USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 24
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CHAP. VIII. 1660. Oct. 21.
May 21.
Sept. 29 Oct. 30.
276
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. VIII. 1661. May 21.
rested the claims of a company that was destined to give so much trouble to the colony.
22.
Aug. 27.
The same President, Assistants, Attorney-General and Sergeant were re-elected at Newport. Joseph Torrey was chosen Recorder, Caleb Carr, Treasurer, and Peter Tallman, Solicitor-General. The assembly passed a lengthy act acknowledging their submission to the King, proposing to send a special agent to England to present it in a humble address to His Majesty, and voting a tax of two hundred pounds for that purpose. The plan was given up on receipt of letters from John Clarke, which were read at the next meeting of the court of commission- ers at Portsmouth. A letter of thanks to Mr. Clarke was voted, and the commission, prepared in October, was order- ed to be sent to him. The tax was apportioned, eighty- five pounds to Newport, forty pounds each to Providence and Portsmouth, and thirty-five pounds to Warwick. It was to be raised by voluntary contribution for the use of the agent.
June 4.
An extensive purchase, made the previous year, by some Newport men, in the south-west part of the Narra- ganset country, called Misquamicock, now Westerly, be- gan to be settled, and gave rise to further difficulties of propriety and jurisdiction.1 At this session the purchasers petitioned for the approval and assistance of the colony in making a settlement there, which was granted. The commissioners of the United Colonies took up the dispute in behalf of Massachusetts, and wrote to Rhode Island re-
1 This tract was given to Socho, a brave captain of the Narragansets, by Canonicus and Miantinomi, for services rendered about 1635, in driving off a party of Pequots who had settled there prior to the war between the Pequots and English in 1637. It was deeded by Socho, Jan. 29th, 1660, to William Vaughan, Robert Stanton, John Fairfield, Hugh Mosher, James Longbottom and others of Newport, and the original deed to Socho was confirmed by Pes- sicus, 24th June, 1661, at which time Ninigret claimed the tract, but his nephew Pessicus denied his right thereto. The documents relating to this subject and the records of the Westerly proprietors are given by Mr. Potter in Early Hist. of Nar't. R. I. H. C., iii. 241-75.
277
SEIZURE OF SAUNDERS AND BURDETT.
specting this and the Pettiquamscot purchase, protesting against the conduct of Rhode Island in permitting them to be made. Massachusetts, by whom the Pequot country was claimed by right of conquest, had erected the tract on each side of the Pawcatuck river into a township called Southertown, and attached it to the county of Suffolk. Complaints from this town were now made to the General Court, of the intrusion of some thirty-six settlers from Rhode Island into that part of the town east of Paw- catuck river, being the Westerly purchase, claiming it as their own. Upon this a warrant was issued by the coun- cil of Massachusetts to the constable of Southertown to ar- rest the trespassers. Tobias Saunders, Robert Burdett, and Joseph Clarke were seized. Clarke was released, and the others were taken to Boston as prisoners, and commit- ted for want of bail. The magistrates sent a letter to Rhode Island, inquiring if the conduct of these trespass- ers was sanctioned by that government, and saying if it were so, Massachusetts would prepare to defend her peo- ple in their just rights. Receiving no reply, another let- ter was soon after sent, by special messengers, asserting her claim to all Rhode Island, " from Pequot river to Ply- mouth line," under the Narraganset patent,1 and avowing her determination to make it good. At the next session of the General Court the two prisoners were brought to trial. They were sentenced to pay a fine of forty pounds, and to be imprisoned till it was paid, and also to give sureties for one hundred pounds to keep the peace .? A third letter was then written, informing Rhode Island of the trial of these men, and requiring her to cause the set- tlers at Pettiquamscot and Southertown to vacate their lands before the end of June, or they should be treated as Saunders and Burdett had been. But Rhode Island was not to be intimidated by the threats of her powerful neigh-
CHAP. VIII. 1661. Sept. 13.
Oct. 25.
Nov. 14.
Dec. 3.
1662. March 8.
May 7.
10.
1 Obtained Dec. 10th, 1643, ante ch. iv.
2 M. C. R. iv. Part 2d, p. 44.
278
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. VIII. 1662. May.
