A Short History of Rhode Island.
CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY AND PLYMOUTH COLONIES.—ARRIVAL AND BANISHMENT OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
The nations of antiquity, unable to discover their real origin, found a secret gratification in tracing it to the Gods. Thus a religious sentiment was connected with the foundation of states, and the building of the city walls was consecrated by religious rites. The Christian middle ages preserved the spirit of Pagan antiquity, and every city celebrated with solemn rites the day of its patron saint. The colonies, which, in the natural progress of their development, became the United States of America, traced their history, by authentic documents, to the first Christian cultivators of the soil; and in New England the religious idea lay at the root of their foundation and development. In Plymouth it took the form of separatism, or a simple severance from the Church of England. In Massachusetts Bay it aimed at the establishment of a theocracy, and the enforcement of a rigorous uniformity of creed and discipline.From the resistance to this uniformity came Rhode Island and the doctrine of soul liberty.
On the 5th of February, 1631, the ship Lyon, with twenty passengers and a large cargo of provisions, came to anchor in Nantaskett roads. On the 8th she reached Boston, and the 9th, which had been set apart as a day of fasting and prayer for the little Colony, sorely stricken by famine, was made a day of thanksgiving and praise for its sudden deliverance. Among those who, on that day, first united their prayers with the prayers of the elder colonists, was the young colonist, Roger Williams.
Little is known of the early history of Roger Williams, except that he was born in Wales, about 1606; attracted, early in life, the attention of Sir Edward Coke by his skill in taking down in short hand, sermons, and speeches in the Star Chamber; was sent by the great lawyer to Sutton Hospital, now known as the Charter House, with its fresh memories of Coleridge and Charles Lamb; went thence in the regular time to Oxford; took orders in the Church of England, and finally embraced the doctrine of the Puritans. Besides Latin and Greek, which formed the principal objects of an University course, he acquired a competent knowledge of Hebrew and several modern languages, for the study of which he seemed to have had a peculiar facility. His industry and attainments soon won him a high place in the esteem of his religions brethren, and although described byone who knew him as “passionate and precipitate,” he gained and preserved the respect of some of the most eminent among his theological opponents. The key to his life may be found in the simple fact that he possessed an active and progressive mind in an age wherein thought instantly became profession, and profession passed promptly into action.
When this “godly and zealous young minister” landed in Boston, he found the territory which has long been known as Massachusetts in the possession of two distinct colonies, the Colony of Plymouth, founded in 1620, by the followers of John Robinson, of Leyden, and known as the colony of separatists, or men who had separated from the Church of England, but were willing to grant to others the same freedom of opinion which they claimed for themselves; and the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, founded ten years later by a band of intelligent Puritans, many of them men of position and fortune, who, alarmed by the variety of new opinions and doctrines which seemed to menace a total subversion of what they regarded as religion, had resolved to establish a new dwelling place in a new world, with the Old and New Testament for statute book and constitution. Building upon this foundation the clergy naturally became their guides and counselors in all things, and the control of the law, which was but another name for the control of the Bible, extended to all the acts of life,penetrating to the domestic fireside, and holding every member of the community to a rigid accountability for speech as well as action. Asking for no exemption from the rigorous application of Bible precept for themselves, they granted none to others, and looked upon the advocate of any interpretation but theirs as a rebel to God and an enemy to their peace.
It was to this iron-bound colony that Roger Williams brought his restless, vigorous and fearless spirit. Disagreements soon arose and suspicions were awakened. He claimed a freedom of speech irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of their government; and they a power over opinion irreconcilable with freedom of thought. Neither of them could look upon his own position from the other’s point of view. Both were equally sincere. And much as we may now condemn the treatment which Williams received at the hands of the colonial government of Massachusetts Bay, its charter and its religious tenets justified it in treating him as an intruder.
The first public expression of the hostility he was to encounter came from the magistrates of Boston within two months after his arrival, and, on the very day on which the church of Salem had installed him as assistant to their aged pastor, Mr. Skelton. The magistrates were a powerful body, and before autumn he found his situation so uncomfortable that he removed to Plymouth, where the rights of individual opinion were heldin respect, if not fully acknowledged. Here, while assiduously engaged in the functions of his holy office, he was brought into direct contact with several of the most powerful chiefs of the neighboring tribes of Indians, and among them of Massasoit and Miantonomi, who were to exercise so controlling an influence over his fortunes. His fervent spirit caught eagerly at the prospect of bringing them under Christian influences, and his natural taste for the study of languages served to lighten the labor of preparation. “God was pleased,” he wrote many years afterwards, “to give me a painful, patient spirit to lodge with them in their filthy holes, even while I lived at Plymouth and Salem, to gain their tongue; my soul’s desire was to do the natives good.”
This was apparently the calmest period of his stormy career. It was at Plymouth that his first child, a daughter, was born. But although he soon made many friends, and had the satisfaction of knowing that his labors were successful, his thoughts still turned towards Salem, and, receiving an invitation to resume his place as assistant of Mr. Skelton, whose health was on the wane, he returned thither after an absence of two years. Some of the members of his church had become so attached to him that they followed him to the sister colony.
And now came suspicions which quickly ripened into controversies, and before another two years were over led to what he regarded aspersecution, but what the rulers of the Bay Colony held to be the fulfillment of the obligation which they had assumed in adopting the whole Bible as their rule of life. In 1635 he was banished from the colony by a solemn sentence of the General Court, for teaching:
“1st. That we have not our land by Pattent from the King, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such receiving it by Pattent.2d. That it is not lawful to call a wicked person to swear, to pray, as being actions of God’s worship.3d. That it is not lawful to heare any of the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in England.4th. That the civil magistrates power extends only to the Bodies and Goods and outward state of man.”
“1st. That we have not our land by Pattent from the King, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such receiving it by Pattent.
2d. That it is not lawful to call a wicked person to swear, to pray, as being actions of God’s worship.
3d. That it is not lawful to heare any of the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in England.
4th. That the civil magistrates power extends only to the Bodies and Goods and outward state of man.”
For us who read these charges with the light of two more centuries of progress upon them, it seems strange that neither the General Court nor Williams himself should have perceived that the only one wherein civilization was interested was that to which they have assigned the least conspicuous place.
