WILLIAMS A WANDERER.

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Williams was again invited to Salem, in open defiance CHAP. of the authority of the General Court, the governing power of the colony. A committee of ministers held conferences 1635. and discussions with him, but without inducing him to retract. As the people of Salem sustained him, the Court admonished them, and pronounced the sentence of banishment against Williams. It was not the expression of opinions on the subject of conscience, or "soul-oppression,' as he termed it, that alarmed the Court, but the expression of opinions which, if carried into effect, would, they affirmed, destroy all human government.

In midwinter, Williams became a wanderer for conscience' sake. He went to the sons of the forest for that protection denied him by his Christian brethren. For fourteen weeks he wandered; sometimes he received the simple hospitality of the natives; sometimes his lodging-place was a hollow-tree. At last he was received into the cabin of Massasoit, at Mount Hope. He was the Indians' friend, and they loved him. He thought of settling at Seekonk, on Pawtucket river; that place being within the bounds of the Plymouth colony, Winslow, the governor, advised him to remove beyond their limits, lest it should create difficulty with the Bay colony. Williams received this advice. in the spirit in which it was given, and removed to the country of the Narragansets. With five companions in a canoe, he went round to the west side of the arm of the bay. Landing at a beautiful spot, he found a spring of pure water. He resolved there to make a settlement. In thankfulness he called the place PROVIDENCE. Tradition 1636. at this day points out the spring near which he built his cabin. Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansets, would not sell his land, but gave him a little domain "to enjoy forever."

Williams here put in practice his theory of government. The land was given to him, and he distributed it to his followers. It was purely a government of the people. All

XI.

CHAP. promised to obey the voice of the majority in temporal things in things spiritual, to obey only God.

1637.

Discussions were still rife in Massachusetts on all subjects. The men held meetings, in which they discussed matters pertaining to their liberties; edified each other with expositions of passages of Scripture, and criticized the weekly sermons of their ministers. As women were not allowed to speak in these meetings, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a woman of great eloquence and talent, thought the rights of her sex were not properly respected; she therefore held meetings for their benefit at her own house. At these meetings, theological opinions were advocated, at variance with those of the ministers and magistrates. The people became divided into two parties, and the affair soon took a political turn: on the one side were arrayed Winthrop and the older settlers, and with few exceptions, the ministers on the other, Governor Vane and the adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson. She and her party were accustomed to speak of themselves as "being under a covenant of grace," and of their opponents as "being under a covenant of works." These indefinite phrases irritated her opponents exceedingly. They proclaimed her a despiser of all spiritual authority; "like Roger Williams, or worse;" and darkly insinuated that she was a witch. The friends of Mrs. Hutchinson spoke of appealing to the king; this was downright treason in the eyes of their opponents,—their allegiance was given to the government of the colony, not to the king. A convention of ministers was held, they investigated her doctrines, and declared them unsound and injurious. At the ensuing election, Winthrop was chosen governor; and soon after Vane left for England. Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers were admonished, but without effect; she, with her brother-in-law John Wheelwright, 1638. and others, were exiled from the colony. How much wiser it would have been had the magistrates permitted her to

THE DUTCH AT HARTFORD.

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exercise her “gift of discussing," even if she did say they CHAP were "under a covenant of works!"

Roger Williams invited the exiles to settle in his vicin- 1638. ity. By his influence they obtained from Miantonomoh, the nephew and prospective successor of Canonicus, a beautiful island, which they named the Isle of Rhodes. Here this little company of not more than twenty persons, formed a settlement. William Coddington, who had been a magistrate in the Bay Colony, was elected judge or ruler. They, too, covenanted with each other to obey the laws made by the majority, and to respect the rights of conscience. Mrs. Hutchinson and her family remained here several years, and then removed farther west beyond New Haven, into the territory of the Dutch; there she and all her family who were with her, with the exception of one daughter, who was taken captive, were murdered by the Indians.

