Before his crops were ripe for harvest, he received intimation from the governor of Plymouth, that he had “fallen into the edge of their bounds,” and as they were loath to offend the people of the Bay, he was requested to remove beyond their jurisdiction. With five companions he embarked in his canoe, descending the river, till arriving at a little cove on the opposite side, they were hailed by the Indians with the cry of “What cheer?”[46] Cheered with this friendly salutation they went ashore. Again embarking, and descending the stream, they reached a spot at the mouth of the Mohassuck river, where they landed, near to a spring—remaining to this day as an emblem of those vital blessings which flow to society from true liberty. That spot is “holy ground,” where sprung up the first civil polity in the world permitting freedom to the human soul in things of God. There Roger Williams founded the town of Providence. It was, and has ever been, the “refuge of distressed consciences.” Persecution has never sullied its annals. Freedom to worship God was the desire of its founder—for himself and for all, and he nobly endured till it was accomplished.
It has been generally held that the fourteen weeks above referred to were spent by Mr. Williams in traversing the wilderness, and in penetrating the vast forests which separated Salem from Seekonk by land. Some doubts have of late, however, been thrown upon this view.
It can scarcely be supposed that so long a time could have been occupied in the land journey from Salem to Seekonk. The distance is about fifty miles. Even if we allow a considerable addition to this, occasioned by the detour rendered necessary to avoid the settlements on the Bay, the time consumed cannot be accounted for. He himself has given us no details of this eventful journey. Only passing references to it occur in his various works. Yet these are of such a kind as to render it more probable that his journey was made by sea, coasting from place to place, holding intercourse with the native tribes, whose language he had previously acquired.[47] His route by sea would be not less than 200 miles, to accomplish which by his own unaided arm, together with the interviews he undoubtedly held with the aborigines, and the time necessarily allotted for repose, or spent in waiting for favourable weather, might well fill the fourteen weeks he tells us his journey lasted. His language supports this view, “Mr. Winthrop, he says, privately wrote me to steer my course to the Narraganset Bay. I took his prudent motion, and waiving all other thoughts and emotions I steered my course from Salem, though in winter snow, into these parts.” Again, “It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this bay;” which words would seem only applicable to a voyage by water. “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks.” This language is evidently such as would be most natural in referring to a passage by sea.[48] But there is one paragraph in the present volume which would seem to decide the question. It is found at page 386. “Had his soul [Cotton’s] been in my soul’s case, exposed to the miseries, poverties, necessities, wants, debts, hardships of sea and land, in a banished condition, he would, I presume, reach forth a more merciful cordial to the afflicted.” Here distinct reference is made to the sea as the scene of some of those hardships he endured. It is moreover known that travelling at that time was chiefly by water, that Williams was a skilful boatman, and that he possessed a boat of his own soon after his settlement at Providence. In the view of these particulars, we are constrained to the conclusion that Mr. Williams journeyed by sea, often landing to seek for food, and to hold intercourse with the natives as to his final settlement.[49]
On reaching Providence, the first object of Mr. Williams would be to obtain possession of some land. This he acquired from the Narragansett Indians, the owners of the soil surrounding the bay into which he had steered his course. By a deed dated the 24th March, 1638, certain lands and meadows were made over to him by the Indian chiefs which he had purchased of them two years before, that is, at the time of his settlement amongst them. He shortly after reconveyed these lands, to his companions. In a deed dated 1661, he says, “I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. I then considering the condition of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends [whom he names], who then desired to take shelter here with me.”[50] This worthy conception of his noble mind was realized, and he lived to see a settled community formed wherein liberty of conscience was a primary and fundamental law. Thirty-five years afterward he could say, “Here, all over this colony, a great number of weak and distressed souls, scattered, are flying hither from Old and New England, the Most High and Only Wise hath, in his infinite wisdom, provided this country and this corner as a shelter for the poor and persecuted, according to their several persuasions.”[51]
The year 1638 witnessed the settlement of Rhode Island, from which the state subsequently took its name, by some other parties, driven from Massachusetts by the persecution of the ruling clerical power. So great was the hatred or the envy felt towards the new colony, that Massachusetts framed a law prohibiting the inhabitants of Providence from coming within its bounds.[52] This was a cruel law, for thus trading was hindered with the English vessels frequenting Boston, from whence came the chief supplies of foreign goods. So great was the scarcity of paper from this cause among the Rhode Islanders, that “the first of their writings that are to be found, appear on small scraps of paper, wrote as thick, and crowded as close as possible.” “God knows,” says Williams, “that many thousand pounds cannot repay the very temporary losses I have sustained,” by being debarred from Boston.[53]
