all the English was, as that war had proved, the wisest precaution and the surest defence. These later settlements, made meanwhile on Narragansett Bay, were not less sensible of the common danger, nor doubtful as to how it could best be met.

Proposition for an alliance of the colonies against the Indians.

Upon this subject Governor Coddington wrote in 1640, by order of the General Court, to the Governor of Massachusetts. The character of the letter we only know from Winthrop's account of it. Though it came from Newport and not from Providence, it was written in that humane spirit which Roger Williams had always held should govern the treatment of the natives; that the real safety of the English lay in a just recognition of the natural rights of the Indians. They declared," says Winthrop, “ their dislike of such as would have the Indians rooted out, as being of the cursed race of Ham, and their desire of our mutual accord in seeking to gain them by justice and kindness, and withal to watch over them to prevent any danger by them."

Refused by

setts.

66

The magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven united with those of Acquidneck in this reasonable and Christian proposition. Massachu- Nor was it in itself repugnant to the General Court of the Bay. But however apprehensive they might be of a savage outbreak, however much disposed to conciliate the Indians by justice and kindness, they, in Boston, would neither bestow nor willingly receive blessings in companionship with heretics. The resentment which would seize such an occasion for its gratification seems almost puerile. "We returned answer of our consent with them in all things propounded," writes Winthrop, "only we refused to include those of Aquiday in our answer, or to have any treaty with them." The official record is even more explicit. The letter, it was ordered, " shall be thus answered by the governor; that the court doth assent to all the propositions laid down in the aforesaid letter, but that the answer shall be directed to Mr. Eaton, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Haynes [of New Haven and of Connecticut] only, excluding Mr. Coddington and Mr. Brenton [of Newport,] as men not to be capitulated withal by us, either for themselves or the people of the Island which they inhabit, as their case standeth." 2

Nor was this an outbreak of a merely temporary feeling. Here was the spirit which was to shape the future relations of the older and the younger colony. It shut out all considerations of a common interest, dulled the sense of a common danger, stifled the sympathies of a kindred blood. The "case" of these men in Narragansett Bay was that they had been banished from Massachusetts, or had fled of their own 1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 24.

2 Records of Massachusetts, vol. i., p. 305.

1643.]

THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY.

49

accord that they might enjoy in peace the right of thinking for themselves. But that was a right which to the Puritans of Boston was intolerable. It was not merely It was not merely as is so often pretended on their behalf that these Puritans sought to protect the house of refuge they had built from any disturbing influences; they were no less determined that there should not be, if they could prevent it, anywhere within their reach, a church or a state that was not formed upon their model.

This proposition from the people of Rhode Island was only the renewal of an already familiar discussion. The question of a confederation of the colonies had been annually brought up for consideration from the close of the Pequot war to the spring of 1643 among the magistrates of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth. From year to year the project was deferred, the two smaller colonies fearing lest, in the adjustment of the terms of alliance, too much power should fall into the hands of the stronger colony of the Bay. One point, at least, might now be considered as settled; however willing Connecticut and New Haven might be that Acquidneck should be included in such a league, should it ever be formed, the assent of Massachusetts could only be obtained by the exclusion of that colony.

The New

confederacy.

In 1643, accordingly, a confederation was made embracing Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. The same end and aim, the preamble recited, had brought England them into these parts of America, "to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity with peace." Their distance from each other was incompatible with a single government for all these plantations, but their danger was a common one from the "people of several nations and strange languages" by whom they were surrounded; they could not look for protection from the home government because of "the sad distractions. in England;" they entered, therefore, under the name of the United Colonies of New England, "into a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity, for offence and defence, mutual advice and succor upon all just occasions, both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare."

The purpose of this federation was strictly defined and limited, and its affairs were to be entrusted to a body of eight commissioners, two from each colony. The main object was an offensive and defensive league in case of war, though the rendition of fugitive servants and criminals was also provided for. In all things else each colony reserved to itself the right of self government. Thus simple were the terms of this federal union, so obviously the germ of the union of States of the next century.

Objects of the confederacy.

