Part 13

_Aquene_ signified, in the Narraganset dialect, peace. It is possible that Aquetnet, as the name of this island has been sometimes written, may be its derivative; _et_ is a termination usually denoting place. But whether this be or be not its etymology, the designation is not inapplicable, since the island must have been a place of security against the roving Maquas, Pequots, Tarrateens, &c.

STANZA LXXII.

_There Sowams gleamed,--if names the muse aright, Till in the forest far his glories fade;_

Calender intimates that Sowams is properly the name of a river, where the two Swansey rivers meet and run together for near a mile, when they empty themselves in the Narraganset Bay. Sowamset may, therefore, indicate some town or other place on the banks of the river. These names have been used by some as synonymous.

CANTO SIXTH.

STANZA III.

_Who with the laboring axe, On Seekonk’s eastern marge, invades the wood?_

Nothing is said of Williams, by the histories of the age, from the time he left Salem, until his expulsion from Seekonk, afterwards called Rehoboth. We learn, from some of Williams’ letters, that, after purchasing land from Massasoit, he there built and planted, before he was informed by Governor Winslow that he was within the limits of the Plymouth patent. Until this information, he had supposed himself to be beyond the limits of either Plymouth or Massachusetts. And, certainly, the language of the Plymouth patent was sufficiently equivocal to countenance almost any construction of it in reference to the western (otherwise called southern) bounds of its grant. I will transcribe its words, that the reader may judge for himself. It grants the lands “lying between Cohasset rivulet toward the north, and Narraganset river toward the south, the great Western Ocean toward the east, and a straight line, extending into the main land toward the west, from the mouth of Narraganset river to the utmost bounds of a country called Pokanoket, alias Sowamset, and another straight line, extending directly from the mouth of Cohasset river toward the west, so far into the main land westward, as the utmost limits of Pokanoket, alias Sowamset.”

What is here intended by Narraganset river? Is it the bay or some river falling into the bay? Was it intended by the utmost bounds of Pokanoket? Do the words of the patent include or exclude that territory? The truth is, that the geography of the country was, at that time, very imperfectly understood, and the words of the patent are not a true description of the territory to be granted. The charter of Rhode Island is a proof that the Plymouth patent was not considered as embracing within its limits what is called Pokanoket, alias Sowamset; since that charter covers a considerable part of that very territory. But, if Pokanoket was not included by the Plymouth patent, Williams ought not to have been treated as a trespasser. It is not my purpose to discuss the question of boundaries. These observations are made for the purpose of showing that Williams had his reasons for believing that he was out of the jurisdiction of Plymouth.

STANZA XXII.

_And brandishing his blade, he jeering said, That vengeance gave it eyes and appetite; It soon would eat--but eat in silence dread._

“He [an Indian slain by Standish] bragged of the excellency of his knife: _Hinnaim namen, hinnaim michen, matta cuts_: that is to say, by and by it should see, by and by it should eat, but not speak.”

CANTO SEVENTH.

STANZA V.

_His flock no more,--with strifes now sorely riven._

The opinions for which Williams was banished, were but the beginning of schism in the Massachusetts churches, and his banishment but the commencement of persecution. Many members of the church of Salem still adhered to him, and finally followed him to Providence.

STANZA XXI.

_O’er yonder distant brow Smokes in the vale Neponset’s peopled town._

Neponset is the name of a river in Massachusetts. On the banks of this river there seem to have been several Indian towns or villages, at the time of Williams’ banishment.

STANZA LVII.

_And by the lock he held a trunkless head._

“Timequassin, to cut off, or behead, which they are most skillful to do in fight.”--_Williams’ Key._

CANTO EIGHTH.

STANZA XVI.

_Who cannot see, That a dark cloud o’er our New England lowers? The tender conscience struggles to be free-- The tyrant struggles, and retains his power._

Williams seems to have had a strong presentiment that a season of persecution was approaching, and often expressed a desire that his plantation _might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience_.

STANZA XIX.

_And there this eve some reasoning, I opine, (For all may err) a weighty theme upon, May not be deemed amiss._

It was the first intention of the author to have drawn the materials of the conversation in the text from the controversy between Williams and Cotton; but, on examination, he was satisfied that it was not suited to a performance of this kind. This controversy originated as follows: A prisoner (one who was doubtless suffering for heretical opinions) addressed a letter to a Mr. Hall, in which he discussed and argued against the right of government to persecute for matters of conscience. Hall sent this letter to Mr. Cotton, who answered it. Hall, dissatisfied with the answer, transmitted it to Williams. In the hands of Williams it remained some time; for he was struggling with all the difficulties incident to his situation at Providence. He however composed a reply to Cotton’s answer, which he entitled the Bloody Tenent. He says it was written whilst engaged at the hoe and oar, toiling for bread--whilst attending on Parliament--in a change of rooms and places; in a variety of strange houses; sometimes in the field, in the midst of travel; where he had been forced to gather and scatter his loose thoughts and papers. And, certainly, considering the circumstances in which it was composed, it is a work calculated to increase our admiration of the man. The Bloody Tenent, together with Mr. Cotton’s answer to the prisoner’s letter, was published in London, at a time when his Puritan brethren in England were addressing him and others in Massachusetts, with most earnest remonstrances against their cruel persecutions of other denominations.

