatening clouds, around the whole 
 horizon of New England, broke out into a furious 
 and desolating war. Philip, the able and am- 
 bitious chief of the Pokanokets, had aimed to 
 establish a league among the tribes around him, 
 that thus he might be able to punish what he 
 conceived to be the wrongs of his race, and, if 
 possible, gain back the lands they had lost, and 
 drive the English from the country. Mr. Wil- 
 liams, as usual, in cases of trouble with the In- 
 dians, had been employed to allay the fury of 
 Phihp and his tribe, and had exerted himself 
 to the utmost to prevent the still powerful Nar- 
 ragansetts from joining in the league. They 
 at first . promised neutrality, and renewed their 
 treaty with the English ; but the remembrance of 
 their ancient power, and especially of tlie mur- 
 der of their favorite chief, Miantonomo, was suf- 
 
llOGEU WILLIAMS. 191 
 
 ficient to obliterate from their minds the obhga- 
 tions of their treaty, and even their dread of 
 Enghsh arm.s. They joined themselves to PhiHp, 
 and their four thousand warriors rushed to the 
 combat, that soon extended to every part of 
 New England. Town after town was burnt, and 
 the war spread dismay and distress to the homes 
 of every settlement of the English, and for a 
 time seemed to threaten the annihilation of the 
 colonies. Many of the people of Providence, 
 and of the other towns of Rhode Island, re- 
 moved to Newport, with their families. 
 
 Mr. WilUams, however, remained at home, and 
 was among the most active of the citizens in 
 watching the movements of the foe, and prepar- 
 ing for their attack. Though his age was up- 
 wards of seventy-six years, yet he accepted a 
 commission as captain in the militia of the col- 
 ony, drilled the companies in Providence, and 
 held them in constant readiness for active service. 
 He also sent a petition to the town, for leave to 
 convert one of the houses into a garrison, and 
 to erect other defences " for security to women 
 and children." The petition was granted, and 
 the defences were raised entirely at private ex- 
 pense, for defraying which he subscribed the 
 sum of ten pounds, by far the largest sum on 
 the hst of the subscriptions. At a subsequent 
 period, the General Assembly established a garri- 
 
192 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY* 
 
 son at Providence, and placed it under the com- 
 mand of Captain Fenner, with the express pro- 
 vision in the orders that were given him, that his 
 authority should " not eclipse Captain WiUiams's 
 power, in the exercise of the train-bands there.'^ 
 In spite, however, of the preparations for de- 
 fence. Providence shared the fate of so many 
 other towns in New England. It was attacked 
 by the Indians on the 29th of March, 1676; 
 twenty-nine houses were reduced to ashes, and 
 among them that in which the town records 
 were kept. The records themselves were par- 
 tially destroyed, and the remaining portions were 
 saved only by being thrown into a pond, from 
 which they were afterwards recovered. It is 
 said, in the ancient traditions of Providence, 
 that, when the Indians appeared on the heights 
 north of the town, Mr. Williams took his staff, 
 and went forth to meet them, hoping to turn 
 away their vengeance, as he had often done be- 
 fore. But they were too much exasperated to 
 yield to his influence. Some of the older chiefs, 
 who had long known him, came towards him 
 as they saw him approaching, and told him that 
 they were his friends, but that their young men 
 were too much enraged for him to venture among 
 them with safety. He returned to the garrison, 
 and witnessed the desolation of the town. This 
 terrible war was at length brought to a close by 
 
EOGER WILLIAMS. 193 
 
 the death of King PhiHp, in August, 1676, but 
 not till it had cost the colonies an immense ex- 
 penditure both of treasure and blood. The dis- 
 bursements and losses are said to have equalled 
 half a million of dollars. Thirteen New Eng^ 
 land towns were entirely destroyed, and six 
 hundred houses were burnt, and about six hun- 
 dred of the colonists, or one in twenty of all 
 the able-bodied men, were killed. There was 
 mourning in every family, for every one had lost 
 a kinsman or a friend. 
 
 But to the Indians the war was productive 
 of still more terrible results. Hunted down and 
 driven from their hiding-places by the perse- 
 vering energy of their more civilized foes, their 
 bravest chiefs all slain or taken captive, they 
 presented, at its close, but a feeble remnant of 
 the proud race, who had defied the vengeance 
 of the white men. The Pokanokets were en- 
 tirely exterminated, and the Narragansetts were 
 so crippled and reduced, that scarcely a hundred 
 of them returned to occupy the deserted lodges 
 of the tribe. The rest had all perished by the 
 sword, by fire, or by famine, or had been taken 
 captive by their conquerors. The body of King 
 Philip was treated with shameful indignity ; his 
 head was severed from his body, and exposed 
 on a gibbet at Plymouth, and one of his hands 
 
