USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 13
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proves nothing else, shows pretty conclusively that they were not Baptists. If some writers whose ability entitles their judgment to respect had not, of late years, expressed a doubt upon the point, the Author would feel little hes- itation in expressing what is in his own mind a firm conviction, that the church at Aquedneck was formed some little time prior to May 11th, 1639, and was in its faith and ordinances an Independent Congregational Church, of the Puritan pedobaptist order. Mr. Savage, in a note to the passage quoted in the text, has a just comment on the way the church is there described as being gathered. See note (2) p. 107, ante.
1 Plaine Dealing or News from N. England, London, 1641. . The writer used the copy in the British Museum, and collated the parts relating to Rhode Island, with the re-publication in 3 M. H. C., iii. 96, 7, where the book is dated 1642. Perhaps there were two editions. Lechford says : "At the island called Aquedney are about two hundred families. There was a church where one Master Clarke was elder. The place where the church was is called Newport, but that church I heare is now dissolved." He is quoted as evidence against the existence of the Baptist church at Providence at the time he wrote, but nothing he says on that subject is so direct to that point as the passage here given, bearing upon the other side of the question, and which is quite overlooked in the discussion referred to in the foregoing chap- ter, note (2) p. 107. The probability is that Lechford's statement is correct, that this earliest Aquedneck church was dissolved, and that in the change of doctrinal opinion so rife in that age, there soon after arose from the materials of the old church, and including its pastor, a Baptist church, founded, as Cal- lender believed (R. I. H. C. iv. 117), " in 1644, by Mr. Jolin Clarke and some others."
2 The views of " Thomas Lechford, of Clements Inne, in the county of Middlesex, Gent.," as he describes himself on his title-page, the High Church- man, writing confessedly to prove his right to be so considered, may be pre- sumed to differ materially from those of our antinomian progenitors of Aqued- neck, upon the controverted question, " What constitutes a church ?"
141
FIRST MOVEMENT FOR A CHARTER.
avoid, and that "at Providence things grew still worse," in Puritan opinion, and a Baptist church was the result, will not be held, at this day, to militate against the piety or the prudence of our ancestors.
The military organization was very soon completed, as at Portsmouth. It was kept distinct from the other branches of government, but subject, in the choice of offi- cers, to the approval of the Magistrates. Every man ca- pable of bearing arms was enrolled. "The Body of the people, viz., the Traine Band," were left free to choose their own officers to exercise and train them, who were to be approved by the Magistrates. No man was allowed to go two miles from town, or to attend any public meet- ing, under penalty of five shillings fine, without carrying a gun or sword. The danger of Indian hostility occa- sioned this great precaution.
Negotiations with Pocasset were already in progress with a view to a united government. A yet more im- portant project was discussed. Mr. Easton and Mr. John Clarke were desired to write to Sir Henry Vane about the condition of the island, in order to obtain his influence in securing a charter from the King. Mr. Thomas Burr- wood, a brother of Mr. Easton, was also to be written to on the same subject. The Court adjourned for three weeks. In the interval two men, having broken the peace by drunkenness, were tried by the Magistrate's, or " par- ticular Court," and fined five shillings each, " according to the law in that case provided." No respect of persons was shown in the infant commonwealth, when any vio- lated law required a vindication. At the adjourned meet- ing of the Quarter Court the first act was to impose a fine of five shillings upon Mr. Easton, one of the Elders, or assistants, for attending without his weapon. The sanitary precautions, noticed at Pocasset, were taken also at Newport. Hogs were prohibited from running at large between the middle of April and October. A repcal of
CHAP. V. - 1639. Nov. 25.
Dec. 3.
17.
142
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. V. the former order on this subject, which, it may be remem- bered, required their removal to a distance of six miles 1639. from the town, or to some adjacent island, would make Dec. 17. it appear that the orders passed the previous year at Po- casset were held to be in force at Newport, a view that is strengthened by the fact of their having carried with them all the records, as before stated. A pair of stocks and a whipping post were now ordered for the town.
1639-40. Jan. 7.