He, in his replies, had been endeavoring to extenuate and excuse the conduct of the civil government, and had taken particular care to exculpate himself. It is easy, therefore, to conceive what a shock this reverend dignitary must have suffered, when his answer to the prisoner’s letter, which went in principle the full length of the most unsparing persecution, together with Williams’ reply, was published and circulated among the brethren there. He instantly raised a cry, that Williams was _persecuting him_, by publishing his answer to the prisoner’s letter, and commenting upon it. But he felt himself under the necessity of doing something more. His brethren in England would require some sort of justification, and one consistent with the sentiments he had already expressed in his letters to them. Hence the controversy between him and Williams, is, on the part of Cotton, a sophistical attempt to avoid the charge of persecuting for matters of conscience. We do not persecute consciences, says he, but we do punish those who commit violence on their own consciences. If the reader should be so curious as to inquire, how Mr. Cotton ascertained when a man committed violence on his own conscience, I will state his process as I understand it. When it was discovered that any member entertained opinions inconsistent with the fundamental doctrines of the order to which he belonged, he was in the first place called before the church, and admonished of his error. If he still persisted, he was summoned before the magistracy, where the charges were specified, and the magistracy determined whether he was or was not convinced in his own mind of his errors. His judges never failed to be satisfied that he was convinced. If the accused afterwards persisted in his opinions, he was considered as one committing violence on his own conscience, and treated as an incorrigible heretic and disturber of the peace, and as such banished, imprisoned, scourged, or hanged, as the enormity of his heretical opinions might require. I have necessarily given the conversation between Williams and the Plymouth elder a turn different from that of the controversy between him and Cotton; but have endeavored to preserve something of the tone of feeling which pervades the latter. I flatter myself, however, that the Plymouth elder is a more moderate man than Mr. Cotton. As a proof, hear Mr. Cotton in his own words set forth the advantages which a state derives from persecuting heretics, and the summary mode in which the civil magistrate may deal with them.

To the question of Williams, What glory to God--what good to the souls and bodies of their subjects, did these princes bring in persecuting? Mr. Cotton thus replies: “The good that is brought to princes and subjects, by the due punishment of apostate seducers and idolaters and blasphemers, is manifold.

First; it putteth away evil from the people, and cutteth off a gangrene which would spread to further ungodliness.

Secondly; It driveth away wolves from worrying and scattering the sheep of Christ; (for false teachers be wolves.)

Thirdly; Such executions upon such evil doers causeth all the country to hear and fear, and do no more such wickedness.

Fourthly; The punishments, executed upon false prophets and seducing teachers, do bring down showers of God’s blessings upon the civil state.

Fifthly; It is an honor to God’s justice that such judgments are executed.”

He says, “If there be stones in the streets the magistrate need not fetch a sword from the smith’s shop, nor a halter from the roper’s, to punish a heretic.”

It will appear that time has made no improvement upon the leading principles of Williams, as gathered from different parts of his replies to Cotton. He says that “the people are the origin of all free power in government.” “That the people are not invested by Christ Jesus with power to rule his Church.” That they can give no such power to the magistrate. “That the kingdom of Christ is spiritual”--that to introduce the civil sword into this spiritual kingdom is “to confound Heaven and earth together, and lay all upon heaps of confusion”--“Is to take Christ and make him king by force (John vi, 15)--to make his kingdom of this world--to set up a civil and temporal Israel--to bound out new earthy lands of Canaan; yea, and to set up a Spanish inquisition, in all parts of the world, to the speedy destruction of millions of souls,” &c.

Cotton says, “that when the kingdoms of this earth become the kingdoms of the Lord, it is not by making Christ a temporal king; but by making the temporal kingdoms nursing fathers to the Church”--“that religion was not to be propagated by the sword; but protected and preserved by it.”

Williams replies, “that the husbandman weeds his garden to increase his grain, and that consequently it is the object of the hand that destroys the heretic to make the Christian”--“That the sword may make a nation of hypocrites, but not of Christians,” &c.

I have thrown together these few detached sentences, that the reader, who may have little inclination to peruse a controversy on a question which happily has no place in the present age, may form some opinion of its character. The discussion occupies two considerable volumes.

STANZA XLI.