 VOL. IV. 13 
 
194 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was sent to Boston. The Indians who were 
 taken captive in the war, including the son of 
 King PhiHp, the last of the race of Massasoit, 
 were sold into slavery, either among the colo- 
 nists at home, or in the Island of Bermuda. 
 The captives, who were brought to Providence, 
 were distributed among the heads of families on 
 the following conditions, viz., ^' All under Jive 
 years to serve till thirty ; above five, and under 
 ten, till twenty-eight ; above ten, to fifteen, till 
 twenty-seven ; above fifteen, to twenty, till twenty- 
 six years ; firom twenty to thirty, shall serve eight 
 years ; all above thirty, seven years.^^ These 
 conditions were recommended by a committee 
 appointed by the town to report a plan for 
 the disposal of the captive Indians ; and, though 
 the slavery to which they were reduced hardly 
 involved the idea of absolute property in their 
 persons, yet it is with pain and disappointment 
 that we read the name of Roger Williams first 
 among the committee who sanctioned them. 
 Thus ended the history of the race he had so 
 often befriended; and he may have regarded their 
 servitude as the only condition compatible with 
 the peace and safety of the colonies of New 
 England. His hopes of their civilization and 
 improvement were well nigh extinguished by the 
 melancholy doom which settled around them, 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 195 
 
 and which seems to be the inevitable fate- of 
 every savage race, when brought into colUsion 
 with the arts and arms of civiUzed man. 
 
 Mr. Wilhams's life was now rapidly declining 
 amid the shadows of evening, and but few more 
 events remain to be recorded in its checkered 
 history. Old age, however, to him was not a 
 season of quiet and repose. He had devoted 
 his life to the maintenance of one great prin- 
 ciple ; and, though he had seen it embodied 
 and carried into operation in the civil commu- 
 nity around him, yet the principle was still a 
 despised and persecuted one, and was regarded, 
 even by the best and wisest men of New Eng- 
 land, as the dream of enthusiasm. Its perma- 
 nent triumph was yet to be secured. This 
 made him exceedingly sensitive to any abuse of 
 the freedom of conscience, which sprang up 
 among the people of the colony. He was dis- 
 quieted at their strifes and discords, and was 
 constantly engaged in endeavoring to settle the 
 questions that gave rise to them. After the 
 close of the war, he seems still to have contin- 
 ued his monthly visits to Narragansett, for the 
 purpose of preaching to the English and the 
 Indians, who dwelt there. 
 
 In May, 1677, he was again chosen an assist- 
 ant, but did not accept the office. In January, 
 1681, he presented to the town a paper entitled 
 
196 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 "Considerations touching Rates," containing a 
 series of maxims demonstrating the necessity of 
 civil government, and the duty of every citizen 
 to share in the burdens it imposes. The fact, 
 that such considerations w^ere needed, shows that 
 the community, of which he was the founder, 
 was still disturbed by those lawless and self- 
 willed men, who are willing to enjoy all the 
 blessings of regulated society, but shrink from 
 every sacrifice it demands, and every labor it 
 enjoins. With such men as these he had to 
 contend as long as he lived ; and the latest 
 recorded act of his life was to affix his signa- 
 ture to a document, which was intended to settle 
 the long-protracted controversy respecting that 
 most prolific subject of disputes, the Pawtuxet 
 lands. This document bears the date of Jan- 
 uary 16th, 1683, and is the last that remains of 
 the waymarks along the journey of his life. 
 The precise time of his death is nowhere men- 
 tioned. It must have occurred in the early part 
 of the year 1683 ; for a letter written from Prov- 
 idence on the 10th of May, by Mr. John Thorn- 
 ton to the Reverend Samuel Hubbard, makes 
 the following mention of his death ; " The Lord 
 hath arrested by death our ancient and ap- 
 proved friend, Mr. Roger Williams, with divers 
 others here." 
 
 This is the only record that can now be 
 
ROGER WILLiImS. 197 
 
 found of the death of the venerable founder of 
 Rhode Island. He was in the eighty-fourth 
 year of his age ; and, though weakened by phys- 
 ical infirmities, yet he seems to have possessed 
 to the last the full vigor of his intellectual fac- 
 ulties. He was buried at Providence, on the 
 spot which he had selected as the burial-place 
 of his family, with appropriate funeral honors, 
 ''and with all the solemnity the colony was 
 able to show."* Though, like most of the 
 early colonists, he lived to an age far beyond 
 the ordinary lot of man, yet his wife, and all 
 his children, are believed to have survived him. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 His religious Opinions, — His Views respecting 
 the Clergy. — Political Opinions. — Character 
 as a Writer. — General Remarks. 
 
 In the preceding pages we have purposely 
 avoided any account of the change in religious 
 opinions, if such it deserves to be called, which 
 has rendered the subject of this sketch so cele- 
 
 * Callender, Elton's edition, p. 147, note. 
 
