The disorders of the mother country were a safeguard of the infant liberty of New England. Laud was busy with his more important plan of prelatizing the Church of Scotland. England was in a rage on the question of ship-money. An unsuccessful attempt to launch a vessel intended to bring over the General Governor, and the decease at this juncture of John Mason, were regarded by Winthrop as eminent interpositions of God in behalf of his chosen people.1 The death of the able and energetic Mason was, at all events, a great relief to the leaders of affairs in Massachusetts. As a principal member, and Secretary, of the Council for New England, and as holder of a patent with which the Massachusetts charter interfered, he had been indefatigable in his endeavors for the annulling of that instrument. Disaffected persons, returning from the Colony, had steadily resorted to him as the standing agent of their revenge; and, with whatever influence he could exert, he had promoted the schemes of a Commission for the Plantations and of a

2

General Governor. Though the more generous Gorges lived to render good service to his master in the great civil war, he was already growing old, and was dispirited by the thirty years' ill-success of projects which had wasted his fortune and involved him in infinite discom

1 Winthrop, I. 187. "One Ferdinando Gorges was nominated for Governor, and there was a consultation had to send him thither with a thousand soldiers; a ship was now in building and near finished to transport him by sea, and much fear there was amongst the godly lest that infant commonwealth and church should have been ruined by him; when God, that had carried so many weak and crazy ships thither, so provided it, that this strong, new-built ship in the very launching fell all in pieces, no man knew how, this spring ensuing, and so preserved his dear children there at this present from that

fatal danger, nor hath since suffered them as yet to come under the like fear." (Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Bart., II. 118.)

2 In Bell's "Memorials of the Civil War" (I. 299) is an interesting letter of thanks from Gorges to Lord Fairfax, dated June 1, 1646. This was after he had met with "untimely sufferances," being taken prisoner, when in arms for the king. He represents himself as having been "fearful to side with either party, as not able to judge of so transcendent a difference."

fort. It was perhaps owing not a little to the decay of his former activity, that the proceedings under the quo warranto against the Massachusetts Company proved fruitless.

While the events which have been now related wore their most alarming phase, domestic embarrassments added to the terrors of foreign encroachment. In the midst of a crisis calling for all the energy and wisdom of the colonists to avert the ruin that seemed to impend, a character prominent in New England history interposed by a course of action which complicated the existing difficulties. Roger Williams,1 after some residence at the University

"This Roger Williams, when he was a youth, would in a short hand take sermons, and speeches in the Star Chamber, and present them to my dear father. He, seeing him so hopeful a youth, took such a liking to him that he sent him to Sutton's Hospital, and he was the second that was placed there. Full little did he think that he would have proved such a rebel to God, the king, and his country. I leave his letters, that, if ever he has the face to return unto his native country, Tyburn may give him welcome." In Williams's first letter, he says: "The never-dying honor and respect which I owe to that dear and honorable root and his branchhave emboldened me once more to inquire," &c. "That man of honor and wisdom and piety, your dear

es . . . .

father, was often pleased to call me his son; and truly it was as bitter as death to me, when Bishop Laud pursued me out of this land, and my conscience was persuaded against the national Church and ceremonies and bishops beyond the conscience of your dear father, —I say it was as bitter as death to me, when I rode Windsor way to take ship at Bristowe, and saw Stoke House, where that blessed man was, and durst not acquaint him with my conscience and my flight."

Professor Elton's researches in England have ascertained that Williams was a native of the county of Caermarthen, in South Wales, and that he was entered as a pupil at Sutton's Hospital (the Charter House), June 25, 1621, and at Jesus College, Oxford, April 30, 1624, being then, according to the record, eighteen years old. (Elton, Life of Roger Williams, 9, 10.) He had been understood by our historians to be seven years older. In 1673, he wrote, "From my childhood, now above threescore years." ("George Fox digged out of his Burrowes," Pref.) In a letter written in 1679, he described himself as " near to fourscore years of age." (Backus, History of New England, I. 421.) But this is not inappropriate language for a man of seventy-three.

Roger

1631.

1

of Oxford, perhaps under the patronage of Sir Edward Coke, is believed to have been admitted to orders in the Established Church. He had subsequently sepaWilliams. rated himself from that communion, and, sympathizing with the hopes of other non-conformists, had arrived at Boston the next year after the transporFeb. 5. tation of the charter, being then probably in the twenty-fifth year of his age. A reputation for talents and piety had preceded him; and a few weeks only passed before the church at Salem invited him to succeed Higginson as their teacher. He had made the most of his short time in becoming obnoxious to the government; and "a letter was written from the Court to Mr. Endicott to this effect, that, whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with the congregation at Boston because they would not make public declaration of their repentance for having communion with the churches of England while they lived there, and besides had declared his opinion that the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence as it was a breach of the first table, therefore they marvelled they would choose him without advising with the Council, and withal desiring them that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about it." 2

April 12.

