Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 11)

RAYMOND, of Toulouse, The Crusade of.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099; also, JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099; and 1099-1144.

RAYMOND, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

REAL, Spanish.

See SPANISH COINS.

REAMS'S STATION, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST: VIRGINIA).

REASON, The Worship of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (NOVEMBER).

REBECCAITES. DAUGHTERS OF REBECCA.

Between 1839 and 1844, a general outbreak occurred in Wales against what were thought to be the excessive tolls collected on the turnpike roads. Finding that peaceful agitation was of no avail the people determined to destroy the turnpike gates, and did so very extensively, the movement spreading from county to county. They applied to themselves the Bible promise given to the descendants of Isaac's wife, that they should possess the "gate" of their enemies, and were known as the Daughters, or Children of Rebecca, or Rebeccaites. Their proceedings assumed at last a generally riotous and lawless character, and were repressed by severe measures. At the same time Parliament removed the toll-gate grievance by an amended law.

W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 2, page 131.

RECESS.

Certain decrees of the Germanic diet were so called.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1530-1531.

RECHABITES, The.

An ascetic religious association, or order, formed among the Israelites, under the influence of the prophet Elijah, or after his death. Like the monks of a later time, they mostly withdrew into the desert. "The vow of their order was so strict that they were not allowed to possess either vineyards or corn-fields or houses, and they were consequently rigidly confined for means of subsistence to the products of the wilderness."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 4, section 1 (volume 4).

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RECIPROCITY TREATY, Canadian.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION, &C. (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

RECOLLECTS, RÉCOLLETS.

This name is borne by a branch of the Franciscan order of friars, to indicate that the aim of their lives is the recollection of God and the forgetfulness of worldly things.

RECONSTRUCTION: President Lincoln's Louisiana plan.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-JULY).

President Johnson's plan.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

The question in Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-JUNE), 1866-1867 (OCTOBER-MARCH), 1867 (MARCH).

See, also: SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1865-1876; TENNESSEE: A. D. 1865-1866; LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.

RECULVER, Roman origin of.

See REGULBIUM.

RED CAP OF LIBERTY, The.

See LIBERTY CAP.

RED CROSS, The.

"A confederation of relief societies in different countries, acting under the Geneva Convention, carries on its work under the sign of the Red Cross. The aim of these societies is to ameliorate the condition of wounded soldiers in the armies in campaign on land or sea. The societies had their rise in the conviction of certain philanthropic men, that the official sanitary service in wars is usually insufficient, and that the charity of the people, which at such times exhibits itself munificently, should be organized for the best possible utilization. An international public conference was called at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863, which, though it had not an official character, brought together representatives from a number of Governments. At this conference a treaty was drawn up, afterwards remodeled and improved, which twenty-five Governments have signed. The treaty provides for the neutrality of all sanitary supplies, ambulances, surgeons, nurses, attendants, and sick or wounded men, and their safe conduct, when they bear the sign of the organization, viz: the Red Cross. Although the Convention which originated the organization was necessarily international, the relief societies themselves are entirely national and independent; each one governing itself and making its own laws according to the genius of its nationality and needs. It was necessary for recognizance and safety, and for carrying out the general provisions of the treaty, that a uniform badge should be agreed upon. The Red Cross was chosen out of compliment to the Swiss Republic, where the first convention was held, and in which the Central Commission has its headquarters. The Swiss colors being a white cross on a red ground, the badge chosen was these colors reversed. There are no 'members of the Red Cross,' but only members of societies whose sign it is. There is no 'Order of the Red Cross.' The relief societies use, each according to its convenience, whatever methods seem best suited to prepare in times of peace for the necessities of sanitary service in times of war. They gather and store gifts of money and supplies; arrange hospitals, ambulances, methods of transportation of wounded men, bureaus of information, correspondence, &c. All that the most ingenious philanthropy could devise and execute has been attempted in this direction. In the Franco–Prussian war this was abundantly tested. … This society had its inception in the mind of Monsieur Henri Dunant, a Swiss gentleman, who was ably seconded in his views by Monsieur Gustave Moynier and Dr. Louis Appia, of Geneva."

History of the Red Cross (Washington, 1883).

RED FORTRESS, The. The Alhambra.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1238-1273.

RED LAND, The.

See VEHMGERICHTS.

RED LEGS.

See JAYHAWKERS.

RED RIVER COMPANY AND SETTLEMENT. RIEL'S REBELLION.

See CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873.

RED RIVER EXPEDITION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

RED ROBE, Counsellors of the.

See VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.

RED TERROR, The.

The later period of the French Reign of Terror, when the guillotine was busiest, is sometimes so called.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL,).

REDAN, Assaults on the (1855).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

REDEMPTIONERS.

"Redemptioners, or term slaves, as they were sometimes called, constituted in the early part of the 18th century a peculiar feature of colonial society. They were recruited from among all manner of people in the old world, and through this channel Europe emptied upon America, not only the virtuous poor and oppressed of her population, but the vagrants, felons, and the dregs of her communities. … There were two kinds of redemptioners: 'indented servants,' who had bound themselves to their masters for a term of years previous to their leaving the old country; and 'free–willers,' who, being without money and desirous of emigrating, agreed with the captains of ships to allow themselves and their families to be sold on arrival, for the captain's advantage, and thus repay costs of passage and other expenses."

A. D. Mellick, Jr., The Story of an Old Farm, chapter 11.

REDEMPTORISTS, The.

The members of the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, founded by St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, in 1732, are commonly known as Redemptorists. The congregation is especially devoted to apostolic work among neglected classes of people. It has monasteries in several parts of Europe.

REDONES, The.

See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.

REDSTICKS, The.

This name was given to the hostile Creek Indians of Florida.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

REDUCTIONS IN PARAGUAY, The Jesuit.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

REEVE.

See GEREFA; and MARGRAVE.

REFERENDARIUS.

See CHANCELLOR.

REFERENDUM AND INITIATIVE, The Swiss.

"A popular vote under the name Referendum was known in the valleys of Graubunden and Wallis as early as the 16th century. Here existed small federations of communities who regulated certain matters of general concern by means of assemblies of delegates from each village. These conventions were not allowed to decide upon any important measure finally, but must refer the matter to the various constituencies. If a majority of these approved, the act might be passed at the next assembly. {2628} This primitive system lasted till the French invasion of 1798, and was again established in Graubünden in 1815. The word Referendum was also used by the old federal diets, in which there were likewise no comprehensive powers of legislation. If not already instructed the delegates must vote 'ad referendum' and carry all questions to the home government. The institution as now known is a product of this century. It originated in the canton of St. Gallen in 1830, where at the time the constitution was undergoing revision. As a compromise between the party which strove for pure democracy and that desiring representative government, it was provided that all laws should be submitted to popular vote if a respectable number of voters so demanded. Known at first by the name Veto, this system slowly found its way into several of the German-speaking cantons, so that soon after the adoption of the federal constitution five were employing the optional Referendum. Other forms of popular legislation were destined to find wider acceptance, but at present [1891] in eight states, including three of the Romance tongue, laws must be submitted on request. … The usual limit of time during which the petition must be signed is 30 days. These requests are directed to the Executive Council of the state, and that body is obliged, within a similar period after receiving the same, to appoint a day for the vote. The number of signers required varies from 500 in the little canton Zug to 6,000 in St. Gallen, or from one-tenth to one–fifth of all the voters. Some states provide that in connection with the vote on the bill as a whole, an expression may be taken on separate points. Custom varies as to the number of votes required to veto a law. Some fix the minimum at a majority of those taking part in the election, and others at a majority of all citizens, whether voting or not. In case the vote is against the bill, the matter is referred by the Executive Council to the legislature. This body, after examining into the correctness of the returns, passes a resolution declaring its own act to be void. By means of the Initiative or Imperative Petition, the order of legislation just described is reversed, since the impulse to make law is received from below instead of above. The method of procedure is about as follows: Those who are interested in the passage of a new law prepare either a full draft of such a bill or a petition containing the points desired to be covered, with the reasons for its enactment, and then bring the matter before the public for the purpose of obtaining signatures. Endorsement may be given either by actually signing the petition or by verbal assent to it. The latter form of consent is indicated either in the town meetings of the communes or by appearing before the official in charge of the petition and openly asking that his vote be given for it. If, in the various town meetings of the canton taken together, a stated number of affirmative votes are given for the petition, the effect is the same as if the names of voters had been signed. … The number of names required is about the same in proportion to the whole body of voters as for the Optional Referendum. The requisite number of signatures having been procured, the petition is carried to the legislature of the canton. This body must take the matter into consideration within a specified time (Solothurn, two months), and prepare a completed draft in accordance with the request. It may also at the same time present an alternate proposition which expresses its own ideas of the matter, so that voters may take their choice. In any case the legislature gives an opinion on the project, as to its desirability or propriety, and the public has thus a report of its own select committee for guidance. The bill is then submitted to the voters, and on receiving the assent of a majority, and having been promulgated by the executive authority, becomes a law of the land."

