II
THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE
A community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty combined with perfect civil democracy.—Professor Mason.
Thus for the first time in history a form of government was adopted which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and the spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly among the nations.—Prof. J. L. Diman.
No one principle of political or social or religious policy lies nearer the base of American institutions and has done more to shape our career than this principle inherited from Rhode Island, and it may be asserted that the future of America was in a large measure determined by that General Court which summoned Roger Williams to answer for “divers new and dangerous opinions,” and his banishment became a pivotal act in universal history.—Prof. Alonzo Williams.
In summing up the history of the struggle for religious liberty it may be said that papal bulls and Protestant creeds have favored tyranny. Theologians of the sixteenth century and philosophers of the seventeenth, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, favored the State churches. It was bitter experience of persecution that led jurists, and statesmen of Holland and France, in face of the opposition of theologians and philosophers, to enforce the toleration of dissent. While there was toleration in Holland and France, there was, for the first time, in the history of the world in any commonwealth, liberty and equality and separation of Church and State in Rhode Island.—W. W. Evarts, in “The Long Road to Freedom of Worship.”
In the code of laws established by them, we read for the first time since Christianity ascended the throne of the Cæsars, the declaration that conscience should be free and men should not be punished for worshiping God in the way they were persuaded he requires.—Judge Story.
ROGER WILLIAMS left Salem on or about January 15, 1636, making the journey alone through the forests. With a pocket compass, and a sun-dial to tell the hours, he set out, probably taking the road to Boston for some distance. Nearing Boston, presumably at Saugus, he went west for a while and then straight south until he reached the home of Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, at Mount Hope, near Bristol. The ground was covered with snow, and he must have suffered sorely on this journey of eighty or ninety miles. Thirty-five years later in a letter to Major Mason, he refers to this experience:
First, when I was unkindly and unchristianly, as I believe, driven from my house and land, and wife and children (in the midst of a New England winter, now about thirty-five years past), at Salem, that ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote me to steer my course to Narragansett Bay and the Indians, for many high and public ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English claims or patents. I took his prudent notion as a hint and voice from God, and waving all other thoughts and notions, I steered my course from Salem (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto those parts wherein I may say “Peniel”; that is, I have seen the face of God.
He also wrote: “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean!” In his old age he exclaimed, “I bear to this day in my body the effects of that winter’s exposure.” In one of his books he refers to “hardships of sea and land in a banished condition.”
The precious relics of this flight are the sun-dial and compass, now in the possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Williams finally reached Seekonk Cove, about the twenty-third of April. The spot was at Manton’s Neck, near the cove, where there was a good spring of water. Here he was joined by four companions, his wife, and two children. “I gave leave to William Harris, then poor and destitute,” said Williams, “to come along in my company. I consented to John Smith, miller at Dorchester (banished also), to go with me, and, at John Smith’s desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, as also a lad of Richard Waterman’s.” The latter was doubtless Thomas Angell. Joshua Verein came later. Some historians think that others joined them at the Seekonk before they were compelled to leave. Here they remained for two months. After providing rude shelters and sowing seeds, they received a warning to move on. “I received a letter,” said Williams,
from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others’ love for me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loathe to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water, and there, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together.
Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His Flight
Courtesy of “Providence Magazine”
His removal cost him the “loss of a harvest that year.” Historians are agreed that about the end of June he left Seekonk. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was celebrated, June 23 and 24, 1886. Embarking in a crude Indian canoe, Williams and his companions, six in all, crossed over the river to a little cove on the west side, where they were halted by a party of Indians, with the friendly interrogation, “What cheer?” Here the party landed on a rock which has been known ever since as “What Cheer Rock.” The cove is now filled and the rock covered from sight. A suitable monument has been erected over the rock. It is in an open park space at the corner of Roger and Williams Streets, Providence. A piece of this rock is preserved at the First Baptist Church of Providence, and another has recently been placed in cross form in the lobby floor of the new Central Baptist Church of the same city. It is hoped that a piece of this rock will be worked into the National Baptist Memorial in our country’s capital.
