1657), a court was instituted for the determination of controversies between Englishmen and Indians. It was of higher dignity than that which sufficed for differences between the Planters. Two or three freeholders, appointed by the Town Meeting, sufficed for the latter, while an Indian brawl over a fathom of wampumpeage, or a half gallon of rum, could only be adjudicated by a commission consisting of "the Town magistrates, and the General officers," i. e., the "assistants." The Indians were numerous enough, twenty years after the first planting of Mooshassuc, to obstruct all improvements in the northern and western woodlands.1

During all these dreary years, and in view of this ever present danger, the colony adopted such measures as it might, for the public security. For a considerable period this was thought to be assured by the firmness and goodwill of Canonicus, and by the moral ascendancy of Williams. But at an early day, the increasing debasement of the Narragansetts, through the unchecked trade in liquors required some provision against domestic violence. Throughout New England, a dread of the French and of their Indian allies led to military organization. In the seventeenth century, the English yeomanry were more familiar with arms than they have been, during more than a century and a half, under the restraint of the game-laws. The frequent enactments concerning arms and trainings give evidence of a people not wanting in hardihood and skill, and in the jealousies incident to the military profession. The townsmen of Providence readily seconded the efforts of the colony for the public safety. Their purposes were wholly defensive, for their resources admitted no other.3

(1) See Providence Records, 1657.

"Ordered that Arthur ffenner, Roger Mowice, Valentine Whitman and John Sayles be empowered to treat with the Indians that lay claim to the meadows of Lohusqussuck, and clear it for the Towne and that the above mentioned be accommodated therein."

(2) These may be read at large in R. I. Records, I and II; it is only necessary to refer to them here.

(3) June 4, 1655. At a Town Meeting "Roger Williams, Moderator"

In this unsafe condition, the colony went on during thirty years, from the death of Canonicus, to that of Philip of Mount Hope. A whole generation had done nothing to improve the moral condition of the Narragansetts. Good neighbourhood and peace had been preserved by the kindliness and vigour of a few leading Englishmen. Williams saw, and confessed his failure. Legislation was not more successful. It increased in severity with the increase of property. This was nowhere safe, and a constant irritation was maintained, by the insolence of Indian marauders. The colonial act of 1659 recites the damage by Indians, stealing and pilfering, and their injuries to cattle, fences, fruit-trees and "corne houses." It imposes severe penalties no less, in some cases, than the sale of the offender into slavery in another colony.' It may be doubted whether this severe statute were ever enforced. It would have endangered an immediate rupture with the Narragansetts. In May 1659, a former law prohibiting the sale of liquors to any Indian was re-enacted and made more severe. This is one of the provisions:

* *

"It is also ordered, that it shall be lawful for any person in case they spie an Indian convayinge or havinge of liquors to seize of it for their owne proper use. It is further declared that Indian witness may not pass in the premises.

But such penalties as whipping-in those days conscientiously administered,-were powerless to restrain the lawless acts of those who had only barbarian notions of property. The sense of insecurity by which the citizens were led to acquiesce in their military expenses, (the heaviest of all), had its influence upon colonial politics. It was necessary to resort to a measure

"Ordered that the former way of training be still kept, on four times in the year, and the penalty for absence shall be two shillings, or nothing, as the General and Town officers, or chief commander in the band shall think meet."

(1)R. I. Col. Records, I. 412-13.

(2) Ibid. I. 414. Compare this with Williams's description of Warwick, p. 198, ante., where the Indians had "store of liquors."

hitherto foreign to the policy of Rhode Island-an increase in the power and efficiency of the executive government.

The representative man of the new policy was not far to seek. Benedict Arnold, (born in England, Dec. 24, 1615), had been brought to Massachusetts, by his father, William Arnold, and accompanied him to Rhode Island. He was one of the first townsmen of Providence, and signed the agreement of 1636. He was early associated with Williams in his dealings with Canonicus and Miantonomo, and when but twenty-three years old, was a witness to Miantonomo's confirmation of the sale of Mooshassuc. His intercourse with Williams may have facilitated his acquisition of the Narragansett tongue, or may have first awakened his interest, for they two, of all the settlers, attained any proficiency in it. Their early association may have given to Arnold some means of improvement and some enlargement to his thoughts. He had the same opportunity for studying the character and habits of the Narragansetts, and he profited by it to the end of his days. He was a partaker with his father, William Arnold, in the purchase of the Pawtuxet lands, and in the discreditable attempt, (by secession, and annexation to Massachusetts), to destroy the colony which had befriended them both."

