Clarendon was creating a precedent with which he might hereafter rebuke Massachusetts; and the King was already exercising that dispensing power, to which, as a royal prerogative, he and his successor meant by and by to give a wider extension for the relief of their Romish friends.1 No oath of allegiance was prescribed. All inhabitants of the Colony were to have unmolested passage, at their pleasure, through the territory of the other jurisdictions. Benedict Arnold was appointed the first Governor, and William Brereton the first Deputy-Governor, to continue in office till the time designated for the famy of Scott's character." (Ibid., I. chusetts, may have imagined Vane to xxxvi.) In the State-Paper Office is a memorandum of matters written down (according to a note in the margin) "from Major Scott's mouth." It is in the handwriting of Sir Joseph Williamson, afterwards Secretary of State, but, in the years here spoken of, Under-Secretary to Bennett. He was a bustling person, greedy for all sorts of information, and not careful about the sources whence he obtained it. There is no date to the paper; but, from the way in which the year 1662 is mentioned in it, I incline to think that it was not written so early as 1663; and, if this conclusion is correct, then it must have been written on a return of Scott to London after his troubles in Connecticut, for they took place early in 1664, he having come to America in the autumn of 1663. "Sir Henry Vane [such was the intelligence with which Scott enlightened Williamson] in 1637 went over as Governor to New England, with two women, Mrs. Dyer and Mrs. Hutchinson, wife to Hutchinson's brother, where he debauched both, and both were delivered of themselves. Removed [from] the King's commission, then banished. [I suppose that Scott, in his small acquaintance with Massa have been included in a royal commission of magistracy, and that he intended to represent to his believing hearer that William Hutchinson, husband of Ann, was brother of Colonel Hutchinson, the regicide,· the best-known person of those who bore the name.] "One Pike [Captain Robert Pike, of Salisbury], a hopeful man, and of great interest among them. "T. T. [Sir Thomas Temple] dwells idly at Boston, and is fooled by them. "Boston persuaded T. T. to raze his forts, 1662, (to spare charge, and so he did,) to free themselves from us, and to take off the check we might have over them. "The militia is under a Major-General, chosen annually by beans. "Leverett is their Major (and the people is the General). "Several of these towns [of Maine] have been hooked in by Massachusetts." "This his Majesty's grant," says Roger Williams, referring to this provision, "was startled at by his Majesty's high officers of state, who were to view it in course before the sealing but, fearing the lion's roaring, they crouched, against their wills, in obedience to his Majesty's pleasure." (Letter to Major Mason, in Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 281.) election, which was afterwards to be made annually in the Colony. Ten Assistants were also named, of whom Williams was one, but not Coddington.1 The charter was received with transports of joy. It was "taken forth and read by Captain George Baxter [who brought it] in the audience and view of all the people; with his Majesty's royal Reception of the charter at Rhode Island. ..... stamp and the broad seal with much becoming Nov. 24. gravity held up on high, and presented to the perfect view of the people." "Humble thanks" were voted to the King for his "high and inestimable, yea, incomparable grace and favor unto the Colony," and to Lord Clarendon "for his exceeding great care and love;" and gratuities were granted to Clarke and to Baxter of a hundred pounds and twenty-five pounds respectively. Provisional arrangements were made for carrying on the public business till another General Court; and the Narragansett Indians were informed that the King had placed them under the government now created.2 In the following spring definite orders were adopted for administering the Colony under March 1. the charter; and a Governor (Benedict Arnold3), Nov. 26. 1664. The charter of "The English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America," is in Hazard, I. 612 et seq.; R. I. Rec., II. 3 et seq. The population of the four towns of which it consisted is estimated by Judge Durfee (Discourse before the R. I. Hist. Soc., p. 16) to have been, at this time, "not more than three or four thousand souls." Trumbull understands Connecticut to have had, at the same time, "eight or nine thousand inhabitants." (History, I. 287.) The whole English population of New England was probably not far from forty thousand. R. I. Rec., I. 508-515.-Warwick did not like to pay its share of the assessment levied for Clarke's benefit, and, in a memorial to the General Assembly (December 12, 1664), made several objections. One thing objected was: "We know that Mr. Clarke did publicly exercise his ministry in the word of God in London, as his letters have made report, as that being a chief place for his profit and preferment, which we doubt not brought him in good means for his maintenance; as also he was much employed about modelizing of matters concerning the affairs of England, as his letters have declared." (Ibid., II. 79; comp. 142.) Arnold had been an Assistant, for Newport, in 1654 and 1655, and President in 1657, 1658, 1659, 1662, and 1663. (Ibid., I. 282, 303, 353, 386, 407, 467, 504.) a Deputy-Governor (William Brereton), with ten Assistants and eighteen Deputies, were elected. Roger