Spring at the Seekonk Settlement
Tablet Marking Seekonk Site
What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams
After friendly salutations with the Indians, they reembarked and made their way down the river around the headland of Tockwotten and past Indian and Fox points, where they reached the mouth of the Moshassuck River. Rowing up this beautiful stream, then bordered on either side with a dense forest, they landed on the east side of the river, where there was an inviting spring. Here, on the ascending slopes of the hill, they commenced a new settlement, which Williams called “Providence,” in gratitude to God’s merciful Providence to them in their distress. Later, when they spread out in larger numbers and in all directions from this place, it was called “Providence Plantations.” They prepared shelters for their families, probably wigwams made of poles covered with hemlock boughs and forest leaves. We can in imagination see them climb the hill to a point where Prospect Street now runs, to enjoy a wider view of their new territory.
From that height of almost two hundred feet they saw to the westward, through openings in the forest, the cove at the head of the great salt river with broad sandy beaches on the eastern and northern shores and salt marshes bordering the western and southern. From the north the sparkling waters of the Moshassuck River came leaping over the falls as it emptied itself into the estuary at its mouth. Bordering this stream was a valley of beauty and fertility. The clear waters of the Woonasquatucket threaded their way from the west through another fertile valley. Between these rivers and also southward (of the Woonasquatucket) was a sandy plateau, covered with pine forests stretching to the Indian town of Mashapaug on the southwest and Pawtuxet Valley to the south. Between the edge of the tidal flow and the open waters of the great salt river there was a salt marsh dotted with islands, beyond which rose the bold peak of Weybosset Hill. Down the river to the south they saw the steep hills of Sassafras and Field’s Point, beyond which could be seen the lower bay and its forest-covered shores and islands. The eastern slope of the hill stretched a mile toward the shore of the Seekonk. To the northeast the view was cut off by a higher eminence covered with oak and pine. In all directions, save that of the bay itself, the farther distances were lost in an indistinguishable maze of forest-crowned heights. At the feet of the spectators was the place of their immediate settlement, where the western slope of the hill gradually diminished in height toward the south. At its lowest extremity, Fox Point projected into the bay. This slope was covered with a growth of oak and hickory.
A Purchased Possession
Roger Williams differed from the ordinary colonists of his age, who held that the Indian, being heathen, had no real ownership of the land. It belonged to the Christians who might first claim it by right of discovery. Williams, who “always aimed to do the Indians only good,” recognized Indian ownership and secured his colony from them by purchase. Here among them he first sought to apply his doctrine of soul-liberty. To him they were humans with equal rights and privileges. He bitterly fought the Puritan position that the pagan heathen had no property rights which the Christian, with his superior culture, was bound to respect. Roger Williams insisted that the land should be purchased from the Indians, the original owners. He gained the lasting respect of the Indian and the undying animosity of the Puritan for holding to ideals which have since come to be recognized as American. He thus laid the foundation for the belief in America that the weaker and smaller powers have rights which the greater powers must respect, a belief which led us into the recent great war. While this principle is receiving world-wide application, let us not forget that Roger Williams was the pioneer of international justice in America, if not in the world. The land viewed from the top of the hill was owned by five distinct Indian tribes. The Narragansetts dominated over all the lands now occupied by Rhode Island, and ruled over all other lesser tribes in this territory. In the northern part of this State, the Nipmucs lived in the place now occupied by Smithfield, Glocester, and Burrilville. On the southern seacoast border dwelt the Niantics. Part of the Wampanoag tribe dwelt in Cumberland and extended to the western side of the river which we now call the Blackstone. The Pequots lived in Connecticut Colony. Indian government was monarchial, and became extinct with the slaughter of the last of the line of rulers or sachems in the massacre of July 2, 1676. Canonicus was the ruling sachem when the English first came. As he grew old he needed an assistant and his nephew, Miantonomo, was appointed. Miantonomo worked well with the elder chief. He never succeeded to the position of ruling chief, being murdered in 1643. Roger Williams secured his land from these sachems. Williams wrote in 1661 as follows:
I was the procurer of the purchase, not by monies, nor payments, the natives being so shy and jealous, that monies could not do it, but by that language, acquaintance, and favor with the natives and other advantages which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges and venture of all the gratuities which I gave to the great Sachems and natives round about us, and lay engaged for a loving and peaceable neighborhood with, to my great charge and travel.
Original Deed of Providence from the Indians
He found Indian gifts very costly. Presents were made frequently. He allowed the Indians to use his pinnace and shallop at command, transporting and lodging fifty at his home at a time. He never denied them any lawful thing. Canonicus had freely what he desired from Roger Williams’ trading-post at Narragansett. William Harris stated in 1677 that Roger Williams had paid thus one hundred and sixty pounds ($800) for Providence and Pawtucket.
