tion on the part of the settlers of Massachusetts to
throw off their allegiance, and accordingly they
hastened to condemn Mr. Williams and his views.
This purely political question was complicated
with disputes arising from Mr. Williams's advanced
opinions on toleration. He maintained that " no
human power had the right to intermeddle in mat-
ters of conscience ; and that neither church nor
state, neither bishop nor king, may prescribe the
smallest iota of religious faith." For this, he main-
tained, " man is responsible to God alone." The
ministers, with his friends, Cotton and Hooker at
their head, sent a committee to Salem to censure
him; but he denied their spiritual jurisdiction,
and declared his determination to "remove the
yoke of soul-oppression." In July, 1635, he was
summoned before the general court at Boston, and
in October he was ordered to quit the colony within
six weeks, but permission was presently granted for
him to remain until spring. It was then reported
that many people in Salem, " taken with an appre-
hension of his godliness," repaired to his house for
religious instruction, and that they meditated with-
drawing from Massachusetts and founding a colony
upon Narragansett bay, in which the principle of
religious toleration should be strictly upheld. To
Erevent this movement, it was decided to send him
ack to England. He was again summoned to
Boston, but refused to obey the summons, where-
upon the magistrates sent to Salem a warrant for
his arrest. He suspected what was coming, and left
his home just before the officers arrived. He made
his way through the wilderness to the wigwams
of the Pokanokets. Their chief, Massasoit, granted
him a tract of land on Seekonk river. There,
in the spring, he was joined by friends from Sa-
lem, and they began to build; but, in order to
avoid any complications with the Plymouth colony,
they moved to the site of Providence, where they
made their first settlement in June, 1636. This
territory was granted to Mr. Williams by the Narra-
gansett chiefs, Canonicus and Miantonomoh. His
influence over these Indians was great, and it soon
enabled him to perform for the infant colonies a
service that no other man in New England could
have undertaken with any hope of success ; he de-
tached the powerful tribe of Narragansetts from
the league that the Pequot sachem Sassacus was
forming for the purpose of destroying all the Eng-
lish settlements. The effect of Mr. Williams's
diplomacy was to leave the Pequots to fight with-
out allies, and the English soon exterminated them.
During the Pequot war the magistrates of the
colony that had banished him sought his counsel,
and he gave it freely. In 1638 he assisted John
Clarke and William Coddington in negotiating the
purchase of Aquidneck, or Rhode Island, for which
the Indians were liberally paid. True to his prin-
ciple of toleration, while he opposed the opinions
of that restless agitator, Samuel Gorton, he refused
to join in the movement for expelling him from
Providence. In 1643 he went to England and ob-
tained the charter for the Rhode Island and Provi-
dence settlements, dated 14 March, 1644. While
in England he published his " Key into the Lan-
guage of America " (London, 1643), a work of great
value on the speech of the New England Indians.
He also wrote and published anonymously his
famous book " The Bloody Tenent of Persecution
for Cause of Conscience " (London, 1644). In this
book the doctrines of religious freedom are ably and
attractively presented in the form of a dialogue
between Truth and Peace. It was dedicated to the
parliament, then waging war against the king, and
it attracted general attention from its great literary
merit as well as from the nature of the subject. It
was answered by Mr. Cotton's book entitled " The
Bloody Tenent washed and made White in the
Blood of the Lamb " (London, 1647). After a while
Mr. Williams published an effective rejoinder en-
titled " The Bloody Tenent made yet more Bloody
by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it White " (Lon-
don, 1652). The controversy was conducted on
both sides with a candor and courtesy very rare in
those times. While in London, in 1644, Mr. Will-
iams also published a reply to Mr. Cotton's state-
ment of the reasons for his banishment. This ad-
mirable book, a small quarto of forty-seven pages,
entitled " Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and An-
swered," is now exceedingly rare. Mr. Williams
landed in Boston, 17 Sept., 1644, with a letter signed
by several members of parliament, which was vir-
tually a safe-conduct for his passage through Massa-
chusetts territory. Through his exertions a treaty
was made with the Narragansetts, 4 Aug., 1645,
which saved New England from the horrors of an
Indian war. In order to obtain the abrogation
of the commission of William Coddington as
governor of the islands of Rhode Island and C6-
nanicut, Mr. Williams sailed in November, 1651,
for England, in company with John Clarke.
Through the aid of Sir Henry Vane this mission
was successful. While in England, Mr. Williams
spent several weeks at Vane's country house in
Lincolnshire, and he saw much of Cromwell and
Milton. At this time-he wrote and published his
" Hireling Ministry None of Christ s " (London,
1652), which is an able argument against an estab-
lished church and the support of the clergy by
taxation. In the same year he published " Experi-
ments of Spiritual Life and Health, and their Pre-
servatives. He returned to Providence in 1654
and took part in the reorganization of the colonial
government in that year. He was chosen, 12 Sept.,
1654, president of the colony, and held that office
until May, 1658. During this time he secured the
toleration of the Quakers, who were beginning to
come to New England, and on this occasion he was
again brought into conflict with the government of
IViassachusetts. A new charter was granted to Rhode
Island, 8 July, 1663, under which Benedict Arnold
was first governor and Roger Williams one of the
assistants. This charter established such a liberal
republican government that the Revolution in
1776 made no change in it, and it was not super-
seded until 1842. (See Dorr, Thomas Wilson.) Mr. Williams in 1663 was appointed commissioner for settling the eastern boundary, which had long been the subject of dispute with both Plymouth and Massachusetts. For the next fourteen years he was most of the time either a representative or an assistant. In 1672 he was engaged in his famous controversy with the Quakers, of whose doctrines and manners he strongly disapproved, though he steadfastly refused to persecute them. George Fox was then in Newport, and Mr. Williams challenged him to a public discussion of fourteen theological propositions. Fox left the colony before the challenge had been delivered to him, but it was accepted by three Quaker champions, John Stubbs, John Burnet, and William Edmundson. Mr. Williams, though seventy-three years of age, rowed himself in a boat from Providence to Newport, about thirty miles, to meet his adversaries. The debate was carried on for three days in the Quaker meeting-house, without changing anybody's opinion. Mr. Williams afterward wrote an account of the affair, and maintained his own view, in the book entitled " George Fox digged out of his Burrowes," a small quarto of 327 pages (Boston,
Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/566
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WILLIAMS
WILLIAMS