their cares were extended. Yet, it may be remembered, without derogating from their virtues or destroying the benefit of their example, that the means they adopted were those most likely to secure the settlement of the extensive principalities from which their fortunes were derived; that they were possessed of extensive powers, which enabled them calmly to weigh and adopt the form of government which the exigencies of time and situation required; and that they were surrounded by many men differing from them in religious opinions, whose interests could not be neglected. But the settlement of Rhode Island was coeval with that of Maryland, and preceded by many years that of Pennsylvania. It was made by a band of wandering strangers, driven from their homes by religious persecution; poor, unprotected, rude in manners, and with few of the instructions, perhaps none of the accomplishments, of the times. Yet their earliest acts were marked by a christian feeling, a benevolence, and a liberal and tolerant spirit, not exceeded, if equalled, in the early history of our country.

Roger Williams, the founder of the colony, was a learned and popular divine of Massachusetts; throwing aside, however, the puritanical prejudices of the times and the people around him, he contended with vehemence for freedom of conscience in religious worship, insisted that it should be extended to all, even "to Papists and Arminians," and opposed with the whole weight of his character and influence, those laws

which went to destroy their civil rights on account of their conscientious belief. But, to use the expressive language of Mr. Burke, they who in England could not bear being chastised with rods, had no sooner got free from their fetters, than they scourged their fellow refugees with scorpions. Instead of meeting with encouragement and success, by the promulgation of his opinions, Roger Williams found himself regarded as the enemy of religion; and at last, in the year 1634, he was banished as a disturber of the peace of the church and commonwealth. With a small but hardy band of devoted followers, he sought a refuge among the Narragansett Indians, and found among the rude pagans of the forest, that liberty and repose which were denied him by christian civilization. He was joined from time to time, by other pilgrims; and these children of persecution thus assembled; passed in their wild retreat, by solemn resolve, the earliest and the most solemn declaration of the principles of perfect freedom in religious concernments, that the world had ever known.

It might have been supposed, that thus at a distance from those from whom they differed, and obliged from the nature of their situation to gain a precarious subsistence, and defend the uncertain tenure of their property amid innumerable hardships, they would have been permitted to proceed unmolested by their ancient enemies. It was not so, however. In the year 1643, an expedition was fitted out against them; and their address to "certain men styled commissioners whose

names they knew not," as it is expressed in their own bold language, affords a highly interesting specimen of the character of the colonists and the feeling of the times. "If you come," say they, "to treat us in the ways of equity and peace, together therewith, shaking a rod over our heads, in a band of soldiers; be assured that we have passed our childhood in that point, and are under the commission of the Great God, not to be children in understanding, neither in courage, but to acquit ourselves like men. We strictly charge you hereby, that you set not a foot upon our lands, in any hostile way, but upon your perils, and that, if any blood be shed, upon your heads shall it be and know, that if you set an army of men upon any part of our land, contrary to our just prohibition therein, we are under command, and have our commission sealed, all ready to resist you unto death. For this is the law of our God, by whom we stand, which is written in all men's hearts, that, if ye spread a table before us as friends, we sit not as men invective, envious, or mal-content, not touching a morsel, nor looking from you, who point us unto our dish, but we eat with you, by virtue of the unfeigned law of relations, not only to satisfy our stomachs, but to increase friendship and love, the end of feastings: so also, if you visit us as combatants, or warriors, by the same law of relations we will resist you unto death." Their courage, however, could not save them from overwhelming force, for a time, aided as it was by the basest treachery.

These sufferings, however, were only temporary, and notwithstanding the efforts of their enemies, they succeeded in continuing their honourable course of conduct; and finally obtained for it the sanction of the government at home. Among the ancient records of the province, preserved in the office of the secretary of the state, is found an entry mentioning this circumstance, and giving evidence of the anxiety which was felt by all that it should be generally known. "At present," states the record, "the general assembly judgeth it their duty to signify his majesty's gracious pleasure, vouchsafed in these words to us, verbatim, viz. That no person within the said colony at any time hereafter, shall be any way molested, punished, disquieted or called in question, for any difference of opinion in matters of religion and do not actually disturb the civil peace of the said colony.” And in a letter written to Sir Henry Vane, in England, about the same period, we find the following sentence, which forcibly illustrates the feelings of the colonists as to religious, and the effects of those feelings, as to civil concerns. "We have long drunk," they say, "of the cup of as great liberties as any people we can hear of under the whole heavens. We have not only been long free together with all English, from the yokes of wolfish bishops and their popish ceremonies, against whose grievous oppressions God raised up your noble spirit in parliament; but we have sitten down quiet and dry from the streams of blood, spilt by the war in our native country. We have not felt

the new chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, nor in this new colony have we been consumed with the over-jealous fire of the (so called) godly and Christian magistrates. We have not known what an excise means. We have almost forgot what tythes are, yea, or taxes either to church or common weal." It is scarcely necessary to say that where religious liberty thus existed, civil freedom was not wanting. They must indeed exist together, nor can one long be securely maintained without the other. This was eminently the case in Rhode Island, where in early times, the same daring spirit and undaunted courage was displayed in the maintenance of their political as their ecclesiastical rights; and when at length a regular charter was procured, it gave, under the form of a corporation, all the essentials of a well tempered democracy. The king, after he granted it, virtually excluded himself from any interference with it. He had no vice-roy, he had no veto on the laws of the colony, his actual or constructive presence was not endured, his power felt hardly at all, his influence rarely, but always benignantly and beneficially. In the first session of the assembly under that charter, and indeed before it had passed through all the ceremonies of a royal grant, that topic of controversy was anticipated and settled, which a century afterwards convulsed the world. In March, 1663, in an act for declaring the privileges of his majesty's subjects, it was enacted, "that no tax shall be imposed or required of the colonies. but by the act of the general assembly."