Mr. Williams generously admitted the first twelve proprietors of the Providence Purchase to an equal share with himself, without exacting any remuneration. The thirty pounds which he received were paid by succeeding settlers, at the rate of thirty shillings each. This was not a payment for the land but what he called “a loving gratuity.” Straus says:
He might have been like William Penn, the proprietor of his colony, after having secured it by patent from the rulers in England, and thus have exercised a control over its government and enriched himself and family. But this was not his purpose, nor was it directly or remotely the cause for which he suffered banishment and misery. Principle—not profit; liberty—not power; conviction—not ambition, were his impelling motives which he consistently maintained, theoretically and practically then, and at all times.
Williams’ own words were:
I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. I then considering the conditions of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends (whom he names) who desired to take shelter with me.
He afterward purchased, jointly with Governor Winthrop, the Island of Prudence from Canonicus. He also purchased, a little later, the small islands of Patience and Hope, afterward selling his interest in them to help pay his expenses to England on business for the colony.
Following is a true copy of the Original Deed of Land for Providence from Canonicus and Miantonomo:
At Nanhiggansick, the 24th of the first month, commonly called March, in the second year of the Plantations of Plantings at Mooshausick or Providence. Memorandum that we Caunaunicus and Meauntunomo, the two chief sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two years since sold unto Roger Williams, the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshausick and Wanasquatucket, do now by these presents, establish and confirm the bounds of those lands, from the river and fields at Pawtucket, the great hill of Neotackonkonutt, on the northwest, and the town of Mashapauge on the west. As also in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, both with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Quinickicutt and Apaum, or Plymouth, we do now freely give unto him all the land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the grass and meadows upon the said Pawtuxet River. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands.
In the presence of
The Mark * of Setash,
The Mark * of Assotenewit,
The Mark * of Caunaunicus,
The Mark * of Meauntunomo.
This original deed is preserved, as a precious relic, in the City Hall at Providence.
Williams’ Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends
Early Experiences in Providence
The Providence planters soon built their crude homes. The Indian name of the plantation was Notaquonchanet. In their early records of Providence this name is spelt in at least forty-two different forms. Other settlers came and swelled their numbers. The original six were bound together by a compact. It was verbal, or if written, the copy has been lost. When new settlers came and Wickes and Angell had reached majority, a copy of the original agreement was drawn up and signed by those not included in the first compact. Williams was familiar with the great compact signed in the Mayflower by the Pilgrims and probably it suggested to his mind the need of one in Providence. This Providence Compact is as follows:
We, whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves in active or passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit unto the same, ONLY IN CIVIL THINGS.
Edmund J. Carpenter says of this Compact:
A compact of government, which in its terms, must be regarded as the most remarkable political document theretofore executed, not even excepting the Magna Charta. It was a document which placed a government, formed by the people, solely in the control of the civil arm. It gave the first example of a pure democracy, from which all ecclesiastical power was eliminated. It was the first enunciation of a great principle, which years later, formed the corner-stone of the great republic. It was the act of a statesman fully a century in advance of his time.
At the west entrance to the street railroad tunnel in Providence a bronze tablet commemorates the fact that there in the open air the first town meetings were held.
Roger Williams’ house was opposite the spring, forty-eight feet to the east of the present Main Street and four feet north of Howland Street. Next, to the north of his residence, was the house and lot of Joshua Verein. North of this was Richard Scott’s. The first house south of Williams’ was that of John Throckmorton and, beyond, that of William Harris. At first the struggle for existence was hard, more so because of the loss of the crops planted at Seekonk. Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, conscious of the wrong Plymouth Colony had done to Williams, visited the little settlement that first summer and left a gift of gold with Mrs. Williams. In the spring and summer of the following year, new houses were built along the street. The new settlers brought money with them, and Williams enlisted outside capital to help develop the colony.
The Original Providence “Compact”
Drawn up by the men of Providence, August 20, 1638, and now contained in the City Hall. One of the most valuable documents in existence, under which Williams and his companions promised to subject themselves in active and passive obedience, but “Only in Civil Things.”
