Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary 
 
 Planting of Providence. 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 THOMAS DURFEE, 
 
Class. 
 Eook_ 
 
 'If.. 
 
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 
 
 DE'.I.IVICKKI) ON IIIK 
 
 Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of 
 the Planting of Providence. 
 
 THOMAS 1)1 RKKK. 
 
 I'ROVIDENCK 
 S ID N K Y S. RID K R 
 
Tin> DiscoifRSK WAS dki.ivkkku in fiik First Bapiisi Church, in 
 
 Pr<)\ IDKNCE, Jl'NK 24. l8S6. 
 
 <rk 
 
 ^y 
 
 ^^'ia 
 
 
 Proi'hhiicc /'r.'.v.s Co., Printt-t 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 The traveller who, after a long day's journey, reaches the 
 summit of some high hill which overlooks the way behind 
 him, delights to pause with backward gaze and review the 
 scenes through which he has passed. As he retraces his 
 wavering course over hill and dale, by forest and river bank, 
 or along the mountain's bulging breast, the great objects, the 
 prominent features, stand out at once in luminous distinction ; 
 then gradually the lesser points of interest, with hints and 
 suggestions from which his memory fills out the picture ; 
 until at last his whole journey, tedious some times in the 
 making, lies before him, flooded with the golden evening light, 
 a pure and perfect pleasure in . the retrospect. To-day the 
 citv pauses on such a high specular summit, and, looking 
 backward through the vista of two hundred and fifty years, 
 sees the long series of her historic experiences rising in vis- 
 ionary pageant before her. She, too, makes out at once the 
 great events, the magnificent passages, of her history ; then 
 matters of lesser moment bringing in their train a crowd of 
 recollections. She remembers, as she gazes, her thousand 
 bitter toils and trials ; her thousand bitter dangers and dis- 
 asters and troublous vicissitudes ; but with bitterness and 
 trouble no longer ; for now she rejoices to remember how 
 bravely she met them all and how heroically she endured or 
 
overcame them. She remembers, too, her great industrial 
 successes, her great military and naval exploits, and more 
 than all, she remembers, with a memory cleaving to the inner- 
 most fibres of her being, her \-ictorious sufferings in the 
 sacred cause of spiritual freedom, and a divine joy, trium- 
 phant and tender as the roseate flushings of the dawn, over- 
 spreads her majestic countenance. Superb and beautiful 
 Mother ! she beckons us, her children, to come up and share 
 her grand delight. She charges me to speak for her, and 
 interpret her birthday vision of her past, explaining, as best 
 I can, the forces and the influences which have made her 
 what she is, which have contributed to make us what we are. 
 
 I'ELLOW Citizens: — lam sensible how impossible it is 
 for me to do justice to the occasion, The story of two hun- 
 dred and fifty years cannot be told in an hour. Much must 
 be designedly omitted. If I err by treating some points with 
 too much, and some points with too little fullness of detail 
 and reflection, I can only crave your indulgence, and ask you, 
 each for himself, to supply my deficiencies. 
 
 Providence was planted by Roger Williams, together with 
 his companions and followers, mostly from Massachusetts. 
 The causes of the plantation were certain opinions which he 
 held, and which, in accordance with his character, he pro- 
 claimed. Some controversy has existed from the first in 
 regard to both the opinions and the character, and latterly it 
 has been renewed in Massachusetts in an intensely partisan 
 spirit. I deem it proper, therefore, to restate the opinions 
 and to portray the character anew. For more than forty 
 years the historv of Rhode Island, and of Providence in par- 
 
 irm 
 
5 
 
 ticular, was largely shaped and influeneed !))• Rot;er Wil- 
 liams, and I shall eonsider it a great gain if I can, by retell- 
 ing a trite tale, succeed in impai-ting a fuller, truer and li\-elier 
 conception of his character. 
 
 Born in Wales^ and educated at Cambridge University, he 
 became a clergyman of the Church of JCngland, but scjon 
 re\()lting from it on account of what he considered its Romish 
 perversions, he broke with it utterly, and fleeing before the 
 persecution of Laud, crossed the (jcean to begin a new life in 
 the New World. His flight cost him bitter pangs, — "bitter 
 as death to me," he wi-ote twenty years later ; but he was 
 obliged either to fly or to dissemble his con\ictions ; and for 
 him, as for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthful- 
 ness was alike an instinct and a necessit)-. I'his absolute 
 sincerity is the key to his character, as it was always the 
 mainspring of his conduct. It was this which led him to 
 reject indignantly the compromises with his conscience which 
 from time to time were proposed to him. It was this which 
 impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when 
 he detected an en-or, to expose it, when he saw an e\il, to try 
 to remedy it, and when he could do a good, even to his ene- 
 mies, to do it. He had the defect of his qualities ; — an inor- 
 dinate conhdence in his own judgment. He had also the 
 defects of his race ; — the hot W^elsh temper, passionate and 
 resentful under provocation, and the moody Welsh fancy, — 
 the wild and wistful melancholy of the Cymrian bards — too 
 apt in his earlier years to disturb his mental balance with 
 morbid scruples or desultorv conceits, magnifying them into 
 matters of lasting moment. Such a man would have been 
 likely to provoke antagonism anywhere ; in Massachusetts. 
 
with her immitigable theocracy, he was sure to incur censure 
 and final expulsion. 
 
 Roger Williams lived five years in Massachusetts before 
 he was banished. He spent the first six weeks in Boston, 
 the rest of the time in Plymouth and Salem, and yet Boston 
 was the seat of hostile proceeding against him. How did 
 it happen that he was most hated where he was least known ? 
 The explanation is simple. The new churches of the Bay 
 were both bigoted and ambitious. They had established a 
 sacerdotalism, more meddlesome and scarcely less despotic 
 than the worst in Christendom. They wanted to consolidate 
 and extend it. They had hitherto met no opposition ; but in 
 Williams they found an original and independent mind, 
 intractable to their yoke. Soon after his arrival, being in- 
 vited to become a teacher of the Boston church, he refused, 
 because the church still held communion with the mother 
 church, and he coupled his refusal with emphatic reproof. 
 Will you say that his conduct was as uncharitable as impru- 
 dent ? I make no apology for him further than to remark 
 that the Anglican Church was then not only a retrogressive 
 and a persecuting church, but also a main support of the 
 autocratic pretensions of the Stuart kings. He had suffered 
 from it in person, and he thought that to commune with it 
 was to abet its tergiversation. The j^oint, however, which 1 
 invite attention to is the utter frankness of his self-deliver- 
 ance. The elders of the Bay, accustomed to a submissive 
 deference from their j unions, were thunderstruck by it and 
 never forgot or forgave it. They followed him to the senior 
 church at Salem, to which he was soon called as teacher, 
 witli expostulation to the church for calling him, and so 
 
weakened his hold there that he was glad, a few months later, 
 to remove to the more liberal jurisdiction of Plymouth. 
 
 He remained at Plymouth, teaching in the church, hut 
 supporting himself by manual labor, nearly two years. His 
 ministry was popular in the main and his person universally 
 liked. Finally, however, he advanced some opinions which 
 did not suit the steady-going Plymouth elders, and therefore, 
 departing "something abruptly," he returned to Salem. 
 There he acted as assistant to Mr. Skelton, the aged pastor 
 of the church, and when Mr. Skelton died, less than a year 
 later, became his successor. At Salem he was again under 
 the surveillance of the rulers and elders of the Bay, and they 
 were swift to make him sensible of it. He had written in 
 Plymouth, for the Plymouth Governor and Council, a treatise 
 on the Massachusetts Patent, in which he had maintained his 
 doctrine that the King could not give the settlers a right to 
 take away from the natives their land without paying them 
 for it. He was not a lawyer but an ethical teacher, and it 
 was doubtless as such that he maintained this opinion. In 
 our day its ethical correctness is not disputed. It has always' 
 been good Rhode Island doctrine. He also criticised the 
 patent because in it King James claimed to be the first 
 Christian Prince who discovered New England, and because 
 he called ICurope Christendom or the Christian World. Wil- 
 liams did not scruple to denounce these formal fictions in 
 downright Saxon as lies. He does not appear to have been, 
 at any period of his life, a paragon of conventional propriety. 
 
 A rumor of the treatise got abroad, though it remained un- 
 juiblished. The patent happened to be a sensitive point with 
 the magistrates It had been (granted in P^ngland to an P2ni>- 
 
lish trading company, and its transfer to Massachusetts was 
 an act of questionable legality. Moreover it was exceedingly 
 doubtful whether the rulers, in exercising the extensive civil 
 jurisdiction which they claimed under it, did not exceed their 
 authority. They were apprehensive of proceedings to forfeit 
 it, and therefore were easily alarmed at any turning of atten- 
 tion to it. When they heard of the treatise they sent for it, 
 and, having got it, summoned the author "to be censured." 
 He appeared in an unexpectedly placable mood, and not onlv 
 satisfied their minds in regard to some of its obscurer pass- 
 ages, but offered it, since it had served its pur]50se, to be 
 burnt. The magistrates, propitiated bv his complaisance, 
 appear to have accepted the offer as cqui\'alent to a promise 
 of silence, though it is impossible that he, the uncompromis- 
 ing champion of aboriginal rights, can ever ha\c meant to 
 give, or even appear to give, such a promise. Accordingly 
 when they heard soon afterwards that he was discussing the 
 patent they were deeply incensed, though it was doubtless 
 the popular curiosity excited by their f)wn indiscreet action 
 which elicited the discussion. 
 
 Their anger was aggravated by another doctrine then put 
 forth by him, namely, that an oath ought not to be tendered 
 to an unregenerate, or, as we should sav, an un religious man, 
 because an oath is an act of worship, and cannot be taken bv 
 such a man without jjrofanation. The sentiment resembles 
 that which lately led the House of Commons to refuse the 
 oath of office to a member-elect because he was a professed 
 atheist. He also taught that an oath, being an act of wor- 
 shi)), could not properlv be exacted from any one against his 
 will, and that even Christians ought not to desecrate it bv 
 
Uikini; it for trivial causes. This latter \ie\v likewise finds its 
 modern analogue in the growing feeling that oaths, too indis- 
 criminately administered, lose their sanctit\' and come to he 
 regarded as little more than idle forms, 'i'he doctrine was 
 specially offensive at the time because the (General Court, 
 alarmed by a report of " episcopal and malignant practices 
 against the country," had just then decided to test the fidel- 
 ity of the ])eople by tendering to them an oath wliich was 
 virtually an oath of allegiance to the colon\' instead of the 
 king. The measure was obnoxious to legal as well as relig- 
 ious objection. It was oj^posed by the people as well as by 
 Williams, and for the time frustrated. It has been said that 
 his opposition was a blow at the very foundations of civil soci- 
 ety ; but in Rhode Island a simple affirmation or subscription 
 to an engagement, has been found as efficacious as an oath. 
 The magistrates again instituted proceedings against him, 
 at first subjecting him to the oixleal of clerical visitation, then 
 formally summoning him to answer for himself before the 
 General Court. At the same time the Salem church was 
 arraigned for contempt in choosing him as pastor while he 
 was under question. The court, however, did not proceed 
 to judgment, but allowed them both further time for repent- 
 ance. It so happened that the inhabitants of Salem had a 
 petition before the court for "some land at Alarblehead 
 Neck, which they did challenge as belonging to their town." 
 The ccjurt, when the petition came up, refused to grant it 
 until the Salem church should give satifaction for its con- 
 tempt, thus virtuallv affirming that the petitioners had no 
 claim to justice even, so long as they adhered to their recu- 
 sant pastor. Williams was naturalh indignant He induced 
 
lO 
 
 his church — -"enchanted his church," says Cotton Mather — 
 to send letters to the sister churches, appeahng to them to 
 admonish the ma<;istrates and deputies of their " heinous 
 sin." He wrote the letters himself. His Massachusetts 
 contemporaries say he was " unlamblikc." Undoubtedly they 
 heard no gentle bleating in those letters, but rather the 
 reverberating roar of the lion chafing in his rage. The 
 churches repelled the appeal ; and then turning to the Salem 
 church, besieged it only the more assiduously, laboring with 
 it, nine with one, to alienate it from its pastor. What could 
 the one church do, — with the magistracy against it, the clergy 
 against it. the churches and the people against it, muttering 
 their vague anathemas, and Salem town suffering unjusth' on 
 its account, — what could it do but yield ? It yielded \ir- 
 tually if not yet in form ; and Williams stood forth alone in his 
 opposition to the united power of Church and State. If. in 
 the agonyof his isolation, his heart distracted and his niinti 
 unstrung, "a power girt round with weakness," he uttered 
 words better unuttered, we surely can afford to forget them 
 and leave them for his traducers to gloat over if they will, 
 while wc remember only the grandeur of his solitary struggle. 
 The fateful court day came at last. The court assembles, 
 magistrates and deputies, with the clergy to advise them. 
 Williams api)ears, not to be tried, but to be sentenced unless 
 he will retract. He reafifirms his opinions. Mr. Hooker, a 
 famous clerical dialectician, is chosen to disi)ute with him. 
 and the solemn mockery of confutation begins. The future 
 of Rhode Island, to some extent the future of the world, 
 hangs suspended on the issue. Will he, like his church, worn 
 out and desj^erate, blenching before the unknown, lose heart 
 
1 1 
 
 ;iii(l yield.' Never! He stands unshaken in the " rockie 
 strength " of his convictions. Me is ready " not only to be 
 bound and banished, but to die for them." So, hour after 
 hour, he argues unsubdued, till the sun sinks low and the 
 weary court adjcnirns- On the morrow [Friday, October 9, 
 1635], still i^ersistiuL; in his y;lorious "contumacy." he is sen- 
 tenced, the cleru,")' all sa\-e one adx'isini;', to be banished, or. 
 to adopt the apologetic but felicitous euphemism of his great 
 adversary, John Cotton. " enlarged " out of Massachusetts. 
 He was allowed at first si.\ weeks, afterwards until spring, to 
 depart. Hut in January the magistrates, having heard that 
 he was drawing others to his opinion, and that his purjiose 
 was to erect a plantation about Narragansett l?ay. "from 
 whence the infection would easily spread," concluded to send 
 him by ship, then ready, to England. The story is familiar 
 how Williams, advised of their intent, baffled it b\- plunging 
 into the wilderness, where, after being "sorely tost for one 
 fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing 
 what bread or bed did mean," he settled, with the opening 
 spring, on the east bank of the Seekonk, and there built and 
 planted. 
 