SUFFERINGS OF ROGER WILLIAMS IN THE WILDERNESS.—FOUNDS A SETTLEMENT ON THE SEEKONK RIVER.—IS ADVISED TO DEPART.—SEEKS OUT A NEW PLACE, WHICH HE CALLS PROVIDENCE.
When the sentence of banishment was first pronounced against the future founder of Rhode Island, his health was so feeble that it was resolved to suspend the execution of it till spring. This, however, was soon found to be impracticable, for the affection and confidence which he had inspired presently found open expression, and friends began to gather around him in his own house to listen to his teaching. Lack of energy was not a defect of the government of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and learning that rumors of a new colony to be founded on Narragansett Bay were already afloat, it resolved to send the supposed leader of the unwelcome enterprise back to England. A warrant, therefore, was given to Captain Underhill, a man of doubtful character in the employment of the Colony, with orders to proceed directly to Salem, put the offender on board his pinnace, and convey him to a ship that lay in Boston harbor ready to sail for England with the first fair wind. When thepinnace reached Salem, he found only the wife and infant children of the banished man, and a people deeply grieved for the loss of their pastor. Williams was gone, and whither no one could say.
And whither, indeed, could he go? The thin and scattered settlements of the northern colonies were bounded seaward by a tempestuous ocean, and inland by a thick belt of primeval forest, whose depths civilized man had never penetrated. If he escaped the wild beasts that prowled in their recesses, could he hope to escape the wilder savage, who claimed the forest for his hunting grounds? “I was sorely tossed,” Williams writes in after years, “for fourteen weeks in a bitter winter-season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.” The brave man’s earnest mind bore up the frail and suffering body.
And now he began to reap the fruit of his kind treatment of the natives, and the pains which he had taken to learn their language. “These ravens fed me in the wilderness,” he wrote, with a touching application of Scripture narrative. They gave him the shelter of their squalid wigwams, and shared with him their winter store. The great chief Massasoit opened his door to him, and, when spring came, gave him a tract of land on the Seekonk River, where he “pitched and began to build and plant.” Here he was soon joined by some friends from Salem, who had resolved to cast in their lot with his. But the seed which they planted had already begun to send up itsearly shoots, when a letter from his “ancient friend, the Governor of Plymouth,” came, to “lovingly advise him” that he was “fallen into the edge of their bounds;” that they were “loth to displease the Bay,” and that if he would “remove but to the other side of the water,” he would have “the country before [him] and might be as free as themselves,” and they “should be loving neighbors together.” Williams accepted the friendly counsel, and, taking five companions with him, set out in a canoe to follow the downward course of the Seekonk and find a spot whereon he might plant and build in safety. As the little boat came under the shade of the western bank of the pleasant stream, a small party of Indians was seen watching them from a large flat rock that rose a few feet above the water’s edge. “Wha-cheer, netop?—Wha-cheer?—how are you, friend?” they cried; and Williams accepting the friendly salutation as a favorable omen, turned the prow of his canoe to the shore. Tradition calls the spot where he landed, Slate Rock, and the name of Wha-cheer square has been given in advance to the land around it. What was said or done at that first interview has not been recorded, but the parting was as friendly as the meeting, and Williams resuming his course, soon found himself at the junction of the Seekonk and Mooshausick. Two points mark the intermingling of the two streams, and in those days the waters must have spreadtheir broad bosom like a lake, and gleamed and danced within their fringe of primeval forest. Williams, following, perhaps, the counsel of the Indians, turned northward and held his way between the narrowing banks of the Mooshausick, till he espied, at the foot of a hill which rose shaggy with trees and precipitate from its eastern shore, the flash and sparkling of a spring. Here he landed, and, recalling his trials and the mighty hand that had sustained him through them all, called the place Providence.
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; andwhen 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 thedistinction 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 passthrough 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.
SETTLEMENT OF AQUIDNECK AND WARWICK.—PEQUOT WAR.—DEATH OF MIANTONOMI.
I have said that two other colonies had been founded in Rhode Island. Like Providence, they both had their origin in religious controversy. Not long after the return of Roger Williams there came to Boston a woman of high and subtle spirit, deeply imbued with the controversial temper of her age. Her name was Anna Hutchinson, and she taught that salvation was the fruit of grace, not of works. It is easy to conceive how such a doctrine might be perverted by logical interpretation, and religious standing made independent of moral character. This was presently done, and Massachusetts, true to her theoretic system, banished Anna Hutchinson and her followers as she had banished Roger Williams. In the autumn of 1637, nineteen of these Antinomians, as they were called to distinguish them from the legalists or adherents of the law, took refuge in Rhode Island, where they were kindly welcomed; and, soon after, purchasing the Island of Aquidneck, through the intervention of Williams and Sir Henry Vane, laid the foundation of a new town at Pocasset, near the north end of the Island.Their leaders were William Coddington and John Clarke, under whose wise guidance the little Colony made rapid progress, and soon began another settlement at Newport, in the southern part of the island. Here, breaking roads, clearing up woods, exterminating wolves and foxes, opening a trade in lumber, engaging boldly in building ships, and above all forming a free and simple government, with careful regard to religion and education, they soon found themselves in advance of their elder sister, Providence. In both colonies the principle of religious liberty formed the basis of civil organization. On Rhode Island, however, it was confined to Christians—a step greatly in advance of the general intelligence of the age. But in Providence Roger Williams went still further, and, meeting the wants of all future ages, proclaimed it the right of every human being.
The other Colony, as if to illustrate the varieties of human opinion, was founded by Samuel Gorton, one of those bold but restless men who leave doubtful names in history because few see their character from the same point of view. In Gorton’s religious sentiments there seems to have been a large leaven of mysticism, and the writings that he has left us are not pleasant reading. But the practical danger of his teaching lay in his denial of all government not founded upon the authority of the King or of Parliament. Massachusetts was a legitimate government withinher own bounds. But unchartered Rhode Island had no legal existence. At Pocasset Gorton soon came into collision with the civil authorities and was banished. In Providence he presently raised such dissensions that Williams almost lost heart, and began to think seriously of withdrawing to his little Island of Patience, in Narragansett Bay. At last Gorton with eleven companions bought Shawomet of its Indian owners and established himself there. This brought him into open hostility with Massachusetts, which having already cast longing eyes upon the commercial advantages of Narragansett Bay, was secretly endeavoring to establish a claim to all the land on its shores.