20.
bor, whose efforts against her peace and existence had so often been thwarted by her firmness, sanctioned by the subsequent approval of her conduct by the Supreme Gov- ernment in England. Relying, as she ever had done, on the justice of her cause, and looking to her right of appeal to the King and Parliament, through the medium of her able and faithful agent, John Clarke, she maintained her position. The Court of Commissioners, met at Warwick, sent to Daniel Gookin and others, subjects of Massachu- setts, who had intruded at Westerly, prohibiting them from planting or building there until the order of the King on that matter could be known.1 A letter in reply to Massachusetts was prepared, defending the conduct of Saunders and Burdett, and denying that the Pequot re- gion ever extended east of Pawcatuck river, or that Massa- chusetts had any claim to the Narraganset country. The terms of the letter were as courteous as the subject would permit. Two messengers were appointed to carry it to Boston.2
22.
At this general election Benedict Arnold was chosen President, over William Brenton ; Richard Tew, Assist- ant for Newport, John Sandford, Treasurer, and Richard Bulgar, Solicitor. The other officers continued as be- fore, but the Attorney General declining to serve, John Sandford was chosen to that place in June. These offi- cers were re-elected the following year, and served until the adoption of the Royal Charter.
Wampum-peage up to this time had been the princi- pal circulating medium in Rhode Island. The other colo-
1 This prohibition does not appear on the records of the May session, which began on the 22d, while this document is dated the 20th. There was perhaps a special meeting of the Court prior to the general election two days later. It is found in the files of the General Court of Massachusetts, and is printed in R. I. Col. Rec., i. 463, with the three letters from Massachusetts above referred to, and other papers on the same subject.
2 These were John Green and John Sandford. The letter is in R. I. Col. Rec., i. 469-73.
279
THE COLONY DETERMINES TO MAINTAIN ITS RIGHTS.
nies had long since abandoned it. It had now fallen so CHIAP. much in value that it was declared to be no longer legal VIII. tender, and all taxes and costs of court were required to be 1662. paid "in current pay," that is, in Sterling or in New Eng- land coin.1 The confusion of land titles had become so great, that a law was passed vesting the fee in whoever, having possession, should record his claim within thirteen months, if on the spot ; and this record, if undisputed within that time, should perfect the title even against the real owner. To those living in other colonies one year more was given, and to those living beyond the sea two years longer were allowed to establish their right. The President or any Assistant was empowered to appoint con- stables at any of the new settlements in Narraganset to keep the peace. This act evinced the fixed determination of Rhode Island to maintain her rights in the disputed territory. The Court adjourned till the next month, to await the return of the messengers sent to Massachusetts. They did not reach Boston till the General Court had ad- June journed. To prevent the mischief that might result from 17. the contents of their letter not being generally known, leave was granted for any person to send copies of it, and of the prohibition, to their friends in Massachusetts. Liberty to buy land of the Indians was also given to sev- eral parties. These purchases soon became too frequent to be specially noticed.
Letters were constantly passing between the colony and its agent. Measures of vital importance to the wel- fare of Rhode Island were in progress. The position she occupied was anomalous, and required great tact and ability to sustain. The charter, by which she existed, was obtained from an authority inimical to the king,
1 Massachusetts had begun to coin silver in 1652. Shillings and six- pences, all of which bear the same date, although the coinage was continued throughout several years, are still extant. Thirty shillings of New England silver was equal to twenty-two shillings sixpence sterling.
280
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. VIII 1662. June 17.