 Thus tar I have not mentioned his great doctrine of soul 
 liberty. There are those who maintain that it had nothing 
 to do with his banishment. Let us see. When, shortly after 
 his arrival, the Massachusetts authorities rebuked the Salem 
 church for choosing him as a teacher, they urged two objec 
 tions to him. namel\-. his rigid separatism and reproof of the 
 l^oston church, and his ojiinion that "the magistrate ought 
 not to punish for breaches of the first table unless thereby 
 the civil peace be disturbed. ' this being the form in which 
 
12 
 
 he then declared the right of the soul-Hberty. This shows 
 that Williams had, immediately upon his arrival, proclaimed 
 the doctrine, and that the magistrates had immediately rec- 
 ognized its utter imcompatibility with the cast-iron polity 
 which they were endeavoring to establish. When he was 
 arraigned, three months before the sentence, the doctrine 
 was one of the "dangerous opinions" laid to his charge, and 
 the clergy being consulted, declared that he who should obsti- 
 nately maintain that the civil magistrate cannot intermeddle 
 to stop a church from heresy or apostasy ought to be removed. 
 The clergy were ready to banish him for that alone. Wil- 
 liams says his doctrine was one cause of his banishment. 
 He also says that when the sentence was pronounced. Gover- 
 nor Haynes recapitulated the grounds of it, his maintenance 
 of soul-liberty being one. We have seen that the magistrates 
 wanted to prevent his plantation because they feared " infec- 
 tion " from it. What infection ? Did they think, if he 
 preached on Narragansett Bay the duty of a rigid separatism, 
 the inadequacy of the Massachusetts patent, or his theory of 
 oaths, that far-off Boston would hear among her triple hills 
 the ringing echoes of his sermon .'' It is absurd to suppose 
 it. No ; what they feared was a contiguous plantation where 
 faith would be free and persecuted consciences find a refuge. 
 What they feared was soul-liberty put in practice ; and if they 
 feared it in practice on Narragansett Bay, would they tole- 
 rate the preaching of it in Massachusetts .'' The question 
 answers itself. Other matters may have angered them more 
 at the moment, but this was the animating principle, the 
 great tap-root of all' Williams's offenses, and it is incredible 
 that they did not perceive it. It was, in fact, a virtual denial 
 
of the very jurisdiction which they exercised when the\- Ix'ui 
 ished him.- 
 
 Permit me to pause a moment longer at this ])oint. The 
 Massachusetts historians tell us that the treatment ol Wil- 
 liams was exceptionally gentle and considerate. This is true. 
 He was neither incarcerated, nor scourged, noi" hanged, like 
 some later victims of Puritian persecution. The treatment 
 of him does not attract curiosity and rivet attention because 
 it was unusually se\-erc, but because it was a pivotal transac- 
 tion in universal history. His trial involved not him alone, but 
 also the grand idea which he represented, and it fascinates 
 mankind because, while he was condemned, the idea tri- 
 umphed through his fidelit)', and because, though he ma\' 
 have been banished, it at least was "enlarged." The histo- 
 rians say, in excuse for Massachusetts, that she did but fol- 
 low her instinct of self-preservation. In one sense this like- 
 wise is true. She was then simply an incor])oration of Puritan 
 Congregationalism clothed with civil powers. She could not 
 accept the new idea without undergoing a transformation 
 into a larger and freer form. She chose to preserve herseli 
 as she was. She who has reaped so many glories in her 
 crowded career was not ripe for this, the most glorious of all, 
 and so with mistaken scorn she passed it on to little Rhode 
 Island. But this is not what her historians mean. They 
 mean that she was in jeopardy from the opinions put forth b)' 
 Williams in regard to oaths and the patent. This is a singula]- 
 exaggeration. He was only a village pastor. He had little 
 or no influence beyond his parish — for there were then no 
 newspapers, and he had no vantage of political prestige or 
 position. The only way in which his opinions were likely to 
 
become generally known was by persecution. The historians 
 urge further that he was eccentric, pugnacious, persistent, 
 troublesome. Undoubtedly he was. When nature wants to 
 preserve a precious seed, she encloses it in a bitter and 
 prickly integument. So when the time comes, in the order 
 of human improvement, for a new and progressive idea, we 
 often find it lodged in a tough and thorny and, if you will, 
 pugnacious personality, to fight for, protect and propagate it. 
 Williams had his faults, but some of them, in the circum- 
 stances, did the work of virtues. A man who had to endure 
 what he had to endure from Puritan clergymen and elders, 
 laboring to "reduce him from his errors," was entitled to have 
 some faults. The faults which he had have been grossly exag- 
 gerated. The apologists of Massachusetts, with zeal beyond 
 knowledge, have raked the gutters of controv'ersy and ran- 
 sacked the rubbish-heaps of unaccredited rumor for testi- 
 mony against him, forgetful that he was, with all his failings, 
 the trusted and cherished friend of John Winthrop, the 
 wisest and the best of the Puritans. Massachusetts can 
 spare such apologists. She banished Roger Williams not for 
 faults of behavior, but for errors of opinion. Her great desire 
 was to found an orthodox State, — a State where the same 
 theology should be preached in all the pulpits and believed at 
 all the firesides, and where, generation after generation, her 
 citizens could become religious and virtuous according to 
 law. The individualism of Roger Williams antagonized her, 
 and she expelled him because, thank Heaven, she could not 
 assimilate him. She was, indeed, exacerbated by her per- 
 sonal and political antipathies and resentments, but her main 
 motive was to be true to her darling orthodoxv. For lons^ 
 
15 
 
 vears she was true to it, cloin<;- ugly and cruel things for the 
 sake of it, stamping it broad and deep on her people, and 
 only gradually learning, by bitter experience, that human na- 
 ture is too vital and vast and various to take the mould of any 
 compulsory creed without injury, but needs for its best de- 
 velopment the elastic and congenial element of soul-liberty. 
 She has nobl)' atoned for her narrowness by the universality 
 of her later culture. We are all glad to learn of her now. 
 Nevertheless she does not forget the iron discipline of her 
 infancy, but still, through all the endless variety of her newer 
 predilections, looks reverently back to it, and still points, 
 with hereditary ])ride. to her permanent strain of Puritan 
 orthodo.xy as the vcr\- backbone of the Commonwealth. To 
 this day the Massachusetts man, when he talks of orthodo.xy, 
 means the Calvinistic creed of the Puritans ; whereas the 
 Rhode Islander, when he talks (^f orthodo.xy, which is seldom, 
 means his own creed, if he ])rofesses any, though doubtless 
 they both alike now know full well that absolute orthodo.xy 
 is only a delightful dream of the theologian or the philos- 
 opher — not the privilege of mankind. 
 
 We left Roger Williams in Seekonk. He had built there 
 and planted. April came, and May, and his corn was spring- 
 ing to gladden him with hope of harvest. He expected to 
 abide there ; but now a message, sent by Governor Winslow, 
 informs him that he is within the limits of Phmouth, and 
 advises him to move across the river. He accepts the advice 
 and, sometime in June, breaks up and departs. In fancy we 
 can follow his little boat, laden with his household, as it 
 emerges from its shadv haven, and pushes out into the See- 
 konk. It turns st)uth\vard with its silent passengers, and 
 
i6 
 
 slowly they make their wa}', in the unbroken solitude, betwixt 
 high wooded banks, reduplicated in the ]:>ellucid river, luxu- 
 riant with verdure and glittering with the sunshine of June. 
 C But the sylvan landscape haH no charm for them. They see 
 their Seekonk home receding, and their hearts fill with an 
 uncontrollable anguish. Thrice exiled — from England, from 
 Salem, from Seekonk I Will an implacable persecution 
 ne\er cease to pursue them .'' They paddle on with mourn- 
 i\\\ memories ominous of evil instead of hope. But hark ! 
 an animating salutation, IV/iatc/icer, Netop, Whatchccr, rings 
 from a neighboring rock, and the red men of the forest give 
 them the welcome which their white brothers have refused. 
 They halt and return the greeting. Again they proceed 
 under happier auspices, and, with their sounding oars, startle 
 the wild duck from the river's rushy marge and daze the 
 antlered stag on the remoter hill. They round the precipi- 
 tous cliffs of Tockwotton, and, gazing southward through 
 the varied vista of the river, catch momentary glimpses of 
 the bay beyond. The noble prospect does not detain them. 
 They turn to the north and, hugging the eastern shore, 
 ascend along the base of towering hills, clad with primeval 
 oaks, and enter the cove, whose natural basin, receiving 
 the unpolluted tides of the bay and the virgin waters of 
 the Woonasquatucket and the Moshassuck, diffuses them 
 widely into inlet and pool, across sandy bar and over sedgy 
 flats, now traversed by busy thoroughfares, but then fre- 
 cjuented only by flocks of feeding waterfowl or by the dusky 
 fowler in his frail canoe. They continue their steady course 
 until before them they behold a spring, which, gushing from 
 the verdant turf and jjouring its crystal tribute to the cove. 
 
17 
 
 invites them to disembark. There, beaching their boat on 
 the smooth white sand, they step ashore — Wilhams, his 
 wife, his children and his five companions. They slake their 
 thirst at the spring, they invoke the divine blessing, and Provi- 
 dence Plantations are begun. =^ 
 
 The story of the beginnings of a State or city, truly told 
 in detail, is always interesting. The story of infant Provi- 
 dence cannot be so told. Unlike Boston, she had no diarist. 
 Her public records are imperfect. We do not know how her 
 settlers, without seed-time or harvest, subsisted the first year. 
 The bay with its fish and fowl, the forest with its game and ber- 
 ries, must have been their constant resource. They jirobably 
 procured some supplies from the natives. There is no tra- 
 dition of desperate destitution such as more than once befell 
 the Plymouth settlers. We may be sure, however, that their 
 life was outwardly very poor and plain, full of hardship and 
 privation, pinched at every point, however it may have been 
 spiritually enriched by the freedom which thc\' enjoyed. 
 But if their story could be told, my time is much too short 
 for me to tell it. I must be content to pass raj^idly from 
 point to point, briefly treating a few of the more character- 
 istic topics. 
 
 Two topics of interest from their relation to the infant 
 town and its founder meet us at the threshold. When Wil- 
 liams went from Plymouth to Salem he drew several ])ers()ns 
 after him. When he came to IVovidence, he had five compan- 
 ions and was soon joined by others. They seem to have been 
 not fugitives, but followers. These facts show that, however 
 contentious he was, he had along with his contentiousness, 
 a singularly attractive nature. The ingenuous cleverness 
 .5 
 
i8 
 
 which in his youth won the favor of the crabbed but intrepid 
 old jurist, Sir, Edward Coke, still bore its natural fruit 
 "The people," says Winthrop, " were taken bv the apprehen- 
 sion of his godliness," which, translated into modern speech, 
 means that he had, besides his more distinctively Christian 
 graces, some of the magnetism of a po]:»ular leader. This, 
 not less than the prospect of religious freedom, drew the 
 earliest settlers. But they were the merest handful, and they 
 would not have ventured, remote from succor, among a pow- 
 erful tribe of savages without some assurance of safety. 
 Williams could give it. He had, during his stav in Plymouth 
 and Salem, zealously cultivated the good will of the natix^cs, 
 learning their language and studying their character, his 
 "soul's desire" being to become a missionarx among them 
 " God was pleased," he sa\s, "to give me a painful, patient 
 spirit to lodge with them in their filthy, smoky holes to gain 
 their tongue." He was thus, as it were, providentially pre- 
 pared foi" his work. He had the affable disposition, at once 
 communicative and incjuisitixe, which easily captivated these 
 simple children of the forest. The\ , too, were taken by the 
 magnetism and master)' of bis high moral qualities. They 
 instinctively believed in him. The great Narragansett 
 Sachems, Canonicus and Miantonomi, distrusttul of the iron- 
 visaged elders of the Ba), ga\e him their friendshi]) without 
 reserve. The\ deeded to him a teiritory like a ])rinci- 
 pality, and he, with siiiiilar munificence, shared it equally with 
 his fellow-settlers. riuis his influence o\cr his countrxnien 
 drew around him tlie nucleus of the new State, and liis in- 
 fluence over the Indians gained for it domain and security 
 For more than a generation the little plantation lay .safely 
 
19 
 
 nestled and iostered in the \ery lap ot barbarism. tht"()Ui;h 
 the un\va\"erin,i; regard entertained fur him by these savage 
 but mai;nanim()iis sachems. The citv has testified its grati 
 tutle to him in imperishable bron/e and granite ; it ought to 
 testifx' its gi'atitude to them in some ecpialh ap])ro|)riate form 
 The settlers soon telt the neetl ot a civil go\ernment. 
 but the\ hat! no charter under which the\ could establish 
 one. rhe\' therefore agreed to be governed b\- "the major 
 assent" of the freemen of the town "only in ci\"il things." 
 At first the goxernment was a puic democracy, all the powers 
 being cxei'cisetl by the freemen collecti\el\' in town meeting. 
 It was too laidimentarN' to last. In [640 a new svstem was 
 agreed to, b\ which the ]:)owers were delegated to some 
 extent and ])rovision was made for compulsorx- arbitrations in 
 judicial matters. I'his was a step forward, but onl\- a short 
 step tentatively taken. In 1647 the town united with the 
 three other towns, Portsmouth, Newport, and W'aivvick, 
 '"■under the first charter. This charter was sim[)lv a grant ot 
 ci\il ])owers. not a constitution. it left the settlers to frame 
 a government for themselves. The government formed by 
 them was rather a confederatioii of the towMis than a com])act 
 State. Under it no law could be enacted without the con- 
 sent of the towns. It has been likened to the Federal 
 Union ; but the integration was far less organic and com- 
 plete. It was not until later, under the second charter, that 
 the towns were willing to part with their autonomy and 
 become fully subject lo a central authority. But. mean- 
 while, the first charter was a great boon to the settlers in 
 their relations with the sister colonies, since it affiliated them 
 to the mother countrv and leiritimated their iiovernment 
 
20 
 
 It will be observed that soul-liberty was secured in the 
 first compact, not by grant, but by limitation, the settlers 
 agreeing to be governed "only in civil things." This was 
 characteristic of Williams, who wrote the compact, though 
 he did not sign it ; for his doctrine was that every pian has a 
 natural right to follow the dictates of his conscience, so long 
 as he keeps the civil peace ; a right which the State can 
 neither give, nor take away, nor control, even with the con- 
 sent of the individual, since no man can absolve himself from 
 fealty to his conscience. The limitation was tantamount to a 
 constitutional declaration of the right in its widest meaning, 
 covering not only freedom of faith and worship, but also free-- 
 dom of thought and speech in every legitimate form. The 
 right has ne\er been expressed with more completeness 
 There are some who would have us think that the phrase 
 "onl)' in civil things," was simpl}- a lucky hit, and that Wil- 
 liams, when he coined it, did not really comprehend its sig- 
 nificance. My opinion is that both then and before then his 
 doctrine was that the authoritx' of government extends only 
 to civil things, and that he had merely to exchange his pulpit 
 phraseology for the plain vernacular of the people to make it 
 manifest. The man who packs such a world of meaning into 
 four little words does not do it by a slip of the |)en. He 
 clearly saw the principle and its universality; if he failed to 
 foresee all the questions which might arise in applying it, and 
 to solve them in advance, he sinij^ly failed to do then what 
 no man since then has succeeded in doing. There is, 
 between the undisputed provinces of civil law and spiritual 
 freedom, a disputed frontier which never has been, and prob- 
 ably never can be, definitively apportioned 
 
