COURTS AND ARMY STRENGTHENED.—COMMISSIONERS SENT FROM ENGLAND.—CHARTER REVOKED.

Disputes of title fill, as we have seen, a full but monotonous chapter in this part of our history. Among them was the dispute for Potowomut, a neck of land on Coweset Bay which had been purchased of the Indians by order of the Assembly as early as 1659. Bitter disputes soon followed, Warwick claiming it, and individuals both English and Indians disputing the claim. At last the question was disposed of, as was supposed, finally, at a town meeting in 1680, in which it was divided “into fifty equal lots or rights, and the names of the proprietors were inserted on the records.” But the very next year we meet it again as a contest between Warwick and Kingston. At last the Assembly interposed, forbidding all occupancy of the land till further orders, warning off intruders, but permitting the Warwick men to mow and improve the meadows as heretofore.

Among the questions brought before the Assembly in the time of these disputes, was the question of the power of the Town Council to reject or accept new citizens. The question was brought up by Providence and decided in the affirmative. The form of application for leave to reside has been preserved: “To y^e Towne mett this 15th of December 1680. My request to y^e Towne is; that they woold grant the liberty to reside in y^e Towne during the Townes Approbation, behaving myselfe as a civill man ought to doe, Desireing not to putt y^e Towne to any charge by my residing here; and for what y^e Towne shall cause farther to enquire of me, I shall see I hope to give them a true and sober Answer thereunto. Y^or friend and servant Tho. Waters.”

One of the lessons of the war had been the importance of cavalry, and in 1682 a company was raised in the main-land towns consisting of thirty-six men, exclusive of officers. To put them on the same footing with the infantry they were allowed the same privileges, and held to the same obligation of exercising six days in the year. Not long after the number of majors was doubled, and John Greene appointed for the main-land and John Coggeshall for the island. Measures were also taken to give greater efficiency to the courts, and it was decided that the October sessions should be held in Providence and Warwick annually. That there might be no delay in the execution of sentences, each of these towns was required to furnish a cage and stocks. Thus surely but gradually the resolute Colony went on in its work of organization. But perilous days were at hand. The appeals of the colonies to England had attracted her attention to these distant domains, which but for that might long have continued to grow and prosper in obscurity. But when called upon to grant privileges she naturally began to examine into the nature of her rights, and interpreted them not by the genius of the colonies, but by the commercial interests of the mother country. The act of navigation, which had its origin in English jealousy of Holland, bore hard from the beginning on the commercial industry of the colonies. Although first passed by the republican Parliament of 1651, it did not become an efficient act until the first Parliament of Charles II. in 1660, when it was formally proclaimed in all the colonies by beat of drum. Custom-houses with all their parapheranalia followed close in its track. The burthen was soon felt, and smuggling, the natural relief of overtaxed commerce, became general. The bays and inlets of New England afforded great facilities for illicit trade, and the public conscience could not long resist the temptation. We shall see before another century is over to what England’s narrow policy led.

Questions relating to the colonies were generally referred to the Board of Trade. In 1680 came a letter from the board containing twenty-seven queries concerning Rhode Island. The agents in England also went prepared to give all the information that was required for the understanding of the claims and condition of the Colony. As long as Charles, the grantor of the charter lived, there was nothing done to excite alarm. But no sooner did his bigoted brother ascend the throne, than it became evident that an entire change was to be made in colonial policy. Rhode Island was quick to feel the blow. A commission of nine was appointed to settle the vexed question of King’s Province. Head of the commission was the notorious Cranfield, who had made himself a bad name by his tyrannical government of New Hampshire. Next came Randolph, detested in Massachusetts for his oppressive administration of the acts of trade. These names excited gloomy anticipations which were presently fulfilled.

And here let us pause a moment to observe the exact situation of Rhode Island at this critical emergency. Having had her origin in a practical appeal from the intolerance of Massachusetts, she had never been admitted to the confederation which gave unity and strength to the other New England colonies. Her doctrine of soul-liberty was a stench in their nostrils, and her possession of the broad and beautiful Narragansett Bay so favorable for maritime and internal commerce, was, as we have seen, a constant subject of bickering and envy. Massachusetts laid claim to Pawtuxet and Warwick, and a Massachusetts company to part of Narragansett; Connecticut to a large portion of the remainder of Narragansett, Plymouth to Aquidneck and other islands of the Bay. Little was left to Rhode Island but the plantations on the Mooshausick. All of these claims were enforced by all the means and arts within the command of the stronger colonies except actual war, and resisted with admirable resolution and perseverance by the weaker colony. We have seen how agents were sent to plead her cause at the court of their common sovereign, how every attempt to establish jurisdiction had been promptly resisted and every intrusion instantly repelled. In the darkest hour she never lost heart nor bated one jot her rights. But the darkest hour of all was at hand.

Cranfield and Randolph set themselves zealously to their congenial task. The Assembly met for theirs. The Commissioners refused to establish their position by showing their credentials. The Assembly refused to recognize them officially without credentials. The rupture was open and violent. The Assembly appointed new agents to repair to court and lay the evidence in behalf of the Colony before the King. A tax of four hundred pounds was imposed to meet their expenses. Much importance was attached to an address to the King drawn up by Randall Holden and John Greene. Meanwhile the Commissioners on their part were not idle. Cranfield wrote to the Board of Trade that the colonies were disloyal. “It never will be otherwise,” he added, “till their charters are broke and the college at Cambridge utterly extirpated, for from thence these half-witted philosophers turn either Atheists or seditious preachers.” He was right, for it was at Cambridge that Otis and Quincy and Warren and the two Adamses imbibed the principles which led to independence.

It was in 1684, in the midst of these struggles, that a petition of the Jews for protection was presented to the Assembly and granted—Rhode Island remaining true to the last to the principle of her origin.

The decision of the Royal Commissioners was unfavorable to Rhode Island, and it is hard to see how she could have escaped mutilation. But she was menaced by a still greater danger. In 1684 Charles the Second died, and his brother James ascended the throne, bringing with him a narrow mind and a bad heart. To establish an arbitrary government and restore the supremacy of the Romish Church were the cardinal points of his policy. The American colonies afforded a favorable field for the trial. It began by the revocation of their charters, and was speedily followed up by putting the government of the New England colonies under one head.

Rhode Island found herself where she stood at the beginning, a government of towns. Her original four towns had united under one government for self-defence, and now that they were arbitrarily separated by a power too great to be resisted they naturally fell back upon their original municipal institutions. This closing scene is not without its dignity. The Assembly met at its accustomed time. The Governor, Walter Clarke, solemnly called upon the freemen for counsel. The whole question of dangers and difficulties was discussed, and wisely preferring petition to resistance, it was resolved to address a solemn appeal to the King for the preservation of their charter. Then all returned to its original order. The freemen met and discussed their town interests in their town meetings. Town officers elected by their townsmen performed their accustomed duties. The tradesman and the farmer went on in his chosen calling and the towns throve and prospered, still looking with unwavering trust to a day of redemption.