A street of this name is still to be found on the map of Providence.
The same year that the fort was discussed, a consignment of powder and shot was received by the colony from John Clarke in England. It was placed in the hands of Roger Williams and distributed by him so that each town received one barrel of powder and two barrels of shot each. It was ordered by the General Assembly that money be raised to pay for it to the sum of “ten pound in good and well-sorted strung peage (wampum), after the rate of eight white per penny, and four black per penny, from each town.” Clarke’s assignment was inadequate enough for the needy colony, still it was something.
Happily, the worst of the threatened troubles did not materialize. As a result of Roger Williams’ second letter to Massachusetts, John Endicott, then governor, invited his old friend to Boston. Roger Williams accepted the invitation and his trip did much to lessen friction between the two colonies. A curious record shows that stormy little Warwick did her part to make the president’s mission a success. She voted forty shillings out of her treasury, provided a horse for the journey, and also a pair of “Indian breeches” for Roger Williams’ Indian.
The Dutch war cloud failed to burst. Peace was declared between the warring nations across the water before New Netherland and Providence Plantations came to blows.
The fear of the Indians, too, gradually lessened. The matter of fortifications was apparently dropped and neither during Roger Williams’ term of office nor for many years afterwards did the Narragansetts spoil their record by shedding the blood of their white neighbors. We like to think that the colony’s best safeguard at this time was its president—a better defence than firearms and forts, one that stood for justice and harmony.
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMING OF THE QUAKERS
In the year 1656, Boston was in a fever of excitement. Some Quakers had come to town.
The sect had first put in an appearance in England under the teachings of one George Fox, an earnest, conscientious preacher who, at the early age of nineteen, had felt called upon to give up everything for religion. How his disciples came to receive their curious name is not positively known. One theory is that they were so-called because they were given to excitable, nervous tremblings, but the Quakers themselves have claimed a different origin. According to them, at one time when Mr. Fox was arrested and sent to prison in England, he called upon those around him to tremble at the word of the Lord. Thereupon the magistrate who pronounced the sentence bestowed the term “Quakers” upon his followers. In any case, it was a nickname, a term of contempt in the seventeenth century, and did not then, as later, carry with it respect and honor.
But why should Massachusetts be alarmed at the coming of this people? Did she object to their habit of using “thee” and “thou” in ordinary speech? Did she consider that, by keeping their heads covered even in the presence of the authorities, they were lacking in proper respect? Or was it that their refusal to take up arms even in a just war was a dangerous doctrine? The Bay Colony doubtless disapproved of all these things. But there were other reasons—and stronger ones—why she frowned upon the newcomers.
First, the Quakers professed to be guided by an “inner light.” Whatever it directed them to do, or they thought it directed them to do, that they did, regardless of consequences. It was their sole authority, higher even than the commands of the Massachusetts magistrates and elders. The colony decided to put an end to such unheard-of thinking at once. They were all the more resolved to do this because of the peculiar actions of the Quakers. A few misguided ones, professing to be led by this same “inner light,” did the most extravagant things in their zeal to spread their faith. They used rude, harsh language, they went about half-naked, were disorderly in the streets, and in other ways tried to attract attention. One Quaker even created a disturbance in a meeting-house in Boston. Entering with two bottles in his hands, he crashed them before the assembled congregation, crying, “Thus will the Lord break you in pieces!” In these frenzied disciples of Fox there was almost no resemblance to the quiet, respectable, inoffensive Friends of to-day.