volved in the simple insistence upon the use of "thou" and "thee" and in the obtrusive retention of the hat; for, at pages 306 and 307 of the Narragansett Club's edition of George Fox Digg'd out of his Burrowes, the author unequivocally says:

"I have, therefore, publickly declared myself that a due and moderate restraint and punishing of these incivilities [disrespect toward superiors and the use of thou' and 'thee,' about which he has just been speaking at length] (though pretending Conscience) is as far from persecution (properly so called) as that it is a duty and command of God unto all mankinde, first in Families, and thence into all mankinde Societies."

How like John Cotton, and how unlike Roger Williams, the word and parenthetical phrase -"persecution (properly so called)"! It is much to be feared that had it been the patriarch of Providence before whom William Leddra was brought, he would have found occasion to say much the same that he actually did say to Endicott: "You will subject me to punishment for speaking English and for not putting off my clothes i. e., his hat.' Williams, it is true, had been thoroughly goaded by the trials incident to counselling and governing such a political and religious chaos as was Providence Plantations, before he gave utterance to the reactionary sentiment above

1 Dr. J. Lewis Diman, in his Introduction to the Narragansett Club's ed. of George Fox Digg'd, states that Williams "did not invoke against the Quakers the interference of the civil power" (pp. lvi., lvii.). He did not do so respecting their theology per se, but he certainly did do so respecting their manners-their use of "thou" and "thee" and their retention of the hat— and, with the Quakers, manners upon such points were also religion. Consult Palfrey's New Eng., vol. i., p. 424 and note.

quoted.' William Harris even (whom he looked upon as pretty nearly the embodiment of evil) had come forward to goad him by his doctrinaire anarchy and his half-Anabaptist, half-Quaker, attitude of chagrin, before he uttered this sentiment. But, for all that, the sentiment had no fitting place upon the lips of Williams, and it is altogether to be approved that it met with so little favor from the colony which he himself had planted.

The truth is (to put the whole matter in a sentence) that, amid the turbulence and discord of its jarring sects and factions, Providence Plantations had worked out the idea of Soul Liberty to a point on its civil, as distinguished from its distinctively religious, side to which even Roger Williams had not fully attained.

'It would seem that Williams had been honored by a personal visit from two Quaker women in Providence. "They bid me," he says, "repent and hearken to the light within me. I prayed them to sit down, that we might quietly reason together; they would not; then standing, I askt them the ground of their such travel and employment; they alledged Joel's prophesie; I answered that was fulfilled etc. They regarded not my answers nor admonitions, but poured the curses and judgements of God against me, and hurried away," George Fox Digg'd (Narr. Club ed.), p. 362.

Freedom of Conscience in Rhode Island
Granted Formal Recognition by the Eng-
lish Government, but Political
Individualism at the Same
Time Made Subject by

Rhode Island to Cer

tain Wholesome

Restrictions

VOL. II.-4.

CHAPTER XII

JOHN CLARKE AND THE CHARTER OF 1663

WE

E have had occasion to remark the coolness and clear-headedness displayed by John Clarke in the presence of Governor Endicott. These same qualities were next to be exhibited by him in a more imperial presence and upon a broader stage.

Hardly had he returned morally triumphant from Massachusetts, when he was besought by the antiCoddington party upon Rhode Island to proceed to England to secure a revocation of the act of the Council of State making Coddington Governor of the Island for life. He went, and in conjunction with Roger Williams, set influences at work which soon effected the desired result. In this just how far credit is due specifically to Clarke we perhaps may not know. Williams, in one place, states that the former merely signed the application to the council which he and Sir Henry Vane had draughted,' but, according to the estimable William Dyer, it was upon Clarke's "shoulders and credit"

1 Letter to towns of Providence and Warwick. - Narr. Club Pub., vol. vi., p. 254.