own cause the despicable weapons of their antagonists. Why not let the rulers of Massachusetts bear the deserved discredit of their inconsistencies? And why conceal the fact that those inconsistencies arose out of the pursuance of a perfectly self-chosen course? Neither the Government just before, nor the Government after the establishment of the Protectorate, had anything whatever to do with the matter. Not at the door of Whitehall, but on the threshold of Boston lies the responsibilty of the atrocious deed of hanging Mary Dyar, Marmaduke Stephenson, and William Robinson.

Speaking generally as to religious and secular interests, we may safely say that the New England Colonies confided in Cromwell, and Cromwell confided in them. When the Lord General had been fighting at the head of his soldiers," the spirits of the brethren" on the other side of the Atlantic "were carried forth in faithful and affectionate prayers in his behalf;" and when sitting peacefully in his cabinet, he poured out his heart freely to his friends who were busy on the opposite side of the world, he candidly confessed that the battle of Dunbar, "where some who were godly' were fought into their graves, was of all the acts of his life, that on which his mind had the least quiet, and he declared himself truly ready to serve the brethren and churches in America." "1 About two years before the death of Oliver Cromwell, Captain Gookin, a home official in New England, wrote to Thurloe, telling him that "the generality of the godly in all the country did cordially resent his Highness's goodwill, favour, and love," and did "unfeignedly bear upon their hearts before the Lord, him, his work, and helpers." The zealous officer added that he had

1 Bancroft, i. 445.

ground for thinking so. "All the English Colonies "these are his words-" will see cause, in particular letters of thanks, to manifest their duty and special respects to his Highness."

The Colony of Rhode Island chose a path of its own, not having been admitted to the New England Confederation, because of its refusal to acknowledge the jurisdiction of New Plymouth. The eccentric but noble-minded founder of the Colony was Roger Williams, who had been banished from Massachusetts for his very broad ecclesiastical and political opinions. He proceeded in a canoe with five other persons down the Seekonk River, in quest of a spot where he could carry out his independent and democratical principles; and tradition reports, that, as he approached a point now called Whatcheer Cove, he met with a party of Indians, who greeted him with a friendly salutation in the very words which gave the cove its well-known name, "What cheer?” Rather Utopian in his ideas, and impracticable in his disposition -not fitted to work well in a colony already established, and not promising much stability, even in one which he established himself Roger Williams nevertheless commands very great respect for his intellectual ability, his literary attainments, his spirit of self-sacrifice, and his intense abhorrence of all persecution. There were numerous religious differences, and, consequently, plenty of confusion in the island home of this remarkable individual

1 Thurloe, v. 147. We can trace this Gookin in the Colonial State Papers as admitted a patentee under a grant from the New England Company (July the 5th, 1622) ; as praying Charles I. for a patent in the capacity of planter and adventurer (March the 1st, 1631); as receiving a warrant to

export to New England powder and shot (July the 24th, 1650); as receiving £300 to defray charges of service (September the 21st, 1655); and as passing from Jamaica to New England on board the Fraternity (December the 19th, 1655).

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and his sympathetic companions; but within its shores no penalties whatever were inflicted upon any class of religious professors. And notwithstanding his enthusiasm in the cause of freedom, he did not become blind to the necessities of government in the maintenance of social order. He ingeniously argued, that a ship at sea, carrying on board several hundred souls who were bound together by the interests of a common weal and woe, presented a just illustration of a commonwealth; and that as Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, sailing in a vessel, ought not to be forced to join in the captain's prayers, so people ought not to be coerced into national forms of religion; but, at the same time, as the captain ought to command the ship's course, and maintain justice, peace, and sobriety amongst the crew, so ought the magistrate to judge and punish such people as injured their neighbours by resisting the civil government of the State.1

Williams came to London, in the year 1643, to seek the favour and protection of Parliament. Conscious weakness induced him then to do that which his old companions in New England afterwards declined in consequence of conscious strength. The "printed Indian labours" of this indefatigable person,-the like whereof respecting any one in America, it is said, was not extant-and his singular merits as a Christian missionary, induced "both Houses of Parliament to grant unto him and friends with him a free and absolute charter of Civil Government for those parts of his abode;" and hence they became a legalized corporation on the shores of Narragansett Bay, invested with full authority to rule themselves. 2 . Williams visited England, a second time, upon Colonial business,

1 Life of Williams, 111.

2 Bancroft, i. 425.

and then, as before, received special assistance from Vane-assistance acknowledged in a Colonial address, (1654), which summed up the history of this free little Republic. "From the first beginning of the Providence Colony," it was said, "you have been a noble and true friend to an outcast and despised people; we have ever reaped the sweet fruits of your constant loving-kindness and favour. We have long been free from the iron yoke of wolfish bishops; we have sitten dry from the streams of blood spilt by the wars in our native country. We have not felt the new chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, nor in this Colony have we been consumed by the over zealous fire of the so-called godly Christian magistrates. We have not known what an excise means, we have almost forgotten what tithes are. We have long drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people, that we can hear of under the whole heaven. When we are gone, our posterity and children after us shall read, in our town records, your loving-kindness to us, and our real endeavour after peace and righteousness."1

Upon the abolition of Royalty in England, certain of the Colonies became refractory. Parliament heard, on the 5th of October, 1650, that, inasmuch as many wellaffected persons had been driven away from Barbadoes, the Council of State was of opinion that the island should be reduced, and a fleet sent thither for that purpose.2 Whereupon an Act was passed prohibiting trade with the plantation there, and with the sister States, who were sharers in the disaffection-including Virginia, Bermudas, and Antigua-and empowering the Council to bring them all into speedy subjection to the authority of the Commonwealth. Sir George Ayscue, commander

1 Bancroft, i. 428. 2 Whitelocke, 474. 3 Scobell, 1650, Oct. 3rd.

of a ship called the Rainbow, conducted a fleet into the Western seas, taking with him as brother Commissioners, Daniel Searle and Captain Michael Pack, whose instructions were, to insist upon the submission of the inhabitants of Barbadoes, to enforce there the Acts of Parliament against Kingship, the House of Lords, and the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and to require every person in the Colonies to take the Engagement.1 A summons to surrender to the Commonwealth reached Lord Willoughby, the Governor of Barbadoes, accompanied by an assurance that the Commissioners wished by "amicable ways" to bring the Colony to obedience, without bloodshed, or the destruction of "their long laboured for estates."2 But the representative body in the State expressed indignation at this endeavour to persuade the ignorant, that the Government now set up in England by miseries, bloodsheds, rapines, and other oppressions, was any better than that under which their ancestors had lived for hundreds of years; and further they declared how they despised all "menaces to drive them from their loyalty," to which their souls were as firmly united as they were to their bodies. Abundance of parleying succeeded, and once, when Ayscue's men were invited on shore, "with a white flag," they were fired upon; in revenge for which act of treachery they burnt the houses of their assailants-a proceeding in positive opposition to Sir George's explicit orders.4 At last, in midwinter, after three months had been spent in fruitless negotiation, proposals of peace from Lord Willoughby reached Ayscue on board the Rainbow, which was now anchored in Carlisle Bay. Articles specifying

1 State Papers. Colonial. Feb. 1st., 1651.

2 Ibid, Colonial. Oct. 31st, 1651.

3 State Papers. Colonial. Nov. 13th, 1651.

4 Ibid., Dec. 14th, 1651.