198 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 brated in the ecclesiastical annals of New Eng- 
 land. Unfortunately, though much has been 
 written, but little can now be known respect- 
 ing it. As we have already stated, he received 
 his ordination, as a minister of the gospel, from 
 the hands of an Episcopal bishop of the estab- 
 lished church in England, and, before leaving 
 that country, was settled as a parish preacher. 
 After his arrival in Massachusetts, like most of 
 the other Puritan divines, he adopted the Con- 
 gregational mode of worship and form of church 
 government; and though, while there, he was 
 charged with holding opinions '' tending to Ana- 
 baptistry," as it was called, yet the charge is 
 supposed to have related to his principles of 
 religious liberty, which were considered danger- 
 ous and disorganizing, rather than to an adop- 
 tion of the sentiments of the Baptists. The 
 validity of infant baptism, and, indeed, of any 
 baptism by sprinkling, was, at that period, just 
 beginning to be called in question, among the 
 Puritans, by here and there an inquiring spirit ; 
 and Roger Williams, though not the first to 
 embrace the new opinions, yet, with his char- 
 acteristic independence, was the first in New 
 England to carry them out into practice. We 
 know nothing of the reasons which led him to 
 the step. We only know that he became con-^ 
 vinced that his early baptism was invalid, and 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 199 
 
 was bf». zed by immersion, according to the 
 usage rr_ the Baptists, in March, 1639, by Eze- 
 ki'j! "I_--.man, a respectable citizen of Provi- 
 dence. He subsequently administered the ordi- 
 nance to Mr. Holliman, and to others of the 
 settlers there, who immediately united in form- 
 ing the First Baptist Church in that town, 
 which was also the first of that persuasion 
 upon this continent. 
 
 But the doubt, which had been once awa- 
 kened respecting the tenets of his early faith, 
 unfortunately did not end with discarding his 
 baptism when an infant. He soon became dis- 
 satisfied with other institutions of the church, 
 and especially doubted the apostolic authority 
 of all the orders of the clergy then existing. 
 This led him still further to distrust, and ulti- 
 mately to reject, not only his own baptism, but 
 all baptism whatever, " because not derived from 
 the authority of the apostles, otherwise than by 
 the ministers of England, whom he judged to 
 be ill authority." * For these reasons, though, 
 it appears, in a manner perfectly amicable, he 
 left the church, which he had aided in forming, 
 a few months after its organization, and became 
 what, in the history of New England, is denom- 
 
 * This is the language of Governor Wintlirop, and with 
 tliis view the writings of Williams agree. 
 
200 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 inated a Seeker; a term not inaptly applied to 
 those, who, in any age of the church, becouie 
 dissatisfied with its prevailing creeds and insti- 
 tutions, and seek for more congenial views of 
 truth, or a faith better adapted to their spiritual 
 wants. He regarded all the churches of Chris- 
 tendom as, in some sense, in a state of apostasy, 
 and the clergy, of every name, as having fallen 
 from their priestly office, and lost their true 
 apostohc authority ; and he looked for a new 
 commission to be given from Heaven, to restore 
 the sacred succession of apostles, and reestab- 
 lish, on their primitive basis, the ordinances of 
 the gospel. 
 
 His singular views on this subject are set 
 forth at length in his writings, especially in his 
 A^< Hireling Ministry none of Christ's." One of 
 the propositions maintained in this work is, that 
 " the apostolical commission and ministry is long 
 since interrupted and discontinued. Yet, ever 
 since the beast Antichrist arose, the Lord hath 
 stirred up the ministry of prophecy, who must 
 continue their witness and prophecy, until their 
 witness be finished, and slaughters, probably, near 
 approaching, be accomplished." This ministry 
 of witnesses and prophets he recognized as the 
 only one now extant. He allowed to them the 
 right to bear witness to the truth, and to vindi- 
 cate it from the attacks of all who should assail 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 201 
 
 it; but he denied their authority to rule the 
 church, or to administer the ordinances of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 These views respecting the ministry were, prob- 
 ably, to a considerable extent at least, the result 
 of his own unfortunate experience with the cler- 
 gy of his time, both in England and America. 
 He saw them, even in these most favored parts 
 of Christendom, sanctioning the use of the civil 
 sword, in maintaining the purity of the church, 
 and in extending the triumphs of the gospel. 
 He had himself suffered from their bitter de- 
 nunciations, and had been a witness of their 
 zeal for persecution ; and, as he compared their 
 practice with the qualities most insisted on in 
 the sacred Scriptures, it is not strange that, 
 with his views of the sanctity of conscience, he 
 should be disposed to question their apostolic 
 character and authority. 
 
 These opinions, however, extraordinary as they 
 now appear, did not abate an iota his interest 
 in religious truth, or in the conversion of others 
 to the Christian faith. With a zeal which never 
 tired till near the close of a long life, "by 
 many tedious journeys," he constantly labored 
 for the religious good of the ignorant and the 
 destitute around him ; and when too old to 
 preach any longer, we find him by his fireside, 
 striving to recollect the heads of his numerous 
 
202 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 discourses, that he might print them for the 
 benefit of the Narrangansett Indians and others. 
 For this purpose, he was obhged to apply to his 
 friends for aid ; and, too poor himself to promise 
 payment, he appeals to a nobler motive, and 
 says that "he who hath a shilling, and a heart 
 to countenance and promote such a soul-work, 
 may trust the great Paymaster for an hundred 
 for one in this life." * 
 
 Still less did his peculiar views respecting the 
 institutions and outward observances of religion 
 diminish his faith in the fundamental principles 
 of morals. In every sphere of life in which he 
 moved ; in the controversies in which he was 
 engaged ; in all his commerce with both civilized 
 and barbarous men, he everywhere recognized 
 them as matters of unchanging obligation. His 
 adherence to what he regarded as the dictates 
 of truth and justice, his generous respect for 
 the rights of the Indians, and his philanthropic 
 interest in their improvement, and conversion to 
 Christianity, separate him from the great majority 
 of the founders of states, and place him, in all 
 the relations of equity and peace, by the side 
 of the noble-minded William Penn. Even his 
 worst enemies have never breathed a reproach 
 upon his morals. Cotton Mather, who says, in 
 