J. M. Vincent, State and Federal Government in Switzerland, chapter 13.

"Between 1874 and 1886, the federal legislature passed 113 laws and resolutions which were capable of being submitted to the referendum. Of these only 19 were subjected to the popular vote, and of these last 13 were rejected and 6 adopted. The strong opposing views, which are held in Switzerland regarding the expediency of the referendum, indicate that this is one of the features of the government which is open to future discussion."

B. Moses, The Federal Government of Switzerland, page 119.

See, also, SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

"A plébiscite is a mass vote of the French people by which a Revolutionary or Imperial Executive obtains for its policy, or its crimes, the apparent sanction or condonation of France. Frenchmen are asked at the moment, and in the form most convenient to the statesmen or conspirators who rule in Paris, to say 'Aye' or 'No' whether they will, or will not, accept a given Constitution or a given policy. The crowd of voters are expected to reply in accordance to the wishes or the orders of the Executive, and the expectation always has met, and an observer may confidently predict always will meet, with fulfilment. The plébiscite is a revolutionary, or at least abnormal, proceeding. It is not preceded by debate. The form and nature of the question to be submitted to the nation is chosen and settled by the men in power. Rarely, indeed, when a plébiscite has been taken, has the voting itself been either free or fair. Taine has a strange tale to tell of the methods by which a Terrorist faction, when all but crushed by general odium, extorted from the country by means of the plébiscite a sham assent to the prolongation of revolutionary despotism. The credulity of partisanship can nowadays hardly induce even Imperialists to imagine that the plébiscites which sanctioned the establishment of the Empire, which declared Louis Napoleon President for life, which first re-established Imperialism, and then approved more or less Liberal reforms, fatal at bottom to the Imperial system, were the free, deliberate, carefully considered votes of the French nation given after the people had heard all that could be said for and against the proposed innovation. … The essential characteristics, however, the lack of which deprives a French plébiscite of all moral significance, are the undoubted properties of the Swiss Referendum. When a law revising the Constitution is placed before the people of Switzerland, every citizen throughout the land has enjoyed the opportunity of learning the merits and demerits of the proposed alteration. The subject has been 'threshed out,' as the expression goes, in Parliament; the scheme, whatever its worth, has received the deliberately given approval of the elected Legislature; it comes before the people with as much authority in its favour as a Bill which in England has passed through both Houses."

A. V. Dicey, The Referendum, (Contemporary Review, April, 1890).

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"A judgment of the referendum must be based on the working of the electoral machinery, on the interest shown by the voters, and on the popular discrimination between good and bad measures. The process of invoking and voting on a referendum is simple and easily worked, if not used too often. Although the Assembly has, in urgent cases, the constitutional right to set a resolution in force at once, it always allows from three to eight months' delay so as to permit the opponents of a measure to lodge their protests against it. Voluntary committees take charge of the movement, and, if a law is unpopular, little difficulty is found in getting together the necessary thirty thousand or fifty thousand signatures. Only thrice has the effort failed when made. When, as in 1882, the signatures run up to 180,000, the labor is severe, for every signature is examined by the national executive to see whether it is attested as the sign manual of a voter; sometimes, in an interested canton, as many as 70 per cent. of the voters have signed the demand. The system undoubtedly leads to public discussion: newspapers criticise; addresses and counter addresses are issued; cantonal councils publicly advise voters; and of late the federal Assembly sends out manifestoes against pending initiatives. The federal Executive Council distributes to the cantons enough copies of the proposed measure, so that one may be given to each voter. The count of the votes is made by the Executive Council as a returning-board. Inasmuch as the Swiss are unfamiliar with election frauds, and there has been but one very close vote in the national referenda, the count is not difficult, but there are always irregularities, especially where more than one question is presented to the voters at the same time. What is the effect of the popular votes, thus carried out? The following table, based on official documents, shows the results for the twenty years, 1875-1894;

Passed Rejected Total

(a.) Constitutional amendments proposed by the Assembly (referendum obligatory) 1 6 7

(b.) Constitutional amendments proposed by popular initiative 2 1 *4 (50,000 signatures)

(c.) Laws passed by the Assembly 14 6 20 (referendum demanded by 30,000).

Total 17 13 31

* One measure still pending.

Making allowances for cases where more than one question has been submitted at the same time, there have been twenty-four popular votes in twenty years. In addition, most of the cantons have their own local referenda; in Zurich, for example, in these twenty years, more than one hundred other questions have been placed before the sovereign people. These numbers are large in themselves, but surprising in proportion to the total legislation. Out of 158 general acts passed by the federal Assembly from 1874 to 1892, 27 were subjected to the referendum; that is, about one-sixth are reviewed and about one-tenth are reversed. Constitutional amendments usually get through sooner or Inter, but more than two-thirds of the statutes attacked are annulled. To apply the system on such a scale in any State of our Union is plainly impossible; thirty-nine–fortieths of the statute-book must still rest, as now, on the character of the legislators. Nevertheless it may be worth while to excise the other fortieth, if experience shows that the people are more interested and wiser than their representatives, when a question is put plainly and simply before them. I must own to disappointment over the use made by the Swiss of their envied opportunity. On the twenty referenda between 1879 and 1891 the average vote in proportion to the voters was but 58.5 per cent.; in only one case did it reach 67 per cent.; and in one case—the patent law of 1887—it fell to about 40 per cent. in the Confederation, and to 9 per cent. in Canton Schwyz. On the serious and dangerous question of recognizing the right to employment, this present year, only about 56 per cent. participated. In Zurich there is a compulsory voting law, of which the curious result is that on both national and cantonal referenda many thousands of blank ballots are cast. The result of the small vote is that laws, duly considered by the national legislature and passed by considerable majorities, are often reversed by a minority of the voters. The most probable reason for this apathy is that there are too many elections—in some cantons as many as fifteen a year. Whatever the cause, Swiss voters are less interested in referenda than Swiss legislators in framing bills. … 'I am a friend of the referendum,' says an eminent member of the Executive Council, 'but I do not like the initiative.' The experience of Switzerland seems to show four things: that the Swiss voters are not deeply interested in the referendum; that the referendum is as likely to kill good as bad measures; that the initiative is more likely to suggest bad measures than good; that the referendum leads straight to the initiative. The referendum in the United States would therefore probably be an attempt to govern great communities by permanent town meeting."

Prof. A. B. Hart, Vox Populi in Switzerland (Nation, September 13, 1894).

ALSO IN: A. L. Lowell, The Referendum in Switzerland and America (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1894).

E. P. Oberholtzer, The Referendum in America.

REFORM, Parliamentary.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830; 1830-1832; 1865-1868, and 1884-1885.

—————REFORMATION: Start————

REFORMATION: Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415; and 1419-1434, and after.

REFORMATION: England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1527-1534, to 1558-1588.

REFORMATION: France.

See PAPACY; A. D. 1521-1535; and FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547, and after.

REFORMATION: Germany.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517, 1517, 1517-1521, 1521-1522, 1522-1525, 1525-1529, 1530-1531, 1537-1563; also GERMANY: A. D. 1517-1523, 1530-1532, 1533-1546, 1546-1552, 1552-1561; also PALATINATE OF THE RHINE; A. D. 1518-1572.

REFORMATION: Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567

REFORMATION: Ireland; its failure.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.

REFORMATION: Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555, and after.

REFORMATION: Piedmont.

See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: A. D. 1559-1580.

{2630}

REFORMATION: Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1547-1557; 1557; 1558-1560; and 1561-1568.

REFORMATION: Sweden and Denmark.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1397-1527.

REFORMATION: Switzerland.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1519-1524; SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531; and GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535; and 1536-1564.

—————REFORMATION: End————

REFORMATION, The Counter.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1534-1540; 1537-1563; 1555-1603.

REGED.

See CUMBRIA.

REGENSBURG.

See RATISBON-under which name the town is more commonly known to English readers.

REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY, New York.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1746-1787.

REGICIDES AT NEW HAVEN, The.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1660-1664.

REGILLUS, Lake, Battle at.

In the legendary history of the Roman kings it is told that the last of the Tarquins strove long to regain his throne, with the help of the Etruscans first, afterwards of the Latins, and that the question was finally settled in a great battle fought with the latter, near the Lake Regillus, in which the Romans were helped by Castor and Pollux, in person.

Livy, History, II. 19.

REGNI, The.

See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES.

REGULATORS OF NORTH CAROLINA.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1766-1771.

REGULBIUM.

One of the fortified Roman towns in Britain on the Kentish coast,—modern Reculver.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

REGULUS, and the Carthaginians.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

REICHSTAG.

See DIET, THE GERMANIC.

REIGN OF TERROR, The.

See TERROR.

REIS EFFENDI.

See SUBLIME PORTE.

REMI, The.

See BELGÆ.

REMO, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

REMONSTRANTS AND COUNTER-REMONSTRANTS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619.

REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1833-1836.

RENAISSANCE, The.