Hostile words were soon followed by hostile acts. Gorton and his companions were besieged in their house by an armed band, compelled to surrender, carried by force to Massachusetts, tried for heresy, and barely escaping the gibbet, condemned to imprisonment and irons. A reaction soon followed. Public sentiment came to their relief. They were banished indeed from Massachusetts, but they were set at liberty and allowed to return to Rhode Island. At Aquidneck they were received with the sympathy which generous natures ever feel for the victims of persecution, and Gorton was raised to an honorable magistracy in the very colony wherein he had been openly whipped as a disturber of the public peace. It was not till the claims of Massachusetts had been virtuallyset aside by the charter which Roger Williams obtained for his Colony that Gorton returned to Shawomet, and set himself to rebuild the Colony of Warwick.
Meanwhile great changes had taken place in the relations of the white man to the red. I have told how kindly the natives received Roger Williams, and how justly he dealt by them. I will now tell, though briefly, with what a Christian spirit he used the influence over the Indians, which his justice had won for him, to protect the white men who had driven him from amongst them. On the western border of the territory of the Massachusetts dwelt the fierce and powerful Pequots. No Indian had ever hated the whites with a hatred more intense than they, or watched the growth of the white settlements with a truer perception of the danger with which they menaced the original owners of the soil. They resolved upon war, and to make their triumph sure, resolved also to win over the Narragansetts as active allies. Tidings of the danger soon reached the Bay Colony, and Governor Vane appealed to Roger Williams to interpose and prevent the fatal alliance. Not a moment was to be lost. The Pequot embassadors were already in conference with Canonicus and Miantonomi on Conanicut. Forgetting his personal wrongs, and barely taking time to tell his wife whither he was going, he set forth alone in his canoe, “cutting through a stormy wind and great seas, every minute in hazard of life.”
Greater hazard awaited him on shore. English blood had already been shed by the Pequots, and knowing their fierce nature, he “nightly looked for their bloody knives at his own throat also.” For three days and three nights he confronted them face to face, and so great was the control which he had gained over the Narragansett chiefs that he succeeded in “breaking in pieces the Pequot negotiation and design, and made and finished by many travels and charges the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans against the Pequots.” The war came. The Narragansetts were on the side of the English; fearful massacres were committed; the Pequots were rooted out from their native soil forever; Massachusetts was saved; but the Christian, forgetting of injuries wherewith Williams had come to her aid in the critical moment of her fortunes, was not deemed of sufficient virtue to wash out the stain of heresy, and the sentence of banishment was left unrepealed on the darker page of her colonial records.
The Pequots were crushed. The turn of the Narragansetts came next. It was the fate of the red man to everywhere give way as a civilization irreconcilable with his habits and his beliefs advanced, and it is for the good of humanity that it is so. But it is sad to remember that the Christian, with the Bible in his hand, should have sought his examples in the stern denunciations of the Old Testament, rather than in the injunctions to love and mercy of the New. Six years after the formation of the league against the Pequots, a war broke out between Sequasson, an ally of Miantonomi and the Mohegans. The Narragansett Sachem, trusting to the good faith of his adversary, the powerful Uncas, was betrayed in a conference, and his followers, taken by surprise in open violation of the laws of even Indian warfare, were put to flight. The unfortunate chief fell into the hands of his enemy, who, fearing the English too much to put an ally of theirs to death, referred the question of his fate to the Commissioners of the United Colonies—Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven—who were about to hold a conference in Boston. Rhode Island, which had been excluded from the league, had no voice in this outrage, and Williams, whose remonstrances might have been of some avail, was in England. To give greater solemnity to their deliberations the Commissioners called to their aid “five of the most judicious elders,” and by their united voices Miantonomi was condemned to die. The execution of the sentence was entrusted to Uncas, and the only condition attached to the shameful act was that the generous friend of the white man should not be tortured. His people never recovered from the blow. In the very next year they placed themselves by a solemn resolution under the protection of the King, and appointed four commissioners, one of whom was Gorton, to carry their submission to England.
CHARTER GRANTED TO PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.—ORGANIZATION UNDER IT.—THE LAWS ADOPTED.
We have seen that in 1643 Roger Williams had been sent to England as agent to solicit a charter for the three colonies of Narragansett Bay. He found the King at open war with the Parliament, and the administration of the colonies entrusted to the Earl of Warwick and a joint committee of the two Houses. Of the details of the negotiation little is known, but on the 14th of March of the following year, a “free and absolute charter was granted as the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England.” It was not such as Charles would have given. But one fetter was placed upon the free action of the people—“that the laws, constitutions, punishments for the civil government of the said plantation be conformable to the laws of England”—and that was made powerless by the qualifying condition that the conformity should extend only “so far as the nature and constitution of that place will admit.” Civil government and civil laws were the only government and laws which it recognized; and the absence of any allusion to religious freedom in it shows how firmly and wisely Williams avoided every form of expression whichmight seem to recognize the power to grant or to deny that inalienable right. The regulation of the “general government” in its “relation to the rest of the plantations in America,” was reserved “to the Earl and Commissioners.”
Yet more than three years were allowed to pass before it went into full force as a bond of union for the four towns. Then, in May, 1647, the corporators met at Portsmouth in General Court of Election, and, accepting the charter, proceeded to organize a government in harmony with its provisions. Warwick, although not named in the charter, was admitted to the same privileges with her larger and more flourishing sisters.
This new government was in reality a government of the people, to whose final decision in their General Assembly all questions were submitted. “And now,” says the preamble to the code, “sith our charter gives us powere to governe ourselves and such other as come among us, and by such a forme of Civill Government as by the voluntairie consent, &c., shall be found most suitable to our estate and condition:
“It is agreed by this present Assembly thus incorporate and by this present act declared, that the form of Government established inProvidence Plantations, is Democratical; that is to say, a Government held by yefree and voluntairie consent of all or the greater part of the free Inhabitants.”
In accordance with this fundamental principle all laws were first discussed in Town Meeting,then submitted to the General Court, a committee of six men from each town freely chosen, and finally referred to the General Assembly. The General Court possessed, also, the power of originating laws, by recommending a draft of law to the towns, upon whose approval the draft obtained the force of law till the next meeting of the General Assembly.
