cording to the roll mentioned, the total number of freemen was 247; of whom Providence had 42, Warwick 38, Portsmouth 71, and Newport 96.' But Roger Williams, chief among those concerned in meeting the coup d'état of Coddington in its early and sinister stages, was now, as President of the restored commonwealth, to see the fruition of his work. On March 29, 1655, Oliver Cromwell, pausing amid his multifarious tasks, addressed to Providence Plantations a letter informing the colony that they were to proceed in their government "according to ye tenor of their charter formerly granted," "taking care of ye peace and safetie of these plantations." It is probable that this letter convinced Coddington that, despite the efforts of Winslow, of Hopkins, of Haslerig, and of Fenwick, nothing for the restoration of his fallen fortunes would or could be done. These men, his supporters, were dependent upon Parliament, and by this time Parliament was completely merged in the Lord Protector. Accordingly, on March 11, 1656, the Newport magnate, altogether shorn of his purple, appeared at the Court of Trials as a plain commissioner and bearing in his hand this unequivocal farewell to greatness: "I, William Coddington, doe freely submit to ye authoritie of his Highness in this Colonie, as it is now united, and that with all my heart." 1R. I. Col. Rec., vol. i., p 299. But he was not too hastily to be received. The charge (most serious, in the mind of the mother country, of all the charges preferred against him) that he had consorted with the Dutch still hung over his head, and for the clearing of this it was deemed advisable to take time. The Court of Trials adjourned, and on March 17th the General Assembly convened. By this body an order was made that a letter be written to John Clarke, relating the submission of Coddington, and their own willingness to ignore the past, but asking from the home government a dismissal of the charges pending. At the same session Coddington was required to explain a suspicious resemblance between certain 66 gunnes in ye Indians hands" and some which he had brought with him from England. Upon the whole, however, the feeling toward him was not unkind; for it was ordered that some things in the records "prejuditial to himself, or others," be "cut out" and delivered to him, and that divers presentments standing against him "upon a booke of records belonging to ye Island" be not prosecuted except by order from "his Highness ye Lord Protector." One other noteworthy event occurred during the administration of Roger Williams the prosecution of William Harris for treason; but the noteworthiness of this event is so peculiar that the event itself, together with its attendant circumstances, will be reserved for consideration in Chapter XI. CHAPTER X RELATION OF STATE TO TOWN IN EARLY RHODE ISLAND T was remarked in Chapter VIII. that, under the constitution of 1647, the component parts of Providence Plantations were but loosely compacted together. The truth of this statement has been illustrated by the course of events during the Coddington usurpation. For the purposes of the present chapter, however, it will be necessary to consider the constitutional aspect of the Narragansett settlements by itself and from the beginning. Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick (reduced, after the coalescence of Portsmouth and Newport in 1640, to Providence, Aquidneck, and Warwick) were at the outset each a distinct, selfgoverning community. They were dependent upon no other colony, and their dependence upon the British Crown, prior to the granting of the Patent of 1644, was less even than nominal.' They not 'Massachusetts was the direct creation of the Crown, and Connecticut was planted by Massachusetts (Mass. Col. Rec., vol. i., p. 171). Upon the question of Rhode Island's dependence upon the Crown, it is the opinion of Judge Mellen Chamberlain that the sovereignty of Great Britain is to be considered as beginning with the actual assertion of jurisdiction in and through the Patent of 1644.-Foster-Chamberlain Correspondence, MS. only made rules for internal government, but they made treaties with foreign powers (the Indian tribes), involving war and peace and the acquisition of territory.1 In a word, so far as conduct and fact are concerned (and it is these which in politics are all important, for they predetermine right and law), the early settlements about Narragansett Bay were sovereign very much as in B.C. 753 were the settlements of Romulus and Titus Tatius on the summits respectively of the Palatine and Quirinal. But with the granting of the Patent of 1644, and the union thereunder of the settlements or plantations in question, there came a change. Providence, Aquidneck, and Warwick now in a measure ceased to be sovereignties or States, and became subordinate political units or towns. Had they wholly ceased to be States, they would henceforth have yielded habitual obedience to the central government, but this they did not do. Their obedience 1 Mr. W. E. Foster enumerates: an oath of allegiance (R. I. Col. Rec., vol. i., p. 14), an act of disfranchisement (Ibid., p. 16), and an act respecting Freedom of Conscience (Ibid., p. 28), as indicating the exercise of State powers by Providence. Moreover, Judge Chamberlain says: "According to my way of thinking, all of the acts [above enumerated] are those of States, and so I call the [early Rhode Island plantations] States. Nor does it change their nature that these States, after their people coalesced and formed a single government under a charter, no longer existed as separate States."-Foster-Chamberlain Cor., MS. 'Judge Chamberlain says: "An organized municipality can never become a State, though its people may do so"; in other words, an aggregation of towns is no more a State than an aggregation of corn kernels is an ear of corn. In order, therefore, for towns to merge into a State, there must be introduced some principle that subordinates the towns as such, and gives them unity, just as the cob gives unity to the corn kernels.-FosterChamberlain Cor., MS.; see also Chamberlain's John Adams, with Other Essays, p. 198, note. was temporary and spasmodic,- the proverbial steadiness by jerks of the Hibernian,—and this circumstance has made it well-nigh impossible accurately to classify the political entity due to their combination. It is perhaps best described as an articulated State, corresponding in the political world to those fabled reptilian organisms in the world of the animal, which hold together while all is serene, but which at a pinch find little embarrassment in confronting life's problem in segments. The periods of segmentary and complete existence on the part of what is now the state of Rhode Island may, in accordance with an instructive suggestion by Mr. William E. Foster, be tabulated as follows: (1). 1636-1641, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, distinct sovereignties. (2). 1641-1647, Providence, Aquidneck, and Warwick distinct sovereignties. (3). 1647-1651, the colony of Providence Plantations a distinct commonwealth. (4). 1651-1654, Providence-Warwick (the Mainland) and Portsmouth-Newport (the Island) distinct commonwealths. (5). 1654-1686, the colony of Providence Plantations a distinct commonwealth. If now we seek the underlying cause of the sudden transformations thus represented, it will be found in the prevalence of a deep-seated distrust of power. Providence disliked authority per se, and from any source; Newport sanctioned only such authority as emanated from itself; Portsmouth was |