"The word Renaissance has of late years received a more extended significance than that which is implied in our English equivalent—the Revival of Learning. We use it to denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World; and though it is possible to assign certain limits to the period during which this transition took place, we cannot fix on any dates so positively as to say—between this year and that the movement was accomplished. To do so would be like trying to name the days on which spring in any particular season began and ended. Yet we speak of spring as different from winter and from summer. … By the term Renaissance, or new birth, is indicated a natural movement, not to be explained by this or that characteristic, but to be accepted as an effort of humanity for which at length the time had come, and in the onward progress of which we still participate. The history of the Renaissance is not the history of arts, or of sciences, or of literature, or even of nations. It is the history of the attainment of self-conscious freedom by the human spirit manifested in the European races. It is no mere political mutation, no new fashion of art, no restoration of classical standards of taste. The arts and the inventions, the knowledge and the books which suddenly became vital at the time of the Renaissance, had long lain neglected on the shores of the Dead Sea which we call the Middle Ages. It was not their discovery which caused the Renaissance. But it was the intellectual energy, the spontaneous outburst of intelligence, which enabled mankind at that moment to make use of them. The force then generated still continues, vital and expansive, in the spirit of the modern world. … The reason why Italy took the lead in the Renaissance was, that Italy possessed a language, a favourable climate, political freedom, and commercial prosperity, at a time when other nations were still semi-barbarous. … It was … at the beginning of the 14th century, when Italy had lost indeed the heroic spirit which we admire in her Communes of the 13th, but had gained instead ease, wealth, magnificence, and that repose which springs from long prosperity, that the new age at last began. … The great achievements of the Renaissance were the discovery of the world and the discovery of man. Under these two formulæ may be classified all the phenomena which properly belong to this period. The discovery of the world divides itself into two branches—the exploration of the globe, and the systematic exploration of the universe which is in fact what we call Science. Columbus made known America in 1492; the Portuguese rounded the Cape in 1497; Copernicus explained the solar system in 1507. It is not necessary to add anything to this plain statement. … In the discovery of man … it is possible to trace a twofold process. Man in his temporal relations, illustrated by Pagan antiquity, and man in his spiritual relations, illustrated by Biblical antiquity: these are the two regions, at first apparently distinct, afterwards found to be interpenetrative, which the critical and inquisitive genius of the Renaissance opened for investigation. In the former of these regions we find two agencies at work, art and scholarship. … Through the instrumentality of art, and of all the ideas which art introduced into daily life, the Renaissance wrought for the modern world a real resurrection of the body. … It was scholarship which revealed to men the wealth of their own minds, the dignity of human thought, the value of human speculation, the importance of human life regarded as a thing apart from religious rules and dogmas. … The Renaissance opened to the whole reading public the treasure-houses of Greek and Latin literature. At the same time the Bible in its original tongues was rediscovered. Mines of Oriental learning were laid bare for the students of the Jewish and Arabic traditions. What we may call the Aryan and the Semitic revelations were for the first time subjected to something like a critical comparison. With unerring instinct the men of the Renaissance named the voluminous subject-matter of scholarship 'Litteræ Humaniores,' the more human literature, the literature that humanises [hence the term Humanism]. … Not only did scholarship restore the classics and encourage literary criticism; it also restored the text of the Bible, and encouraged theological criticism. In the wake of theological freedom followed a free philosophy, no longer subject to the dogmas of the Church. … On the one side Descartes, and Bacon, and Spinoza, and Locke are sons of the Renaissance, champions of new-found philosophical freedom; on the other side, Luther is a son of the Renaissance, the herald of new-found religious freedom."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age of the Despots, chapter 1.

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"The Renaissance, so far as painting is concerned, may be said to have culminated between the years 1470 and 1550. These dates, it must be frankly admitted, are arbitrary; nor is there anything more unprofitable than the attempt to define by strict chronology the moments of an intellectual growth so complex, so unequally progressive, and so varied as that of Italian art. All that the historian can hope to do, is to strike a mean between his reckoning of years and his more subtle calculations based on the emergence of decisive genius in special men. An instance of such compromise is afforded by Lionardo da Vinci, who belongs, as far as dates go, to the last half of the fifteenth century, but who must on any estimate of his achievement, be classed with Michael Angelo among the final and supreme masters of the full Renaissance. To violate the order of time, with a view to what may here be called the morphology of Italian art, is, in his case, a plain duty. Bearing this in mind, it is still possible to regard the eighty years above mentioned as a period no longer of promise and preparation but of fulfilment and accomplishment. Furthermore, the thirty years at the close of the fifteenth century may be taken as one epoch in this climax of the art, while the first half of the sixteenth forms a second. Within the former falls the best work of Mantegna, Perugino, Francia, the Bellini, Signorelli, Fra Bartolommeo. To the latter we may reckon Michael Angelo, Raphael, Giorgione, Correggio, Titian, and Andrea del Sarto. Lionardo da Vinci, though belonging chronologically to the former epoch, ranks first among the masters of the latter; and to this also may be given Tintoretto, though his life extended far beyond it to the last years of the century."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Fine Arts, chapters 4-6.

"It would be difficult to find any period in the history of modern Europe equal in importance with that distinguished in history under the name of the Renaissance. Standing midway between the decay of the Middle Ages and the growth of modern institutions, we may say that it was already dawning in the days of Dante Alighieri, in whose immortal works we find the synthesis of a dying age and the announcement of the birth of a new era. This new era—the Renaissance—began with Petrarch and his learned contemporaries, and ended with Martin Luther and the Reformation, which event not only produced signal changes in the history of those nations which remained Catholic, but transported beyond the Alps the centre of gravity of European culture."

P. Villari, Niccolo Machiavelli and his Times, volume 1, chapter 1.

J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy.

On the communication of the movement of the Renaissance to France and Europe in general, as a notable consequence of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII.

See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496. See, also, ITALY: 14TH CENTURY, and 15-16TH CENTURIES; FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492; VENICE: 16TH CENTURY; FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515, and 16TH CENTURY; EDUCATION: RENAISSANCE; ENGLAND: 10-16TH CENTURIES.

[Transcriber's note: For additional commentary on the Renaissance by James J. Walsh, see:

RÉNE (called The Good), Duke of Anjou and Lorraine and Count of Provence, A. D. 1434-1480.

King of Naples, A. D. 1435-1442.

See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.

RENSSELAER, Van.

See VAN RENSSELAER.

RENSSELAERWICK, The Patroon colony and manor of.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646; also, LIVINGSTON MANOR.

REPARTIMIENTOS. ENCOMIENDAS.

Columbus, as governor of Hispaniola (Hayti), made an arrangement "by which the caciques in their vicinity, instead of paying tribute, should furnish parties of their subjects, free Indians, to assist the colonists in the cultivation of their lands: a kind of feudal service, which was the origin of the repartimientos, or distributions of free Indians among the colonists, afterwards generally adopted, and shamefully abused, throughout the Spanish colonies; a source of intolerable hardships and oppressions to the unhappy natives, and which greatly contributed to exterminate them from the island of Hispaniola. Columbus considered the island in the light of a conquered country, and arrogated to himself all the rights of a conqueror, in the name of the sovereigns for whom he fought."

W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, book 12, chapter 4 (volume 2).

"The words 'repartimiento' and 'encomienda' are often used indiscriminately by Spanish authors; but, speaking accurately, 'repartimiento' means the first apportionment of Indians,—'encomienda' the apportionment of any Spaniard's share which might become 'vacant' by his death or banishment."

Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, book 6, chapter 2, foot-note, (volume 1).

"'Repartimiento,' a distribution; 'repartir,' to divide; 'encomienda,' a charge, a commandery; 'encomendar,' to give in charge; 'encomendero,' he who holds an encomienda. In Spain an encomienda, as here understood, was a dignity in the four military orders, endowed with a rental, and held by certain members of the order. It was acquired through the liberality of the crown as a reward for services in the wars against the Moors. The lands taken from the Infidels were divided among Christian commanders; the inhabitants of those lands were crown tenants, and life-rights to their services were given these commanders. In the legislation of the Indies, encomienda was the patronage conferred by royal favor over a portion of the natives, coupled with the obligation to teach them the doctrines of the Church, and to defend their persons and property. … The system begun in the New World by Columbus, Bobadilla, and Ovando was continued by Vasco Nuñez, Pedrarias, Cortés, and Pizarro, and finally became general."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, page 262, foot-note.

See, also, SLAVERY, MODERN: OF THE INDIANS.

REPEAL OF THE UNION OF IRELAND WITH GREAT BRITAIN, The Agitation for.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829, 1840-1841; and 1841-1848.

REPETUNDÆ.

See CALPURNIAN LAW.

REPHAIM, The.

See HORITES, THE.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, 1884.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

{2632}

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

"This [representative government] is the great distinction between free states of the modern type, whether kingly or republican, and the city-commonwealths of old Greece. It is the great political invention of Teutonic Europe, the one form of political life to which neither Thucydides, Aristotle, nor Polybios ever saw more than the faintest approach. In Greece it was hardly needed, but in Italy a representative system would have delivered Rome from the fearful choice which she had to make between anarchy and despotism."

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 2.