_Williams, he said, it is my thankless lot, Thee with no pleasant message now to meet; Nor hath our Winslow, in his charge forgot (For his behest I bear and words repeat) His former friendship, but right loth is he To vex his neighbors by obliging thee._

After Williams had built and planted at Seekonk, he was visited by a messenger from Plymouth with a letter from Winslow, then Governor. Professing his and others’ friendship for him, he lovingly advised Williams, since he had fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay, to remove but to the other side of the water, and there he had the country before him, and might be as free as themselves, and they should be loving neighbors together.--See Williams’ letter to Mason. Mass. His. Col.

STANZA XLV.

_Thy purchase feigned was by the prophet shown To Dudley, and by him to us made known._

Williams, in his letter to Mason, says, that Governor Winthrop and some of the council of Massachusetts were disposed to recall him from banishment, and confer upon him some mark of distinguished favor for his services. “It is known,” says Williams, “who hindered--who never promoted the liberty of other men’s consciences.” Mr. Davis, in a note to his edition of the New England Memorial, conjectures that he alludes to Mr. Dudley. The reader will not consider me as doing violence to historical probability, by supposing that this man gave information to the magistrates of Plymouth that Williams had established himself within the limits of their patent, and required his expulsion. He was the author of the following lines:

“Let men of God in courts and churches watch O’er such as do a toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison all with heresy and vice. If men be left and otherwise combine, My epitaph’s I dy’d no libertine.”

Yet we ought, perhaps, to blame the system, rather than the magistrate whose duty it was to carry it into effect.

STANZA XLVII.

_God gave James Stuart this, and James gave us._

The patents of the companies which settled in this country granted them lands without any reference to the rights of the natives. But the companies never availed themselves of these grants to that extent. Whatever may have been their opinions, they acted under them as if they had only invested them with the right of pre-emption. Cotton Mather is the only historian, that I recollect, who makes a merit of paying the Indians for their lands, and of not expelling them immediately from the soil in virtue of these patents.

CANTO NINTH.

STANZA III.

_Early that morn, beside the tranquil flood, Where, ready trimmed, rode Waban’s frail canoe, The banished man, his spouse and children stood, And bade their lately blooming hopes adieu._

I have represented Williams, throughout this narrative, as unaccompanied by any of his Salem friends. And such, I think, was the fact up to the time he left, or was about leaving, Seekonk. Indeed, there was no necessity for any of his friends to accompany him in his flight from Salem “in the winter’s snow.” They could render him no assistance in negotiations with the Indians.--They could not alleviate his hardships by participating in them. But what seems to settle the question, (if in fact it be a question) is, that he himself, though he frequently alludes to his sufferings and transactions “during the bitter cold winter,” no where intimates that any white man participated in them. He uniformly speaks in the first person singular: “I was sorely tossed for fourteen weeks--I left Salem in the winter’s snow--I found a great contest going on between the chiefs--I travelled between them--I first pitched and began to build and plant at Seekonk--I received a message from Mr. Winslow--I crossed the Seekonk and settled at Mooshausick.” It is strange that he should, on no occasion, mention that some of his friends suffered with him, if any actually did. All accurate information concerning Williams, during these fourteen weeks, must, I apprehend, be drawn from his writings; and I have chosen to follow them. And indeed had he been accompanied by one or more of his friends, they could not have aided the author in the conduct of his narrative, any more than they could have borne a part in the trials and labors of Williams.

Williams says that he mortgaged his house and land in Salem to go through, and all that came with him afterwards were not engaged, but came and went at pleasure; but he was forced to go through and stay by it. (His purchase of the Indians.)

I have not been able to ascertain in what particular part of Seekonk Williams attempted to form his plantation, and have consequently felt myself at liberty to suppose it was in the neighborhood of Pawtucket Falls.

STANZA XXV.

_“Netop, Whatcheer!” broke on the listening air._

Netop--friend. The tradition is, that when Williams in a canoe approached the western banks of the river, at a place now called Whatcheer Cove, he saw a gathering of the natives. When he had come within hail, he was accosted by them in broken English with the friendly salutation, “Wha-cheer! Wha-cheer!” Here he landed, and was kindly received by them. The land which was afterwards set off to him included this spot, and he commemorated the amicable greeting of his Indian friends by naming the field there assigned to him the Manor of Whatcheer, or Whatcheer Manor. This field is now the property of Governor Fenner, and the field adjoining it, which was likewise set forth to Williams, has continued to the present day in the possession of his descendants. We are probably indebted to the name which Williams gave the first mentioned field, for the preservation of this tradition.

STANZA XXXVII.

