Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/89

] and some smaller ones. Ferries had been established between Boston and Charlestown; a fort had been built; water and wind-mills had been brought into use; a flourishing trade with the Virginians, and the Dutch had gradually grown up, etc.

While the Court was in session, six large vessels arrived with a large number of passengers and a goodly supply of cattle; and about a month later, fifteen more vessels entered the harbor. John Humphrey came out in one of these ships, and brought with him a supply of ordnance, muskets, powder, and other things of value to the colony. He brought, also, propositions from some "persons of great quality and estate," to join the Massachusetts colonists if certain points could be conceded to them.

In consequence of complaints made in England against Massachusetts, a Royal Colonial Commission was appointed with full power over the American plantations to revise the laws, regulate the Church, and revoke charters. The news of this measure produced great alarm in Massachusetts, and steps were directly taken to provide for the defence of Boston harbor. Dudley, Winthrop, Haynes, Humphrey, and Endicott were appointed commissioners "to consult, direct, and give command for the managing and ordering of any war that might befall for the space of a year next ensuing."

In the midst of these difficulties, the course pursued by the celebrated Roger Williams was not calculated to render matters more easy of adjustment. This active and energetic young Puritan minister very early gave trouble to the Massachusetts brethren, by setting forth novelties and heresies, as they esteemed them, which led to his removal to Plymouth, where he remained two years. On returning to Massachusetts, he soon became involved in trouble, not only by denying the validity of royal patents to give title to land in America, but also by a fantastical scruple as to the red cross in the English colors, which cross, being a relic of popery and abomination, he got Endicott, the commander at Salem, to cut out from the national flag. Beside this, denying the lawfulness of an oath imposed on the non-freemen, and the enactment compelling attendance on public worship, he gave great offence to the magistrates and ministers. Amid all his vagaries, and what we can not but deem puerile seizing upon trifles, he appears to have grasped firmly one grand idea, and to have held and acted upon it at all times with entire sincerity: this was what he called "soul-liberty," meaning by the expression, the most perfect and complete right of every man to enjoy freedom of opinion on the subject of religion. The idea, however familiar to us at the present day, was then wholly new, and startling indeed in a colony like Massachusetts, and no wonder that it seemed to those in authority as a most alarming heresy. For, in truth, these principles struck at the very root of the theocracy which had become established in the colony. Alarmed by their dangerous tendency, the Court at Boston was led earnestly to desire the removal of one whom they regarded as