 * Letter to Governor Bradstreet. 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 203 
 
 his quaint folly, that he had a windmill in his 
 head, yet admits that he had the root of the 
 matter in his heart ; while his friends, from a 
 nearer observation of his virtues, pronounce him 
 to have been ^'one of the most disinterested 
 men that ever lived ; a most pious and heavenly- 
 minded soul." * 
 
 The record of his life, and of the labors in 
 which he was engaged, is perhaps the best de- 
 lineation of his character. Of its minuter per- 
 sonal traits it may now be difficult to form any 
 distinct conception. Its leading features appear 
 to have had their origin in his steadfast love of 
 truth, and his boldness and independence in 
 declaring it. It may have been wanting in the 
 graces and accomplishments, which cultivated life 
 alone can impart ; but it was still radiant with 
 some of the noblest and most commanding qual- 
 ities of humanity. His faults were such as gen- 
 erally spring from an ardent and excitable temper- 
 ament. He was sometimes hasty and rash in 
 forming his opinions, and too unyielding and 
 uncompromising in maintaining them. But that 
 he was also magnanimous and benevolent, pa- 
 tient of suffering and forgiving of injuries, and 
 unwavering in his devotion to the interests of 
 truth, and liberty, and virtue, his whole life bears 
 
 * Callendcr, p. 72. 
 
904 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 constant testimony. He could not be a time- 
 server or a parasite. He could fawn neither 
 at the footstool of power nor at the tribunal of 
 public opinion. He was true to the promptings 
 of his own moral nature, and he followed them, 
 with reverence, whithersoever they led him. 
 
 His political opinions were, in the main, those 
 of the Puritans and the Independents ; though 
 he stopped far short of the extremes to which 
 some of the leaders of the popular party pushed 
 their principles, in the fierce contests of that 
 revolutionary age. On but few of the great 
 questions, which then agitated England, has he 
 left any expression of his opinion. The scenes 
 of his life were too remote and too humble to 
 render it necessary, or even possible, for him 
 to take any decided stand in the general politics 
 of the day. But, though sympathizing strongly 
 with the popular party, and on terms of friendly 
 intimacy with many of its most eminent leaders, 
 yet he could not sanction some of its measures ; 
 and, amid all the changes in the government, 
 he never withheld his allegiance from the con- 
 stituted authorities of the realm, whether Par- 
 liament, Protector, or King. He has declared, 
 in one of his writings, his disapprobation of the 
 execution of Charles the First, and seems seri- 
 ously to have doubted whether it would not 
 have been better to suffer all the evils of tyr- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 205 
 
 anny, rather than plunge the nation into the 
 calamities of the civil wars. 
 
 His industry in every enterprise which he un- 
 dertook was indefatigable. His life was one 
 long season of incessant work, and this in nearly 
 every sphere of exertion which the times pre- 
 sented. He placed the highest estimate upon 
 the value of time. *' One grain of its inesti- 
 mable sand," says he, "is worth a golden moun- 
 tain ; " and it was only in the spirit of such 
 a maxim, that he could have accomplished so 
 much, both of intellectual and physical labor, 
 in the unpropitious circumstances in which he 
 was placed. His knowledge, especially in history 
 and theology, appears to have been extensive, 
 and his scholarship in the classic languages un- 
 usually varied and exact. As a writer, he had 
 little time, and, it may be, little taste for the ele- 
 gances of language. His style, however, is usu- 
 ally earnest and forcible, and sometimes sparkles 
 with animating beauty, though it more generally 
 rolls roughly along through sentences involved 
 and wearisome from their want of clearness and 
 harmony. But when we reflect, that much of his 
 time was spent away from cultivated society, in 
 providing for the mere physical necessities of Hfe, 
 amid the depressions of poverty, and the hard- 
 ships of an infant settlement, as he himself 
 describes it, '- at the hoe and at the oar for 
 
206 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 bread/' our wonder is, that he was able to write 
 so much, and especially to write so well ; and 
 we pardon the rudeness of his style, as we think 
 of the noble principles of spiritual freedom it 
 embodies, and of the toils and sufferings he en- 
 dured in making them familiar to mankind. 
 
 But it is not upon his writings that the fame 
 of Roger Williams most depends, or that his 
 claims to the respect and gratitude of the world 
 principally rest. His name, especially in this 
 country, has long since become identified with 
 the great principle of political philosophy, which 
 he spent the greater part of his hfe, and his 
 best energies, in supporting and carrying into 
 practice. This principle of the supremacy of 
 conscience, the underived independence of the 
 soul, now so familiar and well understood, was, 
 in the age in which he lived, a startling par- 
 adox, and, in the judgment of his contempo- 
 raries, prolific only of evils both to the church 
 and the state. He alone conceived it in its true 
 import and application, and he fearlessly an- 
 nounced it as an elemental truth in morals. 
 Starting with the great doctrines of the refor- 
 mation, the right of private judgment, and man's 
 accountability to God alone for his religious 
 faith and worship, he demonstrated his sublime 
 principle. To set it forth, to vindicate it from 
 the persecutions with which it was assailed, to 
 
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ROGER WILLIAMS. 207 
 
 rescue it from the selfish ends to which it was 
 perverted, this was the noble mission of his life, 
 to which he sacrificed comfort and ease, and all 
 his hopes of worldly preferment. In the pursuit 
 of this end he never wavered. In pubHc and 
 in private life, as a minister and a legislator, 
 amid the rudeness and penury of his plantation 
 in the wilderness, or in the society of scholars 
 and statesmen in the mother country, he kept 
 it constantly in view, as the radiant pole-star of 
 his hopes and aims. 
 