The first act of this first Colonial Assembly was to organize by electing John Coggeshall Moderator, and secure an acting quorum by fixing it at forty. It was next “agreed that all should set their hands to an engagement to the Charter.” Then, after some provision for the union of the towns, the formation of the General Court and the adoption of the laws “as they are contracted in the bulk,” Mr. John Coggeshall was chosen “President of this Province or Colonie; Wm. Dyer, General Recorder; Mr. Jeremy Clarke, Treasurer, and Mr. Roger Williams, Mr. John Sanford, Mr. Wm. Coddington and Mr. Randall Holden, Assistants for Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick” respectively. Then, entering boldly upon its independent existence, the little Colony—a State in all but the name—proceeded to examine the body of laws which had been prepared for its acceptance. One of the most significant of them, as indicating their commercial aspirations, was their adoption of the laws of Oleron for a maritime code; and another, as illustrating their consciousness of their perilous position in the midst of savages, still able tostrike sudden blows, though no longer strong enough to wage long wars, the revival and extension of “the Statute touching Archerie,” and the enactment of a stringent militia law. The laws against parricide, murder, arson, robbery and stealing, show that there were men in the community who were believed to be capable of these crimes. The law against suicide, and still more the law against witchcraft, are too much in harmony with the general spirit of the age to warrant a severe condemnation. The punishment provided against drunkenness reads as though it were not an infrequent offence. Marriage was regarded as a civil contract. The law of debt was wise and humane, forbidding the sending of the debtor to prison, “there,” it says with simplicity and force, “to lie languishing to no man’s advantage, unless he refuse to stand to their order.” The character of the whole code was just and benevolent, breathing a gentle spirit of practical Christianity and a calm consciousness of high destinies. “These,” it says, “are the laws that concern all men, and these are the Penalties for the transgression thereof; which by common consent are Ratified and Established throughout this whole Colonie; and otherwise than thus what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God.”
By the same Assembly it was ordered, “that the seale of the Providence shall be an anchor.” A free gift, also, of one hundred pounds wasmade to Roger Williams, “in regarde to his so great travaile, charges, and good endeavors in the obtaining of the Charter for this Province.” This sum was “to be levied out of the three towns;” and how far the island was in advance of the main-land may be seen by the distribution of the levy which assigns fifty pounds to Newport and thirty to Portsmouth, while Providence was held at twenty. Of Warwick, still poor and weak, nothing was asked.
The spirit of this first legislation may be comprised in four articles: the first of which provides for the protection of the citizen against the government by guaranteeing liberty of property and person, and restricting criminal suits to the violation of the letter of the law. The second forbids the assumption of office by any who are not legally chosen, and the extension of official action beyond its prescribed bounds. The third by making the charter and acts of the Assembly the sources of law, secures the rights of minorities. And the fourth, displaying a comprehension of the true principles of public service which succeeding generations would do well to study, required that every citizen should serve when chosen to office or pay a fine, and that his service should receive an adequate compensation. The engagement of state and officer was reciprocal—the officer binding himself to serve the state faithfully, and the state to stand by her officers in the legitimate exercise of their functions.
FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES.—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT AT USURPATION BY CODDINGTON.
And now, just as the new Province was entering upon that chartered existence which was to lead to such brilliant results, the wise and peaceable Canonicus died, closing in humiliation and sorrow a life which had begun in strength and hope. He had seen the first foot-prints of the stranger; had aided him in his weakness; had resisted him in his strength; had lived to see his destined successor fall victim to an unholy policy, and his people, impoverished and enfeebled, vainly strive to avenge the murder on their adversaries; and thus with a heavy heart he passed away from the scene of his early glory and his long humiliation. We shall see bye and bye the miserable end of the great Narragansetts.
The new Colony entered upon its career with two great problems before it. The first was almost solved. An experience of eleven years had demonstrated the possibility of soul liberty, which had taken a hold upon the hearts of the colonists too strong to be shaken. But did it leave the needed strength in the civil organization to bear “a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part, of the free inhabitants?” Thus the reconciliation of liberty and law formed from the beginning the fundamental problem of Rhode Island history.
At first there were great and frequent dissensions. There were dissensions between Newport and Portsmouth. There were still greater dissensions in Providence. Enemies exulted, foretelling an early dissolution of the feeble bands which held the dangerous Colony together. Friends trembled lest their last hope of the reconciliation of liberty and law should fail them. But still the great work of solution went on, each new dissension revealing some new error, or aiding in the demonstration of some new truth. It would take us far beyond our limits were we to attempt to follow up the history of these dissensions in detail, even if the materials for a full narrative of them had been preserved. There were other difficulties, also, which demand more than a passing allusion.
Massachusetts had not yet renounced her designs upon the territories of the heretical Colony. A party in Pawtuxet which had put itself under the protection of the Bay Colony had opened the way for action, and the dispute with Shawomet had enlarged it. Gorton was in England in 1647, exerting himself to answer the assertions of the Massachusetts agent, Winslow. Three years later the question became so complicated and the danger so imminent that Roger Williams was asked to go again to England on behalf of the Colony.Meanwhile there were menacing indications of an Indian war, and a serious effort was made on the part of the Island towns to obtain admission to the New England confederation. The application was refused unless on terms equivalent to the surrender of all right to independent existence. The time for justice and a clear comprehension of the common interest was not yet come. Especially strong was Massachusetts’ dread of the Baptists, who were becoming a powerful body in Rhode Island, and three of the prominent members of that communion, among whom was John Clarke, one of the most illustrious of the colonists, were seized at Lynn—whither they had been summoned to give comfort and counsel to an aged brother—cast into prison, fined, and one of their number, Obadiah Holmes, cruelly scourged with a three-corded whip.
Another danger menaced the Colony. William Coddington, who had been chosen President, but had never taken the legal engagement, had gone to England, and, as was soon ascertained, with the design of applying for a commission as Governor of the Island. For two years he was unable to obtain a hearing. The new government of England was too busy with its own concerns to lend an ear to the agent of a distant and humble Colony. At last the favorable moment came, and, on the 3d of April, 1651, he received a commission from the Council of State, appointing him Governor for life of Rhode Island and Connecticut. By what representations or misrepresentations he obtained the object of his ambition, history does not tell us. A council of six, nominated by the people and approved by him, were to assist him in the government. The charter government was apparently dissolved.