The earliest export trade of Rhode Island was in lum- ber. The home prices were regulated by law. In the earliest enactment on this subject these are fixed at eight shillings the hundred for sawed boards, seven shillings for half inch boards, delivered at the mill, and one shilling a foot for clapboards and fencing, to be sound, merchanta- ble stuff. Timber was not to be cut or exported without a license. By a record at Portsmouth, now much defaced, it appears that a ship load of pipe staves and clapboards was obtained there about this time. A few years later 1 ship building was commenced, and has ever since been an, important branch of business in the State.
A scarcity of provisions, which, but for the ample sup- ply of fish and game that abounded in the sea and the forests, would have threatened a famine, caused a survey and census to be taken. This showed that there were ninety-six persons inhabiting the town, and only one hun- dred and eight bushels of corn among them .? This was equally divided, and the stock was calculated to last for
1 In 1646 the New Haven colony built a ship of one hundred and fifty tons at Rhode Island. Trumbull's Conn., i. 161.
2 The apparent discrepancy between this census of ninety-six persons and the registered list of one hundred and one males in October, is reconciled by the fact that nearly all of the first list of fifty-nine men resided at Pocasset. The second list of forty-two were new comers on the island and lived at New- port. The apportionment of only thirty-six quarts of corn to each person to last for six weeks, being less than one quart per day, and that too in mid- winter, with six months yet to harvest time, shows a fearful scarcity. It was evidently contemplated to obtain supplies from abroad within the six weeks, but where or how does not appear.
22.
143
UNION OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT.
six weeks. The next quarterly meeting was held four CHAP. days sooner than the regular time, which fell on Sunday. V. 1639-40. Jan. 29. Provision was made for the annual election of all the of- ficers, to be held on the twelfth day of March, forever af- ter, in a General Assembly of the Freemen, and such as could not be present were " to send in their votes, sealed up, to the Judge." At the expiration of the six weeks from the time the corn was divided, all the sea banks were March declared free for fishing, but whether in consequence of the 6. scarcity of provisions, or as a simple matter of public right, is not stated-probably the latter.
At the first General Court of Election ever held in Newport, very important proceedings were had. William Hutchinson, Judge, and several of the principal men of Portsmouth, who had not before applied, were reunited to the Body, and some who had been registered as inhab- itants in October were now admitted as freemen, and a general act for the admission of freemen was passed by the united Bodies of both towns, hereafter to constitute but one government. The style and number of the mag- istrates were changed. The titles of Judge and Elder were abolished. The Chief was called Governor, the next in office Deputy Governor, and the other four Magistrates, Assistants. An equal number of the general officers were to be chosen from cach town, the Governor and two As- sistants from one, and the Deputy Governor and two As- sistants from the other. The change of the name of Po- casset to Portsmouth, which had been there made the pre- vious July, was now confirmed. The election resulted in the choice of William Coddington, Governor, William Brenton, Deputy Governor, Nicholas Easton, John Cogges- hall, William Hutchinson and John Porter, Assistants. The two latter and Mr. Brenton lived at Portsmouth. Robert Jeffreys, of Newport, and William Balston, of Portsmouth, were chosen Treasurers. William Dyre, Secretary, Jeremy Clark Constable for Newport, and John
12.
144
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. V. 1640. March 12
Sandford for Portsmouth, and Henry Bull, Sergeant, all for one year, or till others should be chosen. The Governor and Assistants were made Justices of the Peace. Five men were selected for Portsmouth and three for Newport to lay out lands, and provision was made to record land titles in conformity thereto.
This union of the towns was a most desirable event. Already the evils of a divided jurisdiction had become apparent, while the rights of the proprietors, in whom rested the fee of the whole island, would have oc- casioned disputes which were thus happily prevented. The idea of a free charter also, which was seriously en- tertained by the people, doubtless contributed largely to effect a union. The movement was particularly benefi- cial to Newport, which at that time was much the smaller of the two. It soon became virtually the capital, al- though the Quarter Courts, or meetings of the General Assembly, and the General Courts of Election were held in both towns at various times. The "particular Courts," consisting of magistrates and jurors, were ordered to be held monthly in each town. These Courts had jurisdic- tion in all causes not involving "life and limb." From their decision there was a right of appeal to the Quarter Sessions, which were held the first Tuesdays in March, June, September and December. The laws were revised and several of them repealed, among which was the one forfeiting house lots that were not built upon within one year from the grant.