We soniclinK's hear it saitl thai the idea ot soul-Hberly was 
 not ()riii;inal witii Rot;er W'ilhams. (7rant it. lie needs no 
 doubtful bhizon to enhanee his <;loi\. When the (ireat 
 Master deelared, "(iod is s])irit, and they who worship Mini 
 must worship in spirit and tiuth," He lifted religion into a 
 res^ion far al)o\e all earthlv rule, the region ot souldiberty. 
 The ehurch did not or would not so understand Him. It 
 arrogated iidallibi]it\' and spiritual domination, and perseeu- 
 tion for iieres\- logicall\' ensued In the multitude ot mar- 
 tyrs there were doubtless some who obseureh' felt, and others 
 whodimh diseerned, the great truth. But did the\- utter it ^ 
 If the\- did, their words passed like a broken eeho in the con- 
 tusion ot the times. History- has no record of them. Idle 
 common cr\ was for toleration, lor toleration as a policx, not 
 as a right. BiU at last the chuich si)lit into sects, and the 
 Protestant sect again split, and splintered again, and the 
 individual conscience, breaking trom its pupilage, grew sud- 
 denlv into a deeper and e\er deeper sense ot its own inner 
 su[)remac\ . '["hen it was that the master idea emerged, 
 uttered feebl\- at tirst, not 1)\- powerful leadei's in church and 
 State, but 1)\ despised sectaries hunted b\ the law. I'hen it 
 was that W'illiams recei\ed it. Peihaps he lead it in some 
 stray tract or pam|)hlet, such as then were scattered secretly 
 in England, like seeds droi)ped by biids in their flight ; per- 
 haps he heard it in some noctiu'nal conxenticle, from lips 
 still livid with the jnun of the pillory and the branding iron ; 
 or perhaps he listened to it, in some lonelv lane or footway, 
 from a fellow fugitiw communicating it as they fled. Some- 
 how it came to iiim, and he brought it, termenting in his 
 l)rain. to the N'ew World For five years he meditated and 
 
maliircd it amoni; the stubborn dogmatists of Plymouth and 
 the 13ay. He was an impulsive enthusiast, easily eaptivated 
 by new ideas, but it was charaeteristie of him to examine 
 them to the bottom and abandon them if he found them 
 baseless or unsound. His contemj)oraries describe him as 
 "ljreei])itate and unsettled, " haxing "a windmill in his head." 
 They saw the superficies of his character, not its deep foun- 
 dation. His faith in soul-libert^• never waxered. He came to 
 Rhode Island to e\'ang"elize the natives ; but when he saw 
 the opportunity offered by the settlement growing around 
 him, he recognized the proxidential work aj)pointed for him, 
 and set himself to jKM-form it. He had not mei"el\- taith in 
 his iilea. but he had also such a master)' of it that he knew 
 how to put it in practice. This is his glory, that he, first 
 among men, made it a living element of the State, turning" -it 
 from thought to fact, and giving it a corporate existence in 
 which it could perpetuate and j^ractically a]3pro\e itself. 
 There is no i)Ower like the powei- of a great idea when it once, 
 gets a firm foothold among men. The great idea, here first 
 politically incorporated and shown forth in lively experiment, 
 has made the circuit of the globe, dri\ing bigotry like a mist, 
 and su])erstition like a shadow before it, and sowing bi"oad- 
 cast among meii and nations the fruittul seeds ot })eace and 
 progress, of freedom and fraternitw The little wisp of glin)- 
 mering light which hung like a halo over the cradle of infant 
 Providence, has brightened and expanded until it irradiates 
 the world. I'his is and will be forever the unique glory of 
 our belo\ed cit\'. 
 
 The first settlers were e\))osed to a triple dangei- : l^^rom 
 the Indians, from the neiirhboriny colonics, from their own 
 
^3 
 
 (lissension.s. TIk- Narraj;ansott.s, th()u.t;h triciidl), wcil- l)ut 
 (tnc of several tribes What if tiie tribes, alarmed by the 
 rapid increase of the whites, were to unite foi their destruc- 
 tion ? Such a union was projected by the I'equots, a powei" 
 ful Connecticut tril)e, durini; the first year of the settlement 
 In the autumn of that \ear Pecpiot ambassadors were at the^ 
 court of Canonicus to win o\er the \'arra_i;ansetts The 
 Massachusetts luleis, informed of it, sent hastil\- to Williams, 
 to a\ert the jierii Takini;- his life in his hanti. he sped, in a 
 |)oor canoe. thi()u,i;h stornn winds and threateninj; seas, to 
 the ,i;reat sachem's wigwam. Idiere tor three d.ns and three 
 nij^hts he was forced b\ his business to " lodj^e and mix with 
 the l*e(.|Uots, looking; ni,i;htl\ foi- their bloodv knix'cs at his 
 throat." Me finall\- defeated their desi<;n and effected a 
 league between the Narra^ansetts and the l'!ni;iisii which 
 was quickly followed 1)\ the annihilation of the Pecpiot tribe. 
 Subsequenth he perfoimed other similar serxices. Do you 
 ask me if his persecutors relented.^ No! Winthrop pio- 
 posed his recall, but the\' rejected the ])roposal. The)' pur- 
 sued a Machia\elian policx with the Indians, fomenting- their 
 quarrels, reckless of the safet\ of Rhode Island. They 
 harassed the Xarragansetts. who were L;'uilt\ ot belriending 
 the kht)de l-~land heretics, b\ haish e.xactions. and mad- 
 dened ihem l)\- counselliuL; the wicked muider ot Mianto- 
 nomi b\- Mohe^an L'ncas.' In 164^ the colonies of I'Uniouth, 
 Massachusetts, (."onnecticul and N'ew ilaxen tormed a con- 
 federacv for mutual defense. The Rhixle Island towns were 
 not inxited to join it. 'i'he\ asked to join it. but lhe\ were 
 denied unless the\ would subject themscKes to I'lymouth 01 
 Massachusetts (he condition was refused Ihey preferred 
 
24 
 
 the terrible hazard of Indian massacre to security on such 
 terms. Fortunately the good will of the Narragansetts kept 
 them unmolested until the storm of Philip's War broke 
 over New England, and after carrying havoc to the outlying 
 villages of Massachusetts, swept the mainland towns of 
 Rhode Island like a hurricane. In that war the Narragan- 
 setts ])erished with the Wamjjanoags, and the dread of 
 Indian hostilities ceased to trouble the colonies. 
 
 The danger from the neighboring colonies was more insid- 
 ious and scarcely less formidable. They hated the heretical 
 towns and pertinaciously sought to destroy them as inde- 
 pendent bodies politic by extending their jurisdiction over 
 them. Plymouth, already iu undisputed possession of the 
 eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, claimed the island of 
 Rhode Island ; Connecticut, the Narragansett country ; and 
 Massachusetts, parts of Providence and Warwick. It would 
 be tedious to explain the grounds of these claims, or to 
 describe the efforts which were put forth, both here and in 
 England, on the one side antl the other, to establish and 
 defeat them. The contest was long and severe, but on the 
 part of Massachusetts, the bitterest aggressor, grounded on 
 the baldest usurpations. It involved not only the territorial 
 integrity of the Rhode Island towns, but also that soul-lib- 
 erty, so dear to them all, which was staked on their preser- 
 vation. The contest was a blessing in disguise. It put the 
 towns on their mettle, and it developed among the people, by 
 giving them one great endangered interest to protect in 
 common, that jjublic spirit which is so necessary to organic 
 civil life. They came out of the contest, triumi)hant at last, 
 but when they came out of it, they came fused and welded 
 
25 
 
 together, by the heat and pressure of their struggle, into a 
 single conimoinvealth. 
 
 I mentioned a third danger, — the dissensions of the 
 settlers. The population of Rhode Island, of Providence 
 especially, was singularly heterogeneous. She offered her- 
 self as an asylum for distressed consciences. The conse- 
 quence was, ]irofessors of every form ot dissent trom the Pur- 
 itan faith were re|)resented here. There were men, too, who 
 came, not so much because they were heretical as because 
 they were peculiar, and in the pr(jmiscuous medley here, 
 coukl comfortably enjoy themselves. Indeed, life in Prov- 
 idence, in those days, must have had a spicy zest and variety 
 not to be found elsewhere in New iMigland. Hut it had its 
 dangers, too. Soul-liberty was suppi)sed to give every one 
 the right not only to entertain but also to utter his every 
 opinion. When men claim and concede this right they have 
 need not only to be considerate of others, when they speak 
 for themselves, but also ])atient of others when the\- find 
 themselves contradicted. This is a degree of self-control 
 which is seldom acquired without discipline. The first set- 
 tlers had had no discijjline, and, yielding to their natural 
 impulses, they gave their tongues too free a license. Ihe 
 result was a plentiful crop of feuds and controversies, some 
 of them envent)med by \indictive passions. Politics caught 
 the infection, aud became virulent and factious. Roger Wil- 
 liams tried to play the part of peacemaker, but he was wiser 
 in precept than in jjractice. His feud with William Harris 
 was one of the most inveterate that afflicted the Plantation. 
 Harris was a man of prodigious force of will and great 
 natural abilitv. but aggressive and violent, ever ready to 
 
26 
 
 embroil the comnnmity to cany his eiui.s. The settlers 
 called him the Firebrand. It was a feud of this kind which 
 gave Massachusetts, by submission to her of some of the 
 parties, a pretext for setting up her jurisdiction in Providence 
 and Warwick. Apparently, therefore, the first effect of soul- 
 liberty was an excessive indixidualisni. l-'or the purpose, 
 however, of testing its practicabilitx', nothing could have 
 been better ; for if soul-liberty was then practicable here, it 
 was not impracticable anywhere. It successfully stood the 
 test. Under the second charter the danger from internal 
 discords and disorders diminished, and gradually, after 
 Philip's War, the peoi:)le settled to the hard and monotonous 
 work of material and business develojiment. 
 
 Shortly after Philip's War an event occurred which deser\'es 
 mention, namely, the death ot Roger Williams. His servi- 
 ces to the colon)' had been varied and great. Me had twice 
 \isited ICngland for hei" ; first to procure the first charter, and 
 again to procure the revocation of C"oddington's commission: 
 He had often fdlcd the liighest civil offices at home. He 
 had served as captain of militia in Phili])"s War when seventy^ 
 seven vears old, so indomitable was his patriotism. I have 
 largeh' depicted him alieadv' ; 1 wish to add a few touches 
 more. He has suffeied in the po]ndar conception trom two 
 causes. On the one hand, his fame as the b'ounder oi the 
 State has shed over his character a sort of mythical glamour, 
 which has not so much idealized as unrealized it. Nothing- 
 could be falser. No more real piece of human Hesh of tough- 
 est l^ritish tibre ever existed. ( )n the other hand, the fame 
 of his {)olemical writings has produced a difterent and wholly 
 incongruous imi)ression ; namely, that he was simply a violent 
 
-'/ 
 
 and incorn^ibk' (lis]nitant. who iia<l ihc Im k to maintain one 
 new and ;;ood idea. 'I"his l,M'oss1\ talsirtes hv e\a<^^cration. 
 As a cttntro\ crsialist he had the \iet's ot liis temper and his 
 times; hut one mi^ht ahnosl as well tr\ to portray Milton 
 from his pamjjhlets as Williams from his polemical writin[;"s. 
 Let him who would learn what manner ot man he was from 
 his writings, read his letteis, not one hei"e and there, but thi- 
 series consecuti\el\ , so as to realize their eimiulative effect, 
 and he will liradually become aware that he is makini; tin- 
 acquaintance of a lar^e and affectionate, philanthropical, pub 
 lie-spirited ami many-sided nature. I lis versatility was 
 e.\traordinar\". lie was, by turns, leporter. scholar, cler<.jy- 
 man, trader, farmer, diplomatist, teacher, lin,«;iiist, lei;'islator, 
 jud<.(e and man of letters. A man is denoted bv his friend- 
 ships, lie numbered amon^ his friends the Winthrops, Mil- 
 ton/TX ane and Cromwell, the noblest of his contemporaries, 
 lie was. in his da\ . the most modern mind in .America. lie 
 exhibited, two luuulied and fift\ \-ears ai;o, the humanitarian- 
 ism which is su|)i)osed to be ]x'euliar to the present century. 
 His ma<jjnanimity was inexhaustible. " Sir." (iovernor Win 
 throp wrote to him, •• we have often trieil \-our patience, but 
 we could nexer conc|Uer it." The \ajjorous theolorrical fan- 
 cies which sometimes unsettled him in .Massachusetts, seem 
 to have vanished utterK in ]>Jhode Island in his preoccujia- 
 tion with practical affairs Nevertheless, his censors object, 
 he was headstroiii; and j)u;;nacious to the end ; — as witness 
 his ♦)Tislau;;ht upon the Quakers The objection must be 
 allowed ; but then he had the am])litude and the strength ot 
 the u^narled oak .is well as its notlosil\. ami when he died, a 
 
28 
 
 great figure passed away, and Rhode Island history became 
 more commonplace and uninteresting. 
 
 From Philip's War to the Revolution was a century. The. 
 history of Providence during that century has no striking- 
 event until the last decade, preluding the Revolution. It is 
 not, however, so much the striking events as the permanent 
 results of an era that determine its importance. Eras which- 
 furnish the least for history have sometimes done the most . 
 for mankind. Sometimes, too, an era of dull monotony, 
 showing on its surface little besides a steady material prog- 
 ress, has terminated in a great political change, which was' 
 all the while proceeding, by processes unrecognized, to its 
 consummation. The century which ended in the Revolution 
 was such an era. The material conditions then created and 
 the material resources then accumulated were indispensable 
 to the success of the Revolution. Nor could anything have 
 been more favorable than just such a jilodding j^eriod to the 
 uninterrupted development of that sj)irit of independence 
 which culminated in the Revolution. But this is a wider 
 view than belongs to the occasion ; though, considering the 
 prominence of the city in the Revolutionary war, a suggestion 
 of it is not impertinent. 
 