For six years, as we have already said, this question of confederation was a topic of anxious discussion. Though so strictly defined and limited, it was only with the utmost caution that the several colonies consented to surrender the rights of selfgovernment even for so obvious a good as a sure protection against their enemies. Perhaps the league would have been even longer delayed had not other than Indian wars been thought possible. The people along the southern coast of New England had turned their resolute faces and longing eyes towards New Netherland. The people of Massachusetts, or, at least, the leaders among them, never lost sight of the hope of absolute independence which first moved them to transfer their company, with its charter, quietly and secretly from London to Massachusetts Bay. They watched with absorbing interest the progress of the Revolution in England, cautious of any rash precipitancy, but ready for any emergency by which they might be involved in that great struggle, and any event that might be turned to their own advantage. That General Court of Massachusetts which ratified the act of confederacy, also decreed that in the oath of allegiance taken by the Governor and magistrates they should omit "for the present" the words "you shall bear true faith and allegiance to our Sovereign Lord King Charles; " for the king, they said, "had violated the privileges of Parliament, and made war upon them." But from this first New England confederacy with its immediate purpose of defence and offence against the Indians, and the Acquidneck possible purposes which time might bring forth- Gorges's excluded. colony at Agamenticus (York) in Maine, and the plantations on the Narragansett, were rigidly excluded. The Puritans dreaded the state and the church from which they had fled, and which Gorges represented; they hated the heretics who had escaped to Rhode Island from the persecutions of the church and the state which they sought to establish.

Agamenticus and

John Davenporte

Signature of John Davenport.

CHAPTER III.

THE BOSTON PURITANS.

ROGER WILLIAMS AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. BOSTON PURITANISM. ITS BIGOTRY. THE BELIEF IN A SPECIAL DIVINE PROTECTION. — SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. -PURITAN INTERPRETATION OF DISASTERS AND MISFORTUNES. POPULAR APPREHENSION OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. EARLY LAWS OF THE PURITANS. REGULATION OF DRESS AND CUSTOMS. PATERNAL CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT.- - RELATIONS OF THE SEXES.-LAWS AGAINST LYING AND BLASPHEMY. PUNISHMENTS. - PURITAN SPIRIT AND ITS RESULTS IN PRACTICE. SAMUEL GORTON.- HIS ACTION AT BOSTON AND AT PLYMOUTH, AND HIS BANISHMENT. - GORTON AND HIS COMPANIONS AT ACQUIDNECK AND PAWTUXET. - THE ATTEMPT TO SEIZE WESTON'S CATTLE. - INTERFERENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS. - ARBITRARY COURSE OF THE BOSTON MAGISTRATES.

- GORTON AT SHAWOMET.- HIS LETTER.

Williams and liberty of conscience.

"SLATE ROCK," as the spot is still called where Williams first stepped on shore in search of a new home, marks a memorable event in the history of New England. The wrongs he had suffered might have passed into oblivion as evil so often does, had not their memory been kept alive by the good which followed as a beneficent if not an inevitable consequence. A man less sturdy in courage, or of a virtue less stern would have been crushed into submission or frightened into retraction by the persecution with which he was beset. But whether the assertion of the liberty of thought and of freedom of conscience did or did not lead Roger Williams into errors, sometimes of thought and sometimes of action, the right of private judgment and the sacredness of conscientious conviction were still true; and to him was given the strength to assert and maintain, through much tribulation, the great principle, then dimly understood, which lies at the foundation of all free government and of all intelligent religious belief.

In the last analysis Puritanism meant freedom of thought and liberty of conscience. But the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Boston Purilimited it to that measure of truth — by no means small in- tanism. deed to which they had attained. It was, they believed, obedience to the highest law of the human soul to go as far as they went; it was heresy to go beyond. They not only would not admit that free

dom of thought and of conscience could legitimately lead to any other conclusions than those they had reached; but they would not admit that such freedom should go further and test the justice of those conclusions. More than this, - they insisted that any conclusions differing from their own were full of dismay and disaster; and they denied the possibility of coming to any other result by any logical process of thought whatever.

Accordingly they believed those deserving of the severest condemnation who maintained any doctrine which, according to the construction they chose to put upon it and the deductions they chose to draw from it, was mischievous, however vehemently those holding that doctrine might repudiate such a construction and such deductions. They assumed, therefore, not merely to punish the propagation of error evidently or confessed as of evil intent; they were no less eager to visit with severe penalties any doctrine which others might hold to be truthful and beneficent, but from which they by some ingenious intellectual process could deduce a possible civil offence or a religious heresy.