But the men of Providence and Warwick did not lose heart. Roger Williams, who had already given proof of his diplomatic skill at home by his successful negotiations with the native chiefs, and in England by obtaining a charter, was still with them, and to him all turned their eyes in this hour of supreme danger. It was resolved that he should repair to England without delay, and ask for a confirmation of the charter in the name of Providence and Warwick. To provide money for the support of his family during his absence he sold his trading-house in Narragansett, and, obtaining a hard-wrung leave to embark at Boston, set forth in October, 1651, upon his memorable mission. In the same ship went John Clarke, as agent for the Island towns, to ask for the revocation of Coddington’s commission. On the success of their application hung the fate of the Colony. Meanwhile the Island towns submitted silently to Coddington’s usurpation, and the main-land towns continued to govern themselves by their old laws, and meet and deliberate as they had done before in their General Assembly.
It was in the midst of these dangers and dissensions that on the 19th of May, in the session of 1652, it was “enacted and ordered ... thatno black mankind or white being forced by covenant, bond or other wise shall be held to service longer than ten years,” and that “that man that will not let them go free, or shall sell them any else where to that end that they may be enslaved to others for a longer time, hee or they shall forfeit to the Colonie forty pounds.” This was the first legislation concerning slavery on this continent. If forty pounds should seem a small penalty, let us remember that the price of a slave was but twenty. If it should be objected that the act was imperfectly enforced, let us remember how honorable a thing it is to have been the first to solemnly recognize a great principle. Soul liberty had borne her first fruits.
In the same month of May the embarrassments of the Colony were increased by the breaking out of a war between England and Holland, which interrupted the profitable commerce between Rhode Island and the Dutch of Manhattan. But welcome tidings came in September, and still more welcome in October. Williams and Clarke, who went hand in hand in their mission, had obtained, first, permission for the Colony to act under the charter until the final decision of the controversy, and a few weeks later the revocation of Coddington’s commission. The charter was fully restored. Williams had again proved himself a consummate diplomatist, and Clarke had proved himself worthy to be his colleague. We shall soon see him using his newly acquired skill under more difficult circumstances.
MORE FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC TROUBLES.—CIVIL AND CRIMINAL REGULATIONS OF THE COLONY.—ARRIVAL OF QUAKERS.
And now it seemed as though the little Colony might peaceably return to its original organization and devote itself to the development of its natural resources. But the spirit of dissension had struck deep. The absolute independence which was claimed for religious opinion, led some to claim an equal independence for civil action. If conscience was to be the supreme test in the relations between man and God, why should not conscience decide between man and man? Roger Williams addressed a letter full of calm wisdom to the Town of Providence, explaining, under the figure of a ship, the distinction between civil obedience and soul liberty. A few years later an able advocate of the opposite opinion was found in William Harris; and for a long while an unhealthy agitation pervaded the community, justifying, in appearance, the unfriendly prophecies of the early enemies of Williams and his doctrines.
There was still another ground of contention. Who should take the lead in restoring thecharter government? The Island towns claimed it on the ground of superior wealth and population, the main-land towns because they had always held fast to their charter. There were double elections and two Assemblies, and the dispute grew so warm as to threaten a permanent division. At the same time the Island towns entered zealously into the Dutch war, issuing letters of marque and making captures which led to new controversies with the United Colonies. Williams became alarmed, and leaving Mr. Clarke in charge of their common business hurried back from England to meet the danger. Sir Henry Vane, who had already been a firm friend of Rhode Island, wrote in a public letter, “Are there no wise men among you? no public, self-denying spirits who can find some way of union before you become a prey to your enemies?”
At last, in August, 1654, a full Court of Commissioners met at Warwick, and on the 31st set their hands to articles of reunion. To meet the difficulties that arose from the different acts of independent assemblies, it was agreed that all such acts should be held good for the towns and persons who originally took part in them. Then the charter was once more made the fundamental law of the land, and finally the General Assembly recognized by fixing the number of delegates from each town at six for all purposes except the election of officers. Two days were then devoted to general legislation, and among otheracts the delicate question of a Sunday law was reconciled with the distinguishing principle of the Colony, by referring the matter to the several towns under the head of a day “for servants and children to recreate themselves.”
As the danger of civil commotions passed away, came the danger of an Indian war. The Narragansetts had old quarrels with the Indians of Long Island, and in 1654 a new quarrel broke out between them. For the Colony itself there was nothing to fear from the Narragansetts with whom it had always maintained friendly relations. But should the Long Island Indians prevail, an inroad upon the main would bring them dangerously near to the new towns. The United Colonies, proceeding as usual with a high hand, summoned Ninigret, the chief sachem of the Narragansetts, to Hartford. He refused to go, saying that the enemy had slain a sachem’s son and sixty of his people—all he asked of the English was that they would let him alone. “If your Governor’s son were slain,” he said, “and several other men, would you ask counsel of another nation how and when to right yourselves?” The spirit of the Narragansetts was not yet broken. Williams, who was then President, wrote to the government of Massachusetts defending the Indians, asserting that the war was a war of self-defence, and that the Narragansetts had always been true to the English. But the Commissioners were resolved upon war, and without listening to his remonstrances sent Captain Willard with a body of troops to seize the refractory chief. The wily Indian took post in a swamp where the troops were unable to reach him. The Commissioners were sorely annoyed, but Massachusetts, listening, perhaps, to the energetic representations of Williams, refused to sanction the war, and without her coöperation it could not be carried on.
There were still dissensions and jars, but the Colony throve and grew in industry and strength. Newport above all increased in wealth and population. In estimating the population, however, we must bear in mind that not every inhabitant was a freeman, nor every resident a legal inhabitant. A probationary residence was required before the second step was reached and the resident became an inhabitant with certain rights to the common lands, the right of sitting on the jury and of being chosen to some of the lower offices. This, also, was a period of probation, and it was only after it had been passed to the satisfaction of the freemen that the name of the new candidate could be proposed in town meeting for full citizenship. Even then he had to wait for a second meeting before he could be admitted to all the rights and distinctions of that honorable grade.