In March 1639, Mr. Williams became a baptist, together with several more of his companions in exile. As none in the colony had been baptized, a Mr. Holliman was selected to baptize Mr. Williams, who then baptized Mr. Holliman and ten others. Thus was founded the first baptist church in America.[54] On the 1st of the following July, Mr. Williams and his wife, with eight others, were excommunicated by the church at Salem, then under the pastoral care of the celebrated Hugh Peters. Thus was destroyed the last link which bound these exiles to the congregational churches of New England, where infant baptism and persecution abode, as in other churches, in sisterly embrace together.[55]
Mr. Williams appears to have remained pastor of the newly formed church but a few months. For, while retaining all his original sentiments upon the doctrines of God’s word, and the ordinances of the church, he conceived a true ministry must derive its authority from direct apostolic succession or endowment: that, therefore, without such a commission he had no authority to assume the office of pastor, or be a teacher in the house of God, or proclaim to the impenitent the saving mercies of redemption. It is, however, by no means clear that he regarded the latter as wrong, for we find him in after days desiring to print several discourses which he had delivered amongst the Indians.[56] He seems rather to have conceived that the church of Christ had so fallen into apostacy, as to have lost both its right form and the due administration of the ordinances, which could only be restored by some new apostolic, or specially commissioned messenger from above. Various passages in the present volume will be met with which favour this view:[57] the following is from his “Hireling Ministry:” “In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a diligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged, in city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches, in Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God, bring in the result of a satisfying discovery, that either the begetting ministry of the apostles or messengers to the nations, or the feeding and nourishing ministry of pastors and teachers, according to the first institution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored and extant.”[58] From this passage it would seem that his objections were rather owing to the imperfection of the church in its revived condition, than to the want of a right succession in the ministry. These imperfections could be removed by a new apostolic ministry alone. He therefore was opposed to “the office of any ministry, but such as the Lord Jesus appointeth.” Perhaps in the following assertion of Mr. Cotton we have the true expression of Mr. Williams’s views. He conceived “that the apostacy of anti-christ hath so far corrupted all, that there can be no recovery out of that apostacy till Christ shall send forth new apostles to plant churches anew.”[59]
The constantly increasing number of settlers in the new colony rendered a form of civil government necessary. A model was drawn up, of which the essential principles were democratic. The power was invested in the freemen, orderly assembled, or a major part of them. None were to be accounted delinquents for doctrine, “provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established.” And a few months later this was further confirmed by a special act, “that that law concerning liberty of conscience in point of doctrine, be perpetuated.” Thus liberty of conscience was the basis of the legislation of the colony of Rhode Island, and its annals have remained to this day unsullied by the blot of persecution.[60] But many were the examples of an opposite course occurring in the neighbouring colony of Boston. Not satisfied with having driven Williams and many more from their borders by their oppressive measures against conscience, the General Court laid claim to jurisdiction over the young and rapidly increasing settlements of the sons of liberty. This, concurring with other causes, led the inhabitants of Rhode Island and Providence to request Mr. Williams to take passage to England; and there, if possible, obtain a charter defining their rights, and giving them independent authority, freed from the intrusive interference of the Massachusetts Bay.
In the month of June 1643, Mr. Williams set sail from New York for England, for he was not permitted to enter the territories of Massachusetts, and to ship from the more convenient port of Boston, although his services in allaying Indian ferocity, and preventing by his influence the attacks of the native tribes upon their settlements, were of the highest value and of the most important kind.[61]
At the time of his arrival in England, the country was involved in the horrors of civil war. By an ordinance dated Nov. 3, 1643, the affairs of the colonies were intrusted to a board of commissioners, of which Lord Warwick was the head. Aided by the influence of his friend, Sir Henry Vane, Mr. Williams quickly obtained the charter he sought, dated March 14, 1644, giving to the “Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay,” full power to rule themselves, by any form of government they preferred.[62]