 The question for us now is, What were the builders and 
 makers of the city doing during the century after Philip's 
 War.' Thev had first to repair the ravages of that war. 
 When it began, the town contained from seventy to eighty 
 houses. More than half of them were burnt. Before the 
 attack upon the town, all but a very few of the inhabitants 
 tied to the island of Rhode Island for .security. Many of 
 them never returned We d(.) not know the number of the 
 
29 
 
 population rcniaininL; attcr the war, but it cannot have 
 exceeded a tliousand all told ; thou<;li thetnun then embraced 
 the entire county and a jxirt of Kent It we could see the 
 site ot the city as it then was after leparation, we should sec 
 simply a single row of houses, mostl\' rude cabins, strunj; 
 alon<i the eastern shore from Fox Point to the mouth of the 
 Moshassuck, clusterini; a little at the northern end. lO the 
 east \\c should beholil tlie hills still im])erfectl\ leduced 
 to tillafi^e, and to the west a wild waste of water and wood, 
 with some natural herbaf;e for cattle and thatch for the cabins 
 If we were to enter the houses we should find the rudest fui 
 niture and utensils in scant supjih , and the inmates clad in 
 durable, but extremel\- homelv and well-worn attire. The 
 life the)' li\ed was unembellished, but rac\' and wlu)lesome as 
 wildiiii;" fruit. The great elementary sources of human hap- 
 piness were theirs — home, family, friends, self-government, 
 soul-liberty, and souml minds in sound bodies — and without 
 stoppiuL; to ask whether life were worth living;, they manfulU 
 set themseh"es to subduing the rough earth to their uses, 
 which was then the great work to be tlcMie 
 
 This first work was exceedingly laborious. l-"oiests had to 
 be felled, stumps eradicated, rocks and stones unearthed and 
 rem(»ved. walls built, the soil reclaimed, wolves and foxes 
 exterminated, roads laid out and made, and bridges con 
 structed. All this had to be accomplished with the poorest 
 implements. The patient drudgery— the tireless muscular 
 and mental energy — of the first two or three generations of 
 our fathers, bevond what was necessarN- for a meagre li\eli- 
 hood, was thus stored up and indestructibly capitalized in the 
 ver\ substance of the soil for the benefit of their jjosterit)- 
 
Land, say some of our modern theorists, is tiie free <;'iit of 
 nature, and it can no more be appropriated without injustice 
 than the air or the ocean. What a silly fiction as applied to 
 the farms of New England. 
 
 But what were the villagers on the ri\er-bank here doing? 
 They, too, were making the rough earth tillable and tilling it. 
 Bucolic associations linger all about these hills. The houses 
 had each their home lot, laid out to the eastward, with gar- 
 dens, orchards, cornfields, and beyond them meadows or pas- 
 tures with lowing kine. But the settlers also had' the river 
 and the bay before them inviting their enterprise. They 
 were soon familiar with its treasure of fish and clams. Canoes 
 and graduallv boats were built. The growth was ver\' tardy. 
 Governor Hopkins counted the houses in 1732 and found 
 only seventy-foui" on the east, and only twelve on the west 
 side of the river. ^^^ The settlers were without exception poor. 
 The capital necessary to organize industry had to be accumu 
 lated by the slow savings of years. The first business organ- 
 ized for other than local purposes, was ship or vessel-build- 
 ing, quite extensively carried on at the mouth of the 
 Moshassuck. This led naturally to an increase of commerce, 
 at first with Newport and other American ports, and finally 
 with the West Indies and the .African coast. Commerce with 
 the West Indies and Africa introduced tiie first considerable 
 manufacture, which was^ — I would gladly soften the shocks 
 the manufacture of New l<2ngland rum. Foreign commerce, 
 however, did not greatly flourish here before the Revolution. 
 It was intercepted at Newport, which was more favorably sit- 
 uated for the reception of foreign imports and ft)r their coast- 
 
^1 
 
 wist" (listiilnitioii. and whieh mi)H.-n\ci . owini; to its j;rcatci 
 wealth, had .i;(>t the carliL-r start 
 
 It is not to 1)L' sujiposcd that thi- conmicicL- ol Proviilcnce 
 measures the extent to which the inhabitants ot Providence 
 - were eni;a_i;ed in maritime pursuits. As her jiopulation 
 inci'eased. man\ ot her l)o\s aiid xouni; men, inured to liard- 
 Nhi|) hut tiled ot tarm Hte and thirstini; tor ad\ entine. enhsted 
 m Newport merchantmen and whaleships. Durini; the 
 French and Si)anish wars a still more excitiui; ser\'ice alUired 
 them. Numei'ous prixateers were fitted out, man\ ol which 
 |)rosecuted their |)erilous work with brilliant success. Tiuis 
 was bred up and disciplined that liard\ race ot skilltui mari- 
 ners, intrepid as enterprising, the ver\ \'ikin_i;s ot the l\e\o 
 lution, who, (hu'ini; the wai", made the ])ri\ateeis ol I'rovi-'^ 
 dence a terror to British C(,)mmerce. Much ot the shippinj; 
 ot Newjiort, duriuL; lier occupation b\ the Hritish, was trans- 
 ferred to Providence, and there used in comiuerce or priva- 
 teeriui;. Ax tlie close ot the war the commerce ot Newport 
 was ruined, and Proxidence, haxiui;' the ships and the sailors, 
 took the lead. h'or more than tort\ \ears her commerce 
 pr()S[K'red and increased. Her merchantmen and whaleships 
 ploui;hed ever\ sea. ami her harboi" was spectacular with 
 stateK \essels. coiuinj; and <;()ini;. or ladim; and unladiui; at 
 her bus\- whar\e>. The prominent business men ol that" 
 jieriod -the Hrowiis. the heses, the Arnolds, the lio|)piMs. 
 Cvrus Butler. Richmond Bullock, lulward C"aninL;lon ami 
 others - were merchants eni;a_<;e(l in commerce. All luuioi 
 to them' l-'or the\ not onlv built i\\) the cit\ while the\ 
 built u\) their own fortunes, but the\ also introilucetl into the 
 citv. alonu. with the commodities of many climes, the liberal 
 
32 
 
 spirit and the larger ideas which are inspired by contact with 
 many nations. At no time, if tradition may be trusted, has 
 Providence society more happily combined simplicity with 
 elegance and cordiality with intellectual charm. But the 
 introduction of railroads changed the course of trade, and . 
 foreign commerce left the city for Boston and New York. 
 Her deserted wharves now testify only of a glory which has 
 passed. 
 
 I have passed beyond the Revolution, let me return to it. 
 The Revolutionary record of the city, like the Revolutionary 
 record of the State, is preeminently patriotic. The State had 
 long suffered in her commerce from Parliamentary taxes and 
 restraints, and was therefore the more sensitive to any new 
 encroachment. For more than ten years before the war her 
 attitude was increasingly belligerent. The Stamp Act was 
 a dead letter here. No Governor would swear to support it ; 
 no officer dared administer it ; and the General Assembly 
 nullified it. In 1775 the State created a navy of her own, 
 and gave the command of it to Abraham Whipple, of this 
 city, who, obedient to his orders, forthwith captured the ten- 
 der of the British frigate Rose, then off Newport, firing the 
 first cannon fired at the Royal Navy in the war. The same 
 year she recommended the creation of a Continental navy. 
 Congress heeded the recommendation, and when the fleet 
 was built, appointed Esek Hopkins, a North Providence man, 
 to command it. It was comparatively a simple matter for a 
 State so long habituated to the practice of self-government, 
 to renounce her allegiance. She renounced it and declared 
 her independence two months before the declaration by Con- 
 
33 
 
 gross, and she is to-day the oldest sovereign State in the 
 Union. 
 
 The city went heartily along with the State in all these 
 movements, some of which she originated. She eagerly 
 embraced every voluntary measure of non-importation and 
 domestic manufacture by which the colonies manifested their 
 independence. She first suggested, and by her decisive 
 action in town meeting, led the way to the Continental Con- 
 gress of the Revolution. The popular spirit here was sig- 
 nally shown as early as 1772 in the burning of His Majesty's 
 armed revenue schooner the Gaspee, grounded on Namquit 
 Point, while chasing a sloop belonging to John Brown, an 
 eminent merchant of the city. At his call xolunteers mus- 
 tered by the score to burn the hated vessel, and, manning- 
 eight long boats under the command of Abraham Whipple, 
 swooped down at night upon their cjuarry. After an exchange 
 of shots, in whicli the first British blood in the Revolution 
 was spilt, they captured thu crew, put them ashore, then set 
 the Gasjice on fire, and retiring saw it burst into flames and 
 paint the midnight sky with a lurid joortent of the approach- 
 ing conflict. It was a patriotic and retaliatory but illegal 
 act. Nevertheless, its jDcrpetrators were safe, though large 
 rewards were offered for their discovery, because the ])eoj")le 
 who did not participate in it were of the same mind with 
 those who did. 
 
 The city had the good fortune to number among her citi- 
 zens a genuine statesman. Stephen Hopkins was a great 
 man — great not only in capacit}' and force of mind, but also 
 — what is much rarer — in originative faculty. He early 
 investigated the question between the mother country and 
 
34 
 
 the colonies in its constitutional aspects, and marshalled the 
 arguments on the side of the colonies with masterly ahility. 
 He found, moreover, an argument for independence, deeper 
 than the logic of constitutional legitimacy, in the very nature of 
 things, forbidding that this great country should remain merely 
 a serviceable dependency of Great Britain. The value of his 
 leadership cannot easily be overestimated ; but nevertheless 
 his prescient mind never went farther in thought than his fel- 
 low-citizens were ready to follow in action, so cognate to him 
 was the community in jvhich he lived. If ever the city sees 
 fit to commemorate her Revolutionary services in bronze or 
 marble, let her pass the military and naval hero by and erect 
 a simple statue to her great civilian, for he certainly, in his 
 time, was her most representative man." 
 
 The Revolutionary history of the State is too familiar for 
 rehearsal to-day. The population of the State at the com- 
 mencement of the war was 55,000. For several years the 
 islarid of Rhode Island was occupied by British troops, and 
 the bay patrolled by British cruisers. The State was thus 
 crippled in resources, and, owing to her extended water 
 fronts, exposed to incessant depredations. She was obliged 
 to incur heavy expenditures in men and means for her own 
 protection. Nevertheless she nobly responded to the conti- 
 nental requisitions on both sea and land, and on the sea 
 she far excelled, proportionately, any of her sisters. The 
 city generously seconded the State. Her ]-)0})ulation was 
 only 4,355 ; and her men cajjable of bearing arms 726. But 
 if her men were few, her spirit was resolute ; and forever, 
 when the thrilling stories of Mifflin, and Trenton, and 
 Brinceton, and Yorktown are told, her prowess will be cele- 
 
J3 
 
 bratcd anew, and the martial j;l()n' i)t' I litcluock. and Thayer, 
 and Talbot, antl Olnev wdl he freshly reflected upon her. 
 
 Rhode Island came out of the war decimated and impov- 
 erished. The State and people alike stag<icred under a load 
 of debt. it has been said there was not projierty enou<;h in 
 the State to pa\ tiic debt. The crisis was des])erate. and 
 the (ieneral Assenil)l\' met it with a desperate remed)' ; 
 namely, an emission of paper monc}' to the amount ol one 
 hundred thousand pounds. 'I'he remed)- operated in ]xirt as 
 a bankrupt law and in i)art as a process of i^ratlual litpiidation. 
 It alleviated distress by diffusing it. But the ])aper rapitlly 
 depreciated antl, b\- unsettling; \alues, caused paralysis in mer- 
 cantile transactions. The General Assembly enrleavored to 
 arrest the depreciation by severe penal laws, but without suc- 
 cess. Things follow their tendencies regardless of human 
 legislation. l'"iction can never be trusted to do the work of 
 fact. The swift, shar{) remed\- b)' bankiuptc}-, puie and 
 sim[)le. would doubtless have turned out much better than a 
 resort to paper mone\', if the people would have submitted 
 to it. The business of the State, its cmnmerce especially, 
 was irreparably injured by such a resort. The city appre- 
 ciated this from the first. She was always on the side ot a 
 sfiunder polic}', and gradually caused it to prevail. 
 
 Rhotle Island took no part in forming the l*'ederal Ct)nsti- 
 tution, and was the last State to adopt it. Iler ])eople had 
 alwavs freely go\-erned themselves, and naturally hesitated 
 to assume Federal tluties antl restraints. They coultl not 
 know, what we know so well, how light the pressure is of 
 those tluties and restraints, how immeasurable the advantages 
 which accrue. Thev could not then know what we now 
 
36 
 
 know, that the Federal Union liberates far more than it 
 restrains, in that while it is in one sense a limitation shutting 
 down upon the States, it is in another and much truer sense 
 a marvellous supplementary structure over-arching them, 
 by which the people ascend to a participation in the larger 
 influences, the ampler horizons, the grander and nobler life 
 and destiny of the Nation. The opposition, however, was 
 not so much opposition to the Federal principle as to the 
 lack of constitutional safeguards, afterwards largely supplied 
 by amendments. The seaport towns. Providence especially, 
 always urged adoption, and finally secured it, though not un- 
 til after too many exhibitions of factious and purely partisan 
 resistance. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the adoption of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, a young Englishman appeared here, bringing, 
 pictured in his memory to the minutest detail, complete pat- 
 terns of the Arkwright spinning machinery. A fortuitous con- 
 versation in New York with the captain of a Providence coast- 
 ing" sloop led to his coming ; but it was no mere fortuity 
 which determined him to remain. He remained, an inhabitant 
 of the State, because he found in Moses Brown and William 
 Almy open minds to entertain and espouse his projects, with 
 wealth to execute them, a people capable and apt for his 
 enterprises, and an abundance of water power. Nearly a 
 century has gone by since Samuel Slater set his first seventy- 
 two spindles into successful operation at Pawtucket, and, in 
 the long retrospect, how magical his work appears, how mar- 
 vellous and manifold the transformations which have resulted 
 from it. The forces of nature became his apprentices. He 
 touched, as it were, with his simple labor wand, the mighty 
 
 I 
 
37 
 
 river giant, squandering his unused strength among our 
 northern hills, and, subduing, bound him forever to the ser- 
 vice of mankind. lie mustered, as it were, from wood and 
 waste, from valley and hillside, from rocky ridge and corru- 
 gated cliff, the idle genii of a thousand wandering streams 
 and reduced them to like obedience. In consequence of the 
 impulse communicated by him, \'ilkiges and hamlets have 
 sprung up along the banks of every water course which is 
 capable of turning a mill-wheel. It is appalling to think 
 how severely the State must have suffered, in the irreversible 
 decay of her commerce, but for this new industry, which, 
 graduall)' expanding, has continually opened new opportunities 
 for labor and capital. The progress has not been an isolated 
 progress. All the arts which minister to human happiness 
 are more or less closely linked together — liaboit quoddani 
 co)nuiHiic vincu/iiJN — and when one flourishes the others are 
 improved. The new industry gave a new market to the 
 farmer. Many a Rhode Island farm would have been 
 deserted before now but for the manufacturing village built 
 beside it. It furnished employment to the mason, the car- 
 penter, the carrier, the laborer. It brought custom to the 
 merchant and the trader. It laitl out highways and built 
 railroatls. It has given impetus to other manufactures, 
 and to the mechanic and decorative arts. No part of the 
 State has profited so much by it as this city. No part is 
 more dependent on it for its prosperity. It behooves her not 
 to let it decay. The South can manufacture the coarser fab- 
 rics more cheajjly, because her labor and raw material cost 
 her less, and she will soon supply her own market for them. 
 Rhode Island, therefore, to preserve her prestige, must aim 
 
38 
 
 more and more at beauty antl perfection of workmanship, 
 and to that end must carefully cultivate every art and disci- 
 pline which will promote, and carefully avoid every practice 
 and policy which may defeat her aim. 
 