 His days were passed amid the obscurity of 
 a New England settlement, a sphere too narrow 
 and humble to call out the full energies of his 
 character. Had he returned, like Sir Henry 
 Vane, to England, he might have asserted his 
 noble principles on the floor of the British Par- 
 liament, or uttered them at the Board of the 
 Council of State. His influence could not fail 
 to be felt, and his name might have stood, on 
 the page of English history, among the brightest 
 and best of the republican statesmen of the 
 time. But he was reserved for a less con- 
 spicuous, though scarcely an humbler destiny, 
 to become the founder of a state in the American 
 confederacy, and the first advocate, in modern 
 Christendom, of the entire freedom of conscience. 
 The truths for whose sake he was persecuted 
 and banished, and which he toiled so long to es- 
 
208 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tablish, have become incorporated into our whole 
 social system, and, like many of the most useful 
 arts, from their very commonness and familiarity, 
 have now ceased to remind us of their original 
 discoverer and advocate. But he, who analyzes 
 our American civilization, and traces the influ- 
 ences that now control it back to the sources 
 whence they sprang, will not fail to appreciate 
 the character, and do honor to the name, of 
 Roger Williams. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Charges against Rhode Island, 
 
 Two several charges have been brought against 
 Rhode Island, for having trespassed upon the prin- 
 ciples of religious liberty in which she was originally 
 founded. The first is contained in Chalmers's '' Po- 
 litical -Annals," Book I. Chap. XI. pp. 276-279. 
 He states, that, at the meeting of the General As- 
 sembly, in March, 1664, a law was passed, contain- 
 ing the following passage : viz., " That all men pro- 
 fessing Christianity, of competent estates, and of civil 
 conversation, who acknowledge and are obedient to 
 the civil magistrates, though of different judgments 
 in religious affairs, Roman Catholics only excepted, 
 shall be admitted freemen, or may choose or be 
 chosen colonial officers." A statute, containing the 
 passage above quoted, is found in the edition of the 
 " Laws of Rhode Island," which was printed in 1745, 
 the earliest edition, of which any copies are now ex- 
 tant. But it is certain, that no law containing the 
 clauses written in Italics, was passed in 1664; nor 
 can such a law now be found at all in the records 
 VOL. IV. 14 
 
210 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the colony. The late Honorable Samuel Eddy, 
 who was Secretary of State, in Rhode Island, from 
 1797 to 1819, and who examined the records with 
 the utmost care, and with reference to this very ex- 
 clusion, states that he found nothing relating to it, 
 *' nor anything that gives any preference or privileges 
 to men of one set of religious opinions over those 
 of another." 
 
 The words printed in Italics are now generally re- 
 garded as an interpolation, and are supposed to have 
 been inserted, at a date long subsequent to 1664, 
 by some committee for the revisal of the early laws, 
 or by some friend of the colony, who thus sought to 
 rescue its reputation, in England, from the odium 
 which might have been attached to the toleration of 
 Roman Catholics, and those who were not Christians, 
 This supposition is rendered in a high degree prob- 
 able, by the considerations, that such an exclusion 
 conflicts with the principles of Roger Williams, and 
 with the whole spirit of both the charters and all the 
 early legislation of the colony ; that no such ex- 
 clusion was ever carried into effect in the colony; 
 and, lastly, that the identical law, the excluding 
 clauses being removed, was actually passed by the 
 General Assembly, in 1664, in which Roger Wil- 
 liams sat as an assistant, or member of the upper 
 house. For the views of Mr. Eddy, drawn out in 
 full, see Walsh's *' Appeal," pp. 427-435. 
 
 The other charge is contained in an article signed 
 Francis Brinley, (Massachusetts Historical Collec- 
 tions, Vol. V.,) which asserts, that, in 1665, the 
 Quakers were outlawed for refusing to bear arms 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 211 
 