As a picture of the times it deserves notice that there was still a struggle with crime which called for stocks and a jail; that the sale of liquors wasregulated by a license, and the number of taverns that could be licensed in a single town limited to three; that the bars were closed at nine in the evening; that a fine of ten pounds or whipping, “accordinge as yecourt shall see meete,” was the penalty of giving a blow in court; that malicious language was treated as slander and made ground for legal prosecution. The Assembly seldom sat beyond three or four days, and six in the morning was the usual hour of entering upon the business of the day. Absence from roll call was punished by a fine of a shilling. As an illustration of the degree in which the idea of the duties of citizenship prevailed over the idea of the dignity of office, it deserves to be recorded that when the first justices’ court was established in Providence for the hearing of cases under forty shillings, Roger Williams though President of the Colony was appointed one of the justices, and of the other two Thomas Olney was assistant for Providence, and Thomas Harris a member of the Assembly. The principle of the reciprocal obligation of citizen and state seems, as we have already observed, to have found early acceptance. High treason was recognized as a great crime and provision made for sending the accused to England for trial—a dangerous measure even in that early day, and which in the following century became a just ground of alarm. But now, even Coddington not only came off unharmed from his daring usurpation, but appears again in 1656 as memberof the Court of Trials. A written submission and a fine for refusing to give up the public records were the only penalties that he paid for his offence. Early provision was made for the protection of marriage, and to give it that publicity which is essential to security the bans were announced in town meeting, or at the head of a company on training days, or by a written declaration signed by a magistrate and set up in some place of common resort. If objections were made the parties were heard by a tribunal of two magistrates, or for final decision by the Court of Trials. Freedom in the young society was always connected with morality.
There were still questions to arrange with Massachusetts, which had not yet given up the hope of enlarging her territory at the expense of her diminutive neighbors. The Pawtuxet controversy which began almost with the beginning of the Colony, was a fruitful source of anxiety till 1658, when it was finally settled by the acknowledgment of the claims of Rhode Island, Roger Williams again appearing in his favorite character of mediator. Hog Island, at the mouth of Bristol harbor, gave rise to other disputes which extended through several years. In the original purchase of Aquidneck the grass only had been bought. To secure the fee of the land itself a second purchase was required. Other purchases also were made, which gave rise to long and vexatious disputes. Small as it was, itwas almost inch by inch that Rhode Island won its narrow territory.
From time to time, also, there were alarms of Indians. In 1656 their movements excited so much apprehension in Providence, that a fort was built on Stamper’s Hill for the protection of the town. In this same year the fundamental principles of the governments of Rhode Island and of Massachusetts were brought into striking contrast by the arrival of the Quakers. In Massachusetts they were imprisoned, scourged, mutilated, put to death, and with the increase of persecution increased in numbers. In Rhode Island they were allowed to follow their own convictions and became useful and industrious citizens. And when the United Colonies urged the General Assembly, not without threats, to join in the persecution, it appealed to Cromwell, asking “that it might not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men’s consciences so long as human orders, in point of civility, are not corrupted or violated.”
In these days great changes were taking place in England. Cromwell was dead. Richard Cromwell soon resigned the Protectorate. A general reaction for royalty followed, and Charles II. was received as King with general satisfaction. How would the young and dissolute monarch look upon the claims of Rhode Island? It was well for her that at this perilous moment she was represented at the new court by so earnest, clear-headed, and dexterous a diplomatist as John Clarke. By his exertions a new charter was obtained, and, on the 24th of November, 1663, accepted “at a very great meeting and assembly of the Colony of Providence Plantations, at Newport, in Rhode Island, in New England.” With the adoption of this charter begins a new period in the history of Rhode Island.
TROUBLES IN OBTAINING A NEW CHARTER.—PROVISIONS OF THE CHARTER.—DIFFICULTIES CONCERNING THE NARRAGANSETT PURCHASE.—CURRENCY.—SCHOOLS.
The charter of Charles II. was a practical recognition of the right of self-government. The government which it established, like that instituted by the colonists in their first organization, was a pure democracy, emanating from the people and framed for their good. In form it consisted of a Governor, a Deputy-Governor, ten assistants, and a House of Deputies, six of whom represented Newport, four Providence, four Portsmouth, four Warwick, and two each other towns. The first appointments of Governor, Deputy-Governor, and assistants, as preparatory to a permanent organization, were made by the King. The organization once effected, they were chosen annually at Newport, on the first Wednesday in May. The deputies were elected by the people in their respective towns. Thus election day became the great civil festival of the year, bringing the inhabitants of the towns together to interchange thoughts and feelings, and make merry with their wives and children in the chief town of the Colony.
Although the new charter was negotiated by John Clarke, it is impossible not to recognize in it the spirit of Roger Williams. The original right of the natives to the soil was acknowledged, practically, in other colonies; but it was acknowledged as subordinate to the right of the King. The royal grant preceded the actual purchase. But in Rhode Island the royal grant followed the Indian title-deed, and was never accepted as sufficient of itself to justify the occupation of Indian territory. This doctrine, so widely at variance with the received doctrine of the age, stood first in the list of heresies for which Massachusetts had driven Roger Williams into exile.
No less prominent in the second charter was that great principle which had formed the leading characteristic of the first. “Noe person,” it says, “within the sayd colonye, at any tyme hereafter, shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any difference of opinion in matters of religion which doe not actually disturb the civill peace of our sayd colonye; but that all and everye person may, from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter, freelye and fullye have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, through the tract of lande hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceablie and quietlie, and not using this libertye to licentiousness, and profaneness, nor to the civill injurye or outward disturbance of others.”
There was much work for the new Assembly to do, and it addressed itself promptly to the task. The statute book contained laws which, arising from circumstances no longer existing, were “inconsistent with the present government.” To weed these out and replace them by others better suited to the new order of things, was an early object of attention. Hitherto the assistants had not been vested with legislative authority. They now held it by the charter, and henceforth acted in conjunction with the deputies, a change which at a later day led to the division into two houses. The increase of population brought with it an increase of litigation. The original courts were not sufficient to meet the demand for legal protection. They were reorganized.
There were two general courts of trials, composed of the Governor, with or without the aid of the Deputy-Governor, and of a body of assistants whose number was never less than six. Their place of meeting was Newport, the seat of government and largest town, and their regular sessions were held in May and October. Providence and Warwick had each a court of trials—Providence in September and Warwick in March. But in these, as if in indication of their subordinate authority, neither the Governor nor the Deputy-Governor had a seat, and the number of assistants absolutely required to give validity to its acts was reduced from six to three. To complete their organization twelve jurors were added,six from each town. Their decision, however, was not final, and the cases which they had tried could be carried by appeal to the General Court. To quicken the tardy steps of justice any litigant who was willing to bear the expense, might, with the sanction of the Governor or Deputy-Governor, have a special court convened for the immediate decision of his cause.