and which had afterwards dethroned and beheaded his royal father. The principles she avowed were totally un- recognized among men. No form of civil government then existing could tolerate her democracy, and even Christian charity denied her faith. To obtain a renewal of privileges so remarkable, to secure the regard of a sove- reign whose arbitrary will was an inheritance, to obtain his sanction to a system which, initiated as an experi- ment by a republican parliament, had come to be no longer a philosophical problem but an established fact, and which, if extended, must inevitably in time overthrow the fabric of monarchical power-these were the difficult and perhaps dangerous duties that now devolved on the agent of Rhode Island. Well did he conduct his delicate mission, and triumphant was the success that crowned his labors. Two petitions or addresses were presented to Charles II. by John Clarke, in behalf of the people of Rhode Island, wherein he recites briefly the origin of the colony, and states clearly the grounds of their first and second removal for the cause of religious liberty, asserting that they " have it much on their hearts, if they may be permitted, to hold forth a lively experiment, that a flourishing civil state may stand, yea, and best be maintained, and that among English spirits, with a full liberty in religious con- cernments," and finally surrendering their lands and charter to the crown, and craving "a more absolute, ample, and free charter of civil incorporation." 1
While the existence of the colony hung on the yet doubtful success of its agent at the English court, affairs at home were scarcely more propitious to its safety or inde- pendence. The subjects of Massachusetts in Narraganset
" The precise date of these two addresses is unknown. They were found among the archives in the British State Paper Office in London, and belong no doubt to the year 1662. Copies were made for the splendid library of Mr. John Carter Brown, which contains probably the richest collection of MSS. and of rare and valuable works on American history to be found. These two papers are printed in Mr. Secretary Bartlett's R. I. Col. Rec., i. 485-91.
Sept. 4.
281
CONNECTICUT CLAIMS NARRAGANSET.
complained to the commissioners of the United Colonies of the conduct of Rhode Island, in maintaining her char- tered rights over that country. The appointment of con- stables by the last General Assembly had filled the cup of New England indignation. The commissioners now wrote to Rhode Island, claiming Narraganset for Connec- ticut, under the new charter to that colony which had just been received, as the previous year they had claimed it for Massachusetts under the old Narraganset patent. The letter concludes with the usual threat in case of non- compliance with their demands.1 Connecticut, upon the proclamation of her charter, 2 ordered the inhabitants of Mystic and Pawcatuck not to exercise authority under commissions from any other colony.3 This order was aimed equally at Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and was justified by the terms of the new charter, which em- braced the whole Narraganset country. At the meeting of the Court of Commissioners in Warwick, another letter was ordered to be sent to Massachusetts about the lands of Pawcatuck, in reply to the one from the United Colo- nies. This letter was more severe than was usual in the official communications of Rhode Island, justly charging the Massachusetts with habitual injury to Rhode Island by wrongful accusations and unchristian acts, and asserting that the Connecticut charter, so far as it conveyed juris- diction over the Narraganset country, was procured by " underhand dealing," and that it would be revoked. The letter further demanded the release of Saunders and Bur- dett, who still remained in prison, and also claimed dam- ages for the wrongs inflicted upon them. In conclusion, it offered equal justice in the courts of Rhode Island, to all parties aggrieved by any illegal acts of the Westerly settlers.ยช
CHAP. VIII. 1662.
Oct. 9.
27.
1 Hazard, ii. 462-9. R. I. Col. Rec., i. 499.
2 Dated 23d April, 1662, and received in September.
3 Conn't Col. Rec., i. 389.
4 See R. I. Col. Rec., i. 493-5.
282
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
That the subject of education received early attention in Rhode Island we have already shown in the chapter on Aquedneck. An ample foundation for its support was also made in Providence, by the reservation of one hundred acres of upland and six acres of meadow for the mainte- nance of a school, which was voted in town meeting at this time.
No changes were made in the general officers at the next election. The session, held in Providence, was very short.
The continued imprisonment of the two Rhode Island men in Massachusetts exasperated the settlers at West- erly, and led to a system of reprisals, and to acts of vio- lence, seriously disturbing the border towns. A house that had been built on the east side of Pawcatuck river by residents of Southertown, being within the asserted ju- risdiction of Rhode Island, was torn down. William Mar- ble, a deputy of the Marshal of Suffolk, bearing a letter to the Westerly men upon this subject, was arrested, sent to Newport, and confined in prison for eleven months. Soon after his release he petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts 1 for redress. The petition is on the files of the Court, but no action upon it is recorded.
June.
April 7.
July 3.
10.
By the third article of an agreement made between Clarke and Winthrop, the Atherton Company were to choose whether they would be under the jurisdiction of Rhode Island or of Connecticut. This agreement was im- mediately sent over to America. The action of the com- pany was prompt and decided. They preferred the gov- ernment of Connecticut, and so declared in a formal meet- ing, every one subscribing a paper to that effect, which was sent to Hartford. The Governor and Council imme- diately accepted the jurisdiction, as being included in the limits of their charter, named the plantation Wickford, and appointed Richard Smith, sen., Edward Hutchinson,
1 August 3d, 1664.
CHAP. VIII. 1663. May 9. 22.
