peaceable prince), once in a solemn oration to myself, in a solemn
assembly, using this word, [Wannaumwayean, if he speak true,] said, I
have never suffered any wrong to be offered to the English since they
landed, nor never will. He often repeated this word, Wannaumwayean,
Englishman, if the Englishman speak true, if he meane truly; then shall
I goe to my grave in peace, and hope that the English and my posteritie
shall live in love and peace together. I replied that he had no cause
(as I hoped) to question the Englishman’s Wannaumauonck, that is,
faithfulnesse, he having had long experience of their faithfulnesse and
trustinesse. He took a stick and broke it into ten pieces, and related
ten instances, (laying down a stick at every instance), which gave
him cause thus to feare and say. I satisfied him on some presently,
and presented the rest to the governors of the English, who I hope
will be far from giving just cause to have barbarians question their
Wannaumwauonck of faithfulnesse.”--_Williams’ Key._
STANZA XLVII.
_This fragment shows the serpent’s skin they sent,
Filled with round thunders to our royal tent._
“The people called Narragansets,” says the N. E. Memorial, “sent
messengers unto our plantations with a bundle of arrows tied together
with a snake-skin, which the interpreter told them was a threatening
and a challenge, upon which the Governor of Plymouth sent them a
rough answer, viz.: That, if they loved war better than peace, they
might begin when they would; they had done them no wrong, neither did
they fear them, nor should they find them unprovided; and by another
messenger they sent the snake-skin back again, with bullets in it;
but they would not receive it, but sent it back again.” Mr. Davis in
a note adds: “The messenger was accompanied by a friendly Indian,
Tockamahamon. The messenger inquired for Squanto, who was absent.
The bundle of arrows was left for him, and the messenger departed
without any explanation. When Squanto returned, and the dubious
present was delivered him, he immediately understood the object.” The
planters, however, seem to have considered themselves threatened. They
immediately began to strengthen their defences, and every precaution
was taken against a surprise.
STANZA XLVIII.
_This, when at Sowans raged our battle loud,
How their round thunders made that battle dumb._
See the passage from Winthrop, in note to stanza xxxiii.
_This how amid the Pequot nation they
Build the square lodge, and whet him to the fray._
The Plymouth Company had established a trading house on the
Connecticut, as early as 1633. Their trade with the Pequots in arrow
points, knives, hatchets, &c., might very probably give offence to
the Narragansets. “We found,” says Winthrop, “that all the sachems of
Narraganset, except Canonicus and Miantonomi were the contrivers of Mr.
Oldham’s death, and the occasion was because he went to make peace and
trade with the Pequots.”
CANTO FIFTH.
STANZA XI.
_Brother, the spirit of my son is gone;
I burned my lodge to speak my mighty grief._
Williams says, “The chiefe and most aged peaceable father of the
countrey, Canonnicus, having buried his sonne, he burned his own
palace, and all his goods in it, (amongst them to a great value), in a
solemn remembrance of his son, and in a kind of humble expiation to the
gods, who (as they believe) had taken away his sonne from him.”
_I am thy father, thou shalt be my son._
See the extract from Williams’ testimony, in note to stanza xxxiii, of
canto iv.
STANZA XXIV.
_The sable fox-hide did his loins enclose--
The sable fox-tail formed his nodding crest._
The Indians had a superstitious regard for the black fox. Williams
says, they considered it a Manittoo--a god, spirit, or divine power.
STANZA XXXII.
_Hast thou forgot, when, by Cohannet’s stream,
To curse the strangers every charm was tried._
“But before I pass on, let the reader take notice of a very remarkable
particular which was made known to the planters at Plymouth some short
space after their arrival; that the Indians, before they came to
the English to make friendship with them, got all the Pawaws in the
country, who, for three days together, in a horrid and devilish manner,
did curse and execrate them with their conjurations, which assembly
and service they held in a dark and dismal swamp.”--_N. E. Memorial._
_How I appeared, and, by the embers’ gleam,
To the hard rock my lance’s point applied,
And scored my mandate._
The inscriptions on the rocks by Taunton river have afforded a subject
of much speculation to the antiquary. It would not be strange if the
Indians ascribed to them a supernatural origin.
STANZA XLII.
_An odor, strange, though not offensive, spread
About him, as he near and nearer drew;_
If my recollection serves me, Dr. Good, in his Book of Nature, supposes
that the seeming power of fascination in serpents may arise from an
odor emitted by them. The tale of the Hunter and the Rattlesnake, in
the New England Legends, must furnish the author with a justification
for the use which he has made of this serpent in the text; and it ought
also to be added, that his description of the serpent, in the act of
exercising his mysterious powers, is not essentially different from
that in the tale to which he has referred.
STANZA LXIII.
_Here stretched Aquidnay tow’rd the ocean blue._
Aquidnay is the Indian name for Rhode Island. This name is variously
written--sometimes Aquidneck, sometimes Aquetnet, and sometimes
Aquidnet. Winthrop generally writes it Aquidnay, and the author has
chosen so to write it, for no other reason, than that the sound is a
little more agreeable. There is some reason to conclude that Aquetnet
is nearer its true etymology. See the following note.
STANZA LXX.
_Another sachem sways
The Isle of peace._
_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.