“You must look to the Magna Charta, for another such epoch-making decree, for these, with the Declaration and the Emancipation Proclamation, are the four great dynamic forces of American Freedom.”—R. B. Burchard.
Courtesy of “Providence Magazine,” October, 1915
The number of town lots increased. The land lay between the present Main Street and Hope Street. Each lot was of equal width and ran eastward. Eventually there were one hundred and two of these lots extending from Mile End Brook, which enters the river a little north of Fox Point, to Harrington’s Lane, now the dividing line between Providence and North Providence. Meeting and Power Streets were the dividing streets in those early days. In addition to the home lot, each proprietor had an “out six-acre lot” assigned to him. Williams’ “out lot” was at “What Cheer Rock.”
The Threatened Indian Trouble
Williams, although suffering from Puritan persecution, had an opportunity that first year of doing good to his persecutors. He became the savior of all the New England Colonies. The Pequot Indians planned the annihilation of the English. Williams, hearing of this, did his utmost to break up an Indian league, and kept the Narragansetts from joining the Pequots and Mohicans. He describes this experience in the following statement:
The Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hands, and scarce acquainting my wife, to ship alone, in a poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind, with great seas, every minute in hazard of life, to the sachem’s house. Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors, whose hands and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered and massacred by them on the Connecticut River, and from whom I could not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also. God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break the Pequod’s negotiation and design; and to make and finish, by many travels and charges, the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans against the Pequods.
As a result of this, the tribe of Pequots was obliterated completely and a danger hanging over all the colonies was removed.
The Indian villages of southern New England were composed at times of as many as fifty houses or wigwams. Most of these wigwams were shaped like the half of an orange, with the flat or cut surface down. They were ten to twelve feet in diameter and could accommodate two families. Other houses were like the half of a stovepipe cut lengthwise, twenty to thirty feet long, and accommodated from two families in the summertime to fifty in the winter, when the people crowded together for the sake of warmth. The council-chamber was often as long as one hundred feet with a width of thirty feet. It was used only for councils. A fortified stockade in the center of the village was made of logs set into the ground. Such was the shelter afforded Williams when he fled from Salem, and such was the place when he met the Indian sachems in council seeking to avert the massacre of the whites. In these villages he preached the everlasting gospel of the Son of God. He had the constant confidence of Indian sachems because he applied to them the principle of soul-liberty which he sought to practise among the whites.
In the autumn of 1638, Roger Williams’ third child and first son was born and named “Providence.” He was the first white male child born in this colony. In the year 1639-1640 the town grew and felt the need of a system of town government. On July 23, 1640, an organization was decided upon in which they vested the care of the general interests of the town in five “disposers” or arbitrators. The people retained the right to appeal from the “disposers” to the general town meeting. They were careful to provide that as “formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still to hold for the liberty of conscience.”
In 1638 a settlement had been made at Portsmouth on Rhode Island. John Clarke and Mrs. Ann Hutchinson were the leaders of this new band who were looking for a place where they might have religious freedom, which was denied them at Boston. They went first to New Hampshire, but, finding it too cold there, turned to the south. By the friendly assistance of Mr. Williams, they secured from Canonicus and Miantonomo, for a consideration of forty fathoms of white beads, Aquidneck and other islands in Narragansett Bay. The natives residing on the island itself were induced to remove for a consideration of ten coats and twenty hoes. The new settlers chose Mr. Coddington to be their judge and united in a covenant with each other and with their God. They made Mr. Coddington their governor in 1640.
Plan Showing
THE FIRST DIVISION OF
HOME LOTS
IN
Providence, R.I.
About this same time a number of Providence people settled in Pawtuxet, four miles south of Providence in territory ceded to Williams. Warwick and Shawomet were settled by Samuel Gorton and his friends. Gorton was a strange character who did not find things congenial for him at Boston, Plymouth, and Newport in turn. Roger Williams, however, gave him shelter in Providence. Finally he went to Pawtuxet and later to Shawomet, for which he paid four fathoms of wampum to the Indians. At once Boston Colony claimed that Shawomet was under their jurisdiction. Gorton and his associates refused to come to Boston at the bidding of the authorities. Forty soldiers came to Shawomet and seized Gorton and ten of his friends and imprisoned them in Boston. They were tried for their lives, escaping only by two votes. They were then imprisoned in the various towns. Each one was compelled to wear a chain fast bolted around his legs. If they spoke to any person, other than an officer of the Church or of the State, they were to be put to death. They were kept at labor that winter and then banished in the spring. Gorton escaped to England and secured an order from the Earl of Warwick and the Commissioners of the Colonies requiring Massachusetts not to molest the settlers at Shawomet. Thereafter Gorton and his friends occupied their lands in peace.