 This statement, however, turns out to be as destitute 
 of truth as the preceding. The origin of the charge 
 is explained, and its falsity clearly pointed out, in 
 an article, also from the pen of Mr. Eddy, contained 
 in the Mass. Hist. Coll. 2d Series, Vol. VII. p. 97. 
 From this article it appears, that, in 16G5, the com- 
 missioners of the colonies, in the name of the King, 
 ordered that all householders, inhabiting the colony 
 of Rhode Island, should take the oath of allegiance. 
 The General Assembly, however, replied that it had 
 always been the practice of the colony, out of re- 
 spect to the rights of conscience, to allow those, 
 who objected to the taking of an oath, to make a 
 solemn asseveration, on the penalties of perjury. An 
 engagement was accordingly drawn up, which, in 
 obedience to the authority of the King, th^ inhab- 
 itants of the colony were required to take, or lose 
 their privileges as freemen. By the terms of the 
 engagement, the individual promised to bear alle- 
 giance to the King and his successors, and "to 
 yield due obedience to the laws established from 
 time to time." To this latter clause the Quakers 
 took exception, because it would require them to 
 comply with the militia laws then in being. They 
 refused to take the engagement, and were accord- 
 ingly disfranchised ; a result which formed no neces- 
 sary part of the purposes of the law, and which is 
 to be ascribed rather to the order of the commis- 
 sioners, than to the action of the legislature. The 
 form of the engagement was altered the next year, 
 on purpose to suit the scruples of the Quakers. 
 Such is the manner in which these charges, brought 
 
212 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 against the fidelity of Rhode Island to the princi- 
 ples of her founder, have been answered and refuted, 
 by a gentleman who was perfectly acquainted with 
 the spirit of her institutions and the history of her 
 legislation. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Account of Roger Williams* s Writings, 
 
 The titles of but few of the writings of Roger 
 Williams have found their way into any of the larger 
 bibliographical works of our language. Many of them 
 are, consequently, now exceedingly rare, and seldom 
 accessible to the general reader. On this account, 
 the following description of those, which are known 
 to exist, is presented to the attention of readers who 
 may be curious in such things. 
 
 I. His earliest published work bears the following 
 title; *' A Key into the Language of America, or an 
 Help to the Language of the Natives in that Part of 
 America called New England; together with briefe 
 Observations of the Customs, Manners, and Worships, 
 &c., of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in 
 Life and Death. On all which are added spiritual 
 Observations, generall and particular, by the Author, of 
 chiefe and special Use (upon all Occasions) to all the 
 English inhabiting those Parts ; yet pleasant and prof- 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 213 
 
 Stable to the View of all Men. By Roger Williams, 
 of Providence, in New England. London, printed 
 by Gregory Dexter, 1G43." 
 
 This work was written while at sea, on his first 
 voyage to England, in the summer of 1643, as a 
 help to his own memory, that he might not lightly 
 lose what he " had so dearly bought by hardship and 
 charges among the barbarians." It comprises one hun- 
 dred and ninety-seven pages of small duodecimo, and 
 is dedicated to his " well-beloved countrymen in Old 
 and New England." It is divided into thirty-two 
 chapters, each of which is devoted to some subject 
 connected with the manners and character of the 
 Indians, and contains specimens of the principal words 
 in their language which relate to that subject. Each 
 chapter, also, closes with pious reflections, and a few 
 verses, which compare very well with productions of 
 most of the New England bards of that day. The 
 " Key " is by far the best known of Mr. Williams's 
 works, and is still of the highest authority respecting 
 the subject of which it treats. A few copies of the 
 original edition still remain, and are occasionally no- 
 ticed in the catalogues. The greater part of the work 
 has been republished in the third and fifth volumes 
 of the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections. 
 It is also contained entire in the first volume of the 
 Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society. 
 A copy of the original edition is in the library of 
 Harvard College. 
 
 II. The second work which Mr. Williams pub- 
 lished is entitled, " Mr. Cotton's Letter, lately printed, 
 Examined and Answered. By Roger Williams, of 
 
214 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Providence, in New England. London, imprinted in 
 the year 1644." It is a small quarto, of forty-seven 
 pages, preceded by an address, of two pages, to " The 
 Impartiall Reader." From this address, it appears 
 that, soon after the banishment of Williams, Mr. 
 Cotton sent him a letter, in which he vindicates the 
 act of the magistrates in sending him away, though 
 he denies that he had any agency in procuring it. 
 The letter also states the opinions of Mr. Williams, 
 which led to his banishment, and points out "the 
 sandiness of the grounds " on which they rested. Of 
 this letter, the work above mentioned contains a full 
 examination and refutation. Its tone is highly cour- 
 teous, and the dilemmas in which it often places Mr. 
 Cotton show the clearness, with which Mr. Williams 
 had conceived his opinions, and " the rocky strength 
 of the grounds" on which he planted them. The 
 work is now exceedingly rare. The copy I have ex- 
 amined is in the possession of the family of the late 
 Moses Brown, of Providence. There is also a copy, 
 somewhat mutilated, in the library of Yale College. 
 
 III. His next publication is entitled, "The Bloody 
 Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, dis- 
 cussed, in a Conference between Truth and Peace, 
 who, in all tender Affection, present to the High 
 Court of Parliament (as the Result of their Dis- 
 course) these (amongst other Passages) of highest 
 consideration." It was printed in London, in 1G44, 
 without the name either of the writer or the publish- 
 er, and comprises two hundred and forty-seven pages, 
 of small quarto. In the library of Brown Universi- 
 ty are two copies of the work, which appear to 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 215 
 
 be of separate editions, though both printed within 
 the same year. There is a slight difference in the 
 type and orthography of the title-page, and of the 
 captions of some of the chapters. The earlier copy 
 also contains a list of errata at the end, which are 
 corrected in the later edition. In all other respects 
 the two copies are precisely alike. 
 