6. May
July 7.
Aug. 6.
A formal convention or treaty was made by the gov- ernment with the Narraganset Indians, and duly ratified at the next General Court. It provides that no fire should be kindled by the Indians on the island, but such as should be extinguished on their departure, and if any damage result therefrom it shall be made good on legal trial ; that for a hog that had been killed by an Indian, ten fathoms of wampum should be paid at the next har-
145
MILITIA LAW-PROVISION FOR SCHOOLS.
vest ; that no traps for deer or cattle should be set by In- dians on the island ; that if any Indian was unruly, or
CHAP. V. committed any small crime, he should be punished by a 1640. magistrate, according to law ; but if the charge involved Aug. 6. a greater sum than ten fathoms of beads, or if the accused party was a sachem, however trivial the charge, then Mi- antinomi was to be sent for to be present at the trial ; that neither English nor Indians should take the canoes belonging to the other ; that no bargain once made should be revoked, and that no idling about should be allowed.
A militia law, by far more complete than any law upon that subject that had before been passed, and the most copious of any of the existing acts, now appointed that eight times a year the bands of both towns were to be exercised in the field, and that two general musters, one at each town, were to be held every year. The unusual minuteness of this statute, the penalties attached to its violation, and the stringency of its application, including as it did every man who should remain for twenty days on the island, and exempting no one except by commuta- tion, evinces the feeling of insecurity at that time per- vading the whole of New England.
It has been said that at one time Rhode Island was behind all other States in providing for the education of her people. However true this might be of other portions of the State it was not so of the island. At this Court, Mr. Robert Lenthal was admitted a freeman. He had been invited to come and conduct public worship, which had previously been done by Mr. Clark, and to teach a school. By a vote of the town of Newport he was " called to keep a public school for the learning of youth, and for his encouragement there was granted to him and his heirs one hundred acres of land, and four more for a house lot ; " it was also voted "that one hundred acres should be laid forth and appropriated for a school, for en- couragement of the poorer sort, to train up their youth VOL. 1-10
20
146
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. V. in learning, and Mr. Robert Lenthal, while he continues to teach school, is to have the benefit thereof."
1640.
The two towns were placed on an equal footing in all respects. They were allowed to draw similar amounts from the public treasury. " Two Parliamentary (or Gen- eral) Courts" were appointed to be held equally at Ports- mouth and Newport, on the Wednesday after the twelfth of March and of October.1
Sept. 7.
The local affairs of each town being left to its own management, we find occasionally some matters initiated there which afterwards became of public interest. Such is the establishment of a ferry by the town of Portsmouth, probably at or near the spot long afterwards known as Howland's ferry, where " the stone bridge " now is, being the narrowest part of the east passage, and but a short distance from the original settlement of Pocasset. Thos. Gorton was appointed ferryman. The fares were fixed at sixpence a man, or threepence each if more than three were taken at one trip, and fourpence a head for goats and swine.
14.
The Secretary was required to attend the two General and the four Quarter Sessions courts, receiving threepence a day for so doing. The Governor was instructed to write to the Governor of Massachusetts to learn the plans of that colony with regard to the Indians. Winthrop has fortunately given the substance of that letter, which was a joint communication from the Governors of Hartford, New . Haven and Aquedneck, "wherein they declared their dislike of such as would have the Indians rooted out, as being of the cursed race of Ham, and their desire of our mutual accord in seeking to gain them by justice and kindness, and withal to watch over them to prevent any
1 The record so reads, but in fact the fall session was held in September, six months after the spring session. The fact and the time both concur in rendering it probable that September was intended, and that October was written by mistake of the Secretary.