Gorton wrote his side of the question in “Simplicities Defence,” in which he referred to his persecutors as “That Servant so Imperious in his Master’s Absence Revived.” This is another indictment against the persecuting Puritans by one who found shelter in the Baptist colony of Rhode Island.
SIMPLICITIES DEFENCE
against
SEVEN-HEADED POLICY.
OR
Innocency Vindicated, being unjustly Accused,
and sorely Censured, by that
Seven-headed Church-Government
United in
NEW-ENGLAND:
OR
That Servant so Imperious in his Masters Absence
Revived, and now thus re-acting in New-England.
OR
The combate of the United Colonies, not onely against
some of the Natives and Subjects, but against the Authority also
of the Kingdme of England, with their execution of Laws, in the name and
Authority of the servant, (or of themselves) and not in the Name and
Authority of the Lord, or fountain of the Government.
Wherein is declared an Act of a great people and Country
of the Indians in those parts, both Princes and People (unanimously)
in their voluntary Submission and Subjection unto the Protection
and Government of Old England (from the Fame they hear thereof) together
with the true manner and forme of it, as it appears under their own
hands and seals, being stirred up, and provoked thereto, by
the Combate and courses above-said.
Throughout which Treatise is secretly intermingled, that
great Opposition, which is in the goings forth of those two grand
Spirits, that are and ever have been, extant in the World
(through the sons of men) from the beginning and
foundation thereof.
Imprimatur, Aug. 3ᵈ. 1646. Diligently perused, approved, and
Licensed to the Presse, according to Order by publike Authority.
LONDON,
Printed by John Macock, and are to be sold by Luke Favvne,
at his shop in Pauls Church-yard, at the sign of the Parrot. 1646.
The Story of the First Charter
As the colony grew, it was found necessary that there should be some vested authority which would command respect from the neighbors. Notwithstanding what Williams had done for the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies in connection with the Pequot War, and the personal friendships he had with the governors, they would not consider that he or his had any separate colony rights whatever. He had been their Joseph driven from home and country by hostile brethren. In exile, he became the savior of his brethren from a dreadful massacre by the Indians. Nevertheless, Plymouth claimed jurisdiction over all the plantations in Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts claimed it over Providence, Pawtuxet, and Shawomet. The Dutch had formed a trading-post at Dutch Island and elsewhere and could strike a blow at the colony at any time. Out of these conditions grew the demand for a charter. Roger Williams, at a great personal sacrifice, went to England from Manhattan, now New York City, because the two colonies to the north forbade his departure from their ports.
Arriving in England, he found the country in the midst of the great Civil War. King Charles was powerless because Parliament controlled the realm. Parliament had placed colonial interest in charge of a committee of which the Earl of Warwick was chairman or “Governor in Chief, and Lord High Admiral of the Colonies.” From this council a charter was granted, March 17, 1644. The colony was incorporated as “Providence Plantations” and embraced the territory now covered by the State of Rhode Island. There was granted to the inhabitants of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, a
free and absolute charter of incorporation ... together with full power and authority to govern themselves and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any part of said tract of land by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and condition, etc.
Upon the return of Williams, the inhabitants of Providence, learning of his approach, came out in fourteen canoes to meet him at the Seekonk. They traveled over the historic course which he had traveled six years before when he was an exile. Now in triumph they escorted their beloved leader to home and native town. A picture of his return with the charter, by Grant, is on the walls of the Court House at Providence.
The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter
The earliest published work of Mr. Williams is entitled,
A Key into the Language of America: or, an help to the Language of the Natives in that part of America, called New-England. Together, with briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships, etc. of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death. On all which are added Spirituall Observations, Generall and Particular by the Authour, of chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions) to all the English Inhabiting those parts; yet pleasant and profitable to the view of all men: By Roger Williams of Providence in New-England. London, Printed by Gregory Dexter, 1643.
