WILLIAMS OBTAINS A GRANT OF LAND AND FOUNDS A COLONY.—FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONY.—WILLIAMS GOES TO ENGLAND TO OBTAIN A ROYAL CHARTER.

The territory which now forms the State of Rhode Island, with the exception of Bristol County, in which lay Mount Hope, the seat of Massasoit, chief of the Wamponoags, was held by the Narragansetts, a tribe skilled in the Indian art of making wampum, the Indian money, and the art common to most barbarous nations of making rude vessels in clay and stone. They had once been very powerful, and could still bring four or five thousand braves to the warpath. Their language was substantially the same with that of the other New England tribes, and was understood by the natives of New York, New Jersey and Delaware. With this language Roger Williams had early made himself familiar.

It was labor well bestowed, and he was to reap the reward of it in his day of tribulation. The chiefs of the Narragansetts when he came among them were Canonicus, an “old prince, most shy of the English to his latest breath,” and his nephew, Miantonomi. Their usual residence was on the beautiful Island of Conanicut; and when Williams first came he found them at feud with his other friend, Ossameguin, or Massasoit, Sachem of the Wamponoags. His first care was to reconcile these chiefs, “traveling between them three to pacify, to satisfy all these and their dependent spirits of (his) honest intention to live peaceably by them.” The well founded distrust of the English which Canonicus cherished to the end of his life did not extend to Williams, to whom he made a grant of land between the Mooshausick and the Wanasquatucket; confirming it two years later by a deed bearing the marks of the two Narragansett chiefs. This land Williams divided with twelve of his companions, reserving for them and himself the right of extending the grant “to such others as the major part of us shall admit to the same fellowship of vote with us.” It was a broad foundation, and he soon found himself in the midst of a flourishing colony.

The proprietors, dividing their lands into two parts, “the grand purchase of Providence,” and the “Pawtuxet purchase,” made an assignment of lots to other colonists, and entered resolutely upon the task of bringing the soil under cultivation. The possession of property naturally leads to the making of laws, and the new colonists had not been together long before they felt the want of a government. The form which it first assumed amongst them was that of a democratic municipality, wherein the “masters of families” incorporated themselves into a town, and transacted their public business in town meeting. The colonists of Plymouth had formed their social compact in the cabin of the Mayflower. The colonists of Providence formed theirs on the banks of the Mooshausick. “We, whose names are hereunder,” it reads, “desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good for the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship, and such others as they shall admit unto them only in civil things.”

Never before, since the establishment of Christianity, has the separation of Church from State been definitely marked out by this limitation of the authority of the magistrate to civil things; and never, perhaps, in the whole course of history, was a fundamental principle so vigorously observed. Massachusetts looked upon the experiment with jealousy and distrust, and when ignorant or restless men confounded the right of individual opinion in religious matters with a right of independent action in civil matters, those who had condemned Roger Williams to banishment, eagerly proclaimed that no well ordered government could exist in connection with liberty of conscience. Many grave discussions were held, and many curious questions arose before the distinction between liberty and license became thoroughly interwoven with daily life; but only one passage of this singular chapter has been preserved, and, as if to leave no doubt concerning the spirit which led to its preservation, the narrator begins with these ominous words: “At Providence, also, the Devil was not idle.”

The wife of Joshua Verin was a great admirer of Williams’s preaching, and claimed the right of going to hear him oftener than suited the wishes of her husband. Did she, in following the dictates of her conscience, which bade her go to a meeting which harmonized with her feelings, violate the injunction of Scripture which bids wives obey their husbands? Or did he, in exercising his acknowledged control as a husband, trench upon her right of conscience in religious concerns? It was a delicate question; but after long deliberation and many prayers, the claims of conscience prevailed, and “it was agreed that Joshua Verin, upon the breach of a covenant for restraining of the libertie of conscience, shall be withheld from the libertie of voting till he shall declare the contrarie”—a sentence from which it appears that the right of suffrage was regarded as a conceded privilege, not a natural right.

Questions of jurisdiction also arose. Massachusetts could not bring herself to look upon her sister with a friendly eye, and Plymouth was soon to be merged in Massachusetts. It was easy to foresee that there would be bickerings and jealousies, if not open contention between them. Still the little Colony grew apace. The first church was founded in 1639. To meet the wants of an increased population the government was changed, and five disposers or selectmen charged with the principal functions of administration, subject, however, to the superior authority of monthly town meetings; so early and so naturally did municipal institutions take root in English colonies. A vital point was yet untouched. Williams, indeed, held that the Indians, as original occupants of the soil, were the only legal owners of it, and carrying his principle into all his dealings with the natives, bought of them the land on which he planted his Colony. The Plymouth and Massachusetts colonists, also, bought their land of the natives, but in their intercourse with the whites founded their claim upon royal charter. They even went so far as to apply for a charter covering all the territory of the new Colony.

Meanwhile two other colonies had been planted on the shores of Narragansett Bay: the Colony of Aquidnick, on the Island of Rhode Island, and the Colony of Warwick. The sense of a common danger united them, and, in 1643, they appointed Roger Williams their agent to repair to England and apply for a royal charter. It has been treasured up as a bitter memory that he was compelled to seek a conveyance in New York, for Massachusetts would not allow him to pass through her territories. His negotiations were crowned with full success. In 1644 he was again in the colonies, and the inhabitants of Providence, advised of his success, met him at Seekonk and escorted him across the river with an exultant procession of fourteen canoes.

To defray the expenses of his mission he taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew—counting “two sons of Parliament men” among his pupils—and read Dutch to Milton.