147
OFFICIAL VINDICTIVENESS.
danger by them, etc. We returned answer of our consent with them in all things propounded, only we refused to include those of Aquiday in our answer, or to have any treaty with them." The action of the General Court of Massachusetts on this subject is instructive. It gives an official stamp to that vindictive spirit which was soon to display itself yet more signally in their treatment of Rhode Island. "It is ordered that the letter lately sent to the Governor by Mr. Eaton, Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Coddington and Mr. Brenton, but concerning also the Generall Courte shal bee thus answered by the Governor ; that the Courte doth assent to all the propositions layde down in the aforesaid letter ; but that the answer shall be directed to Mr. Eaton, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Haynes, only excluding Mr. Coddington and Mr. Brenton, as men not to be capitulated withal by us, either for themselves or the people of the island where they inhabit, as their case standeth." 1
The second General Court of Election was held at
1 M. C. R., i. 305. Upon this record of the Puritan Legislature Mr. Sav- age comments with unsparing severity in a note to the above quoted passage in Winthrop. He says : "This is the most exalted triumph of bigotry. Pa- pists, Jews, Musselmen, Idolators, or Atheists, may be good parties to a civil compact, but not erroneous Protestant brethren, of unimpeachable piety, dif- fering from us iu explication of unessential, or unintelligible, points of doubt- ful disputation. It was not enough that the common charities of life were broken off, but our rulers proved the sincerity of their folly by refusing con- nection in a just and necessary course of policy, which demanded the concur- rence of all the plantations on our coast. This conduct also appears little more civil than prudent ; for when those of Aquiday were associated by the gentlemen of Connecticut and New Haven in their address, the answer should have been directed to all without seruple." The Governor of Massachusetts at this time was the bigoted Dudley, the man upon whose person there was found, when on his death-bed, this original couplet, which embodies the pre- vailing sentiment of the age :-
"Let men of God in court and churches watch O'er such as do a toleration batch."
a verse no doubt considered equally ereditable to the piety and the poctie genius of the author. We think it was. That such a Governor should adopt sueli a course might be expected.
CHAP. V. 1640. Oct. 7.
148
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
March 16-18.
CHAP. V. Portsmouth and lasted three days. The court roll of freemen contains sixty names. An engagement to be 1641. taken by all officers of the State was framed as follows : " To the execution of this office, I judge myself bound before God to walk faithfully, and this I profess in the presence of God." The only change in general officers was in substituting Robert Harding and William Balston as assistants, in place of Nicholas Easton and William Hutchinson. The nature of the government was defined in these remarkable words : " It is ordered and unani- mously agreed upon, that the Government which this Bodie Politick doth attend unto in this Island, and the Jurisdiction thereof, in favor of our Prince is a DEMOC- RACIE, or Popular Government ; that is to say, It is in the Powre of the Body of Freemen, orderly assembled, or the major part of them, to make or constitute Just Lawes, by which they will be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such Ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between Man and Man." Not less remarkable is the act establishing forever the tenure of lands. "It is ordered, Established and Decreed, unani- mouslie, that all men's Proprieties in their Lands of the Island, and the Jurisdiction thereof, shall be such, and soe free, that neyther the State nor any Person or Persons shall intrude into it, molest him in itt, to deprive him of anything whatsoever that is, or shall be within that, or any of the bounds thereof ; and that this Tenure and Pro- priety of his therein shall be continued to him, or his, or to whomsoever he shall assign it for Ever." And thus it continued to be for more than two centuries. The feel- ing of inviolability which invested real estate in Rhode Island has ever formed a striking characteristic of the people. For more than two hundred years the ownership of land was essential to the privileges of a freeman, and, by the law of primogeniture, entitled the oldest son to the same immunities, in right of his father, until altered
149
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ESTABLISHED.
by the adoption of the State constitution in 1843. And CHAP. V.
yet more singular was it that until the revision of the code in January, 1857, nowhere in Rhode Island could real estate be attached for debt except in the absence of the debtor. So long as he remained anywhere within the jurisdiction of the State, his land was secured to him by the operation of this earliest law and its subsequent mod- ifications.