In the rough school of experience, he formed one of those vigorous characters which are native to a new soil, and it seems, had no great scruple in profiting by any opportunity which

(1)R. I. Col. Records, I. 18, A. D. 1639. Benedict Arnold does not appear to have been associated with his father, William Arnold, in the religious society founded by Williams.

(2) B. Arnold joined with William Arnold in offering the Pawtuxet lands to Massachusetts, and inviting its protection. R. I. Col. Records, I. 218, 219. In 1649, letters were sent by the General Court of R. I. to B. Arnold, touching his submission to Massachusetts-the alarm was general. In 1643, he gave notice to Massachusetts of the proceedings of the Warwick men to secure themselves against annexation, (Savage's "Winthrop," II. 120-12-3.) and negotiated the submission of Pomham and Socononoko. In 1658, he was one of the purchasers of the Pettiquamscut tract, in the King's Province. In 1670, he was appointed to go to England, as agent, to defend the colony against the aggressions of Connecticut.

offered. Williams intimates that William Arnold had no real sympathy with the doctrines of Massachusetts. It appears, by the testimony of his neighbour Gorton, that Benedict Arnold was as broad in his views of Sunday-keeping, as were most of the early Rhode Islanders. During the week, he looked after his fields; on Sunday he was at his trading house. This was the great market-day at Pawtuxet and Warwick. The Indians swarmed in from the surrounding country, with skins of beaver and otter, and found Arnold ready to deal in hardware, gunflints and other articles of Indian barter. He gave them his counsels together with his goods, and by "speaking his mind" freely, came to be regarded by them, as a great Sachem among the English, long before he was Governor. It is not necessary to believe that the day always ended with the sobriety which is esteemed befitting to it, but certainly there was no loss when the accounts of the establishment were balanced. All this his Puritan neighbours found it covenient to forget, when they were pressed in their diplomacy, with something more important than usual. They then sent to Rhode Island for Benedict Arnold, overlooking for the time, the fact, that his course of life would have subjected him to imprisonment, or at least to banishment, among themselves. In 1645, he bore a message from the United Colonies to the Narragansetts. He doubtless rendered valuable service in enforcing order among the lawless spirits, both English and Indian, who congregated in Warwick and Pawtuxet. The disfavour which must have rewarded those who had so long disquieted the colony by their attempt to destroy it, probably rendered his prospects uncertain. In 1653, he removed to Newport. The dislike prevailing among the islanders towards the settlers at Moosshassuc, made them ready to overlook Arnold's proceedings for their disturbance, and he speedily regained the popularity which he had lost by secession. In 1654, he was elected an assistant

(1) See Gorton's "Simplicities defence;" aslo Winslow's "Hypocrisie unmasked," p. 52.

of the colony, from Newport. The island then contained the great majority of the population-in 1655, two thirds of the whole. Providence was so divided by its controversies, that it counted for little in a colonial election. Affairs at Warwick, as former quotations prove, grew much worse after his departure, and Arnold was welcomed as an efficient member of the colonial administration. He presided as moderator at many legislative sessions, and after his accession to its council, a new and unwonted vigour appears in Indian affairs. He was still engaged in trade with the Narragansetts. After the failure of the Dutch attempt, Arnold, in conjunction with Coddington purchased Dutch Island of the Sachems, a proceeding which received the emphatic disapproval of the colonial commissioners in Nov., 1658.' Such was the value of his services that his fellow-citizens overlooked irregularities. In 1657 he was chosen President of the colony under the first charter, and held the office during five years. With all its discouragements, by external hostility and its own dissensions, the colony had gained something in wealth and force, and it now adopted something of the bolder policy of its neighbours. When the new charter was brought over, and the government was at last set upon a permanent and stable foundation, with boundaries secure from farther invasion, it may perhaps be thought that the first to receive its honours would be one of those who had borne the chief of its burdens and sacrifices. Not so thought the men of those days. The first governor under the new régime was not Williams, nor the representative of any school of opinion which had divided the colony,-but Benedict Arnold, the old interpreter and trader, who, next to Williams, was best able to deal with the Narragansetts." During seven years, before the war,

(1) R. I. Col. Records, I. 403.

2

(2) In 1657-58, 1658-59, 1659-60, 1662-63.

(3)The list of officers named in the charter of Charles II, was probably made up in a legislative caucus, and forwarded to Clarke, in London, to be inserted in the charter. The names were all unknown to the men in power in England.