 My accomplished friend and former instructor, the President 
 of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in a recent address 
 to the society, has luminously shown how largely the State 
 has been influenced and controlled in her material growth by 
 her geographical features. ' The great feature of her geog- 
 raphy is her magnificent bay, which, with its wealth of land- 
 locked waters, its beautiful islands, its diversified shores and 
 picturesque configuration of headland and haven and bay 
 within bay, penetrates far inland, and which, safe of approach 
 and easy of access, stands, as it were, with open arms and sea- 
 ward look, inviting the commerce of the world. It indi- 
 cates for the State, and especially for the city sitting regnant 
 at its head, a commercial vocation. Another prominent fea- 
 ture is the numerous rivers and watercourses which, fed by 
 tributary streams, descend with increasing volume to the bay. 
 This feature makes the State, as if by the ordinance of na- 
 ture, a manufacturing State. Commerce and manufactures 
 — we have seen how both have flourished at different times ; 
 commerce flourishes no longer ; but the great geographical 
 peculiarity which formerly encouraged and prospered it 
 still remains ; it remains for the people, therefore, without 
 relaxing their hold upon manufactures, to revive it, and then, 
 prosecuting both together, to fulfill the two-fold destiny pre- 
 figured for them in the jirimordial structure of the State. 
 What is there to prevent this, whenever a general revival of 
 American commerce occurs, if then the city, having com- 
 
39 
 
 ])lctccl Ikt railway connections with the west and the iiDith 
 and established suitable terminal facilities, shall ha\e anion^ 
 her wealthier citizens a few able men who are cnter|)risinf; 
 and safijacious enoiij^h to improve the opportunity ? 
 
 AmoUL; the influences which ha\e formed the cil\', the 
 inHuc-nce of pojjular education has been prumincnt. Rhode 
 Island was backward in estahlishiuL;' anv system of free 
 schools. The distinction between secular and reli,LCious 
 instruction was formerly less clearly undci'stood than now ; 
 and it was therefore cpiite natural for the peo])le of Rhode 
 Island to cpiestion the rii^ht of the State to interfere in the 
 matter of education. ()ther causes concuired. Man\- of 
 the towns were ])ooi" and their po])ulation sparse. Men have 
 to be educated to some extent in ortler to apjireciate the 
 value of education. It thus happens that the estaiilishment 
 of free schools is often the most bitterly opposed by those 
 who neetl them most. It was so in Rhoile Island. Our first 
 provision for such schools was enactetl in iSoo, at the in- 
 stance of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Man- 
 ufacturers. The act was unjjopular, the jieople beini( unpre- 
 |xued for it, and, three years later, it was repealed. The city, 
 howexer, haxini;" established her s\stem, continued it not- 
 withstanding; the repeal. The s\stem, _L;"reatlv altered and im- 
 proved, still exists. It needs no eulo^\- ; it is the cit)'s pride. 
 I'".\ery year numerous inijMls <;raduate with a useful I'ji^lish 
 education, such as the colleges of fift\- \ears ai;d were incom- 
 l)etent to imjxirt. The effect has been to enlarge, elevate 
 and diversify the industrial life of the cit\. It is the public 
 schools of the city which have kept her in the Iront rank 
 of business cities. They have retined and in\ i<;orated her 
 
40 
 
 domestic, social and civic life. She owes a great debt of 
 gratitude, which it well becomes her to acknowledge, to those 
 public-spirited citizens who, nearly a century ago, persever- 
 ingly recommended the system to her people and finally 
 secured its establishment, and, not less, to those other public- 
 spirited citizens, who, in long succession, without recompense, 
 have superintended its operations, and who, by their con- 
 tinued suggestions of change and improvement, have gradu- 
 ally carried it to its present high efficiency. Many public 
 services have been more prominent ; few more useful or 
 meritorious. 
 
 The public schools do much, but still they only make a 
 beginning. They do best when they not only instruct but 
 also arouse their pupils and inbreed in them a noble ambition 
 for improvement. Such pupils continue to learn while they 
 continue to live. And the city does well to afford them educa- 
 tional aids, for it is among such that she must mainly look 
 for her leaders in action and thought, and she will be fortu- 
 nate if she never looks in vain. The citizens have not been 
 unmindful of the value of such aids. Let me mention the 
 Athenaeum and the I'ublic Library, the Mechanics Associa- 
 tion, the Franklin Society, the Franklin Lyceum, the Histori- 
 cal Society, the Veteran Citizens' Association, the Soldiers 
 and Sailors Historical Society, the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, the Union for Christian Work, the Art Club, 
 the Commercial Club, and the Board of Trade. Everybody 
 appreciates the value of a good public library, especially when 
 like ours it affords guidance as well as opportunity. The 
 associations mentioned arc less generally valued ; but they 
 are all useful when rightly used. A good cause, a great idea 
 
4' 
 
 or a good example is never safer llian when it is in the keep- 
 ing of a society organized to develoj) and disseminate its 
 influences and to pass them on with accumulated power trom 
 generation to generation. Such societies lift their mend)crs 
 out of themselves by giving them high social or public 
 purposes to work for, which is a primary point of civil disci- 
 pline. They furnish :in arena where new jjrojccts and 
 opinions can be winnowed and sifted in debate and their 
 crudities corrected by the common criticism. They arc 
 organs through which the solitary student or thinker can 
 readily reach the public ear. Some of them educate their 
 members not only in the theory, but also in the practice of 
 philanthropic and Christian \irtues. They ought to be per- 
 petually re-invigorated with new life and energy, for the 
 city cannot afford to have them languish and decay. 
 
 Passing by the powerful influences of the churches and the 
 press, I will mention one other educational agency, namely, 
 Brown University. I am aware that many citizens listen 
 with incredulit.\- when the value of the Univcrsit}' to the city 
 is mentioned. It does not, like the public schools, come 
 home to every family and fireside, associated with the irre- 
 sistible charm of childhood, and so does not gain the popu- 
 lar heart. But consider how much the city would be imi^ov- 
 erished by the loss of it. Consider the many eminent citizens 
 of Providence who have graduated from it, — luldy, ]\Ia.\cy, 
 Burrill, Fenner, Russell, Pitman, Burges, Wheaton, Whipple, 
 Staples, Ames, Anthony, Jenckes, Arnold, the Iveses, the 
 Aliens, and others, living and dead. What a cloud of wit- 
 nesses for it, and witnesses, as the lawyers say, to be weighed, 
 not counted. What a benefit to the city, to have had such 
 6 
 
42 
 
 citizens. They gave her not their serv'ices only, but also 
 their distinction. Imperfect as they were, they were con- 
 tinually doing something to keep fresh in the ])ublic mind 
 those loftier ideals of manhood and citizenship which no peo- 
 ple, however prosperous, can forget without degeneracy. 
 Consider, also, the more direct influences exerted by the 
 University. President Wayland lived among us nearly 
 forty years — a mind of extraordinary calibre — foremost 
 in every good cause, educational, industrial, philanthropical, 
 or reformatory, and prompt to answer every call upon 
 him for counsel or instruction in every crisis or exigency 
 of the city, the State or the nation. Associated with him 
 was Professor Goddard, an elegant but robust mind, singu- 
 larly sensitive to the significance of passing events, and 
 ready always to lavish his rich treasures of wisdom and rare 
 graces of expression in the inculcation of correct opinions on 
 the important political and social topics of the time. Need I 
 remind you, also, of the lamented Diman, with his finished 
 scholarship ever at your service; of Chace, with his acute 
 intellect and large grasp of practical affairs, or of other col- 
 lege officers, living and dead, who have deserved well of the 
 city ! The danger to a city given over to business, immersed 
 in gainful pursuits, is that it will come to consider money the 
 supreme good. You all know what that means. It means 
 moral and spiritual corruption and decay. Now, I maintain 
 that the University has been, and, if sustained, will continue 
 to be a powerful counter influence. It communicates a tone, 
 a sentiment, an atmosphere — blowing freshly from the fields 
 of literature and philosophy, — an addition of new men, with 
 their faces set toward the sunrise, introducing new motives 
 and new ideas. Now and again it has given us leadership. 
 
43 
 
 f do not culdKizc il; it has its (Icticioncics; it ou-ht to be rein- 
 forced and iniprcned. ^'oll appreciate its deficiencies, which 
 is well ; I want you also to appreciate its value, which would 
 be better; and then, best of all. to labor heartily for its 
 improvement; makint;- it what it should be. the educational 
 crown and brii;htest ornament of the city. 
 
 It was not until iS^j that Providence became a city, with a 
 City (iovernment, by Mayor, Aldermen and Council. Ihe 
 first Mayor was Samuel W. Bridj;ham, a };entleman and lawyer 
 of hi<;h re])ute. His successors, Thomas M. Burj;ess. Amos 
 C. Barstow. Waller R. Dan forth. ICdward V. Knowlcs, James 
 V. Smith, William M. Kodman, Jabez C. Kni<;ht. ("reor-;e L. 
 Clarke, William S. llayward and Thomas A. Doyle have all 
 been able and energetic, some of them eminent men. Their 
 names speak for them. Alas ! that the office is vacant to-day, 
 and that he, the latest of them, who would most have rejoiced 
 in this hig^h festival, lies cold and dumb in his recent grave, 
 taken away by a m\sterious l*rovidence when we most con- 
 fidentlv counted on his j^resence. For years he has been so 
 completely identified with the city that it seems almost like 
 a \iolation of natural law for the celebration to |)roceed 
 without him. Our e\es still look for his familiar figure, oui- 
 ears still listen for his clarion voice, ami, though batHetl and 
 disappointed, still lefuse to be convinced that the\ will 
 see and hear him no more forever.*^ 
 
 The cit\ has been fortunate, also, in her Aldermen and 
 Common Councilmen. The list includes numerous excellent 
 and al)le. and manv distinguished men. They served at first 
 gratuitously, more recently for a small compensation. Man- 
 ifestlv, however, their services have been rendered, not for 
 
44 
 
 the pay, but to satisfy that sentiment of public duty which is 
 the soul of good citizenship. For years now the service has 
 been very onerous, recjuiring great prudence and sagacity. 
 In the last quarter of a century the population of the city 
 has more than doubled, and her costliest public works have 
 been constructed. During that period water has been intro- 
 duced, the City Hall and many other public buildings have 
 been erected, numerous new streets have been laid out, and 
 numerous old ones altered and improved, bridges have been 
 built and sewers constructed, and the police increased and 
 reorganized. Doubtless the city owes much to the indefati- 
 gable energy of Thomas A. Doyle, very much to his exhaust- 
 less enthusiasm of civic service, but he could not have pressed 
 these great works to completion without the cooperation of 
 the Aldermen and Councilmen. Their accomplishment has 
 involved an immense outlay of money. It would be folly to 
 say that there has been no waste or extravagance ; but it is 
 safe to say that there has been no wanton waste, and that 
 many -things censured as extravagant at first, have won 
 approval in the end. Generally, without doubt, our munici- 
 pal affairs have been wisely and economically administered. 
 Thank Heaven ! there is no scandalous smirch of jobbery 
 or peculation upon them. The future — nay, the present — 
 still presents difficult problems to be solved, vast works to be 
 performed. May the future never disgrace the past. It is 
 the city's good fortune that the officers who expend her taxes 
 are elected by the citizens who pay them, and are, therefore, 
 under no temptation to bid for popularity by prodigal expen- 
 ditures. I venture to advise her never to let either dema- 
 agogue or doctrinaire delude her into relinquishing this great 
 advantage so long as she can retain it. 
 
45 
 
 Fellow Citizf.ns : — I must conclude my address, leaving 
 many topics untouched. Fifty years ago the city celebrated 
 her two hundredth anniversary. She was then in outward 
 appearance but little more than a village of less than twenty 
 thousand inhabitants. She had no worthy public buildings ; 
 her streets were ill-wrought or poorly paved ; her commerce 
 had begun to tlccline, and her manufactures were still an 
 experiment. The late Judge Pitman delivered the bi-cente- 
 nary discourse. If at its conclusion, when for a moment he 
 turned with an.xious hope to the future, the angel of prophecy 
 had graciously unsealed his vision and shown him the city as 
 she is to-day, with her bt)rilers enlarged, her population se.x- 
 tupled, her streets improved, with her massive City Hall, her 
 commodious school-houses, her splendid churches, her chari- 
 ties, her comfortable houses and palatial mansions, her stately 
 business structures, her numerous manufactories, her street 
 railwavs, her central thoroughfares teeming with traffic and 
 humming with industry, and her general aspect of metropoli- 
 tan magnificence, the spectacle would have filled him with 
 wonder and admiration^ We are on the threshold of a new 
 half-century. Its fifty years, marching in single file, advance 
 invisibly through the mysterious region of the future, bring- 
 ing with them the fortunes of the city. Would we, if we 
 could, lift the veil which conceals them ? Would we not 
 rather recoil with fear, lest, instead of seeing the city pro- 
 gressive and prosperous, her population se.xtupled again, we 
 should see her lethargic, stationary or decaying ? Such mu- 
 tations have befallen other cities. I do not anticipate such 
 for ours. She may not grow in the next half century so rap- 
 idly as in the last ; but with her great natural advantages, her 
 
46 
 
 disciplined business faculty and manifold experience, her 
 prestige of past success, and still unfaltering confidence, she 
 has only to maintain her breed of noble men, her supply of 
 intelligent, virtuous and enterprising citizens, to make her 
 continuous progress assured. Let us then have faith in her 
 destiny. Let us be true to her and labor for her improve- 
 ment, not materially alone, but in all wise and excellent 
 ways and things. Let us labor also for a truer realization of 
 her great doctrine of soul-liberty, disdaining any longer to be 
 satisfied with the degenerate form of it which is but little 
 better than a selfish and palsying individualism, and endeav- 
 oring after that grander form, exemplified by Roger Williams 
 himself, which enlarges while it liberates, and which, instead 
 of isolating men, draws them together in free and friendly, 
 union for the promotion of every worthy public or philan- 
 thropic end. Thus let us labor, my fellow citizens, and the 
 city will surely grow and prosper, not only in wealth and pop- 
 ulation, but also, what is infinitely better, in mental, moral 
 and spiritual life and power. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (Nori-; ..J 
 
 Aci (>Ri)iN(; to tradition. R()i(cr Williams was born somewhere in Wales, 
 the exact place heint^ undetermined. Dr. Reuben A. (iuild. however, pro- 
 duces a rec(jrd which he thinks ^hows that the trailition is at favdt. The 
 record consists of certain entries of baptism in the register of the parish 
 church in Gwinear. a small town in Cornwall. Kngland. The record is 
 as follows, to wit : 
 
 •• Willvam Williams, son of iMr. William Williams, bap. J; Nov. 159S. 
 Roger, 2d son of William Williams, (Jent.. bap. J4 Julv 1600. llumphrev, 
 son of William Williams, bap. 2.1 April 1625. John, son of Humphrey 
 Williams, Gent. bap. at High Hickington, Devon. i6to." 
 