283
RECEPTION OF THE ROYAL CHARTER.
and Joshua Hewes, Selectmen, and Richard Smith, jun., CHAP. Constable. Mr. Smith's trading-house was the place de- signated for the transaction of public business.
VIII. 1663. June 21.
The hopes of Rhode Island received a further blow in a letter from the king to the United Colonies, commend- ing to their care the interests of the Atherton purchasers against the vexatious proceedings of Providence colony.1 How that letter was obtained will appear in the succeed- ing chapter. But steps had already been taken by Clarke which prevented the injury that the State would other- wise have sustained from these causes. The Assembly met at Portsmouth soon after the receipt of this letter, to 14-19. Oct. expedite measures for the support of their agent.
The General Court of Massachusetts sent special agents to Rhode Island, to inform the government of their views of her acts against the peace of that colony in regard to Southertown, and to propose a reference of the matters in dispute, until which time further molestation should cease.2 Soon afterwards warrants were issued to all the towns by the President, requiring the freemen to accompany their commissioners, with their arms, to solemnize the re- ception of the charter, as advised by the colony's agent. The President also wrote to Massachusetts, enclosing a let- ter from the king in behalf of Rhode Island, and received a reply that the council should be called at once to delib- erate on the subject. They met at Boston, and proposed by letter to President Arnold that all subjects in dispute between the two colonies be referred to arbitrators, to meet at Plymouth at such time as Rhode Island might select, and naming Governor Prince and Josias Winslow as refer- ees on the part of Massachusetts.
21.
Nov. 16.
18.
21.
24.
Once more, and for the last time under the parliamen- tary patent, the general Court of Commissioners convened at Newport on the appointed day, to receive at the hands
1 Hazard ii. 498. R. I. Col. Rec., i. 466.
2 M. C. R., iv. Part 2d, p. 95.
284
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
VIII. Nov. 24.
CHAP. of Captain George Baxter, lately arrived from England, the rich result of the labors of John Clarke-the Royal 1663. Charter of Charles II.
" At a very great meeting and assembly of the freemen of the colony of Providence Plantations, at Newport, in Rhode Island, in New England, November the 24th, 1663. The abovesayed Assembly being legally called and orderly mett for the sollome reception of his Majestyes gratious letters pattent unto them sent, and having in order thereto chosen the President, Benedict Arnold, Moderator of the Assembly," it was, "Voted : That the box in which the King's gratious letters were enclosed be opened, and the letters with the broad seale thereto affixed be taken forth and read by Captayne George Baxter in the audience and view of all the people ; which was accordingly done, and the sayd letters with his Majesty's Royall Stampe, and the broad seal, with much becoming gravity held up on hygh, and presented to the perfect view of the people, and then returned into the box and locked up by the Governor, in order to the safe keeping of it."
25.
The humble thanks of the colony were voted to His Majesty and to the earl of Clarendon, and also a gratuity of one hundred pounds to John Clarke and one of twenty- five pounds to Captain Baxter. The next day the com missioners again assembled, and having passed such acts as were necessary to prevent the failure of justice, "dis- solved and resigned up " to the government appointed by the charter.
26.
On the following day the Governor and council named in the charter, held a meeting to receive again the sub- mission of the sachems to the crown of England, and to order the government of the colony, by receiving anew the engagements of all the existing officers to hold their places until the session of the General Assembly, which was ap- pointed for the first Tuesday of the ensuing March.