It would be hard to denounce these objections as un

1 A curious letter of Roger Williams to John Cotton, of Plymouth, dated “Providence, 25 March, 1671 (so called),” has just come to light among the papers of the late Dr. Belknap, and is now in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, by whose kind permission I use it. In it Williams says, "In New [England] being unanimously chosen teacher at Boston (before your dear father came divers years), I conscientiously refused and withdrew to Plymouth, because I durst not officiate to an unseparated people, as upon examination and conference I found

them to be." It is hard to suppose that, when Williams made this statement, (forty years after the transaction, and when he was sixty-five years old,) his memory was misled by his imagination. But, on the opposite supposition, it is very extraordinary that the fact is not mentioned in any record of the time. The records of the Boston church cannot be appealed to in the case. The only entry they contain previous to October, 1632, is that of the covenant of church-members.

2 Winthrop, I. 53.

reasonable, judging them even by the standard of the sentiments and practice of the present day. To assume at once an attitude of opposition to the churches which with so much pains had been followed to a distant country, argued an eccentricity unpromising of usefulness in the pastoral office, as well as of the exertion of a harmonizing influence in the new society. To refuse communion with all but such as would make proclamation of their repentance for having formerly partaken the elements with communicants of the Church of England, was to occasion offence at once superfluous, and dangerous in powerful quarters at home. The "first table" of the Decalogue, consisting of the first four precepts, was understood to forbid four offences, idolatry, perjury, blasphemy, and Sabbath-breaking. Of these the last two stand as penal offences on the statute-book of Massachusetts at the present day; the second, there is no government that does not punish; while, in the judgment of the age and the place now treated of, a denial of the right to suppress idolatry was a denial of the right to provide securities against an irruption of Romanism. It should not excite surprise that the magistrates thought it would be hazardous to good government and the public peace to have their authority in matters of such moment denounced, by a hot-headed young man', from the first pulpit of the Colony.

The Salem church, however, proceeded, and Williams had already become their teacher when the remonstrance reached them. Precisely how long he remained in that place is unknown; but some time in the same, or perhaps in the following year, he withdrew to the more benignant atmosphere of Plymouth Colony, and became assistant to the pastor of the church there, the separatist, Mr. Smith. The affection of his Salem flock still followed him, and he was persuaded to retrace his steps, and resume a home among them. The mild Brewster, loving his virtues, but weary of his restless and disputatious

1633.

1

spirit, was anxious to be rid of him. He returned to Salem with more confidence in himself from the position which he had occupied while absent, and the popular favor which invited him back.

At Salem, Williams was not immediately called to clerical office, but exercised his gifts by way of "prophecy," as it was called, for about a year. His first outbreak after his return was against the practice, then beginning, and continued to the present day, of associations, November. as they are called, of neighboring clergymen meeting at fixed intervals, and passing part of a day together in theological discussion and neighborly and fraternal intercourse. Against this practice Williams inveighed, as being what "might grow in time to a presbytery or superintendency, to the prejudice of the Church's liberties." 2 But this complaint did no public harm, and nobody seems to have troubled himself about it.

While at Plymouth, he had presented to the Governor and Assistants of that Colony a treatise, in which, according to Winthrop's account, " among other things, he disputed their right to the land they possessed here, and concluded, that, claiming by the king's grant, they could have no title; nor otherwise, except they compounded with the natives." At the request of the magistrates of Massachusetts, it was subjected to their examination, and was found to contain matter for serious uneasiness, both as tending to bring into question the titles to estates, and to occasion high displeasure at the English court, the more as it was accompanied with language of studied affront to the late and to the reigning king. Being

Dec. 27.

1 Morton, Memorial, 151. — Bradford (310), after the experience of a year or two, describes him as "a man godly and zealous, having many precious parts, but very unsettled in judgment." When he was dismissed from Plymouth

to go back to the Salem church, Brad

ford says (ibid.) that it was "with some caution to them concerning him, and what care they ought to have of him.” Winthrop's interview with him at Plymouth has been mentioned above (p. 335).

2 Winthrop, I. 117.