It has been seen that Parliament had resolved to indemnify the colonies for their expenses during the late war. Several payments for this purpose had already been made. But after the stamp act riots the balance though voted was withheld under the pretext that the sufferers by those riots should first be indemnified for their losses. As the Colony had exerted itself beyond its strength to bear its part in the war, this withholding of its just compensation was felt to be a great wrong. When the day for summing up her share in the common grievances came, Rhode Island did not forget this wrong.
Taxes continued to excite bitter complaints, and though called for to meet the daily wants of government, were not collected without great difficulty. In 1767 this dissatisfaction reached its height, unseating Governor Ward and working a complete political revolution. A new valuation of ratable property was made to serve as the basis of a just taxation, but was opposed as favoring trade at the expense of the landholders.
Among the laws demanded by the growing trade was an act fixing interest at six per cent., and making contracts for higher rates usury to be punished by the forfeiture of principal and interest. The true nature of money loans was not yet understood. Among the important civil acts of this period was the completion of an elaborate digest of the laws, two hundred copies of which were printed and distributed among the people.
We have seen that early attention was given to education, and schools opened in Newport, Portsmouth and Providence. In 1766 a grammar school was founded in Exeter upon a gift of five hundred acres of land made seventy years before by Samuel Sewall, of Boston, one of the original purchasers of Pettaquamscot. But more important still was the effort that was made about the same time for the establishment of free schools in Providence to be supported by taxation. Like all such movements it met with most opposition where such schools were most needed, among the poor. In part, however, it was successful, a brick school-house was built and the supervision of all the schools given to a committee of nine, composed in part of the town council.
The foundation of a university, chiefly in order to secure for Baptists the same educational advantages that were enjoyed by other denominations, also belongs to this period. Foremost among its founders was the Rev. Morgan Edwards, and among its benefactors John Brown, of Providence, in record of whose liberality it was removed from Warren, its first seat, to Providence, and its name changed from Rhode Island College to Brown University. Four denominations were represented in its corporation, but a large majority reserved to its founders, the Baptists. Religious tests were forbidden by charter, but the president was required to be a Baptist. Its property and all those connected officially with it were exempted from taxation.
To the ecclesiastical history of this period belongs the Warren Association of Baptist Churches. The pen also claims its part in the discussion of rights, and among the causes of the rupture we must count the “Farmer’s Letters,” among its instruments committees of correspondence.
Among the things effecting the material interests of the Colony was the discovery of a new bed of iron ore on the Pawtuxet River, in Cranston. In the preparations which were immediately made for working it, the rights of the fish, which had so often been the subject of legislation, were not forgotten.