A " State" seal was ordered, to be a sheaf of arrows bound up, with the motto " Amor vincet omnia," en- graved upon the leash. The word " State " appears for the first time in this decree. The possession of a seal has always been held as one of the insignia of sovereignty, or of exclusive rights. Its adoption by a yet unchartered government was significant. The motto was no less so. From the absence of the all-conquering affection, as dis- played in the conduct of their brethren, they had suffered too much not to feel its value. They thus emblazoned their opinions to the world, and at the same time passed an ever-memorable law which illustrates their motto : "It was further ordered, by the authority of this present Courte, that none be accounted a Delinquent for Doc- trine : Provided, it be not directly repugnant to ye Gov- ernment or Lawes established." Religious liberty was here set forth in terms not to be mistaken, when it is re- membered that no laws existed relating to matters of faith. "The people having recently transferred the ju- dicial power from their own control to the Court and Ju- ries, they enacted this law protecting liberty of con- science, not choosing to trust the Judiciary with the keep- ing of that sacred principle for which they had trans- ported themselves, first from England and then from Mas- sachusetts. It was the foundation of the future Statutes and Bills of Rights, which distinguished the carly laws and character of the State and people of Rhode Island from the other English Colonies in America."1 At no
1 Bull's Memoir of Rhode Island.
1641. March 16-18.
150
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
.
1641. March 16-18.
CHAP. period of the world has religious inquiry been more rife V. than during the seventeenth century. It was eminently an age of progress in spiritual development, and as a natural result, or cause, as different minds may view it, it was the palmy era of theological controversy. Else- where an avowal of independent thought was attended with danger to the liberty, the property, or the life of the earnest thinker. Here it was intended to remove all such obstacles to free discussion, and to leave a fair field for truth to work out its deepest problems. That in this process many opinions, which in our day may appear fan- ciful, fanatical, or visionary, and which may be regarded as idle vagaries or spiritual absurdities, were warmly ex- pressed and stoutly maintained, is no reproach to the principle that permitted their utterance. In an inquiring age, when the minds of men were agitated by new and startling theories in religion and government ; when the progress of liberal sentiments was awakening to fresh life the dormant energies of the old world, and urging its op- pressed people to seek an asylum in the new ; when education was becoming more diffused, and philosophy was no longer confined to the schools, or the elements of polity to the court ; when men had begun to think for themselves, and dared to question kingly preroga- tive and priestly assumption ; when all Europe was em- broiled in wars and distracted by revolutionary senti- ments, it is not strange that crude, grotesque, and unstable notions should blend with the essential truths which lay at the bottom of all this commotion. Novel
ยท ideas were started, new sects were established, secret societies abounded, and those phenomena which ever attend a transition state, and which, in this case, were a continuation of the movement of the preceding cen- tury, were everywhere apparent. The law of Rhode Island first sanctioned their existence, and foreshadowed the spirit of a future age. That "heresies" should
151
REPUTED HERESIES AT AQUEDNECK.
abound in such a community was inevitable, and our CHAP. Puritan neighbors found delight in recording them with V. more fulness of detail than accuracy or propriety of ex- 1641. pression. Again we are indebted to Winthrop's Journal for facts of which no record is to be found in our own col- lections ; and we prefer to quote him, because he was the most liberal man of his age and station, to citing the more bitter denunciations of Hubbard and Mather, or the many other writers of that and the succeeding century, whose Dudleian spirit would perhaps more truly portray the prevailing temper of the times. Governor Winthrop says : " Mrs. Hutchinson and those of Aquiday island, Aug. broached new heresics every year. Divers of them turned professed anabaptists, and would not wear any arms, and denied all magistracy among Christians, and maintained that there were no churches since those founded by the apostles and evangelists, nor could any be, nor any pas- tors ordained, nor seals administered but by such, and that the church was to want these all the time she con- tinucd in the wilderness, as yet she was ; " 1 and again,
1 ii. 38, 40. The terms anabaptist and antinomian were used generally to designate all dissenters from the established faith, and were not applied, as is often supposed, specifically to the Baptists and Independents as Christian sects. In the above enumeration of doctrines ascribed to the former, there is not one that was, or ever has been held by the Baptists, while the distinctive fea- ture of that denomination is not even mentioned. Most of the doetrines named were held by the Seekers, who were afterwards chicfly merged in the Society of Friends, and by their opponents styled Quakers, until that name, like that of Christian, has grown from an epithet of contempt to be an hon- orable appellation. Many, if not all, of these doctrines, in a modified form, are held by them at this day. The term applied by Winthrop is liable to mislead. That similarity of name implies concurrence of sentiment, is an idea as common as it is superficial-a truth well illustrated in the vagne use here made of the word 'anabaptist' by our Puritan journalist, and since so often repeated by his Prelatical brethren.
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