If such outbreaks had occurred in other parts of New England, the offenders would have been punished—yes, even in the liberal colony planted by Roger Williams. For being annoyed, Massachusetts cannot be blamed. For resorting to the extreme measures she did in dealing with the followers of Fox, the Bay Colony had no excuse. It is one of the dark blots on her history.
The very year the Quakers appeared, a severe law was put into effect against them. It provided that all ship-masters bringing Quakers into the colony should be fined one hundred pounds and should give security to carry them back whence they came, that all persons of this belief should be committed to the House of Correction, first whipped and then kept hard at work until transported. In addition, a fine of five pounds was imposed for every Quaker book or writing found in the colony. The penalty for defending Quaker opinions was forty shillings for the first offence, four pounds for the second, and banishment for the third.
Calmly, unresistingly, the persecuted ones paid their fines, served their prison terms, allowed themselves to be banished, and—kept on doing the same things over and over again! Massachusetts did not realize in the least that she was using the very best means of encouraging the faith that she wished to stamp out. The Quakers wanted to be martyrs. They gloried in suffering and abuse. The more they were downtrodden, the more they increased and prospered.
Now we come to the part played by the little colony of Providence Plantations in the controversy. Roger Williams was still president when the severities of Massachusetts began. When banished from that colony, the Quakers had to seek a new home, of course. What more convenient or attractive refuge than that of Narragansett Bay, where liberty of worship was not considered a crime? So they flocked thither in increasing numbers.
Roger Williams’ great principle, upon which the colony was founded, was now put to a severe test, the most severe it had ever known. Hitherto, all pilgrims of whatever creed, or no creed at all, had been made heartily welcome. But would a like invitation be extended this strange, peculiar people, who were in disgrace everywhere else? The answer came boldly, courageously—yes.
The United Colonies decided it was their duty to show their liberal sister colony the error of her ways. The commissioners, therefore, informed her that as they considered they could not be too careful in preserving themselves from such a pest as “Quakers, ranters, and such notorious heretics,” they would ask that all persons of the despised sect be removed from the Colony of Providence Plantations and in the future be prohibited from entering it.
The reply to this command was exactly what might be expected. Roger Williams’ term of office had expired, but his spirit was still in the air. In two letters the brave little colony placed herself on record as to the stand she took in regard to the unpopular Quakers.
“As concerning these Quakers which are now among us,” the first letter went on, “we have no law among us whereby to punish for only declaring by words, etc., their minds and understandings concerning the things and ways of God, as to salvation and an eternal condition.”
One shrewd bit of advice was also given, which the other colony might well have heeded. Providence Plantations pointed out that if no attention was paid the Quakers, they would quickly cease to be troublesome.
“And we moreover find,” the writers explained, “that in those places where these people aforesaid in this colony are most of all suffered to declare themselves freely and are only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come, and we are informed that they begin to loathe this place, for that they are not opposed by the civil authority, but with all patience and meekness are suffered to say over their pretended revelations and admonitions, nor are they like or able to gain many here to their way; surely we find that they delight to be persecuted by civil powers, and when they are so, they are like to gain more adherents by the conceit of their patient sufferings than by consent to their pernicious sayings.”