 The inference is that the Roger Williams named in the record was born 
 in (iwinear earlv in the vear i^kk). The question is whether he was the 
 founder of Rhode Island. The date of birth, inferred from the baptism, 
 corresponds perfectlv with the allusions to his age which are to be found 
 in the writings of Roger Williams. I?ut Roger had two brothers, vi/. : 
 Robert, who for a time resided in Providence, and afterwards in Newport, 
 and a brother alhidetl to as a "Turkish merchant." Why. if the (Jwinear 
 Roger was the I'ouiulcr <tt RIkhIc l-land. do not the names of these two 
 brothers appear, since Roger is !iot the last name of the family in the reg- 
 ister? Dr. Guikl suggests two conjectural reasons. One is that the elder 
 William Williams mav have removeii from ( iwiiiear soon after the birth 
 of Roger. This does not seem to be probable, because it is inferable hom 
 the record that Gwinear continued to be the residence of the tamily until 
 1625. when liumphrev wa-- bapti/eil. The secoiul reason is that as a rule 
 only the baptisms of the eldest sons areentered of recortl, ' they being in 
 the direct line of succession." and that the bajnism of Roger was entered 
 because he was named for Sir Rogt r Williams, a fanu)us soldier of the age 
 
48 
 
 of Elizabeth. Dr. Guild adduces no evidence to show that it was the rule 
 or custom of the church to register only the baptisms of the eldest sons, 
 and it does not seem probable that any such rule or custom existed. The 
 fact that the eldest sons are " in the direct line of succession," does not 
 afford a very satisfactory inference, for they may die childless, in which 
 event the second sons succeed, and so on. The conjecture that an excep- 
 tion was made in favor of Roger because he was named for Sir Roger, is 
 too fanciful to build upon. I have no wish to depreciate the Gwinear 
 record. The Roger Williams named in it may be our Roger. My point 
 is simply that the proof as yet is not plenary; though further investiga- 
 tion, which I trust Dr. Guild will diligently prosecute, may make it so. I 
 take pleasure in referring the curious reader to Dr. Guild's Monograph, 
 entitled " Footprints of Roger Williams," recently published hy Tibbitts 
 & Preston, Providence, R. I., where the subject is discussed. 
 
 [NOTE 2.] 
 
 Governor Winthrop's Diary is much the most trustworthy authority in 
 regard to the proceedings which ended in the banishment of Roger Wil- 
 liams. Under date of January 5, 1630 [O. S.], Winthrop notes the arrival 
 of Roger Williams in the ship Lyon, under date of April 12. The same 
 year we find the following, to wit : " At a court holden at Boston [upon 
 information to the Governor, that they of Salem had called Mr. Williams 
 to the office of teacher], a letter was written from the court to Mr. Endi- 
 cott to this effect: That whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with 
 the congregation at Boston, because they would not make a public declara- 
 tion of their repentance for having communion with the churches of Eng- 
 land, while they lived there; and besides had declared his opinion, //^rt^f 
 ///(' maffisfrafK viighi >iot pioiis// the breach of the Sabbath, 7ior aiiy other 
 offence^ as it ivas a breach of the first table : therefore they marvelled they 
 would choose him without advising with the council; and withal desir- 
 ing him, that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about 
 it." Under date of October 11, 1633, Winthrop writes : •' The ministers 
 of the Bay and Sagus did meet once a fortnight, at one of their houses by 
 course, w^here some question of moment was debated. Mr. Skelfon, the 
 pastor of Salem, and Mr. Williams, who was removed from Plymouth 
 
49 
 
 thilhcr [liut not in anv otlice. tliough lie exercised hy way of propiicsyj, 
 took some exception against it. as tearing it might grow in time to a pres- 
 bytery or siiperintendency, to the prejudice of the churches' liberties." 
 Doubtless Williams by this •■ exception, " which subsequent events show 
 was not groundless, made himself still further olTensive to the churches of 
 the Bay. Under dates of December 27, 1633, January .24, 1633, O. S.. and 
 Xovomber .17, 1634. W'intlirop gives an account of the proceetiings of the 
 Governor and Council relative to Williams's treatise on the Massachusetts 
 Charter. I'nder date of February 30, 1635, Winthrop writes: "The 
 (jovernor and assistants sent for Mr. Williams. The occasion was, for 
 that he had taught publicly, that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath 
 to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a 
 wicketl man in the worship of God and cause him to take the name of God 
 ill vain. lie was heard before all the ministers and very clearly confuted." 
 The following appears under date of July S. i<'>35 : " At the general court, 
 Mr. Williams, of Salem, was summoned and did appear. It was laid to 
 his charge, 'that, being under question before the magistracy and churches 
 for divers dangerous opinions, viz : i, that the magistate ouglit not to 
 l>unisli the brtach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did 
 ilisturb the civil peace; 2. that he ought not to tender an oath to an unre- 
 generate man; 3. that a man ought not to pray with such, though wife, 
 child, etc. ; 4. that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor 
 after meat, etc ; and that the other churches were about to write to the 
 church of Salem to admonish of these errors: notwithstanding the church 
 had since calle'd him to the office of teacher. Much debate was about these 
 things. The said opinions were adjudged by all, magistrates and minis- 
 ters [who were desired to be present], to be erroneous, and very danger- 
 ous, and the calling of him to office, at that time, was judged a great con- 
 tempt of authority. So. in fine, time was given to him and the church of 
 Salem to consider of these things till the next General Court, and then 
 either to give satisfaction to the court, or else to expect the sentence: it 
 being professedly declared by the ministers [at the request of the court to 
 give their advice], that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions 
 [whereby a church might run into heresy, apostasy or tyranny, and yet 
 ///(• civil magistrate could not i>itcrnicddlc'\, were to be removed, and that 
 the other churches ought to request the magistrates so tn d". " Thi< [>iv- 
 7 
 
50 
 
 sage very clearly shows several things, to wit: i, that at the meeting of 
 the General Court. July 8, 1635, Williams and the church were both found 
 guilty, the one of holding the "dangerous opinions" alleged, and the 
 other of contempt in calling him to office while he was under question for 
 them ; 2, that their cases were postponed, not for trial, but for sentence, 
 unless Williams would retract and the church purge itself bj submission; 
 3, that foremost among the " dangerous opinions " laid to the charge of 
 ^\^illiams was his doctrine of soul-libertj' ; and 4, that this doctrine was 
 selected by the clergy for special reprobation, and the maintenance of it 
 declared by them to be a good ground for banishment. It is evident that 
 the other matters charged were regarded by the clergy at least, if not by 
 the magistrates, as matters of minor moment. When Williams again 
 appeared before the General Court he had written the letters sent by the 
 Salem church to the other churches requesting them to admonish the 
 magistrates and deputies. These letters and a letter written by him to his 
 own church to persuade it to renounce communion with all the churches 
 of the Ba\', were now further set up against him, and doubtless at the time 
 greatly increased the animosity of the court. Winthrop tells us that 
 Williams justified the letters and maintained all his opinions, and that, 
 Hooker being unable to reduce him from any of his errors, he was sen- 
 tenced. The sentence was as follows, to wit: 
 
 " Whkreas, Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of 
 Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions 
 against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, 
 both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviction, 
 and yet maintaineth the same without any retraction ; it is therefore 
 ordered that the said Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within 
 six weeks now next ensuing ; which if he neglect to perform, it shall be law- 
 ful for the governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place 
 out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the 
 court.'' 
 
 It will be obser\ed that the grounds of sentence are here summed up under 
 two heads, to wit: "opinions against the authority of magistrates," and 
 the " letters," the letters being treated rather as matter of aggravation than 
 as an independent offence. It will also l^e observed that the language is 
 " divers opinions against the authority of magistrates." which, of course, 
 means more than one opinion. But W'inthroji mentions onl\' two opin- 
 
51 
 
 ions which can be characterized as •'f)pinions aijainst the aiithoritv of 
 magistrates," namelv, the opinion in regard to breaches of tlie first table, 
 and the opinion in regard to oaths. Which of tiiese opinions had the 
 greater influence in determining the sentence? The answer mav not be 
 absolutely certain, but, if we look only to Wintlirop, I do not think there 
 can be any reasonable doubt. There is nothing in Winthrop to show that 
 the contemjioraries of Williams were ever seriously alarmed bv his teach- 
 ing in regard to oaths; whereas we have only to note the opinion of the 
 clergy in regard to the doctrine of soul-libertv, as stated bv him, to see 
 how rooted was their aversion to it, anti how relentlessiv thev were bent 
 upon its extirpation. Wintlirop. under date of January ii, 1^)36, after 
 relating the decision to send Williams to England, uses the following lan- 
 guage, to wit: ••The reason was. because he had drawn al)ove twentv 
 persons to his opinion, and they were intending to erect a plantation about 
 the Xarragansett Bay, from whence the infection would easilv spread into 
 these churches [the people being, many of them, much taken with the 
 apprehension of his godliness]." The reader will observe that the word 
 here is " opinion," not opinions, thus clearly denoting that there was one 
 opinion with which Williams was so identified, that Winthrop could nat- 
 urally speak of it without further designation as '• //is opinion." Of course, 
 the opinion meant must have been his famous doctrine, for he held no 
 other opinion which was likely to disseminate itself by " infection." or bv 
 reason of the enthusiasm of his lollowers, in the event of his removal to 
 Xarragansett Bay. Certainly, therefore, if Winthrop were our onlv 
 authority, the conclusion would be irresistible that the doctrine of soul- 
 liberty was not only among the causes, but the principal cause, oi the 
 banishment. 
 
 Williams, in " Mr. Cotton's Lettei- Kxamined and Answered." savs : 
 '• After my public trial and answers at the General Court, one of the most 
 eminent magistrates, w hose name and speech may by others be remem- 
 bered, stood up and spoke : ' Mr. Williams.' said he. " holds forth these 
 four particulars : first, that we have not our lantl by patent from the king, 
 but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent 
 of such a receiving it by patent: secondly, that it is not lawful to call a 
 wicked person to swear, to pray, as being actions of God's worship; 
 thirdlv. that it iv nnt hiwiul to hear anv of the ministers of the Parish 
 
52 
 
 Assemblies in England; fourthly, that the civil magistrates' powerextends 
 only to the bodies and goods, and outward state of men. I acknowledge 
 the particulars were rightly summed up.'" (Publications of the Narra- 
 gansett Club, Vol. I, pp. 40, 41.) In his letter to Endicott he again enu- 
 merates the causes, making them the same. (Pub. Nar. Club, Vol. VI, p. 
 217.) In his letter to Major Mason, he says that Governor Haynes pro- 
 nounced the sentence of banishment. It may therefore be presumed 
 that it was he who recapitulated the four particulars. He tells us that 
 Hajnes, afterwards, being in some difterence with the Bay, made the 
 following memorable confession to him, to wit: "I think. Mr. Williams, 
 I must now confess to you. that the most wise God hath pro\ided and cut 
 out this part of his world for a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of con- 
 sciences." (Pub. Nar. Club, Vol. VI, pp. 344, 345.) He means, of 
 course, that Haynes thereby virtually confessed that he erred when he 
 took part in banishing him for his doctrine of soul-liberty. It has been 
 urged that Williams's statement does notshowthat he considered that this 
 doctrine was specially intluential in causing his banishment, but rather 
 the contrary, since he mentions it last. But he professes to state the 
 causes as recapitulated b}' the magistrate. A complainant preferring 
 charges might naturallv prefer the graver first : V")ut a magistrate passing 
 sentence, if he recapitulates the grounds of it, and wishes to be impres- 
 sive, is likely to reverse the order, using the rhetorical figure of the cli- 
 max rather than the anti-climax. 
 
 It will be remarked that Williams mentions two causes of banishment 
 w'hich are not included in Winthrop's specification, to wit: his separatism 
 and his attack on the patent. In explanation of this, it has been sug- 
 gested that perhaps Williams may have been tried on all the charges ever 
 lodged against him. whether new or old, and that Winthrop only specifies 
 such as were new. The trouble with this explanation is. that the charge 
 in regard to oaths was not new, and that Williams had never before been 
 summoned to answer to any complaint of his separatism. There is an 
 explanation which seems to me more probable. Winthrop probably states 
 the charges on which Williams was arraigned, being the charges for- 
 mallv preferred. If the trial had taken place before a tribunal accus- 
 tomed to technical methods, it would have been confined to these formal 
 charges. The trial took place before the General Court, which was a rep- 
 
50 
 
 resell tali vf assenil>lv ratlicr than a judicial tril)iinal. It is ciinicult for a 
 court compobcd of expert iawvers to confine the trialof an exciting case to 
 tiie record; for a popular assembly to do so would be little short of a mir- 
 acle. The trial of Williams before such an assembly would naturallv 
 travel out of the record and involve his character generally. So far on 
 the supposition that the trial itself actually extended to the " four particu- 
 lars." Hut. let it be remembered, that, according to Wiiuhroii the trial on 
 the charges stated by him was concluded in July, and the case stooil con- 
 tinued for sentence simply, unless before sentence ^Villiams should '• give 
 satistaction to the court." Now il is not uncommon tor even the strictest 
 tribunals to allow themselves, after the accused has been convicted, a con- 
 siderable latitude of inquiry into his antecedents for the purpose of deter- 
 mining the kind of sentence which shall be imposed upon him. It ma\- 
 be that the four particulars were mentioned with that view. Or it may be 
 that the discussion between Hooker and Williams took a range wider 
 than the record, ami that Ilaynes refeired to the discussion instead of the 
 trial when he said " Mr. Williams //olif.^ forth these four particulars." 
 Williams's statement that tie four particulars were mentioned "after my 
 trial and n/zs-i-'crs." well accords with this supposition. That \\'inlhrop 
 correctly reports the formal charges is further confirmed as follows : It 
 was not Williams alone who was put on tiial. but NVilliams jointly with 
 the Salem church, which persisted in retaining him as pastor. The Boston 
 church undertook to labor with the Salem church for this. Nathaniel 
 Morton, in "The New England Memorial," says "there was a public 
 ailmonition sent in writing tVom the church of Boston to the church of 
 Salem for the reducing of Mr. Williams and the erring part of the church." 
 This writing contained a statement of "errors in doctrine maintained by 
 some of the brethren of the church of Salem, tending to the disturlnince 
 of religion and peace in family, church and commonwealth." The state- 
 ment recited by Morton, is practically the same as Wintbrop's. except that 
 it omits Wintbrop's fourth charge, which is a small matter, concerning 
 liecorum rather than doctrine, and adds one further allegation of error, to 
 wit: that magistrates ought not to take an oath of fidelity from "the 
 bodv of their subjef ts though regenerate." It mentions neither separatism 
 nor the patent. 
 John Cotton is the principal authority for the view ih.ii tin linririne of 
 