_Ay, almost hears the future pavements jar Beneath a people’s wealth, and half divines From thee, Soul-Liberty! what glories wait Thy earliest altars--thy predestined state._

To show that Williams was not without a presentiment of the temporal advantages that might arise to his projected settlement, from a full liberty in religious concernments, I quote the following from his memorial to Parliament, prefixed to his Bloody Tenent made more bloody, &c. Speaking of Holland he says: “From Enchuysen, therefore, a den of persecuting lions and mountain leopards, the persecuted fled to Amsterdam, a poor fishing town, yet harborous and favorable to the flying, though dissenting consciences. This confluence of the persecuted, by God’s most gracious coming with them, drew boats--drew trade--drew shipping, and that so mightily in so short a time, that shipping, trade, wealth, greatness, honor, (almost to astonishment in the eyes of all Europe and the world), have appeared to fall, as out of Heaven, in a crown or garland upon the head of this poor fishertown.”

STANZA XL.

_From wild Pawtucket to Pawtuxet’s bounds, To thee and thine be all the teeming grounds._

The first grant made by Canonicus and Miantonomi to Williams, appears to have been a verbal grant of all the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshausick and Wanaskatucket; but on the 24th of March, 1637, they confirmed this grant by deed, and, in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he was constantly rendering them, made the bounds Pawtuxet river on the south, Pawtucket on the northwest, and the town of Mashapauge on the west. This grant includes nearly all the county of Providence, and a part of the county of Kent.

STANZA XLI.

_For, at that moment, down the boundless range Of heavenly spheres did some bright being take Wing to his soul, and wrought to suited change The visual nerve, and straight in outward space Stood manifest in its celestial grace._

This passage, it is true, supposes action on the mind by a supernatural being, but it does not suppose the outward bodily manifestation of the angelic form described. It simply supposes the image or conception, wrought in the mind by the supernatural agency, to _externize_ itself through a change effected by a sympathetic action in the visual organ. Or, in other words, it supposes the internal image to become so distinct as to reflect itself into the retina and overcome the action of external objects thereon; whereby the internal image is made to appear in the field of vision as an external reality. In justification of this idea, I am glad to have it in my power to refer to No. C. of the Family Library, entitled “Outlines of Disordered Mental Action, by Professor Upham, of Bowdoin College”--p. 117.

I feel that these remarks are due to the very friendly criticism which this poem has received on the other side of the Atlantic; in which, understanding (as I suppose) the apparition to be represented as an external reality, the reviewer blames it as an extravagance not in accordance with the general character of the narrative.

STANZA XLVII.

_Her well-cast anchor here--her lasting hope in Thee._

The Anchor, with the motto Hope, which formed the device on the seal of the Colony, may be considered as having reference to the dangers and difficulties through which the settlers had passed, and were passing at the time it was adopted. This was done in 1663.

STANZA XLIX.

_And ages hence our children shall recite Of thy protecting grace their Father’s sense, And, when they name their home, proclaim Thy Providence._

Williams carried the philanthropy, which breathes in his great principle of Soul-Liberty, into all the important acts of his life. Although the munificent grant of Canonicus and Miantonomi had been made to him only, he shortly after made it the common property of his friends who joined him at Providence, reserving to himself no more than an equal share, and receiving from them the small sum of thirty pounds, not as purchase money, but as a remuneration for the gratuities which he had made to the Indians out of his own estate.

“The following passage,” says Mr. Benedict, in his history of the Baptists, “explains, in a very pleasing manner, Mr. Williams’s design in these transactions: ‘Notwithstanding I had frequent promise from Miantonomi, my kind friend, that it should not be land that I should want about these bounds mentioned, provided I satisfied the Indians there inhabiting, I having made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with all the sachems and natives round about us, and having _in a sense of God’s merciful Providence to me in my distress, called the place Providence; I desired it might be for a shelter to persons distressed for conscience. I then considered the condition of divers of my countrymen_. I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends, John Throckmorton and others, who then desired to take shelter here with me. And whereas, by God’s merciful assistance, I was procurer of the purchase, not by moneys nor payment, the natives being so shy and jealous that moneys could not do it, but by that language--acquaintance and favor with the natives, and other advantages which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges and venture of all the gratuities which I gave to the great sachems and natives round about us, and lay engaged for a loving and peaceable neighborhood with them to my great charge and travel; it was therefore thought fit that I should receive some consideration and gratuity.’ Thus, after mentioning the said thirty pounds, ‘this sum I received, and in love to my friends and _with respect to a town and place of succor for the distressed as aforesaid_, I do acknowledge this said sum a full satisfaction,’ he went on, in full and strong terms, to confirm those lands to said inhabitants, reserving no more to himself that an equal share with the rest; his wife also signing the deed.”

APPENDIX.

Having in the preceding notes given some account of the principal events which marked the life of Williams up to the time he settled at Mooshausick, it may be agreeable to such of my readers, as have not his biography at hand, to find here some notice of the actions which distinguished the remainder of his days. The following summary is drawn chiefly from Mr. Benedict’s History of the Baptists, and the Sketch of the Life of Williams annexed to the first volume of the Rhode Island Historical Collections.