May 4. Williams was chosen an Assistant, but Codding ton had not again emerged from the popular disfavor. Rhode Island-to give to the Colony the abbreviated name which old custom has made familiar-had by her charter reached a better capacity than ever before for settling some of her disputes. Using the privilege of choice, which had been accorded them by the compact between Clarke and Winthrop, the Atherton Company had determined to place their lands under the 1663. jurisdiction of Connecticut. That Colony had July 10. accepted the surrender of the territory, and, appointing a local magistracy at a little settlement of traders which had existed there for some years, had given to it the name of Wickford.1 Rhode Island ordered that 1664. persons coming into the Narragansett country March 1 to settle, build, or inhabit, without express leave first had and obtained from the General Assembly," should be "taken and imprisoned for such their contempt." Accordingly, four persons were arrested at Wickford, including Richard Smith, Jr., the constable appointed by Connecticut. Smith's father informed the Atherton partners of what had taken place, and they applied for ❝advice and direction" to Governor Winthrop, at the same time acquainting him that they had heard-but with incredulity -of his having disclaimed for his Colony a jurisdiction over the Company's lands.3 66 Disputes con The same questions arose respecting another plantation. Some Rhode-Island men had bought from a Narragansett chief a parcel of land, called by cerning lands the Indians Misquamicock, lying at the mouth of the Paucatuck River, on its eastern side. The purchasers applied to the General Court of Rhode 1 Conn. Rec., I. 407. 'Ibid., 42-49. on the Paucatuck River. 1660. Jan. 29. Island for its "favorable approbation, countenance, and assistance in the settling of a plantation or 1661. Sept. 13. Sept. 30. 1 Aug. 27. township." The Federal Commissioners were apprised of what was going on, and wrote to the Governor of Rhode Island that the "Pequot Country," within which the proposed settlement was included, was "the undoubted right of those English Colonies that conquered that bloody nation; and, some years since, that part of the country was assigned by the Commissioners of the United Colonies to the government of the Massachusetts, for their share and interest in that conquest, and by them disposed of in townships and farms."2 Endicott received an affidavit from William Chesebrough, that "about thirty-six inhabitants of Rhode Island were come into the bounds of Southertown, to lay claim unto the lands on the east side of Paucatuck," and that he had protested against the trespass. Endicott issued his warrant for the apprehension of such persons, and three were arrested and brought to Boston, where two of them were sentenced to pay a fine of forty pounds, and to give bonds, to the amount of a hundred pounds, to keep the peace. The authorities of Massachusetts wrote "once and again" to Rhode Island, demanding a prohibition of such disorderly inroads. For a time they had no answer. At length, by a threat that, unless within seven weeks their town on the Paucatuck was vacated by the strangers, they "should account it their duty to secure all such persons," they succeeded in breaking the silence. The Rhode-Islanders replied, Oct. 25. Nov. 14. Dec. 3. 1662. March 8. May 10. 1 R. I. Rec., I. 449. which occur to the grant to Massachu * Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 448; setts of the Narragansett country in comp. above, p. 383. 8 R. I. Rec., I. 455-463.—In the correspondence which took place on this occasion is one of the few allusions 1643: "Besides what we formerly wrote, we [the Massachusetts government] have a charter and patent from the Lord of Warwick and divers May 22. that their patent included all lands east of the Paucatuck, and even beyond that river, and that the recent planters had proceeded with their approbation. They excused their delay in answering the earlier letters on the ground of their having arrived "in the interval of Courts;" they complained of the precipitancy of Massachusetts in issuing her warrant; and they proposed to her "to expect the future pleas ure of his Majesty in these affairs, not persisting any further to grieve them by force used against them, without express order from his Majesty."1 Sept. 12 Oct. 27. On the reception of the charter of Connecticut, the Federal Commissioners wrote to Rhode Island that by that instrument the King's pleasure was declared, and that "the lands of Paucatuck and Narra gansett were contained" within the former Colony.2 When the Commissioners had separated, the General Court of Rhode Island addressed to the government of Massachusetts a reply to this communication. They said that the charter referred to had been "procured by an underhand dealing, and that the power that granted it did so resent it, and was resolved to do that which was right therein;" and they asked for the liberation and remuneration of the persons who had been taken at Southertown, and who still lay in prison for the non-payment of their fines. Just before the royal charter to Rhode Island reached America, some progress seemed to have been made towards an adjustment of this dispute. Massa- Oct. 21. chusetts proposed to refer the decision of it other Lords and Commons, empowered thereunto by Parliament, of all that tract of land from Pequot River to Plymouth line," &c. (R. I. Rec., I. 461; see above, p. 123.) No less a person than Governor Arnold, of Rhode Island, was among the 1663. to the |