54 
 
 soul-libertv had nothing to do with the banishment. Cotton, answering 
 Williams, imputes fraud and falsehood to his statement of "particulars," 
 and declares that Williams wisely conceals the name of the " eminent 
 magistrate " who summed up the grounds of his banishment, lest, if 
 named, " he should be occasioned to bear witness against such fraudulent 
 expression of the particulars." Of course the imputation recoils upon 
 its author. Williams, with his ardent temperament, may have sometimes 
 fallen into exaggerations, but he was incapable of lying- The imputa- 
 tion betrays a hostile and calumnious temper which should be allowed 
 for in considering Cotton's letter as authority. It should also be borne 
 in mind that the letter was written ten years after the event by a man who 
 meanwhile had had his own perplexities, familistical and other, to occupy 
 him, and w-ho, moreover, reproaches Williams for bringing the matter up 
 for discussion with him, because he so seldom attends civil courts, having 
 a distaste for them. Yet he readily engages in the discussion, contradict- 
 ing Williams and giving his own differing account. It is only too natural 
 for men in such circumstances to persuade themselves that they actually 
 remember that things were as, looking back from their later point of view, 
 thev think they must have been. I do not think Cotton was above 
 making this mistake. He sa3's, "The two latter causes which he [Wil- 
 liams] giveth of his banishment were no causes at all, as he expresseth 
 them;" or in other words, that his teaching in regard to separatism and 
 soul-liberty were not among the causes of his banishment. In saying 
 that the doctrine of soul-liberty was not among the causes. Cotton not 
 only differs from Winthrop, but contradicts himself, for it was one of the 
 errors noted in the ajimonition to the Salem church, and according to 
 Morton, the admonition was signed by Cotton. Morton, moreover, a con- 
 temporary of Williams, imbued with the contemporaneous feeling, makes 
 this doctrine, and this only, the subject of special comment and condem- 
 nation. Cotton says that the doctrine could not have been among the 
 causes, because other men, known to hold it, were tolerated in both church 
 and State. Evidently he either forgets or ignores the law enacted in 
 Massachusetts in 1644. This law was as follows, to wit: " If any per- 
 son or persons in the jurisdiction . . shall deny the ordinance of magis- 
 tracy or their lawful right or authority . . to punish the outward 
 breaches of the first table and shall appear to the court willfully and 
 
53 
 
 obstinately to continue therein after clue time and means of conviction, 
 every such person or persons shall he sentenced to hanishment." (Rec- 
 ord* of Massachusetts, Vol. II, p. 85.) The fact that this enactment was 
 in force when Cotton wrote his letter throws a Hood of light on his can- 
 dor. It is true the enactment is aimed not a','ainst the mere holding of 
 the obnoxious opinion, but against the maintenance of it. Possibly Cot- 
 ton may ha\e intended to reserve to himself the benefit of this distinc- 
 tion, but if so, his inexplicitness is exceedingly disingenuous. Manifestly 
 what Williams means was that he was banished for promulgating or 
 maintaining the opinions enumcrateil. For him. a knowledge of the 
 truth imposed the duty of teaching it. He knew that the smothered tire 
 goes out. that the belief unuttered perishes in the breast of the believer. 
 His feeling in this respect strikingly appears in his letter to John Endi- 
 cott. Endicott had been a member of his church at Salem. He had 
 adopted and publicly professed the doctrine of soiil-libert\ . He subse- 
 quently retrogradeii anil was concerned as governor in the shocking jirose- 
 cution of Clarke, Holmes and Crandall. Williams addressed a letter to him 
 on occasion of it, reproaching him with apostolic plainness and power 
 for his tergiversation. "I fear. "he wrote, "your underprizing of Holy 
 Light hath put out the candle and the eye of conscience in these partic- 
 ulars." He was very careful himself not to put out " the candle and the 
 eye of conscience" by refusing to bear witness to the Holy Light which 
 visited him. 
 
 The matter would be of little moment to the fame of Williams, if those 
 who maintain that the iloctrine of soul-liberty was not one of the causes 
 of his banishment, did not find it necessary to make compensation bv 
 exaggerating the other causes. Cotton says that to the best of his obser- 
 vation and remembrance there were only two causes: namely, " his [Wil- 
 liams's] violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent," and his 
 opposing the oath of fidelity. Now, when or where was he guilty of such 
 "violent and tumultuous carriage".' Was it among his little fiock of 
 faithful parishoners? The language is strong enough to import that he 
 had raised a riot and mobbed the police. Probably if there was any justi- 
 fication for such language, it was simply this, that, being tormented by 
 clergymen and elders " laboring to reduce him." he lost patience and 
 expressed himself with an emphasis that startled thiin. Wintbrop i^'ives 
 
56 
 
 no intimation of anv \iolence or tumult. Williams tell us that his con- 
 tention was that the Massachusetts settlers ought to " repent receiving 
 the land " of the natives by patent; Cotton represents that his contention 
 Avas that thev ought to repent receiving the patent itself and return it. 
 The statements ditier materially; which is the more likely to be correct? 
 The former is easily perverted into the latter, or even misunderstood for 
 it. Everybody knows how trcquently such permutations occur in oral 
 discussion. Everybody knows how often in such discussions men put 
 tiieir own Avords into mouths of their opponents, and then condemn their^ 
 opponents tor them. It was also more common two hundred and fifty 
 years ago even than it is now for controversialists to draw their own in- 
 ferences from the doctrines of their opponents, and then impute them to 
 their opponents as the doctrines held by them. We cannot positively 
 assert that Cotton did this. But we can positively assert that the doctrine 
 which Cotton attributes to Williams was not contained in the latter's 
 treatise on the patent, because Winthrop states the matters in that treatise 
 which gave ofiense and does not mention it. AV^ill it be said that Wil- 
 liams developed the doctrine subsequentl\- .- Winthrop gives some 
 account of his subsequent teaching. Under date of November 27, 1634, 
 he writes : •' It was informed us that Mr. Williams had broken his prom- 
 ise to us in teaching publicly against the King's patent, a/id our great 
 sin in claiming right thereby to this country." He nowhere says that Wil- 
 liams taught that the settlers ought to repent receiving the patent and 
 return it. If this was his teaching, why does it not appear in the speci- 
 fication of " dangerous opinions" given by Winthrop? And why was 
 it not included by Cotton himself in his admonition to the church at 
 Salem among the " errors tending to disturbance of peace in the common- 
 wealth "? If the doctrine was taught by Williams as Cotton says it was 
 taught, and created the sensation which he says it created, the omission is 
 ine.xplicable. Until these difiiculties are removed it is safest to assume 
 that Williams, instead of Cotton, has stated his own doctrine correctly. 
 Evidently the proper method of making amends to the natives for land 
 taken without payment under the patent was not to surrender the patent, 
 but to pay for the land. Williams perceived this; tor Winthrop, stating 
 the purport of his treatise, tells us that he -'concluded that, claiming by 
 the King's grant, they could have no title except they compounded -vitk 
 
57 
 
 titc natives." A surrender of the Massachusetts patent was precisely 
 wliat the King of England and the persecuting prelates of the Church of 
 England wanted, and Williams was no fond lover of either King or pre- 
 late that he should wish to play into cither's hands. There are s(jine who 
 press Cotton's statement to a still further conclusion; namely, that Wil- 
 liams maintained that both the patent and the government under it were 
 alike void. No conclusion could be more erroneous. Ilis whole course 
 of conduct, both while he lived in Massachusetts and afterwards, shows 
 that he recognized without question the jurisdiction and legitmacy of 
 the Massachusetts government "in civil things." And so likewise the 
 consequences of his opposing the oath of (idelity have been magnified or 
 misremembered. The German poet Goethe, when he went to work in his 
 old age to write his autobiography, significantly entitled it " Truth and 
 Fiction tVom my Life," because he realized how impossible it was for him 
 to recollect the incidents of his life correctly, or to represent them as they 
 happened without coloring or modification, since he could not become his 
 earlier self again. It would have been well for John Cotton if, when, 
 imder a strong bias of polemical prejudice, he undertook, ten years after 
 the event, to give from memory tiie reasons why Williams was banished, 
 he could have anticipated the great German in this thouglit and governed 
 himself accordingly. 
 
 [NOTE 3.J 
 Giving my fancy rein. I have ventured to suppose that Williams was 
 joined by his wife and children in Seekonk ; ami, if the removal did not 
 take place imtil J line, the supposition is not improbable. The common 
 account founded on tradition is that he removed with five other men, 
 namely, William Harris. John Smith, miller, Joshua \'erin, Thomas 
 Angell and Francis Wickes. (Stapless Annals of Providence, p. 20. 
 .Vrnold's History of Rhode Island, p. 40.) Another account is that he was 
 accompanied by Thomas Angell. (Materials for a history of Rhode Island 
 collected by Theodore Foster. Col. of R. I. Hist. Soc. Vol. VII. p. S3. 
 Stone's Life of Howland; note, p. 344.) Still another account is that 
 the salutation. •' What Cheer." was given to Williams and Angell when 
 they were on an exploring expedition betbre Williams came to the Moshas- 
 suck "to settle -vilh his family there" (Col. of R. I. Hist. Soc. .Vol. 
 VII, p. S3, note S.) 
 
5'^ 
 
 [NOTE. 4-] 
 
 I have been asked to reconsider my characterization of the killing of 
 Miantinomi as a " wicked murder." I am aware that different men 
 have come to different conclusions on this subject, according to their pre- 
 possessions and to the authorities which they accept. Any thorough 
 treatment of the question would necessitate an exploration, collation 
 and weighing of original testimonies, such as cannot be undertaken here. 
 I have adopted the prevalent Rhode Island view, which is also the view of 
 the learned editor of Winthrop's diary, Mr. James Savage. The reader 
 who is curious about the opposite view, can find it ably stated by the late 
 William L. Stone, author of the " Life of Brandt," in a little book pub- 
 lished imder the title of " Uncas and Miantinomoh." Mr. Stone, in my 
 opinion, gives too much credence to uncritical authors like Cotton Mather, 
 and too little to Rhode Island writers. 
 
 [NOTE 5.] 
 
 Roger Williams sailed for England to procure the revocation of Cod- 
 dington's commission in November. 165 1. He returned early in the sum- 
 mer of 1654. In a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., under date of Julv 12, 
 1654, he writes : "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with 
 some persons, to practice the Hebrew, the Greek, I^atin. French and 
 Dutch. The Secretary of the Council [Mr. Milton], for my Dutch I read 
 him, read me many more languages." This statement is particularly 
 interesting, from the fact that Milton, in composing his "Paradise Lost," 
 borrowed largelj* from the " Lucifer." a drama by the Dutch poet, Joost 
 van den V^ondel. The "Lucifer" was published in January, 1654. A 
 recent English book on the subject, entitled " Milton and Vondel : A 
 Curiosity of Literature. By George Edmunds-on, M. A.,"sa3-s: " It is 
 at least possible that it was from the lips of Williams himself that Milton 
 first heard the rhythmic lines and learnt to appreciate the poetical power 
 r.nd fine imagery of Vondel's masterpiece." 
 
59 
 
 [NOTE 6.] 
 
 My aiitliority for this statement is that marvellous piece of minute 
 antiquarian research. " Tiie Piantingaiici Growth of Providence, hv Ilenrv 
 C. Dorr." (Rider's Historical Tracts, No. 15, p. 15S. ) In 1S70, Mr. 
 Rider printed in pamphlet a manuscript purporting to give the names of 
 the owners or occupants of huildings in the town of Providence, from 
 174S to 1771. The manuscript was found among the papers of Kinsley 
 Carpenter, who died in 1S59. "^^ ^'i*^ ^J?^ o* QS years. The author notes on 
 the manuscript that it was penned from memory without patrolling the 
 streets to count the buildings, and may contain some errors. It shows 
 that the number of tiwelling houses in 1749 was 143, anil in 1771. 309, an 
 increase of 166 in 22 years. It shows that in 1771, tiicre were 88 barns 
 and 1S9 storehouses and shops, including four cooper shops, six distil- 
 leries, two blacksmith shops, two grist mills, two candle works, a tan 
 house, a rope walk, a paper mill, a clothier's shop, a chocolate house, 
 a slaughter house and a potash works. Besides these there were 15 so- 
 called public buildings, viz.: A college. President's house, court house, 
 jail, work house, four school houses. Baptist meeting house, church, 
 Presbi'terian meeting house. New Light meeting house. Powder house 
 and Friends meeting house. 
 
 The reader will get some idea of the growth of the city in more recent 
 times from the two tbllowing tables : 
 
 POPLLATION 
 Of tiik Town and City of Provioence fro.m 170S to 1SS5. 
 
 170S. 
 
 174S 
 
 1.446 
 ,3.91^' 
 .v45- 
 
 '755 .v'59 
 
 '774 4-.>-i 
 
 '776 4-355 
 
 '75>- 4-3i« 
 
 i7<>3 6.3S0 
 
 iSoo 7-614 
 
 iSio 10.071 
 
 1S20. 1 1.767 
 
 1S30 16.836 
 
 •840 -3.17^ 
 
 1S50 4i-5'3 
 
 1S60 50,666 
 
 1S65 .=!4-595 
 
 1S70 t.S.iju^ 
 
 1875 100,675 
 
 1878 99,682 
 
 iSSo 104,852 
 
 1SS3 116.755 
 
 1SS4 120.00C 
 
 ISS^ 121.000 
 
6o 
 
 VALUATION 
 
 Of the City for Taxation from 1S32 to 1SS5. 
 
 1S32 13, 121. 200 
 
 1S37 14, 516, 150 
 
 1S40 17, 195, 700 
 
 1S45 ..23, 729, lOO 
 
 I S50 31. 959, 600 
 
 1855 56, 296, 297 
 
 1S60. 58, 131. Soo 
 
 1S65 So, 564, 300 
 
 1870 95, 076, 900 
 
 1875 121, 954. 700 
 
 1880 115. 921, 000 
 
 The city was enlarged in 1S6S by the annexation of the ninth ward, and 
 in 1S74 by the annexation of the tenth ward. 
 
 [NOTE 7.] 
 
 A good biography- of Stephen Hopkins was until recently a desidera- 
 tum. The want has now been supplied, so far as it can be with the 
 materials extant, by Mr. William E. Foster, the accomplished librarian of 
 the Providence Public Library, in his excellent work entitled '' Stephen 
 Hopkins : A Rhode Island Statesman. A Study in the Political History 
 of the Eighteenth Century," published as Nos. iS and 19 of Rider's 
 Historical Tracts. 
 
