A series of Rhode Island Historical Tracts, beginning in 1878, has been issued by Sidney S. Rider, of Providence, each being a monograph on some subject of Rhode Island history. No. 4, on William Coddington in Rhode Island Colonial Affairs, is an unfavorable criticism on the conduct of Coddington in the episode known as “the Usurpation,” by Dr. Henry E. Turner.[688] No. 15, issued in 1882, is a tract of 267 pages, on The Planting and Growth of Providence, by Henry C. Dorr. It is a valuable monograph, and would have been more valuable if authorities had been more freely cited.
One valuable source of the history of Rhode Island is the Records of the colony, and these have been made available for use by publication, under the efficient editorship of the Hon. John Russell Bartlett, for a number of years Secretary of State. To make up for the meagreness of the records in some places, the editor has introduced from exterior sources many official papers, which make good the deficiencies and abundantly illustrate the history of the times. The first volume was issued in 1856, and begins with the “Records of the Settlements at Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick, from their commencement to their union under the Colony Charter, 1636 to 1647.”
The early history of Providence is so intimately interwoven with the life of its founder, that some of the excellent memoirs of Roger Williams may be read with profit as historical works. A Memoir of Williams, by Professor James D. Knowles, was published in 1834, and is a minute and conscientious biography of the man; but it is written with a strong bias in favor of Williams where he comes in collision with the authorities of Massachusetts.
A very pleasant memoir of Williams, by Professor William Gammell, based on that of Knowles, was published in 1845, in Sparks’s American Biography, reissued the next year in a volume by itself. This memoir was followed in 1852 by A Life of Roger Williams, by Professor Romeo Elton, published in England, where the author then lived, and in Providence the next year. This is largely based on Knowles’s memoir, but contains some new matter, notably the Sadlier Correspondence.
The original authorities for Williams’s career in Massachusetts and Plymouth are Winthrop and Bradford and the controversial tracts of Cotton and Williams, from which bits of history may be culled. For a full presentation and discussion of the facts and principles involved in Williams’s banishment from Massachusetts, and his alleged offence to the authorities there, see the late Professor Diman’s Editorial Preface to Cotton’s Reply to Williams, in the second volume of the Narragansett Club, above cited; Dr. George E. Ellis’s Lecture on “The Treatment of Intruders and Dissentients by the Founders of Massachusetts,” in Lowell Lectures, Boston, Jan. 12, 1869; Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter’s As to Roger Williams, etc., Boston, 1876;[689] Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., for February, 1873, pp. 341-358; North American Review for January, 1858, art. xiii. p. 673.
In Dr. John Clarke’s Ill News from New England, London, 1653,[690] being a personal narrative of the treatment, the year before, by the authorities of the Bay Colony, of Obadiah Holmes, John Crandall, and John Clarke, and an account of the laws and ecclesiastical polity of that colony, is a brief account of the settlement of Providence and of the island of Rhode Island.
An important episode in the early history of Rhode Island was the career of Samuel Gorton, who settled the town of Warwick. I have already mentioned, under the head of Massachusetts, the original books in which the story for and against him is told,—Simplicitie’s Defence, written by Gorton, and Hypocracie Unmasked, by Edward Winslow. The former was republished in the R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii., in 1835, edited by W. R. Staples, with a preface, notes, and appendix of original papers. Winslow’s book, now very rare, has never been reprinted. A “Life of Samuel Gorton,” by John M. Mackie, was published in 1845 in Sparks’s American Biography. After Nathaniel Morton published his New England’s Memorial, in 1669, containing some reflections on Gorton, the latter wrote a letter to Morton, dated “Warwick, June 30, 1669,” in his own defence. Hutchinson had the letter, and printed an abridgment of it in the Appendix to his first volume. Some forty years ago or less, the original letter came into the possession of the late Edward A. Crowninshield, of Boston, and he allowed Peter Force to print it, and it appears entire in vol. iv. of Force’s Historical Tracts, 1846.
The early settlers of Rhode Island had no patent-claim to lands on which they planted. The consent of the natives only was obtained. Williams’s deed, so called, from the Indians, may be seen in vols. iv. and v. R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll.; and that to Coddington and his friends, of Aquedneck, is also in the Appendix to vol. iv. The parchment charter which Williams obtained from the Parliamentary Commissioners, dated March 14, 1643, is lost, but it had been copied several times, and is printed in vols. ii., iii., and iv., R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll. Some copies are dated erroneously March 17. See Arnold’s Rhode Island, i. 114, note.
For a discussion of the “Narragansett Patent,” so called, issued to Massachusetts, dated Dec. 10, 1643, see Arnold, i. 118-120; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. for February, 1862, pp. 401-406; and June, 1862; pp. 41-77.[691]
The original charter of Charles II., dated July 8, 1663, is extant. It was first printed as prefixed to the earliest digest of laws (Boston, 1719), and has been often reprinted.