sioners, put to death with circumstances of savage barbarity. The war, protracted for some time between the Indians, was finally brought to a close by the vigorous interposition of the colonists.
Although the Massachusetts people fully sympathized with the "Godly Parliament," yet they were very wary not to commit themselves too far in any measures from which it might not be easy to draw back. The Board of Control, appointed by Parliament, was possessed of very extensive powers; there was, however, no attempt for awhile at interference with Massachusetts and her privileges; and her exports and imports were exempted from taxation. Some two years later, when Parliament endeavored to assert its jurisdiction over the colonies, Massachusetts made a spirited protest and remonstrance, which, being warmly supported by Sir Henry Vane and others, prevented matters proceeding further in the way of interfering with the privileges of the colonists.
It was in March of this year (1643), that the venerated Roger Williams, alarmed at the evident purpose of Massachusetts to interfere with his lawful rights, resolved to proceed to England and solicit a charter. As he was not allowed to visit Boston, he went to Manhattan, and proceeded to his destination by way of Holland. While in England, he published his "Key to the Language of America," which contained interesting notices of Indian manners. He also attacked the principle of religious despotism in his "Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience;" to which Cotton replied in a tract, the "Bloody Tenet washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb." Williams was entirely successful in the object for which lift had visited England. Vane favored his wishes and added his influence. The charter obtained included the shores and islands of Narragansett Bay, west of Plymouth and south of Massachusetts, as far as the Pequod river and country. The name of Providence Plantations was adopted, and the inhabitants were empowered to rule themselves as they might choose.[1]
- ↑ "The first legislator who fully recognized the rights of conscience, was Roger Williams, a name less illustrious than it deserves to be; for, although his eccentricities of conduct and opinion may sometimes provoke a smile, he was a man of genius and of virtue, of admirable firmness, courage, and disinterestedness, and of unbounded benevolence After some wanderings, he pitched his tent at a place, to which he gave the name of Providence, and there became the founder and legislator of the colony of Rhode Island. There he continued to rule, sometimes as the governor, and always as the guide and father of the settlement, for forty-eight years, employing himself in acts of kindness to his former enemies, affording relief to the distressed, and offering an asylum to the persecuted. The government of his colony was formed on his favorite principle, that in matters of faith and worship, every citizen should walk according to the light of his own conscience, without restraint or interference from the civil magistrate. During a visit which Williams made to England, in 1643, for the purpose of procuring a colonial charter, he published a formal and labored vindication of this doctrine, under the title of The Bloody Tenet, or a Dialogue between Truth and Peace. In this work, which was written with his usual boldness and decision, he anticipated most of the arguments, which, fifty years after, attracted so much attention, when they were brought forward by Locke. His own conduct in power was in perfect accordance with his speculative opinions; and when, in his old age, the order of his little community was disturbed by an irruption of Quaker preachers, he combated them only in pamphlets and public disputations, and contented himself with overwhelming