The government of the colony under the parliamentary
285
EXPIRATION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARTER.
patent was ended. "The incorporation of Providence CHAP. Plantations," as a legal title, had ceased to exist. Hence- VIII. forth the colony was to assume another name, and to be gov- 1663. erned under a royal charter, not less frec than that which it supplanted, and better adapted to the exigencies of the State. The patent of 1644 had accomplished the chief end for which it was sought. It had gathered the scat- tered settlements of fugitives from persecution into one corporate body, and compelled their recognition as a body politic by their ambitious and vindictive neighbors. But it was too feeble to answer the full purposes of a charter. The very freedom of its provisions, which in later days would give it strength, was in those primitive times a source of weakness. It was more a patent for the towns than for the people, legalizing, in effect, so many independ- ent corporations, rather than constructing one sovereign power resting upon the popular will. It produced a con- federacy, and not a union. Its defects are seen in the fa- cility with which Coddington, contrary to the wishes of the people at Aquedneck, severed that island from the rest of the colony, and usurped a power almost dictatorial. Under its operation, in every town and hamlet were spread the seeds of discontent and disunion, and nothing but the pres- sure from without, and the supreme law of self-preserva- tion, kept the discordant settlements from utter destruction, and from being absorbed by the adjoining governments. Its reception had been hailed with extravagant joy by a despised and persecuted people. Its expiration was at- tended with no regret, for twenty years had wrought that change in the feeble colony which the same period works from infancy to manhood. As a basis of civil polity it had " outlived its usefulness," and was suffered to depart with- out a murmur.
Thus closed the second epoch of Rhode Island history. The first presents a view of scattered cabins reared in the primeval wilderness, till they become a little village on the
286
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
river bank. One after another these feeble hamlets strug-
CHAP. VIII. gle into life, remote from each other, amid virgin forests 1663. and on the ocean shore. The hardy settlers, twice exiled for opinion's sake, have become the pioneers of principles immortal as truth itself. What, though wild beasts dis- turb their rest at night, and the Indian warwhoop rings around their dwellings ! They have won the savage by acts of kindness and of justice, and have less to fear from his untamed but generous spirit than from the brethren they have left. Here, each village, by itself, they must frame their own laws, and submit to their own enact- ments, till, by force of habit and of necessity, each vil- lager becomes, unconsciously, a statesman. The school of practice precedes the school of theory, and thus four in- dependent governments are formed, self-constituted, in the wilderness. But one common sentiment pervades the whole. The spirit of liberty animates every heart. Soul liberty and civil freedom is their aim, and with one accord each separate village declares that "all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God." Thus in obscurity these outcast men indeed proclaimed "freedom to the world," and from their seclud- ed settlements sent forth a law which was to redeem the human soul from spiritual thraldom, and in time to free a nation, perhaps all nations at some future day, from civil tyranny, by teaching the doctrine of self-government.
But the villages have grown to be towns, "heresy and treason " are rampant in the plantations, and Puritan zeal for Church and State seeks to extirpate the source of so dangerous an example. Roused to a sense of impending danger, and conscious of the vast significance of their common principles, the towns obtain a patent which re- cognizes their corporate existence, yet leaves them freely to enjoy their cherished sentiments. With this patent of incorporation the second epoch of their history begins. Through the last two chapters we have traced this second
287
PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE OF JOHN WARNER.
period of doubt and change, of conflict and disunion, of CHAP. threatened anarchy within, and of aggression and insult VIII.
from without. We have seen how, amid all the troubles 1663. that environed them, the townsmen kept steadily in view the fundamental principles of their organization, and tri- umphantly sustained their peculiar notions against the arguments and the menaces of the rest of New England ; and how the material prosperity of the people kept pace with their fidelity to the truth, until the arrival of a new, " more absolute, ample, and free charter of civil incorpo- ration," ushered in the third epoch of our history-the period of colonial maturity.
APPENDIX B.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE OF JOHN WARNER.
FROM THE WARWICK RECORDS.
"The twentie-fourth of Aprill, 1652. APP. B.
" At a town meeting or law making assembly ordered that
" John Warner for his misdemeanures under annexed is degraded by the unanimos consent of the town from bearing any office in the town, and that he is hereby disenabled for ever after bearing any of- fice in the Town untill he gives the town satisfaction.
" It is further ordered that the abovesayed John Warner is put out from having any vote in the town concerning its affairs.
" The charges against John Warner are these, first
" Item-for calling the officers of the town rogues and theives with respect to their office.
" Item-for calling the whole town rogues and thieves.
" Item-for threatning the lives of men.
" Item-for threatning to kill all the mares in town.
" Item-for his contempt in not appearing before the town now met, being lawfully (assembled ?) by a summons from the officer with two magistrates hands to it.
" Item-for threatning an officer of the colony in open Court that
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