Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/242

 192 THE HISTORY OF BARRIXGTON. the covenant and agreement pursuant thereunto which we hitherto have done. " Furthermore, we desire your Excellency and Honorable Court, that we may enjoy our rights, which we greatly prize, without further interruption upon this account. So we sub- scribe your humble and obedient servants, the inhabitants of Swansea." July ye 9, 171 1. The name of Rev. Samuel Luther heads the remonstrants in "the column of ancient first proprietors." James Brown, son of John Brown, Sr., was the first to sign "the column of their posterity though many of them have deceased," and John Wheaton's name heads "the list of new comers." The remonstrants number seventy-eight as against twenty-nine petitioners in favor of the new town. While our sympathies go out to the people, who suffered such trials as have been recited to the General Court, we are of the opinion that Elder Luther, Mr. Brown, and John Wheaton were correct in the principles for which they contended, and that the set- tlement of the town was made on the true foundation stone of the voluntary principle of Church support. John Brown, Sr., had stood four-square on this platform from the first, and his liberal and progressive spirit lived in his son James, and in later descendants. John Brown's record on this subject was clear and unmistakable, for had he not from the first stood for the free will of the people for the support of reli- gion .'' Even as early as 1645, when Mr. Win slow, of Ply- mouth, had secured a vote of the Assembly in favor of " rating all persons by authority who refused or neglected to give what the rulers judged to be their meet proportion towards minis- ters maintenance." The next week Mr. Brown, in a full meeting, "excepted against the entry of that order, as per- nicious and destructive to the weal of the government, and tendered a proposition, to allow and maintain full and free tolerance of religion, to all men that would preserve the civil peace and submit to government."