THE Apostacy of Roger Williams
This, of course, was mere heresy upon the face of it, and our forefathers proceeded to “deal” with Brother Williams in the true Puritanic style, when the misguided man bade them a hasty farewell and left on the first train for Rhode Island.
He brought up in a camp of Narragansett Indians, whom he found more liberal in their religious views.
The blind and bigoted Williams, with a few other renegades from the Puritan stronghold, established a colony at the head of Narragansett Bay, which they called Providence.
Other settlements soon sprang up, and the hardened sinner Williams went to England and obtained a charter which united all the settlements into one colony.
At the beginning of the Revolution Rhode Island had a population of 50,000 blinded bigots.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEW HAMPSHIRE—SLIM PICKING—AN EFFECTIVE INDIAN POLICY—JOHN SMITH AGAIN COMES OUT STRONG.
New Hampshire was a sickly child from the first, and of somewhat uncertain parentage. It was claimed by many proprietors, who were continually involved in lawsuits. Its soil was not very fertile, and yielded little else than Indians and lawyers. The former were the most virulent of which any of the colonies could boast, and the latter were of the young and “rising” sort.