 The singular origin of the work well illustrates 
 the spirit of the times. A person, who had been con- 
 fined in Newgate for opinion's sake, wrote a letter 
 against the use of the civil power in cases of con- 
 science. The letter was written with milk, on sheets 
 of paper brought to the prison by stealth, as stoppers 
 to the milk-bottle. After its publication, it was sent to 
 Mr. Cotton, of Boston, who wrote an answer to the 
 views it contained. This answer to what was thus 
 written in milk, in support of the mild and benignant 
 doctrines of toleration, is represented as written in 
 blood, and is hence styled by Williams '^ The Bloody 
 Tenent." Both the letter from Newgate and the an- 
 swer of Mr. Cotton are printed in the work, and form 
 the basis of the dialogue between Truth and Peace. 
 The whole is prefaced by a Dedication to the " Right 
 Honorable, both Houses of the High Court of Par- 
 liament," and by an *' Address to every Courteous 
 Reader." The work was written during the author's 
 first visit to England, and though, as he says, prepared 
 for the public " in change of rooms and corners, 
 yea, sometimes, in variety of strange houses, some- 
 times in the fields in the midst of travel," it is yet 
 the best written of all his works, and sets forth his 
 doctrines of religious freedom very fully, and in a 
 
216 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 style always animated, and sometimes highly beauti- 
 ful. It has never been republished, and copies are 
 now seldom ofTered for sale, though, when offered, 
 they always command a high price. There is a copy 
 of this work in the library of Harvard College. 
 
 Mr. Cotton wrote a reply to this work, which was 
 published in 1647, and was entitled, "The Bloody 
 Tenet Washed and made White in the Blood of the 
 Lamb, being discussed and discharged of Blood-guilt- 
 yness, by just Defence." The author contended for 
 the right and the duty of the civil magistrate to 
 punish for errors of doctrine, and endeavored to vin- 
 dicate the practice at that time so prevalent among 
 the settlements of the Puritans. 
 
 IV. Mr. Williams's fourth publication was a re- 
 joinder to this work of Mr. Cotton's. It has the 
 following title-page, which is sufficiently descriptive 
 of its contents; "The Bloody Tenent yet more 
 Bloody, by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it white 
 in the Blood of the Lambe, of whose precious Blood 
 spilt in the Blood of his Servants, and of the Blood 
 of Millions spilt in former and later Wars for Con- 
 science' Sake, that most Bloody Tenent of Persecution 
 for Cause of Conscience, upon a second Tryal, is now 
 found more apparently, and more notoriously guilty. 
 In this Rejoynder to Mr. Cotton are principally, 1. The 
 Nature of Persecution ; 2. The Power of the Civill 
 Sword in Spiritualls examined ; 3. The Parliament's 
 Permission of dissenting Consciences justified. Also 
 (as a Testimony to Mr. Clarke's Narrative) is added 
 a Letter to Mr. Endicott, Governor of the Massachu- 
 setts, in N. E= By R, Williamii, of Providence, in 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 217 
 
 New England. London, printed for Giles Calvert, 
 and are to be sold at the Black Spread Eagle, at 
 the West End of Paul's, 1652." It is a small quarto, 
 and, including the letter to Governor Endicott, and 
 an appendix to the clergy of Old and New England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, comprises three hundred and 
 twenty pages. This work discusses the same great 
 questions as the preceding, and maintains the same 
 views, with additional arguments. Both are pervaded 
 with a mildness quite unusual in the controversial 
 writings of that day, and are enriched with an amount 
 of learning that does credit to the varied scholarship 
 of their author. This second work is believed to be 
 even more rare than the first. There are two copies 
 in the library of Brown University, one of which is 
 the presentation copy, which Mr. Williams gave to his 
 friend and fellow-laborer in the service of the colony, 
 Dr. John Clarke. It contains the following inscrip- 
 tion, in his own hand-writing; "For his honored 
 and beloved Mr, John Clarke, an eminent witness 
 of Christ Jesus ag'st ye bloodie Doctrine of Perse- 
 cution, &c." There is likewise a copy in the library 
 of Harvard College. 
 
 V. In the same year, in which he wrote the Re- 
 joinder to Mr. Cotton, and while he was on his 
 second visit to England, he also wrote and published 
 another treatise on the same general subject as the 
 two preceding. It is entitled, " The Hireling Minis- 
 try None of Christ's, or a Discourse touching the 
 Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus ; Humbly pre- 
 sented to such Pious and Honorable Hands, whom 
 the present Debate thereof concerny. By Roger Wil- 
 
218 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 liarns, of Providence, in New England. London, 
 printed in the Second Month, 1652." This book is 
 also a small quarto, of thirty-six pages. It is, in real- 
 ity, an argument against an established church, and 
 the support of the clergy by law, and not, as its title 
 would now seem to import, against the pecuniary 
 compensation of ministers of the gospel. It is a sort 
 of supplement to his other writings on religious lib- 
 erty, in which he explains his singular views respect- 
 ing the ministry, and earnestly contends for the right 
 of " all the people of the three nations to choose and 
 maintain what worship and ministry their souls and 
 consciences are persuaded of." Only two copies of 
 this work are known now to exist in this country, 
 and these are both in the library of the American 
 Antiquarian Society at Worcester. One of them has 
 been lent to the writer, by the courtesy of the di- 
 rectors of that institution. 
 