"Examples of nearly every form of government are to be found in the varied history of Greece: but nowhere do we find a distinct system of political representation. There is, indeed, a passage in Aristotle which implies a knowledge of the principles of representation. He speaks of 'a moderate oligarchy, in which men of a certain census elect a council entrusted with the deliberative power, but bound to exercise this power agreeably to established laws.' There can be no better definition of representation than this: but it appears to express his theoretical conception of a government, rather than to describe any example within his own experience. Such a system was incompatible with the democratic constitutions of the city republics: but in their international councils and leagues, we may perceive a certain resemblance to it. There was an approach to representation in the Amphictyonic Council, and in the Achaian League; and the several cities of the Lycian League had a number of votes in the assembly, proportioned to their size—the first example of the kind—being a still nearer approximation to the principles of representation. But it was reserved for later ages to devise the great scheme of representative government, under which large States may enjoy as much liberty as the walled cities of Greece, and individual citizens may exercise their political rights as fully as the Athenians, without the disorders and perils of pure democracy."

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, volume 1, chapter 3.

"The most interesting, and on the whole the most successful, experiments in popular government, are those which have frankly recognised the difficulty under which it labours. At the head of these we must place the virtually English discovery of government by Representation, which caused Parliamentary institutions to be preserved in these islands from the destruction which overtook them everywhere else, and to devolve as an inheritance upon the United States."

Sir H. S. Maine, Popular Government, page 92.

"To find the real origin of the modern representative system we must turn to the assemblies of the second grade in the early German states. In these the freemen of the smaller locality—the Hundred or Canton—came together in a public meeting which possessed no doubt legislative power over matters purely local, but whose most important function seems to have been judicial—a local court, presided over by a chief who suggested and announced the verdict, which, however, derived its validity from the decision of the assembly, or, in later times, of a number of their body appointed to act for the whole. Those local courts, probably, as has been suggested, because of the comparatively restricted character of the powers which they possessed, were destined to a long life. On the continent they lasted until the very end of the middle ages, when they were generally overthrown by the introduction of the Roman law, too highly scientific for their simple methods. In England they lasted until they furnished the model, and probably the suggestion, for a far more important institution—the House of Commons. How many grades of these local courts there were on the continent below the national assembly is a matter of dispute. In England there was clearly a series of three. The lowest was the township assembly, concerned only with matters of very slight importance and surviving still in the English vestry meeting and the New England town-meeting. Above this was the hundred's court formed upon a distinctly representative principle, the assembly being composed, together with certain other men, of four representatives sent from each township. Then, third, the tribal assembly of the original little settlement, or, the small kingdom of the early conquest, seems to have survived when this kingdom was swallowed up in a larger one, and to have originated a new grade in the hierarchy of assemblies, the county assembly or shire court. At any rate, whatever may have been its origin, and whatever may be the final decision of the vigorously disputed question, whether in the Frankish state there were any assemblies or courts for the counties distinct from the courts of the hundreds, it is certain that courts of this grade came into existence in England and were of the utmost importance there. In them, too, the representative principle was distinctly expressed, each township of the shire being represented, as in the hundred's court, by four chosen representatives. These courts, also, pass essentially unchanged through the English feudal and absolutist period, maintaining local self-government and preserving more of the primitive freedom than survived elsewhere. We shall see more in detail, at a later point, how the representative principle originating in them is transferred to the national legislature, creating our modern national representative system—the most important single contribution to the machinery of government made in historic times, with the possible exception of federal government."

G. B. Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages, chapter 5.

For an account of the rise and development of the representative system in the English Parliament.

See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH.

REPRESENTATIVES, House of.

See CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES, The earlier.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; 1798; and 1825-1828.

The later.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1855.

Liberal and Radical wings.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872.

REPUBLICANS, Independent.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1884.

RESACA, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA).

Hood's attack on.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).

RESACA DE LA PALMA, Battle of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847.

{2633}

RESAINA, Battle of.

A battle, fought A. D. 241, in which Sapor I. the Persian king, was defeated by the Roman emperor Gordian, in Mesopotamia.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 4.

RESCH-GLUTHA, The. The "Prince of the Captivity."

See JEWS: A. D. 200-400.

RESCISSORY, Act.

See SCOTLAND: A.D. 1660-1666.

RESCRIPTS, Roman Imperial.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

RESEN.

See ROTENNU, THE.

RESIDENCIA.

"Residencia was the examination or account taken of the official acts of an executive or judicial officer [Spanish] during the term of his residence within the province of his jurisdiction, and while in the exercise of the functions of his office. … While an official was undergoing his residencia it was equivalent to his being under arrest, as he could neither exercise office nor, except in certain cases specified, leave the place."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, page 250, foot-note.

ALSO IN: F. W. Blackmar, Spanish Institutions of the Southwest, page 69.

RESIDENT AT EASTERN COURTS, The English.

See INDIA. A. D. 1877.

RESTITUTION, The Edict of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1629.

RETENNU, The.

See ROTENNU, THE.

RETHEL, Battle of (1650).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651.

RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND, The.

See PERSIA: B. C. 401-400.

RETZ, Cardinal De, and the Fronde.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1649, to 1051-1653.

REUDIGNI, The.

See AVIONES.

REUIL, Peace of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1649.

REVERE, Paul, The ride of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (APRIL).

REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

See RENAISSANCE.

REVOLUTION, The American.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765, and after.

REVOLUTION, The English, of 1688.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1688.

REVOLUTION, The French, of 1789.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1787-1789, and after.

REVOLUTION, The French, of 1830.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815-1830.

REVOLUTION, The French, of 1848.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848, and 1848.

REVOLUTION, The Year of.

See EUROPE (volume 2, pages 1098-1099): ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849: GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH), to 1848-1850; AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848, to 1848-1850; HUNGARY: A. D. 1847-1849; FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848, and 1848.

REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

REYDANIYA, Battle of (1517).

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

REYNOSA, Battle of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

—————RHÆTIA: Start————

RHÆTIA. Rhætians, Vindelicians, etc.

"The Alps from the Simplon pass to the sources of the Drave were occupied by the Rhætians. Beyond the Inn and the Lake of Constance, the plain which slopes gently towards the Danube was known by the name of Vindelicia. Styria, the Kammergut of Salzburg, and the southern half of the Austrian Archduchy, belonged to the tribes of Noricum, while the passes between that country and Italy were held by the Carnians." The Roman conquest of this Alpine region was effected in the years 16 and 15 B. C. by the two stepsons of the Emperor Augustus, Tiberius and Drusus. In addition to the people mentioned above, the Camuni, the Vennones, the Brenni and the Genauni were crushed. "The free tribes of the eastern Alps appear then for the first time in history, only to disappear again for a thousand years."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 35.

See, also, TYROL.

RHÆTIA: Settlement of the Alemanni in.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.

—————RHÆTIA: End————

RHAGES.

See RAGA.

RHEGIUM, Siege of (B. C. 387).

Rhegium, an important Greek city, in the extreme south of Italy, on the strait which separates the peninsula from Sicily, incurred the hostility of the tyrant of Syracuse, the elder Dionysius, by scornfully refusing him a bride whom he solicited. The savage-tempered despot made several attempts without success to surprise the town, and finally laid siege to it with a powerful army and fleet. The inhabitants resisted desperately for eleven months, at the end of which time (B. C. 387) they were starved into surrender. "Dionysius, on entering Rhegium, found heaps of unburied corpses, besides 6,000 citizens in the last stage of emaciation. All these captives were sent to Syracuse, where those who could provide a mina (about £3. 17s.) were allowed to ransom themselves, while the rest were sold as slaves. After such a period of suffering, the number of those who retained the means of ransom was probably very small."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 83.

RHEIMS: Origin of the name.

See BELGÆ.

RHEIMS: A. D. 1429. The crowning of Charles VII.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.

RHEIMS: A. D. 1814. Capture by the Allies and recovery by Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

RHEINFELDEN, Siege and Battle of (1638).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

RHETRÆ.

See SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION, &c.

RHINE, The Circle of the.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

RHINE, The Confederation of the.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806; 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST); 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); and FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

RHINE, Roman passage of the.

See USIPETES AND TENCTHERI.

RHINE LEAGUE, The.

The Rhine League was one of several Bunds, or confederations formed among the German trading towns in the middle ages, for the common protection of their commerce. It comprised the towns of southwest Germany and the Lower Rhine provinces. Prominent among its members were Cologne, Wessel and Munster. Cologne, already a large and flourishing city, the chief market of the trade of the Rhine lands, was a member, likewise, of the Hanseatic League.

See HANSA TOWNS.

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, page 158.

See, also, CITIES, IMPERIAL, AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

{2634}

—————RHODE ISLAND: Start————

RHODE ISLAND: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1631-1636. Roger Williams in Massachusetts. His offenses against Boston Puritanism. His banishment.

