“Dear and worthy Sir,
“Best salutations to you both and loving sister premised, wishing you eternal peace in the only Prince of it. I have longed to hear from you and to send to you since this storm arose. The report was (as most commonly all Indian reports are) absolutely false, of my removing my goods, or the least rag, &c. A fortnight since, I heard of the Mohawks coming to Pawcatuck, their rendezvous; that they were provoked by Uncas’ wronging and robbing some Pawcatuck Indians the last year, and that he had dared the Mohawks, threatening, if they came, to set his ground with gobbets of their flesh; that our neighbors had given them play, (as they do every year;) yet withal I heard they were divided; some resolved to proceed, others pleaded their hunting season. We have here one Waupinhommin, a proud, desperate abuser of us, and a firebrand to stir up the natives against us, who makes it all his trade to run between the Mohawks and these, and (being a captain also himself) renders the Mohawks more terrible and powerful than the English. Between him and the chief sachems hath been great consultations, and to my knowledge, he hath persuaded them to desert their country and become one rebellious body or rout with the Mohawks, and so to defy the English, &c. I have sent also what I can inform to the commissioners. At present, (through mercy) we are in peace.
“Sir, I desire to be ever
“Yours in Christ Jesus,
“ROGER WILLIAMS.
“The letter I have sent by Warwick, twenty miles nearer than by Seekonk.
“For his much honored, kind friend, Mr. John Winthrop, at his house, in Nameag, these.”
“Loving friends and neighbors,
“Divers of yourselves have so cried out, of the contentions of your late meetings, that (studying my quietness) I thought fit to present you with these few lines. Two words I pray you to consider. First, as to this plantation of Providence: then as to some new plantation, if it shall please the same God of mercies who provided this, to provide another in mercy for us. 1. As to this town, although I have been called out, of late, to declare my understanding as to the bounds of Providence and Pawtuxet; and, although divers have lands and meadows in possession beyond these bounds, yet I hope that none of you think me so senseless as to put on any barbarian to molest an Englishman, or to demand a farthing of any of you.