 VI. He is also said to have published, during the 
 same year, while residing in England, another small 
 volume, entitled, " Experiments of Spiritual Life and 
 Health, and their Preservatives. London, 1652." I 
 am not aware that any copy of this work now exists 
 in this country, nor is there any account given of it 
 in any of the ordinary works of bibliography. 
 
 VII. The last of Roger Williams's published wri 
 tings is the account of the controversy he had with 
 the Quakers. It was printed at Boston, in 1676, 
 and bears the following title; "George Fox digg'd 
 out of his Burrowes, or an Offer of Disputation, on 
 fourteen Proposalls made this last Summer, 1672, 
 (so call'd,) unto G. Fox, then present on Rode 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 219 
 
 Island, in New England, by R. W. As also how 
 (G. Fox slily departing,) the Disputation went on, be- 
 ing managed three Dayes at Newport on Rode Island, 
 and one Day at Providence, between John Stubbs, 
 John Burnet, and William Edmundson, on the one 
 Part, and R. W. on the other. In which many Quota- 
 tions out of G. Fox and Ed. Burrowes Book in Folio 
 are alleadged. With an Appendix, of some Scores of 
 G. F., his simple lame Answers to his Opposites in 
 that Book quoted and replyed to, By R. W. of Provi- 
 dence in N. E. Boston, printed by John Foster, 1676." 
 
 The book derives its quaint title f>om the acci- 
 dental combination of the names Fox and Burrowes 
 in the work, which had been written in defence of 
 the Quakers. It also contains a number of similar 
 puns upon these names, scattered through the dis- 
 cussion. Like most of his other writings, it is in 
 small quarto, and comprises, in all, three hundred and 
 twenty-seven pages, of which two hundred and eight 
 are devoted to an account of the controversy, and 
 one hundred and nineteen to the Appendix. It is 
 dedicated to "The King's Majesty , Charles II.," and 
 commences with two prefatory addresses, one to ** The 
 People called Quakers," and the other "To those 
 many Learned and Pious Men, whom G. Fox hath so 
 sillily and scornfully answered in his Book in Folio. 
 Especially to those whose Names I have been bold 
 to mention in the Narrative and Appendix, Mr. Rich- 
 ard Baxter, Mr. John Owen, &c." 
 
 Though written at a late period of life, when, in 
 most men, the fires of passion have burned out, it is 
 yet the most violent and denunciatory of all his wri- 
 
220 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tings. The manner in which the discussion at New- 
 port was managed was exceedingly irritating and 
 harassing, and the recollection of this seems to have 
 remained in his mind, and to have infused its bit- 
 terness into the narrative in which he has embodied 
 his arguments. The book has never been repub- 
 lished. A copy of it is contained in the library of 
 Harvard College. 
 
 Roger Williams appears to have written several 
 other works, which either were never published, or 
 have long since perished. Among these was the 
 Treatise he wrote while at Plymouth, respecting the 
 patent granted by King James to the New England 
 colonies. This was the book which occasioned him 
 so much trouble during his second residence at Sa- 
 lem. There is no reason to believe that it was ever 
 published. In his "Key to the Indian Languages," he 
 speaks of having '* further treated of the natives of 
 New England, and that great point of their con- 
 version, in an additional Discourse." This Treatise, 
 which may have been printed, has probably perished. 
 No trace of it can now be found. He also, near 
 the close of his life, prepared for publication a vol- 
 ume of the sermons he had preached at Narragansett, 
 and wrote to Governor Bradstreet to solicit aid in 
 printing it. The volume, however, seems never to 
 have gone to the press. 
 
 I have thus mentioned all the works of Roger 
 Williams, which are now known to be extant, or of 
 which any account has been preserved. They were 
 regarded with little favor, on this side of the Atlan • 
 tic, at the time of their publication, on account of 
 
ROGER WILLIAMS. 221 
 
 the general hostility of the Puritans to his doctrines 
 of religious freedom, and to the interests of the col- 
 ony which he founded. Most of them were originally 
 printed in London, and it is not improbable that 
 many more copies of them all may now be found 
 in Great Britain than in this country. It is to be 
 hoped, however, that, of the few that remain, a com- 
 plete set may yet be collected for some one of the 
 public libraries of Rhode Island. 
 
 In addition to those works, which were prepared 
 specially fbr publication, there is a large number of 
 letters and documents relating to both public and 
 private affairs. Many of these have been published 
 in the early volumes of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Collections, and also in Mr. Knowles's Memoir. 
 Others are scattered about in the possession of indi- 
 viduals, or in places of public deposit. Of the pub- 
 lished letters, that written, in 1670, to Major Mason, 
 of Connecticut, is by far the most interesting and 
 valuable, and contains the fullest account, which he 
 has left on record, of the period of his banishment, 
 and his planting the settlement at Providence. No 
 one can read it without admiring the simplicity of 
 the narrative, or without feeling a lively sympathy 
 for the perils he encountered, and the sufferings he 
 endured. 
 
I