On the 5th of February, 1631, "the ship Lyon arrived at Nantasket, with twenty passengers and a large store of provisions. Her arrival was most timely, for the [Massachusetts] colonists were reduced to the last exigencies of famine. Many had already died of want, and many more were rescued from imminent peril by this providential occurrence. A public fast had been appointed for the day succeeding that on which the ship reached Boston. It was changed to a general thanksgiving. There was another incident connected with the arrival of this ship, which made it an era, not only in the affairs of Massachusetts, but in the history of America. She brought to the shores of New England the founder of a new State, the exponent of a new philosophy, the intellect that was to harmonize religious differences, and soothe the asperities of the New World; a man whose clearness of mind enabled him to deduce, from the mass of crude speculations which abounded in the 17th century, a proposition so comprehensive, that it is difficult to say whether its application has produced the most beneficial result upon religion, or morals, or politics. This man was Roger Williams, then about thirty-two years of age. He was a scholar, well versed in the ancient and some of the modern tongues, an earnest inquirer after truth, and an ardent friend of popular liberty as well for the mind as for the body. As a 'godly minister,' he was welcomed to the society of the Puritans, and soon invited by the church in Salem to supply the place of the lamented Higginson, as an assistant to their pastor Samuel Skelton. The invitation was accepted, but the term of his ministry was destined to be brief. The authorities at Boston remonstrated with those at Salem against the reception of Williams. The Court at its next session addressed a letter to Mr. Endicott to this effect: 'That whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with the congregation at Boston, because they would not make a public declaration of their repentance for having communion with the churches of England, while they lived there; and, besides, had declared his opinion that the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table; therefore they marvelled that they would choose him without advising with the council, and withal desiring him, that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about it.' This attempt of the magistrates of Boston to control the election of a church officer at Salem, met with the rebuke it so richly merited. The people were not ignorant of the hostility their invitation had excited; yet on the very day the remonstrance was written, they settled Williams as their minister. The ostensible reasons for this hostility are set forth in the letter above cited. That they were to a great extent the real ones cannot be questioned. The ecclesiastical polity of the Puritans sanctioned this interference. Their church platform approved it. Positive statute would seem to require it. Nevertheless, we cannot but think that, underlying all this, there was a secret stimulus of ambition on the part of the Boston Court to strengthen its authority over the prosperous and, in some respects, rival colony of Salem. … As a political measure this interference failed of its object. The people resented so great a stretch of authority, and the church disregarded the remonstrance. … What could not as yet be accomplished by direct intervention of the Court was effected in a surer manner. The fearlessness of Williams in denouncing the errors of the times, and especially the doctrine of the magistrate's power in religion, gave rise to a system of persecution which, before the close of the summer, obliged him to seek refuge beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in the more liberal colony of the Pilgrims. At Plymouth 'he was well accepted as an assistant in the ministry to Mr. Ralph Smith, then pastor of the church there.' The principal men of the colony treated him with marked attention. … The opportunities there presented for cultivating an intimate acquaintance with the chief Sachems of the neighboring tribes were well improved, and exerted an important influence, not only in creating the State of which he was to be the founder, but also in protecting all New England amid the horrors of savage warfare. Ousamequin, or Massasoit, as he is usually called, was the Sachem of the Wampanoags, called also the Pokanoket tribe, inhabiting the Plymouth territory. His seat was at Mount Hope, in what is now the town of Bristol, R. I. With this chief, the early and steadfast friend of the English, Williams established a friendship which proved of the greatest service at the time of his exile."

S. G. Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, volume 1, chapter 1.

Williams "remained at Plymouth, teaching in the church, but supporting himself by manual labor, nearly two years. His ministry was popular in the main and his person universally liked. Finally, however, he advanced some opinions which did not suit the steady-going Plymouth elders, and therefore, departing 'something abruptly,' he returned to Salem. There he acted as assistant to Mr. Skelton, the aged pastor of the church, and when Mr. Skelton died, less than a year later, became his successor. At Salem he was again under the surveillance of the rulers and elders of the Bay, and they were swift to make him sensible of it. He had written in Plymouth, for the Plymouth Governor and Council a treatise on the Massachusetts Patent, in which he had maintained his doctrine that the King could not give the settlers a right to take away from the natives their land without paying them for it. He was not a lawyer but an ethical teacher, and it was doubtless as such that he maintained this opinion. In our day its ethical correctness is not disputed. It has always been good Rhode Island doctrine. He also criticised the patent because in it King James claimed to be the first Christian prince who discovered New England, and because he called Europe Christendom or the Christian World. Williams did not scruple to denounce these formal fictions in downright Saxon as lies. He does not appear to have been, at any period of his life, a paragon of conventional propriety. A rumor of the treatise got abroad, though it remained unpublished. The patent happened to be a sensitive point with the magistrates. {2635} It had been granted in England to an English trading company, and its transfer to Massachusetts was an act of questionable legality. Moreover it was exceedingly doubtful whether the rulers, in exercising the extensive civil jurisdiction which they claimed under it, did not exceed their authority. They were apprehensive of proceedings to forfeit it, and therefore were easily alarmed at any turning of attention to it. When they heard of the treatise they sent for it, and, having got it, summoned the author 'to be censured.' He appeared in an unexpectedly placable mood, and not only satisfied their minds in regard to some of its obscurer passages, but offered it, since it had served its purpose, to be burnt. The magistrates, propitiated by his complaisance, appeared to have accepted the offer as equivalent to a promise of silence, though it is impossible that he, the uncompromising champion of aboriginal rights, can ever have meant to give, or even appear to give, such a promise. Accordingly when they heard soon afterwards that he was discussing the patent they were deeply incensed, though it was doubtless the popular curiosity excited by their own indiscreet action which elicited the discussion. Their anger was aggravated by another doctrine then put forth by him, namely, that an oath ought not to be tendered to an unregenerate, or, as we should say, an unreligious man, because an oath is an act of worship, and cannot be taken by such a man without profanation. … He also taught that an oath being an act of worship, could not properly be exacted from anyone against his will, and that even Christians ought not to desecrate it by taking it for trivial causes. … The magistrates again instituted proceedings against him, at first subjecting him to the ordeal of clerical visitation, then formally summoning him to answer for himself before the General Court. At the same time the Salem church was arraigned for contempt in choosing him as pastor while he was under question. The court, however, did not proceed to judgment, but allowed them both further time for repentance. It so happened that the inhabitants of Salem had a petition before the court for 'some land at Marblehead Neck, which they did challenge as belonging to their town.' The court, when the petition came up, refused to grant it until the Salem church should give satisfaction for its contempt, thus virtually affirming that the petitioners had no claim to justice even, so long as they adhered to their recusant pastor. Williams was naturally indignant. He induced his church—'enchanted his church,' says Cotton Mather—to send letters to the sister churches, appealing to them to admonish the magistrates and deputies of their 'heinous sin.' He wrote the letters himself. His Massachusetts contemporaries say he was 'unlamblike.' Undoubtedly they heard no gentle bleating in those letters, but rather the reverberating roar of the lion chafing in his rage. The churches repelled the appeal; and then turning to the Salem church, besieged it only the more assiduously, laboring with it, nine with one, to alienate it from its pastor. What could the one church do,—with the magistracy against it, the clergy against it, the churches and the people against it, muttering their vague anathemas, and Salem town suffering unjustly on its account,—what could it do but yield? It yielded virtually if not yet in form; and Williams stood forth alone in his opposition to the united power of Church and State. … The fateful court day came at last. The court assembles, magistrates and deputies, with the clergy to advise them. Williams appears, not to be tried, but to be sentenced unless he will retract. He reaffirms his opinions. Mr. Hooker, a famous clerical dialectician, is chosen to dispute with him, and the solemn mockery of confutation begins. … Hour after hour, he argues unsubdued, till the sun sinks low and the weary court adjourns. On the morrow [Friday, October 9, 1635], still persisting in his glorious 'contumacy,' he is sentenced, the clergy all save one advising, to be banished, or, to adopt the apologetic but felicitous euphemism of his great adversary, John Cotton, 'enlarged' out of Massachusetts. He was allowed at first six weeks, afterwards until spring, to depart. But in January the magistrates having heard that he was drawing others to his opinion, and that his purpose was to erect a plantation about Narragansett Bay, 'from whence the infection would easily spread,' concluded to send him by ship, then ready, to England [see MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636]. The story is familiar how Williams, advised of their intent, baffled it by plunging into the wilderness, where, after being 'sorely tost for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean,' he settled with the opening spring, on the east bank of the Seekonk, and there built and planted."

T. Durfee, Historical Discourse: Two hundred and fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Providence, 1886.

"The course pursued towards Roger Williams was not exceptional. What was done to him had been done in repeated instances before. Within the first year of its settlement the colony had passed sentence of exclusion from its territory upon no less than fourteen persons. It was the ordinary method by which a corporate body would deal with those whose presence no longer seemed desirable. Conceiving themselves to be by patent the exclusive possessors of the soil,—soil which they had purchased for the accomplishment of their personal and private ends,—the colonists never doubted their competency to fix the terms on which others should be allowed to share in their undertaking. … While there is some discrepancy in the contemporary accounts of this transaction, there is entire agreement on one point, that the assertion by Roger Williams of the doctrine of 'soul-liberty' was not the head and front of his offending. Whatever was meant by the vague charge in the final sentence that he had 'broached and divulged new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates,' it did not mean that he had made emphatic the broad doctrine of the entire separation of church and state. We have his own testimony on this point. In several allusions to the subject in his later writings,—and it can hardly be supposed that in a matter which he felt so sorely his memory would have betrayed him,—he never assigns to his opinion respecting the power of the civil magistrate more than a secondary place. He repeatedly affirms that the chief causes of his banishment were his extreme views regarding separation, and his denouncing of the patent. Had he been himself conscious of having incurred the hostility of the Massachusetts colony for asserting the great principle with which he was afterwards identified, he would surely have laid stress upon it. … {2636} It is … clear that in the long controversy it had become covered up by other issues, and that his opponents, at least, did not regard it as his most dangerous heresy. So far as it was a mere speculative opinion it was not new. … To upbraid the Puritans as unrelenting persecutors, or extol Roger Williams as a martyr to the cause of Religious liberty, is equally wide of the real fact. On the one hand, the controversy had its origin in the passionate and precipitate zeal of a young man whose relish for disputation made him never unwilling to encounter opposition, and on the other, in the exigencies of a unique community, where the instincts of a private corporation had not yet expanded into the more liberal policy of a body politic. If we cannot impute to the colony any large statesmanship, so neither can we wholly acquit Roger Williams of the charge of mixing great principles with some whimsical conceits. The years which he passed in Massachusetts were years of discipline and growth, when he doubtless already cherished in his active brain the germs of the principles which he afterwards developed; but the fruit was destined to be ripened under another sky."

