Mr. Williams and Mr. Clarke, on their arrival in England, presented a petition to the Council of State, who, on April 8, 1652, referred it to the committee for foreign affairs. The application met with opposition, from various sources; but the Council of State granted an order to vacate Mr. Coddington’s commission, and to confirm the former charter.
While in England, in 1652, Mr. Clarke published a book, entitled “III News from New-England, or a Narrative of New-England’s Persecutions; wherein it is declared, that while Old England is becoming New, New-England is becoming Old; also, Four Proposals to Parliament, and Four Conclusions, touching the Faith and Order of the Gospel of Christ, out of his Last Will and Testament.”
Mr. Williams also published, in 1652, his rejoinder to Mr. Cotton, entitled “The Bloody Tenet yet More Bloody, by Mr. Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash it White;” and two essays, the one entitled “The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s, or a Discourse on the Propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ;” and the other, “Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health, and their Preservatives.”
The following letter was written to Mr. Gregory Dexter, who had printed Mr. Williams’ “Key,” during his first visit to England, but who had subsequently removed to Providence.
“At Mr. Davis his house, at the Checker, in St. Martin’s, or at Sir Henry Vane’s, at Whitehall.
“8th, 7, 52, (so called.)
“My dear and faithful friend, to whom, with the dearest, I humbly wish more and more of the light and love of him who is invisible, God blessed for evermore in the face of Jesus Christ. It hath pleased God so to engage me in divers skirmishes against the priests, both of Old and New-England, so that I have occasioned using the help of printer men, unknown to me, to long for my old friend. So it hath pleased God to hold open an open desire of preaching and printing wonderfully against Romish and English will-worship. At this present, the devil rageth and clamors in petitions and remonstrances from the stationers and others to the Parliament, and all cry, ‘shut up the press.’ The stationers and others have put forth ‘The Beacon Fired,’ and ‘The Second Beacon Fired;’ and some friends of yours have put forth ‘The Beacon Quenched,’ not yet extant.
“Sir, many friends have frequently, with much love, inquired after you. Mr. Warner is not yet come with my letters: they put into Barnstable. She came by wagon by land, but he goes with the ship to Bristol, and, indeed, in this dangerous war with the Dutch, the only safe trading is to Bristol, or those parts, for up along the channel, in London way, is the greatest danger, for although our fleets be abroad, and take many French and Dutch, yet they sometimes catch up some of ours.
“By my public letters, you will see how we wrestle, and how we are like yet to wrestle, in the hopes of an end. Praised be the Lord, we are preserved, the nation is preserved, the Parliament sits, God’s people are secure, too secure. A great opinion is, that the kingdom of Christ is risen, and (Rev. 11:) ‘the kingdoms of the earth are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.’ Others have fear of the slaughter of the witnesses yet approaching. Divers friends, of all sorts, here, long to see you, and wonder you come not over. For myself, I had hopes to have got away by this ship, but I see now the mind of the Lord to hold me here one year longer. It is God’s mercy, his very great mercy, that we have obtained this interim encouragement from the Council of State, that you may cheerfully go on in the name of a colony, until the controversy is determined. The determination of it, Sir, I fear, will be a work of time, I fear longer than we have yet been here, for our adversaries threaten to make a last appeal to the Parliament, in case we get the day before the Council.
“Sir, in this regard, and when my public business is over, I am resolved to begin my old law-suit, so that I have no thought of return until spring come twelve months. My duty and affection hath compelled me to acquaint my poor companion with it. I consider our many children, the danger of the seas, and enemies, and therefore I write not positively for her, only I acquaint her with our affairs. I tell her, joyful I should be of her being here with me, until our state affairs were ended, and I freely leave her to wait upon the Lord for direction, and according as she finds her spirit free and cheerful, to come or stay. If it please the Lord to give her a free spirit to cast herself upon the Lord, I doubt not of your love and faithful care, in any thing she hath occasion to use your help, concerning our children and affairs, during our absence; but I conclude, whom have I in heaven or earth but thee, and so humbly and thankfully say, in the Lord’s pleasure, as only and infinitely best and sweetest.