Providence in Colonial Times

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE TOWN OF PROVIDENCE ?KING PHILIP'S WAR brief period of Roger Williams's service as president of the plantation he had founded, marks the beginning of a new phase in the relation between himself and the town of Providence. He returned from England in 1654 to find the little...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE TOWN OF PROVIDENCE ?KING PHILIP'S WAR brief period of Roger Williams's service as president of the plantation he had founded, marks the beginning of a new phase in the relation between himself and the town of Providence. He returned from England in 1654 to find the little colony in a condition closely bordering on anarchy. Liberty had become license. Every man did as seemed best for his own interests, with small regard for those of his neighbor. A disposition to settle disputes by the summary method of a street- fight rather than by the arbitration of a town-meeting, grew apace. Samuel Gorton had filled the office of president of the colony during part of the turbulent years when Williams was absent in England, and Gorton was a man whose recriminative talents shine forth conspicuously, even in that age and country. Yet Gorton publicly declared himself unable to stem the tide of argument and vituperation which he was forced to encounter. Such men are fittest for office in this place, he wrote to his Worthie friends of Providence, That can with most ease undergoe the greatest Load of Ignominy and Reproach, of which for my own Part, I am uncapable. Title-page Of Samuel Gorton's simplicities Defence Against Seven-headed Policy From the original in the library of the Rhode Island Historical Society. .. -. l SIMPLICITIES againft SEVEN-HEADED POLICY. A true complaint of a peaceable people, being part of the Englifh in New tngland, raadcunto the ftate ot O.u England, tgunlt crucll perlecurors Vnited in Church - Government in thofe parts. Wherein is mademartifefl; the manifold out-rages cruclriesjoppreffionsjand taxations, by cruell and clofe im- prifonmems, fire and (word, deprivation of goods, Lands, ami l.