J. L. Diman, Orations and Essays, pages 114-117.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636. The wanderings of the exiled Roger Williams. His followers. The settlement at Providence.

The little that is known of the wanderings of Roger Williams after his banishment from Salem, until his settlement at Providence, is derived from a letter which he wrote more than thirty years afterwards (June 22, 1670) to Major Mason, the hero of the Pequot War. In that letter he says: "When I was unkindly and unchristianly, as I believe, driven from my house and land and wife and children, (in the midst of a New England winter, now about thirty-five years past,) at Salem, that ever honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote to me to steer my course to Narragansett Bay and Indians, for many high and heavenly and public ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English claims or patents. I took his prudent motion as a hint and voice from God, and waving all other thoughts and motions, I steered my course from Salem (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto these parts, wherein I may say Peniel, that is, I have seen the face of God. … I first pitched, and began to build and plant at Seekonk, now Rehoboth, but I received a letter from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, then Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others love and respect to me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was 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 then he said, I had the country free before me, and might be as free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together. These were the joint understandings of these two eminently wise and Christian Governors and others, in their day, together with their counsel and advice as to the freedom and vacancy of this place, which in this respect, and many other Providences of the Most Holy and Only Wise, I called Providence. … Some time after, the Plymouth great Sachem, (Oufamaquin,) upon occasion affirming that Providence was his land, and therefore Plymouth's land, and some resenting it, the then prudent and godly Governor, Mr. Bradford, and others of his godly council, answered, that if, after due examination, it should be found true what the barbarian said, yet having to my loss of a harvest that year, been now (though by their gentle advice) as good as banished from Plymouth as from the Massachusetts, and I had quietly and patiently departed from them, at their motion to the place where now I was, I should not be molested and tossed up and down again, while they had breath in their bodies; and surely, between those, my friends of the Bay and Plymouth, I was sorely tossed, for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean, beside the yearly loss of no small matter in my trading with English and natives, being debarred from Boston, the chief mart and port of New England."

Letters of Roger Williams; edited by J. R. Bartlett, pages 335-336.

"According to the weight of authority, and the foregoing extract, when Williams left Salem he made his way from there by sea, coasting, probably, from place to place during the 'fourteen weeks' that 'he was sorely tossed,' and holding intercourse with the native tribes, whose language he had acquired, as we have before stated, during his residence at Plymouth. Dr. Dexter and Professer Diman interpret this and other references differently, and conclude that the journey must have been by land. See Dexter, page 62, note; Nar. Club Pub., Vol. II, page 87. Perhaps the true interpretation is that the journey was partly by sea and partly by land; that is, from the coast inward—to confer with the natives—was by land, and the rest by sea."

O. S. Straus, Roger Williams, chapter 5, and foot-note.

Mr. Hider, the well-known critical student of Rhode Island history, has commented on the above passage in Mr. Straus's work as follows: "The distance from Salem by sea to Seekonk was across Massachusetts Bay, Cape Cod Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, Vineyard Sound, Buzzard's Bay, the Atlantic Ocean again, and Narragansett Bay,—a distance scarcely less than 500 miles, in and out, by the line of the coast; all of which had to be covered either in a birch bark canoe or in a shallop; if in a canoe, then to be paddled, but if in a shallop, where did Williams get it, and what became of it? history does not answer. If Williams was in a boat sailing into Narragansett Bay, 'the pleasure of the Most High to direct my steps into the Bay' would become a positive absurdity unless the Most High meant that Williams should jump overboard! He certainly could have taken no steps in a boat. But if Williams was in a boat, what sense could there be in his saying 'I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter (hyperbole again) winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.' Did they not have beds in boats, nor bread? As to the expression in the Cotton Letter, it was his soul and not his body, which was exposed to poverties, &c.; observe the quotation. … When Mr. Straus in his foot-note, speaks of Williams's journey, 'partly by sea and partly by land, that is from the coast inward, to confer with the natives,' he is dealing solely with the imagination. No such conference ever took place."

S. S. Rider, Roger Williams (Book Notes, volume 11, page 148).

{2637}

It was the opinion of Prof. Gammell that, when Roger Williams fled from Salem, "he made his way through the forest to the lodges of the Pokanokets, who occupied the country north from Mount Hope as far as Charles River. Ousemaguin, or Massasoit, the famous chief of this tribe, had known Mr. Williams when he lived in Plymouth, and had often received presents and tokens of kindness at his hands; and now, in the days of his friendless exile, the aged chief welcomed him to his cabin at Mount Hope, and extended to him the protection and aid he required. He granted to him a tract of land on the Seekonk River, to which, at the opening of spring, he repaired, and where 'he pitched and began to build and plant ' [near the beautiful bend in the river, now known as 'Manton's Cove,' a short distance above the upper bridge, directly eastward of Providence.—Foot-note]. At this place, also, at the same time, he was joined by a number of his friends from Salem. … But scarcely had the first dwelling been raised … when he was again disturbed, and obliged to move still further from Christian neighbors and the dwellings of civilized men," as related in his letter quoted above. "He accordingly soon abandoned the fields which he had planted, and the dwelling he had begun to build, and embarked in a canoe upon the Seekonk River, in quest of another spot where, unmolested, he might rear a home and plant a separate colony. There were five others, who, having joined him at Seekonk, bore him company." Coasting along the stream and "round the headlands now known as Fox Point and India Point, up the harbor, to the mouth of the Mooshausic River," he landed, and, "upon the beautiful slope of the hill that ascends from the river, he descried the spring around which he commenced the first 'plantations of Providence.' It was in the latter part of June, 1636, as well as can be ascertained, that Roger Williams and his companions began the settlement at the mouth of the Mooshausic River. A little north of what is now the centre of the city, the spring is still pointed out, which drew the attention of the humble voyagers from Seekonk. Here, after so many wanderings, was the weary exile to find a home, and to lay the foundations of a city, which should be a perpetual memorial of pious gratitude to the superintending Providence which had protected him and guided him to the spot. … The spot at which he had landed … was within the territory belonging to the Narragansetts. Canonicus, the aged chief of the tribe, and Miantonomo, his nephew, had visited the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, while Williams resided there, and had learned to regard him, in virtue of his being a minister, as one of the sachems of the English. He had also taken special pains to conciliate their good-will and gain their confidence. … Indeed, there is reason to believe that, at an early period after his arrival in New England, on finding himself so widely at variance with his Puritan brethren, he conceived the design of withdrawing from the colonies, and settling among the Indians, that he might labor as a missionary. … In all his dealings with the Indians, Mr. Williams was governed by a strict regard to the rights which, he had always contended, belonged to them as the sole proprietors of the soil. … It was by his influence, and at his expense, that the purchase was procured from Canonicus and Miantonomo, who partook largely of the shyness and jealousy of the English so common to their tribe. He says, 'It was not thousands nor tens of thousands of money that could have bought of them an English entrance into this bay.'"

W. Gammell, Life of Roger Williams (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 4), chapters 6-7.

ALSO IN: S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island, volume 1, chapters 1 and 4.

W. R Staples, Annals of Providence, chapter 1.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636-1661, Sale and gift of lands by the Indians to Roger Williams. His conveyance of the same to his associates.