 [NOTE S.] 
 Ma\or Doyle died after a short illness. June 9, 1SS6. 
 
LITERARY AND HISTORICAL EXERCISES 
 
 AT Tilt 
 
 F^IRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 
 
 WEDNESDAY. JUNE 23, 1886. 
 
 I. Mkmokiai. Makcii. 
 D. W. Ri:i:\K.s, . . . Conductor. 
 
 2. \''0LUNTARV OF PsALM lOO. 
 
 Mus^ic HV J. O. Starkwhathek, Snug by the Arioii Club. 
 
 Jules Jordan, . Diirctor. 
 
 3. AnoREss I'.v His Honor Acting Mavor Robhins. 
 
 Ladies ami Gcn/lciiicn : 
 
 We have assembled to-day to begin with appropriate cereinonie.« the 
 celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement 
 of Providence. That the opening exercises should he held within the 
 walls of this venerable edifice, from which the principles formulated by 
 the founder of these plantations have gone forth with world-wide appli- 
 cation, is a tribute to him who defied the persecutions of his associates 
 and braved the dangers which surrounded him in the etl'ort to provide a 
 haven of rest for those who sutVered for conscience" sake. 
 
 The citv has chosen well in its selection of the place within which is to 
 be delivered the historical discourse commemorative of the event it is to 
 celebrate. 
 
62 
 
 To portray in fitting language the sutierings, the trials and the persecu- 
 tions of the first settlers of the Providence Plantations, who builded 
 better than they knew, to follow and recount the many vicissitudes of our 
 ancestoi-s, and to describe the changes from the town to the city govern- 
 ment is the province of the historian. 
 
 Neither is it for me to attempt to place before you ever so briefly the 
 record of the growth and prosperity of this municipality from the date 
 of its incorporation as a city. 
 
 The duty which has been assigned to me is that which was intended for 
 another, and which it was confidently hoped would be performed by one 
 whose life has been identified with the greatest growth of the city, and 
 whose position for eighteen years as Chief Magistrate qualified him more 
 than anv one else to present to those who are here assembled the prog- 
 ress and development of all the varied interests which have made this 
 the second city in New England. 
 
 His broad and comprehensive views of what was most needed, both for 
 the good government of the community and the advancement of its wel- 
 fare, which have received the endorsement of the citizens whose interests 
 he endeavored to serve, has been a potent factor in placing this city in the 
 advanced position which it occupies. 
 
 No one can regret more than I that it was not permitted the late Thomas 
 A. Doyle to participate in the exercises which to-day inaugurate an epoch 
 in the history of this city from which in time to come other celebrations 
 will date, and which would have afiorded to him as well as his hearers so 
 much gratification. 
 
 To those who are now assembled in this grand old church, and who 
 have watched with pride the great advancement of the municipality, the 
 day, though fraught with a memory tinged with sadness, is nevertheless 
 bright with the hopes of a success far beyond that which has already been 
 attaineil, and which will be uneciualled by the future history of other 
 cities. 
 
 The capabilities of its citizens ; their regard for good government and 
 willing obedience to wholesome laws; the patronage and fostering care 
 for its institutions of learning; its natm-al resources with their possibili- 
 ties for greater developments, all combine to guarantee a prominence be- 
 yond the highest anticipation of those who now participate in doing 
 honor to the event which the occasion commemorates. 
 
63 
 
 These principles of good government h:i\inj4 their ineepti(jn in tlie 
 minds of those who framed tlie first hiws of our ancient town, are an lieir- 
 loom of wliicli the citizens may justly be proud; not alone that tliey have 
 been to them a safei^uarti in protection of the public jiolily. but they have 
 been disseminated wherever, throughout this broad country, the sons and 
 daughters of Providence have fixed their homes. So, too, has been the 
 intUience of its institutions of learning, outstretching beyond measure- 
 ment and molding the opinion of men and framing them for positions 
 in life which have refiected the highest honor upon their native city. 
 Again, fiom within its borders have been sent torlh those products of 
 skilled labor which have reached to every clime, and have Ijorne witness 
 to the industrv , thrift, abilitvand energy of its people. 
 
 All these and more have contributed to make the city of I'roviilence 
 renowned, and in pausing a moment to review the past and measure the 
 advance which Time in its slow but sine march has meted out. every true 
 citizen must rejoice that he is one of acommunitv ol" vviiose record he has 
 no reason to be ashamed, and that lie has lived by the principles which 
 the founders of his city enunciated and which were fostered and cherished 
 by succeeding generations. 
 
 To those of our citizens who have assembled to honor by their presence 
 the anniversary of the settlement of the Providence Plantations, in the 
 name ot" the city 1 extend to you a cordial welcome, and to those who iiave 
 returned to their native city to join in its festivities and celebrate its natal 
 day, as well as to those who come as strangers within its gates, I give 
 the hearty greeting which first saluted our founder — • What Cheer." 
 
 4. S.VLUTATOKV OOK. 
 
 W'nkits i;v Rr.\. V. Dknison, Music I'v Prof. A. A. Statilcy 
 
 Srxd i;v Till-: Akion Clui!. 
 
 I. 
 City of Freedom: Break forth into singing: 
 
 Praise ye glad peo]ile the Father Divine : 
 Out of great treasures, with gratitude bringing. 
 
 Lav vour new ofVerinij on libei-tv's shrine. 
 
64 
 
 Ancestors' memories sacredly keeping, 
 Hallow in song their illustrious deeds; 
 
 Millions, the fields from their sowing, are reaping 
 Chanting thanksgivings in concord of creeds. 
 
 Soul-freeing truth is the trumpet-tongued angel 
 
 Waking the world with her voice from above; 
 Here in the wild was proclaimed that evangel, 
 
 Here rose a temple to brotherly love, 
 Guarding from peril fraternity's altar. 
 
 Consecrate refuge for spirits oppressed, 
 Owning the ancient and catholic psalter, 
 
 Anthem of Bethlehem heai-d in the West. 
 
 Jubilant sing we our city of beauty, 
 
 Favored of God and exalted in name, 
 Foremost and fearless in patriot duty. 
 
 Wearing her scars and escutcheons of fame ; 
 Splendid at birth, as the star of the morning, 
 
 Struggling alone with the tempest and gloom, 
 Now with a host our republic adorning. 
 
 Joying in liberty's far-spreading home. 
 
 Free to our portals we welcome as ever 
 
 Exiles for conscience akin to our sires. 
 Bound in a fellowship naught may dissever. 
 
 Keeping aglow the original fires. 
 Freedom! Soul-Freedom! Thou kindlest devotion, 
 
 Herald of mercy; Great Breaker of chains; 
 Breathe o'er the earth, like the wind o'er the ocean : 
 
 Nations upraised shall re-echo thy strains. 
 
5. Pkavi:k. 
 Rv Ri:\'. KzF.Kii'.F. G. RoniNsox, ]''risi(hut Jh-oivti University. 
 
 Alinii^lity (lotl. Kin^ of all tin.- (.'arth, who reiifiifst over all nations, 
 \\ lu) sittest (Ml till- tliroiit' of Tin holiness, before Thee wouKI we how in 
 hunihle revcienee anil true worship. I'nto Thee wf)ulil we hrin-^ our 
 ofierinij of thanksgivinu; and praise. With gladness would we utter the 
 ineinor\ ol" Thy great goodness to the sons of men. Thou wast the (jod 
 of om- fathers, leading thcni up out of the Egypt of spiritual and politi- 
 cal bonilage, and through them laying the foundations of a gieat nation. 
 Thanks ho unto'l"l)\ holy name foi- the precious heritage of just ideas, of 
 line principles and of free government which we have received from them. 
 When clouds and darkness were round about them and jierils were before 
 tlu'in. Thoii wast light within Ihem ; a pillar of tire in their gk)om. Thou 
 diilst guide them in paths of righteousness and truth. Hlessed l)e the 
 name of the Lord, our God, for all that He has wrought through them 
 for the nations of tiie eailh ami tor the generations that are \et to cf)me. 
 
 We give Thee most hearty thanks, om- Father and our (jod. that in 
 Thine infinite wisdom Thou ilidst raise up and bring to these shores Thy 
 servant, the loumler ot" this city: that Thou ilidsl enable him to discern so 
 clearly between what is due to the authority of the civil jiower and what 
 to the sacred rights of cf)nscience ; that Thou didst plant within him an 
 unih ing love for truth, a persistent purpose to search tor it and to shrink 
 tVom no sacrifice that he might possess and defend it; that Thou didst 
 nerve him to bear with fortitude and patience his adversities, to render 
 good for evil to his persecutors; that Thou didst inspire him with senti- 
 ments of justice and of mercy and of Christian charity in all his dealings 
 with the heathen into whose territory Thy good providence had brought 
 him. and with a s|iirii of uprightness in all his intercourse with his fellow 
 citizens. Unto Thee, C) God, do we give thanks that ho was alwavs and 
 everywhere, according to the light vouchsafed him, Thy humble servant, 
 a conscientious and i>ersistent disciple of Jesus Christ, our Loni ; ami that 
 Thou madest him the teacher of principles that have emancipated 
 nations. L'nto Thee. Thou whose faithfulness is throughout all genera- 
 tions, ilo we give thanks for the goodly city that has arisen arounil the 
 resting place of Thy taifhful servant. Thou hast shielded it tVom the 
 9 
 
66 
 
 sword witlioiit and tlie noisome pestilence within. Thou iiast prospered 
 its citizens ; Tiiou liast increased their wealtli and liast given tliem knowl- 
 edge; Ave prav that thej may never be left to forget the Author of their 
 mercies, and of their manifold and ever-multiplying blessings. 
 
 Preserve Thou to us in their integrit\ our free institutions. Dwell 
 Thou in the hearts of the people, filling them with a just and holj indig- 
 nation against all who would debase or corrupt them. Save Thou us 
 from the domination of the impure. Grant unto us, legislators and magis- 
 trates, who shall be just and upright ; who shall speak alwavs the truth ; who 
 shall despise the gains of oppression, and who shall shake tlieir hands 
 from holding of hril^es : who shall not be greedy of gain or of human 
 applause; who shall hate evil and love righteousness; who shall be free 
 from the fear of man and shall always revere Thy holy name. 
 
 Hear Thou, we beseech Thee, oiu" pra\er for Thy blessing on the 
 Chief Magistrate of the nation; on all otllcers of oiu- State and city; 
 on all the people of our common countr\'. 
 
 Accept now, O Tiiou Judge of all the earth, our thanksgiving and our 
 petition. Help us to lay to heart the lessons so recently read to us from 
 the biers of the dead ; forgive Thou our transgressions ; guide Thou each 
 of us in the path Thou hast marked out for us; and in Thine own way 
 and time bring us into the eternal rest through Jesus Christ oiu- Lord. 
 Amen. 
 
 6. Devotional Ode. 
 WoRD.s BY George S. BuRLEiciH. . Music by E. K. Glcr:en. 
 
 O Tvife and Light who deigned to bless 
 Our fathers in the wilderness. 
 More life, more light we ask of Thee 
 To keep our free homes ever free. 
 
 LtfC 
 
^7 
 
 Wc slrclili oiii two liaiuis, I'ravcr aiul Praise, 
 Above the past ami I'liture days, 
 While o'er the present our full hearts 
 Pour thanks for what Thv love imparts. 
 
 Th V love, O, lover of the brave, 
 We know how strong; it is to save, 
 And how its living wells o'ertloweci, 
 To cheer our founder's stormy road. 
 
 He came to plant with reverent toil 
 The tree of freedom in our soil. 
 Ami while his faith and love survive. 
 Its broadening boughs shall o'er us thrive. 
 
 Thou Lil\', whose springs have nurseil that tree, 
 
 Still keep our free homes ever free. 
 
 C) not in the steel-clad arm of a tyrannous power is our trust. 
 
 The rock that can never be moved is the law of the true and the just. 
 
 Ciod over us — light and love, (joil uniler us — strength ami will, 
 
 God in ami around us — truth and liberty deep ami still; 
 
 Herein shall we live and move and our being tirmly hold, 
 
 That the land of our love may be strong when the lloods are over it rolled. 
 
 C) God, if we come to be crowned, we arc crowned on the bended knee, 
 
 And for all that we fail of Thy law, we are humble in heart before Thee. 
 
68 
 
 y. Historical Discourse 
 
 By Thomas DuRFEE LL. D., Chief Justice Supreme Court 
 of Rhode Is/aud. 
 
 8. Valedictory Ode, 
 
 Words by Prof A. Williams. . Music by Eben A. Kelley, 
 
 Sung by the Arion Club. 
 
 Hail, honored name, our sacred dead! 
 Thy spirit great,- triumphant, free, 
 O'er all our land, beyond the sea, 
 On wings of light has sped; 
 Speeds onward jet to other goals, 
 With light and life to fettered souls. 
 
 In every age the world is l)lest 
 
 By those ordained to free the opprcst; 
 
 A martyr-chief by Heaven lent to loose the shackled slave; 
 
 A warrior stern, magnanimous, his country's hope to save 
 
 In every age the world is blest, 
 
 'Tis God's own arm made manilest. 
 
 Thy task divine to lift up Truth dethroned. 
 Thyself maligned, disowned. 
 
 Yet like lone mountain peak, l)el<)veil of loftiest star. 
 And touched by heaven's pure ray, 
 
69 
 
 Thv mind unvieliiint^ towers, a beacon hcen from far 
 
 The iiiijlit is clianged to dav, 
 
 Tlie bonds that bind the souls of men 
 
 Arc rent, ne'er to be forged again. 
 
 I. ill tile lonii p;ean, ye jiil)iiant peojile, 
 
 Tiic soul is released from tvrannj''s chains; 
 
 Join in the chorus, ye bells in the steeple, 
 
 I'loclainiing afar that (iud ever reigns; 
 
 In glad emulation the nations of earth 
 
 Now march to the light that heralds new ijirlh. 
 
 Ilail prophet undaunted, blest oracle hail ! 
 Souls battling for right will forever prevail ; 
 All ilown through the ages, as truth shall unfolil. 
 Thy trials anil triumphs in song shall be told. 
 O Home of Soul-Freedom! jirolong the acclaim, 
 Cease never to sing of thy guaiilian name. 
 
 9. DOXOLOOY. 
 S/(//^ by I he Arioii Club, thi Coi/i^ir/^^atiou Joining 
 
 10. 1^i:m:i)1cti()N 
 Bv iiii, Ri'.v. Daviii II. Gkkkk. 
 
 And now unto the King Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wiseCnid, 
 be the glory ami the honor forever, and may the peace of God, which 
 passeth all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge 
 and love of God ami of his Son, Jesus Christ, om^ Lord, and may the 
 blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, be upon us and 
 remain with us alwavs. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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