The grand and petty jurors were chosen from the four towns, five of each from Newport, three from Portsmouth, and two from Providence and Warwick respectively. The same superiority was accorded to Newport in the apportionment of state officers, five of whom were required to live there. In this, however, Providence outranks Portsmouth, having three allotted to her for her portion, while Portsmouth had but two. The duties of coroner were performed by the assistant “nearest the place occasion shall present.”
Another grave question met them on the threshold of their work of organization. The charter left a doubt concerning the manner of choosing the state magistrates. Should they be elected by the freemen in town meeting, or by the General Assembly? The democratic instinct prevailed, and the choice was left to the freemen.
There was a still graver question to be decided, requiring firmness, self-control and skilled diplomacy. Rhode Island had never been looked upon by Massachusetts with friendly eyes. That a banished man should have become the founder ofa new colony close upon her borders was irritating to her pride. That his success as a colonizer should have cut her off from the beautiful Narragansett Bay was humiliating to her ambition of territorial aggrandizement. That a freedom of conscience subversive of her theological dogmas should have been the fundamental principle of the new government was irritating to her bigotry. Thus, although she did not hesitate to avail herself of the good offices of Roger Williams to avert a dangerous war, she did not scruple to forbid the sale to citizens of Rhode Island of the powder and arms which they needed for their own protection, and exclude them from the league which the other colonies of New England had formed for their common defence. When, in 1642, four of the principal inhabitants of Pawtuxet factiously put themselves under her protection, she greedily seized the opportunity of securing for herself a foothold in the coveted territory. It was not till 1658 that this dangerous dispute was settled and the perpetual menace of mutilation removed from the northern district of the Colony soon to reappear in the southern. Amid the fresh recollections of this contest, the General Assembly passed a law forbidding, under the penalty of confiscation, the introduction of a foreign authority within the limits of the Colony. Both Massachusetts and Connecticut laid claim to Narragansett, a valuable tract in the southern part of the Colony and controlling the communication with the bay ofthat name. The claim of Rhode Island was founded upon purchase, and although her physical inferiority left her no hope of success except through an appeal to the King, she was none the less vigilant in defending her rights. The necessity of this watchfulness was soon made manifest, for scarce a year had passed from the passage of the prohibitory law, when, in direct violation of its provisions, a company of aliens purchased Quidneset and Namcook, two large and valuable tracts on Narragansett Bay. It was like throwing down the gauntlet to the little Colony, for it was only by supporting the pretensions of Massachusetts or Connecticut that the purchasers could hope to make their title good. An artful attempt was made to obtain the sanction of Roger Williams’s name by offering him, under the title of interpreter, a liberal grant of land. But the loyal old man refused to connect himself in any way with the illegal act, and warned the company of the dangerous ground whereon they were treading.
The warning was not heeded, and Humphrey Atherton, John Winthrop and their associates, completing their bargain with the Indians, claimed the tracts as theirs by lawful purchase. New complications followed. The very next year the Commissioners of the United Colonies, following up their aggressive policy towards the Narragansetts, imposed upon the feeble remnant of the once powerful tribe a heavy fine for alleged injuriesto the Mohegans, and compelled them to mortgage their whole territory for the payment of it. Atherton paid the fine, and held that his claim was strengthened by this act of unjustifiable violence.
For a time hopes were entertained of inducing the company to accept the jurisdiction of Rhode Island, but they were futile. The attempt of either party to exercise legal authority in the disputed territory was a signal for the active intervention of the other. It was soon evident that the decision must be referred to England. Fortunately for Rhode Island, John Clarke was still there.
Agents from Connecticut, also, were there petitioning for a new charter, and their petition was enforced by the wise and virtuous John Winthrop. Court favor came to his aid, and he used it judiciously. The venerable Lord Say and Seal lent him the influence of his name, and the skillful negotiator dexterously reviving the memory of the intercourse between his father and Charles the First, succeeded in touching for a moment the callous heart of Charles II. In the season of that intercourse Charles had given Winthrop a curious and valuable ring, and now when the son of the subject came before the son of the King as a suppliant for a charter for his distant home, he bore that ring in his hand as a record of kind feelings on one side and reverential observance on the other. The plea was successful, and, on the30th of May, 1662, a charter was granted. In this charter the eastern boundary of Connecticut was extended to Narragansett River, and Narragansett River it was claimed was Narragansett Bay.
Great was the indignation of Rhode Island when the tidings of this arbitrary mutilation of her territory reached her. It was like introducing a foreign jurisdiction into the heart of the Colony, and stripping it by a stroke of the pen of some of the chief advantages which it had promised itself from its long and painful labor of colonization. There was but one hope left, and that lay in the wisdom and firmness of John Clarke. The trust was well placed. Not for a moment did the brave man lose heart or suffer himself to grow weary in his difficult task. Of the details of his negotiations no accurate record has been preserved, but we know that, possessing no means of corruption, even if his noble nature could have stooped to it, he placed his confidence in the justice of his cause. In negotiating for a charter he had presented two elaborate petitions to the King, giving a rapid sketch of the origin and principles of the Colony, and asking for “a more absolute, ample, and free charter of civill incorporation,” as for men who “had it much on their hearts (if they may be permitted) to hold a lively experiment, that a flourishing free state may stand, yea, and best be maintained, and that among English spirits, with a full liberty in religious concernments.”
The question of a charter was for the King to decide, and we have already seen how he decided it. But the question of boundaries was within the competence of the agents of the two colonies. After much discussion it was decided to refer it to arbitration. Four arbitrators were chosen, and on the 7th of April, 1663, they rendered their award in four articles, by one of which the Pawcatuck River was made the eastern boundary of Connecticut. The Atherton company was left free to decide under which of the two jurisdictions it would live.