"The first object of Mr. Williams would naturally be, to obtain from the sachems a grant of land for his new colony. He probably visited them, and received a verbal cession of the territory, which, two years afterwards, was formally conveyed to him by a deed, This instrument may properly be quoted here. 'At Narraganset, the 24th of the first month, commonly called March, the second year of the plantation or planting at Moshassuck, or Providence [1638]; Memorandum, that we, Canonicus and Miantinomo, the two chief sachems of Narraganset, having two years since sold unto Roger Williams the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called Moshassuck and Wanasquatucket, do now, by these presents, establish and confirm the bounds of these lands, from the river and fields of Pawtucket, the great hill of Notaquoncanot, on the northwest, and the town of Mashapaug, on the west. We also in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, both with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Connecticut, and Apaum, or Plymouth, we do freely give unto him all that land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxet river; as also the grass and meadows upon the said Pawtuxet river. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands. [The mark (a bow) of Canonicus. The mark (an arrow) of Miantonomo]. In the presence of [The mark of Sohash. The mark of Alsomunsit].' … The lands thus ceded to Mr. Williams he conveyed to twelve men, who accompanied, or soon joined, him, reserving for himself an equal part only." Twenty-three years later, on the 20th of December, 1661, he executed a more formal deed of conveyance to his associates and their heirs of the lands which had unquestionably been partly sold and partly given to himself personally by the Indians. This latter instrument was in the following words. "'Be it known unto all men by these presents, that I, Roger Williams, of the town of Providence, in the Narraganset Bay, in New England, having, in the year one thousand six hundred thirty-four, and in the year one thousand six hundred thirty-five had several treaties with Canonicus and Miantinomo, the two chief sachems of the Narraganset, and in the end purchased of them the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers called Moshassuck and Wanasquatucket, the two sachems having, by a deed under their hands, two years after the sale thereof, established and confirmed the bounds of these lands from the rivers and fields of Pawtucket, the great hill of Notaquoncanot on the northwest, and the town of Mashapaug on the west, notwithstanding I had the frequent promise of Miantinomo, my kind friend, that it should not be land that I should want about these bounds mentioned, provided that I satisfied the Indians there inhabiting. I having made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with all the sachems and natives round about us, and having, of a sense of God's merciful Providence unto me in my distress, called the place Providence, I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. {2638} I then considering the condition of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends, John Throckmorton, William Arnold, William Harris, Stukely Westcott, John Greene, Senior, Thomas Olney, Senior, Richard Waterman, and others, who then desired to take shelter here with me, and in succession unto so many others as we should receive into the fellowship and society of enjoying and disposing of the said purchase; and besides the first that were admitted, our town records declare, that afterwards we received Chad Brown, William Field, Thomas Harris, Senior, William Wickenden, Robert Williams, Gregory Dexter, and others, as our town book declares; and whereas, by God's merciful assistance, I was the procurer of the purchase, not by monies nor payment, the natives being so shy and jealous that monies 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 other 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 by some loving friends, that I should receive some loving consideration and gratuity, and it was agreed between us, that every person, that should be admitted into the fellowship of enjoying land and disposing of the purchase, should pay thirty shillings unto the public stock; and first, about thirty pounds should be paid unto myself, by thirty shillings a person, as they were admitted; 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 the said sum and payment as full satisfaction; and whereas in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-seven, so called, I delivered the deed subscribed by the two aforesaid chief sachems, so much thereof as concerneth the aforementioned lands, from myself and from my heirs, unto the whole number of the purchasers, with all my power, right and title therein, reserving only unto myself one single share equal unto any of the rest of that number; I now again, in a more formal way, under my hand and seal, confirm my former resignation of that deed of the lands aforesaid, and bind myself, my heirs, my executors, my administrators and assigns, never to molest any of the said persons already received, or hereafter to be received, into the society of purchasers, as aforesaid; but that they, their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, shall at all times quietly and peaceably enjoy the premises and every part thereof, and I do further by these presents bind myself, my heirs, my executors, my administrators and assigns never to lay any claim, nor cause any claim to be laid, to any of the lands aforementioned, or unto any part or parcel thereof, more than unto my own single share, by virtue or pretence of any former bargain, sale or mortgage whatsoever, or jointures, thirds or entails made by me, the said Roger Williams, or of any other person, either for, by, through or under me. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the twentieth day of December, in the present year one thousand six hundred sixty-one. Roger Williams.' … From this document, it appears, that the twelve persons to whom the lands, on the Moshassuck and Wanasquatucket rivers, were conveyed by Mr. Williams, did not pay him any part of the thirty pounds, which he received; but that the sum of thirty shillings was exacted of every person who was afterwards admitted, to form a common stock. From this stock, thirty pounds were paid to Mr. Williams, for the reasons mentioned in the instrument last quoted."

J. D. Knowles, Memoir of Roger Williams, chapter 8.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1637. The Pequot War.

"Williams was banished in 1636 and settled at Providence. The Pequot war took place the next year following. The Pequots were a powerful tribe of Indians, dwelling … in the valley of the Thames at the easterly end of Connecticut, and holding the lands west to the river of that name. The parties to this war were, the Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut colonies, assisted by the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes of Indians on one side, against the Pequots, single-handed, on the other. The Pequots undertook to make an alliance with the Narragansetts and the Mohegans (Hubbard's Indian Wars, 1677, page 118), and but for Williams would have succeeded, (Narr. Club, volume 6, page 269). Williams had obtained a powerful influence over Canonicus and Miantinomi, the great Sachems of the Narragansetts, (Narr. Club, volume 6, page 17,) and Massachusetts having just banished him, sent at once to him to prevent if possible this alliance, (Narr. Club, volume 6, page 269). By his influence a treaty of alliance was made with Miantinomi, Williams being employed by both sides as a friend, the treaty was deposited with him and he was made interpreter by Massachusetts for the Indians upon their motion, (Winthrop's Hist. N. E., 1853, volume 1, page 237). The Narragansetts, the Mohegans, the Niantics, the Nipmucs, and the Cowesets, were by this treaty either neutrals or fought actively for the English in the war."

S. S. Rider, Political results of the Banishment of Williams (Book Notes, volume 8, number 17).

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640. The purchase, the settlement, and the naming of the island. The founding of Newport.

Early in the spring of 1638, while Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was undergoing imprisonment at Boston (see MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636-1638), "Mr's. Hutchinson's husband, Coddington, John Clarke, educated a physician, and other principal persons of the Hutchinsonian party, were given to understand that, unless they removed of their own accord, proceedings would be taken to compel them to do so. They sent, therefore, to seck a place of settlement, and found one in Plymouth patent; but, as the magistrates of that colony declined to allow them an independent organization, they presently purchased of the Narragansets, by the recommendation of Williams, the beautiful and fertile Is]and of Aquiday [or Aquetnet, or Aquidneck]. The price was 40 fathoms of white wampum; for the additional gratuity of ten coats and twenty hoes, the present inhabitants agreed to remove. The purchasers called it the Isle of Rhodes—a name presently changed by use to Rhode Island. Nineteen persons, having signed a covenant 'to incorporate themselves into a body politic,' and to submit to 'our Lord Jesus Christ,' and to his 'most perfect and absolute laws,' began a settlement at its northern end, with Coddington as their judge or chief magistrate, and three elders to assist him. They were soon joined by others from Boston; but those who were 'of the rigid separation, and savored Anabaptism,' removed to Providence, which now began to be well peopled."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 9.

{2639}

"This little colony increased rapidly, so that in the following spring some of their number moved to the south-west part of the island and began the settlement of Newport. The northern part of the island which was first occupied was called Portsmouth. Both towns, however, were considered, as they were in fact, as belonging to the same colony. To this settlement, also, came Anne Hutchinson with her husband and family after they had been banished from Massachusetts. There is no record that in this atmosphere of freedom she occasioned any trouble or disturbance. Here she led a quiet and peaceable life until the death of her husband in 1642, when she removed to the neighborhood of New York, where she and all the members of her family, sixteen in number, were murdered by the Indians, with the exception of one daughter, who was taken into captivity. In imitation of the form of government which existed under the judges of Israel, during the period of the Hebrew Commonwealth, the two settlements, Rhode Island and Portsmouth, chose Coddington to be their magistrate, with the title of Judge, and a few months afterward they elected three elders to assist him. This form of government continued until 1640."

O. S. Straus, Roger Williams, chapter 6.

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1647. The Constitution of Providence Plantation. The charter and the Union. Religious liberty as understood by Roger Williams.

