a plea for a more complete incorporation of the Narragansett country into the colony, but other matters were touched upon. Clarendon, for instance, was asked to become the recipient, from grateful Rhode Island, of one thousand acres of land; and help was solicited toward the "fortifycation" of Narragansett Bay, with its "harbours most safe for the biggest ships that ever sayled the sea," and which "in the hardest winters when the Massachusetts and other are fast locked up with strong doares of ice is always open." Then again, in 1670, 1671, and 1672, Clarke was appointed agent to England for the purpose of vindicating the charter against, and redeeming it from, the "violations" of Connecticut. John Clarke, however, never made a second visit to England. The last time he is mentioned in the records of the colony is on April 4, 1676, when, upon the eve of King Philip's War, his name appears along with the names of Benedict Arnold, Obadiah Holmes, Gregory Dexter, Randall Holden, and others, as among those-"the most juditious inhabitants of the colony" — from whom advice was desired by the government as to what course should be taken in "these troublesome times and straites." Before the end of the month (April 20th) he was dead, having survived his fellow-statesman of New England and generous rival, John Winthrop, Jr., by only fifteen days. 1 1 Roger Williams is not among those here named as "the most juditious inhabitants," but this is not strange. It was a Quaker government that did the naming, and to the Quakers Williams was persona non grata. CHAPTER XIII KING PHILIP'S WAR 1675- the year of the outbreak of the war in question-affords a convenient point at which to glance in résumé at the material and political conditions of Rhode Island since 1650. one Providence and Newport had both grown in population, but Newport more than Providence. It is estimated by Callender that in 1659 the population of the whole colony did not exceed two hundred families, that is, eight hundred or thousand persons, and by 1675, as stated by William Harris (an excellent authority), Providence alone had reached five hundred.1 Harris, moreover, puts the population of Warwick, at this time, at one third that of Providence. The Mainland, therefore, was occupied in all by about eight or nine hundred souls. As for the Island, it is probable that Portsmouth did not fall in numbers much below Providence,- having, we are told, two hundred houses; and that Newport was at least twice the size of Portsmouth, for here the aggregate of "Plea of the Pawtuxet Purchasers," R. I. Hist. Soc. Pub., n. s., vol. i., p. 192. houses was four hundred.' If these figures and estimates be approximately correct, the colony now (1675) possessed a population of twenty-five hundred or three thousand. As in 1650, arts and trades and public improvements were backward in Providence and progressive in Newport. In 1654, at Providence, the establishment of iron works had been proposed by a visiting Englishman (Mr. Foot) and the scheme was favored by Roger Williams, but it came to naught. The next year Williams wrote to John Winthrop, Jr., concerning a certain Mr. White" now wintering in Warwick," probably an engineer, whom it was desired to employ in erecting a bridge at Weybosset Ford; but the weather hindered, and it was not until 1660 that this convenience, connecting the town street with the Pequod trail to the southward, was secured. 3 The prosperity of Newport by 1675 had begun to show itself in an improved architecture. The pioneer or end-chimney type of house, described in the account of early Providence in Chapter IV., 1 Egerton MS. 2395, f. 70, Mag. Am. Hist., vol. viii., p. 851. In 1680 Peleg Sanford reports Newport as possessing 500 planters and 500 men besides.-J. Carter Brown Coll. Brit. State Papers. This estimate agrees fairly well with that of Judge Thomas Durfee (Palfrey's New Eng., vol. ii., p. 570). In 1678, Sir Edmund Andros reported the population of R. I., by "hearsay," as about 1200; and in 1671, Sir Robert Carr reported the number of men able to bear arms as 1000, perhaps an exaggeration. 3" Mr. Foot is said (at present) to resolve for the Dutch: upon occasion of my declaring against his man Mr. Fowler's disorderly marriage in Mr. Foot's house, without any publication, and upon that occasion my refusing to promote the Iron Works as yet; he is displeased and speaks of departure. I truly love and pity the man, yet surely from him have the Indians been furnished with store of liquors, from his house have the incivilities of our town been much encouraged," etc. |