The Dutch from Manhattan explored the Connecticut river six years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. They erected a fortified trading-house near where Hartford now stands, but by ill-treating the Indians they excited their hostility, and lost a trade that might have been valuable.

Oct.

1643.

1614.

Unable to occupy the territory, and unwilling to lose its advantages, they invited the Pilgrims to leave the 1627. sterile soil of Plymouth and remove to the fertile vales of the Connecticut, and live under their protection. The invitation was not accepted; but as the Pilgrims were convinced that a change to more fertile lands was desirable, Governor Winslow went on an exploring tour to that region; having found the soil as fertile as had been repre- 1632. sented he promoted emigration.

The Council of Plymouth had given a grant of Connec- 1630. ticut to the Earl of Warwick, who the next year transferred his claim or patent to Lords Say and Brooke, John

XI.

1633. ocean.

CHAP. Hampden, and others. The eastern boundary of this grant was the Narraganset river, and the western the Pacific When the Dutch learned of this grant, they purchased of the Indians the tract of land in the vicinity of Hartford, on which stood their trading-house, and prepared to defend their rights; they erected a fort and mounted two cannons, to prevent the English from ascending the river. In the latter part of the year Captain William Holmes, who was sent by Governor Winslow, arrived in a sloop, with a company, and prepared to make a settlement. The Dutch commandant threatened him with destruction if he should attempt to pass his fort. The undaunted Holmes passed by uninjured, and put up a fortified house at Windsor. He was not permitted to enjoy his place in peace; the next year the Dutch made an effort to drive him away, but not succeeding they compromised the matter by relinquishing all claim to the valley. The parties agreed upon a dividing line, very nearly the same as that existing at this day between the States of New York and Connecticut. As the natural meadows on the Connecticut would furnish much more grass and hay for their cattle than the region nearer the sea-shore, many of the Pilgrims determined to remove thither.

1635.

The following autumn, a party of sixty persons, men, women, and children, undertook the desperate work of going through the woods and swamps from Plymouth to Connecticut. The journey was laborious and the suffering great. When they arrived at the river the ground was covered with snow, the precursor of an unusually severe Nov. winter. A sloop from Plymouth, laden with provisions and their household furniture, failed to reach them on account of storms and ice. Their cattle all perished; a little corn obtained from the Indians, and acorns, were their only food; they barely escaped starvation.

During this year three thousand persons came to Boston from England. Among these was the Reverend

JOURNEY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS.

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Thomas Hooker, who has been called "The Light of the CHAP. Western Churches." He was a man of great eloquence, and of humble piety; his talents, of a high order, com- 1635 manded universal respect, while his modesty won him ardent friends. When he was silenced for non-conformity in England, great numbers of the clergy of the Established Church petitioned that he might be restored. But in those days to be a Non-Conformist was an unpardonable offence.

A portion of his congregation had emigrated the year before. When he arrived at Boston with the remainder of his flock, the colony was in a ferment-the Williams controversy was going on; his people were wearied with the turmoil. John Haynes, who was a member of his congregation in England, and who had been Governor of Massachusetts, determined, with others, to remove to Connecticut. In the spring, a company, under the lead of Mar. Hooker and Haynes, set out from the vicinity of Boston 1636. for the pleasant valley. They numbered about one hundred persons, some of whom had been accustomed to the luxuries of life in England. With no guide but a compass they entered the untrodden wilderness; toiled on foot over hills and valleys; waded through swamps and forded streams. They subsisted principally on the milk of the kine that they drove before them, and which browsed on the tender leaves and grass. They moved but slowly. Their sick they carried on litters. The trustful spirit of piety and faith was present, and the silence of the forest was broken for the first time by Christian songs of praise. The man whose eloquence in his native land attracted crowds of the educated and refined, now, in the wilderness, comforted and cherished the humble exiles for religion's sake. The first of July brought an end to their laborious journey. The greater part of the company remained at Hartford; some went up the river and founded Springfield; some went down and joined those at Wethersfield.