"The colonists of Plymouth had formed their social compact in the cabin of the Mayflower. The colonists of Providence formed theirs on the banks of the Mooshausick. 'We, whose names are hereunder,' it reads, 'desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good for the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship, and such others as they shall admit unto them only in civil things.' Never before, since the establishment of Christianity, has the separation of Church from State been definitely marked out by this limitation of the authority of the magistrate to civil things; and never, perhaps, in the whole course of history, was a fundamental principle so vigorously observed. Massachusetts looked upon the experiment with jealousy and distrust, and when ignorant or restless men confounded the right of individual opinion in religious matters with a right of independent action in civil matters, those who had condemned Roger Williams to banishment, eagerly proclaimed that no well ordered government could exist in connection with liberty of conscience. … Questions of jurisdiction also arose. Massachusetts could not bring herself to look upon her sister with a friendly eye, and Plymouth was soon to be merged in Massachusetts. It was easy to foresee that there would he bickerings and jealousies, if not open contention between them. Still the little Colony grew apace. The first church was founded in 1639. To meet the wants of an increased population the government was changed, and five disposers or selectmen charged with the principal functions of administration, subject, however, to the superior authority of monthly town meetings; so early and so naturally did municipal institutions take root in English colonies. A vital point was yet untouched. Williams, indeed, held that the Indians, as original occupants of the soil, were the only legal owners of it, and carrying his principle into all his dealings with the natives, bought of them the land on which he planted his Colony. The Plymouth and Massachusetts colonists, also, bought their land of the natives, but in their intercourse with the whites founded their claim upon royal charter. They even went so far as to apply for a charter covering all the territory of the new Colony. Meanwhile two other colonies had been planted on the shores of the Narragansett Bay: the Colony of Aquidnick, on the Island of Rhode Island, and the colony of Warwick. The sense of a common danger united them, and, in 1643, they appointed Roger Williams their agent to repair to England and apply for a royal charter. It has been treasured up as a bitter memory that he was compelled to seek a conveyance in New York, for Massachusetts would not allow him to pass through her territories. His negotiations were crowned with full success. … He found the King at open war with the Parliament, and the administration of the colonies entrusted to the Earl of Warwick and a joint committee of the two Houses. Of the details of the negotiation little is known, but on the 14th of March of the following year [1644], a 'free and absolute charter was granted as the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England.' … Civil government and civil laws were the only government and laws which it recognized; and the absence of any allusion to religious freedom in it shows how firmly and wisely Williams avoided every form of expression which might seem to recognize the power to grant or to deny that inalienable right. … Yet more than three years were allowed to pass before it went into full force as a bond of union for the four towns. Then, in May, 1647, the corporators met at Portsmouth in General Court of Election, and, accepting the charter, proceeded to organize a government in harmony with its provisions. Warwick, although not named in the charter, was admitted to the same privileges with her larger and more flourishing sisters. This new government was in reality a government of the people, to whose final decision in their General Assembly all questions were submitted. 'And now,' says the preamble to the code, … 'it is agreed by this present Assembly thus incorporate and by this present act declared, that the form of government established in Providence Plantations is Democratical.'"

G. W. Greene, Short History of Rhode Island, chapters 3 and 5.

"The form of government being settled, they now prepared such laws as were necessary to enforce the due administration of it: but the popular approbation their laws must receive, before they were valid, made this a work of time; however, they were so industrious in it, that in the month of May, 1647, they completed a regular body of laws, taken chiefly from the laws of England, adding a very few of their own forming, which the circumstances and exigencies of their present condition required. {2640} These laws, for securing of right, for determining controversies, for preserving order, suppressing vice, and punishing offenders, were, at least, equal to the laws of any of the neighbouring colonies; and infinitely exceeded those of all other Christian countries at that time in this particular,—that they left the conscience free, and did not punish men for worshipping God in the way, they were persuaded, he required. … It was often objected to Mr. Williams, that such great liberty in religious matters, tended to licentiousness, and every kind of disorder: To such objections I will give the answer he himself made, in his own words [Letter to the Town of Providence, January, 1654-5]. 'Loving Friends and Neighbours, It pleaseth God yet to continue this great liberty of our town meetings, for which, we ought to be humbly thankful, and to improve these liberties to the praise of the Giver, and to the peace and welfare of the town and colony, without our own private ends. I thought it my duty, to present you with this my impartial testimony, and answer to a paper sent you the other day from my brother,—"That it is blood-guiltiness, and against the rule of the gospel, to execute judgment upon transgressors, against the private or public weal." That ever I should speak or write a tittle that tends to such an infinite liberty of conscience, is a mistake; and which I have ever disclaimed and abhorred. To prevent such mistakes, I at present shall only propose this case.—There goes many a ship to sea, with many a hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and wo is common; and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or an human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked into one ship. Upon which supposal, I do affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship; nor, secondly, compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practise any. I further add, that I never denied that, notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of the ship ought to command the ship's course; yea, and also to command that justice, peace, and sobriety, be kept and practised, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any seamen refuse to perform their service, or passengers to pay their freight;—if any refuse to help in person or purse, towards the common charges, or defence;—if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace and preservation;—if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders, and officers;—if any shall preach or write, that there ought to be no commanders, nor officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters, nor officers, no laws, nor orders, no corrections nor punishments—I say I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits. This, if seriously and honestly minded, may, if it so please the Father of lights, let in some light, to such as willingly shut not their eyes. I remain, studious of our common peace and liberty,—Roger Williams.' This religious liberty was not only asserted in words, but uniformly adhered to and practised; for in the year. 1656, soon after the Quakers made their first appearance in New England, and at which most of these colonies were greatly alarmed and offended;. Those at that time called the four united colonies, which were the Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, wrote to this colony, to join with them in taking effectual methods to suppress them, and prevent their pernicious doctrines being spread and propagated in the country.—To this request the Assembly of this colony gave the following worthy answer; 'We shall strictly adhere to the foundation principle on which this colony was first settled;. to wit, that every man who submits peaceably to the civil authority, may peaceably worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, without molestation.' And not to the people of the neighbouring governments only, was this principle owned; but it was asserted in their applications to the ruling powers in the mother country; for in the year 1659, in an address of this colony to Richard Cromwell, then lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, there is this paragraph,—'May it please your highness to know, that this poor colony of Providence Plantations, mostly consists of a birth and breeding of the providence of the Most High.—We being an outcast people, formerly from our mother nation, in the bishops' days; and since from the rest of the New English over-zealous colonies: Our frame being much like the present frame and constitution of our dearest mother England; bearing with the several judgments, and consciences, each of other, in all the towns of our colony.—The which our neighbour colonies do not; which is the only cause of their great offence against us.' But as every human felicity has some attendant misfortune, so the people's enjoyment of very great liberty, hath ever been found to produce some disorders, factions, and parties amongst them. … It must be confessed, the historians and ministers of the neighbouring colonies, in all their writings for a long time, represented the inhabitants of this colony as a company of people who lived without any order, and quite regardless of all religion; and this, principally, because they allowed an unlimited liberty of conscience, which was then interpreted to be profane licentiousness, as though religion could not subsist without the support of human laws, and Christians must cease to be so, if they suffered any of different sentiments to live in the same country with them. Nor is it to be wondered at, if many among them that first came hither, being tinctured with the same bitter spirit, should create much disturbance; nor that others, when got clear of the fear of censure and punishment should relax too much, and behave as though they were become indifferent about religion itself. With people of both these characters, the fathers of this colony had to contend. …In this age it seemed to be doubted whether a civil government could be kept up and supported without some particular mode of religion was established by its laws, and guarded by penalties and tests: And for determining this doubt, by an actual trial, appears to have been the principal motive with King Charles the Second, for granting free liberty of conscience to the people of this colony, by his charter of 1663,—in which he makes use of these words: 'That they might hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be maintained, and that amongst our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments. And that true piety, rightly grounded on gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignty, and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to true loyalty.'"

Stephen Hopkins, Historical Account of the Planting and Growth of Providence (Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 2d Series, volume 9).

ALSO IN: S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island, volume 1, chapter 4.

Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, volume 1.

{2641}

RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1639. The first Baptist Church.

"There can be little doubt, as to what were the religious tenets of the first settlers of Providence. At the time of their removal here, they were members of Plymouth and Massachusetts churches. Those churches, as it respects government, were Independent or Congregational, in doctrine, moderately Calvinistic and with regard to ceremonies, Pedobaptists. The settlers of Providence, did not cease to be members of those churches, by their removal, nor did the fact of their being members, constitute them a church, after it. They could not form themselves into a church of the faith and order of the Plymouth and Massachusetts churches, until dismissed from them; and after such dismissal, some covenant or agreement among themselves was necessary in order to effect it. That they met for public worship is beyond a doubt; but such meetings, though frequent and regular, would not make them a church. Among the first thirteen, were two ordained ministers, Roger Williams and Thomas James. That they preached to the settlers is quite probable, but there is no evidence of any intent to form a church, previous to March 1689. When they did attempt it, they had ceased to be Pedobaptists, for Ezekiel Holyman, a layman, had baptized Roger Williams, by immersion, and Mr. Williams afterwards had baptized Mr. Holyman and several others of the company, in the same manner. By this act they disowned the churches of which they had been members, and for this, they were soon excommunicated, by those churches. After being thus baptized, they formed a church and called Mr. Williams to be their pastor. This was the first church gathered in Providence. It has continued to the present day, and is now known as The First Baptist Church. … Mr. Williams held the pastoral office about four years, and then resigned the same. Mr. Holyman was his colleague. … A letter of Richard Scott, appended to 'A New England Fire-Brand Quenched,' and published about 1678, states that Mr. Williams left the Baptists and turned Seeker, a few months after he was baptized. Mr. Scott was a member of the Baptist church for some time, but at the date of this letter, had united with the Friends. According to Mr. Williams' new views as a Seeker, there was no regularly constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any church ordinance, nor could there be, until new apostles should be sent by the Great Head of the church, for whose coming he was seeking. He was not alone in these opinions. Many in his day believed that the ministry and ordinances of the christian church were irretrievably lost, during the papal usurpation. It has been supposed, by some, that Mr. Williams held these opinions while in Massachusetts, and that this was the reason he denied the church of England to be a true church, and withdrew from his connexion with the Salem church. Aside from the statement of Mr. Scott, above quoted, that Mr. Williams turned Seeker, after he joined the Baptists and walked with them some months, the supposition is shown to be groundless, by his administering baptism in Providence, as before stated, and joining with the first Baptist church there. These acts he could not have performed, had he then been a Seeker."