It was written at sea, en route to England, in the summer of 1643. Copies of the original edition are in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, the British Museum, also in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Harvard College, Brown University, and the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. It comprises two hundred and sixteen small duodecimo pages, including preface and table.
The second published work of Roger Williams is entitled, “Mr. Cottons Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered. By Roger Williams of Providence, in New-England. London, Imprinted in the Yeere 1644.” Mr. Cotton had sought to “take off the edge of Censure from himself”—that he was no procurer of the sorrow which came to Williams in his flight and exile. It is a small quarto of forty-seven pages, preceded by an address of two pages. The letter referred to was written by John Cotton, and was published in London, 1643. The author vindicated the act of the magistrates in banishing Roger Williams from Massachusetts. He denies that he himself had any agency in it. It consists of thirteen small quarto pages. Good copies of both the Letter and the reply are in the Library of Brown University. Two copies of the reply are in England, one in the British Museum, the other in Bodleian Library. A mutilated copy of the reply is also in the Library of Yale College.
Roger Williams wrote also, when in England, securing the Charter for Rhode Island, a work entitled, “The Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution for cause of Conscience, discussed.” It is considered the best written of all his works. These discussions were prepared in London,
for publike view, in charge of roomes and corners, yea, sometimes in variety of strange houses, sometimes in the fields, in the midst of travel, where he hath been forced to gather and scatter his loose thoughts and papers.
It is written in an animated style and has the adornment of beautiful imagery. Original copies are rare, eight only are known to exist, one in the British Museum, one in Bodleian Library, one in Brown University Library, one in Harvard College Library.
Mʳ Cottons
LETTER
Lately Printed,
EXAMINED
AND
ANSVVERED:
By Roger Williams of Providence
In
New·England.
LONDON,
Imprinted in the yeere 1644.
THE
BLOVDY TENENT,
of Persecution, for cause of
Conscience, discussed, in
A Conference betweene
TRVTH and PEACE.
Who,
In all tender Affection, present to the High
Court of Parliament, (as the Result of
their Discourse) these, (amongst other
Passages) of highest consideration.
Printed in the Year 1644.
This work is based on a Baptist publication, entitled “An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty, as it was presented 1620.” This latter was a clear and concise argument against persecution and for liberty of conscience. It was written by Murton, or some other London Baptist, who was imprisoned in Newgate for conscience sake. His confinement was so rigid that he was denied pen, paper, and ink. A friend in London sent him sheets of paper, as stoppers for the bottles containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts on these sheets with milk, returning them to his friends as stoppers for the empty bottles. They were held to the fire and thus became legible. Roger Williams based his book on the argument of this “Humble Supplication.”
In such Paper written with Milk nothing will appeare, but the way of reading it by fire being knowne to this friend who received the Papers, he transcribed and kept together the Papers, although the Author himselfe could not correct, nor view what himselfe had written.
It was in milke, tending to soule nourishment, even for Babes and Sucklings in Christ.
It was in milke, spiritually white, pure and innocent, like those white horses of the Word of truth and meeknesse, and the white Linnen or Armour of rightousnesse, in the Army of Jesus. Rev. 6. & 19.
It was in milke, soft, meeke, peaceable and gentle, tending both to the peace of soules, and the peace of States and Kingdomes.
The Answer writ in Bloud.
Peace. The Answer (though I hope out of milkie pure intentions) is returned in bloud: bloudy & slaughterous conclusions; bloudy to the souls of all men, forc’d to the Religion and Worship which every civil State or Common-weale agrees on, and compells all subjects to in a dissembled uniformitie.
Bloudy to the bodies, first of the holy witnesses of Christ Jesus, who testifie against such invented worships.
Secondly, of the Nations and Peoples slaughtering each other for their severall respective Religions and Consciences.
Roger Williams’ Reference to “An Humble Supplication” in His “Bloudy Tenent”
******
The little band which settled Providence on that June day, 1636, had grown into a large town. With other towns they suffered the same injustice from neighboring colonies. The assembly in Newport, September 19, 1642, which intrusted the work of securing a charter to Williams, was in reality fusing together these separate groups, which had a common enemy and common principles, into a State. The Town of Providence, a great monument to Roger Williams, must now give way to the State of Rhode Island, which was destined to become a still larger monument to the ideals of this great exponent of civil and religious liberty, “a liberty which does not permit license in civil matters in contempt of law and order.”