As long as Winthrop remained, although Clarke had much to apprehend from his open opposition, he had nothing to fear from secret intrigues or willful misinterpretation. But not all the advocates of the Atherton purchase were like John Winthrop. False claims will always find base agents, and no sooner was Winthrop gone than one of these willing instruments of wrong pressed eagerly forward to his loathsome office. His name was John Scott, and the record of his meanness has been preserved in his own hand. “Mr. Winthrop,” begins his confidential correspondence with Captain Hutchinson, the corresponding agent of the company, “was very averse to my prosecuting your affairs, he having had much trouble with Mr. Clarke whiles he remained in England; but as soon as I received intelligence of his departure from the Downes, I took into the society a Potent Gentleman andprepared a Petition against Clarke, &c., as enemyes to the peace and well being of his Majestye’s good subjects, and doubt not effecting the premises in convenient tyme, and in order to accomplish yrbusinesse, I have bought of Mr. Edwards a parcel of curiosityes to yevalue of sixty pounds; to gratifye persons that are powerfull, that there may be a Letter filled with Awthorising Expressions to the Collonyes of the Massachusetts and Connecticut, that the proprietors of the Narraganset countrye, shall not only live peaceably, but have satisfaction for Injuryes already received by some of the saide Proprietors and the power ytshall be soe invested (viz) the Massachusetts and Connecticut by virtue of the saide letter will joyntlye and severallye, have full power to do us justice to all intents, as to our Narraganset concernes.”
For a moment it seemed as though this vile intrigue were about to succeed. A letter from the King to the United Colonies was obtained, recommending the interests of the Atherton company to their protection. John Scott’s “curiosityes” had done their work. The “Potent Gentleman” had not failed him. The little Colony lay unarmed at the feet of its powerful enemies. But the triumph was short. John Clarke was carefully bringing his negotiations for a new charter to a close. Surrounded by bitter and unscrupulous adversaries he still kept his own counsel, kept the object of his mission constantly in view, and,after much weary waiting and watching, came out triumphant. The charter of Charles the Second, as I have already stated, which so long served the Colony as a constitution and exercised such a controlling influence upon her development, passed the seals on the 8th of July, 1663. By this charter the western boundary line was fixed at Pawcatuck River, “any Grant or Claim in a late Grant to the Governor and Company ofConnecticutColony inAmericato the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.” Thus the Pawcatuck River was henceforth to be held as the same with the Narragansett River, and the question of western boundary decided in accordance with the agreement, which, “after much debate,” Clarke and Winthrop had both signed in the names of their respective colonies. It is evident that there was much ignorance, and no very firm principle of action with regard to the colonies in the cabinet of the second Charles.
While these events were passing an important change took place in the commercial medium of the country. When the colonists first began to trade with the natives, they found them already advanced in their buyings and sellings from the primitive barter of product for product to the use of a fixed medium of exchange. This medium, indeed, was of a purely conventional character. There were neither mines of gold, nor mines of silver, nor mines of copper to perform the office of money. But the waters of their rivers and bays yielded an abundant supply ofshells, and these they wrought with much ingenuity into beads; the periwinkle furnishing the material for the lower values, six of its white shells being held at an English penny, while the dark eye of the quahog or round clam, smoothed by grinding, and polished and drilled, was rated at twice the value of the white shell. Both were known as wampum or peage. As money belts of wampum were counted by the fathom, three hundred and sixty of the white passing for five shillings sterling, and a fathom of the black being worth twice as much as a fathom of the white. Like the metallic medium of other countries they served also for personal decoration, supplying the Indian belles and beaux with their necklaces and bracelets, and princes with the most valued ornaments of their regalia. When used for this purpose they were wrought into girdles, or worn as a scarf about the shoulders, great pains being taken and not a little skill displayed in arranging the colors in various figures. The mints in which this primitive money was coined were on the sea-shore, where shells were found in great abundance, and so well was this simple article adapted to the wants and the tastes of the aborigines that it passed current six hundred miles from the coast, and was used by the colonists in all their bargains with the natives. But shells like metals and paper are subject to the same inexorable laws of trade. When beaver skins became plenty in the colonial market and wampum was made in larger quantities, it fellfrom ten shillings a fathom to five, and the Indian hunter thought it hard that an equal number of furs should bring him but half as much wampum as before. Like all money, also, wampum was liable to be counterfeited, and even in that rude commerce there were men who preferred the ill-gotten gain of the counterfeiter to the fruit of honest industry. Fortunately for the native he was quick in detecting the fraud, and never failed to exact full compensation. But wampum, like the race for whom it was made, was unable to hold its ground against the advancing civilization. We have seen it reduced to half its original value by overissues and the increasing supply of furs in the colonial market. Gradually it began to disappear. Rhode Island continued to use it long after it had ceased to be current in colonies where the intercourse with Europe was more direct. Massachusetts had begun to coin silver in 1652, but Rhode Island continued to accept wampum as a legal tender for ten years longer, when it reached its lowest point, and, like the Continental money of a century later, was abolished by statute. Thenceforth all taxes and costs of court were exacted in “current pay” in sterling that is, or in New England coin of thirty shillings New England to twenty-two shillings sixpence sterling.
Nothing has been said thus far of the measures taken by the young Colony for the establishment of schools. Newport, though only in the second year of her settlement, took the lead in 1640, by“calling Mr. Robert Lenthall to keep a school for the learning of youth, and for his encouragement there was granted to him and his heirs one hundred acres of land, and four more for a house lot.” In the same meeting it was voted: “That one hundred acres should be laid forth and appropriated for a school, for the encouragement of the poorer sort, to train up their youth in learning, and Mr. Robert Lenthall, while he continues to keep school, is to have the benefit thereof.” The wise example was followed by Providence in 1663, and at May town meeting a hundred acres of upland and six acres of meadow were reserved for the support of a school.
But in nothing perhaps does the character of the Colony appear to more advantage than in the law of oaths. “Forasmuch,” reads the statute, “as the consciences of sundry men, truly conscionable, may scruple the giving or the taking of an oath, and it would be no wise suitable to the nature and constitution of our place, who profess ourselves to be men of different consciences, and not one willing to force another, to debar such as cannot do so, either from bearing office among us, or from giving in testimony in a case depending; be it enacted by the authority of this present Assembly, that a solemn profession or testimony in a court of record, or before a judge of record, shall be accounted throughout the whole colony, of as full force as an oath.” So strong was the hold which the principle of soul liberty had taken of the public mind.