their poore abilitie,) and exercised his gifts amongst them, and after some time was admitted a member of the church; and his teaching well approoved, for the benefite wherof I still blese God, and am thankfull to him, even for his sharpest admonitions and reproufs, so farr as they agreed with truth. He this year begane to fall into some strang opinions, and from opinion to practise; which caused some controversie betweene the church and him, and in the end some discontente on his parte, by occasion wherof he left them some thing abruptly. Yet after wards sued for his dismission to the church of Salem, which was granted, with some caution to congregation in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the governour and all the rest went down to the deacon's seat, and put into the box, and then returned." Winthrop, History, 1. *91. In 4 Mass. Hist. Collections, vi. 184, will be found the only letter of Roger Williams, dated from Plymouth.

Mather has entered in his compilation, the Magnalia (Book 11. 13), an incident which may have reference to this time, and certainly concerned Williams' stay at Plymouth. "There were at this time in Plymouth two Ministers [Smith and Williams], leavened so far with the Humours of the Rigid Separation, that they insisted vehemently upon the Unlawfulness of calling any unregenerate man by the Name of Good-man Such an One, until, by their indiscreet urging of this Whimsey, the place began to be disquieted. The wiser people being troubled at these trifles, they took the opportunity of Governour Winthrop's being there, to have the thing publickly propounded in the Congregation; who in answer thereunto, distinguished between a Theological and a Moral Goodness; adding that when Juries were first used in England, it was usual for the Crier, after the Names of Persons fit for that Service were called over, to bid them all: Attend, Good Men, and true; whence it grew to be a Civil Custom in the English Nation, for Neighbours living by one another, to call one another Good-man Such an One; and it was pity now to make a stir about a Civil Custom so innocently introduced. And that speech of Mr. Winthrop's put a lasting stop to the Little, Idle, Whimsical Conceits, then beginning to grow Obstreperous." The form of address to the grand jury at Plymouth is to-day, "Good men of our county."

At Plymouth Williams gained a support as did his fellow townsmen, by laboring "day and night, at home and abroad, on the land and water, at the How, at the Oare, for bread," and living on small means. The little property he succeeded in accumulating, chiefly a heifer and three goats, was disposed of when he left Plymouth. 5 Mass. Hist. Collections, 1. 250. He remained at Plymouth until late in 1633, when he departed for Salem. Winthrop, History, 1. *117. John Cotton states that Williams was in the Bay before his own arrival, September 3, 1633, but the exact time of his leaving Plymouth is uncertain.

them concerning him, and what care they ought to have of him.' But he soone fell into more things ther, both to their and the goverments troble and [196] disturbance. I shall not need to name perticulers, they are too well knowen now to all, though for a time the church here wente under some hard scensure by his occassion, from some that afterwards smarted them selves. But he is to be

1 On the cause of Williams' removal from Plymouth Nathaniel Morton is the best authority. "In the year 1634, Mr. Roger Williams removed from Plimouth to Salem: he had lived about three years at Plimouth, where he was well accepted as an assistant in the Ministry to Mr. Ralph Smith, then Pastor of the Church there, but by degrees venting of divers of his own singular opinions, and seeking to impose them upon others, he not finding such a concurrence as he expected, he desired his dismission to the church of Salem, which though some were unwilling to, yet through the prudent counsel of Mr. Brewster (the ruling Elder there) fearing that his continuance amongst them might cause divisions, and there being then many able men in the Bay, they would better deal with him then themselves could, and foreseeing (what he professed he feared concerning Mr. Williams, which afterwards came to pass) that he would run the same course of rigid separation and Anabaptistry, which Mr. John Smith the Sebaptist at Amsterdam had done; the Church of Plimouth consented to his dismission, and such as did adhere to him were also dismissed, and removed with him, or not long after him to Salem." New Englands Memoriall, *78.

John Cotton, who had little reason to love Williams, intimates a political reason as well as one connected with the church. "For before my coming into New-England, the godly-wise and vigilant Ruling-Elder of Plymouth (aged Mr. Bruister) had warned the whole Church of the danger of his [Williams'] spirit, which moved the better part of the church, to be glad of his removall from them into the Bay. And in the Bay not long before my coming, he began to oppose the King's Patent with much vehemency, (as he had done at Plymouth before;) which made the Magistrates to feare, they should have more to doe with him, than with a man publickly acknowledged to be godly, and dearely beloved." A Reply to Mr. Williams his Examination, 4, printed with Cotton's The Bloudy Tenent washed, etc.

Somewhat later Williams obtained a copy of John Robinson's Treatise on the Lawfulness of Hearing of the Ministers in the church of England, first printed in 1634, and prepared a reply to it. This he sent to some of the elders of the Bay and received from them criticisms and objections. Williams' tract is lost, and it must have been a political as well as a religious writing, dealing with the question of a "national church," and with some of the conduct of Winthrop. 4 Mass. Hist. Collections, vi. 206. The incident may have been connected with the differences between Williams and the church at Plymouth while he resided there.

pitied, and prayed for, and so I shall leave the matter, and desire the Lord to shew him his errors, and reduce him into the way of truth, and give him a setled judgment and constancie in the same; for I hope he belongs to the Lord, and that he will shew him mercie.1 Having had formerly converse and fam[i]liarity with the Dutch, (as is before remembred,) they, seeing them seated here in a barren quarter, tould them of a river called by them the Fresh River, but now is known by the name of Conightecute-River, which they often comended unto them for a fine place both for plantation and trade, and wished them to make use of it. But their hands being full otherwise, they let it pass. But afterwards ther coming a company of banishte Indeans into these parts, that were drivene out from thence by the potencie of the Pequents, which usurped upon

1 In later years Roger Williams evidenced his good will to New Plymouth on many occasions, and rendered important service to both plantations in their relations with the Indians. Bradford died in 1657, and Williams in 1683; this history was written after 1640. It is evident that Bradford's opinion of Williams rested upon their earlier associations and even before the common peril of the Narragansett war had proved the loyalty and usefulness of the troublesome resident.

* In 1614 Adriaen Block, in his "jagt" Onrust, coasted along the south shore of New England, and discovered the mouth of a large river running northerly into the land. Finding few inhabitants near the opening into the Sound, he took his vessel up the river until he was stopped by rapids. At the latitude of 41° 48′ — somewhere between Hartford and Windsor he found a village of the Indians, the names of whose tribe and chief are buried in the attempt of the narrator to reproduce the sound. For the Nawaas and the Sagamore Morahieck cannot be identified with any known names. He also met the Sequins, really the name of the chief, and heard of the Honikans, and, impressed by the flow of water, he called the river Versch or Fresh Water River. The Indians knew the river as the Quonehtacut or Connittecock. The Dutch traded in furs on the Fresh River, and one of their agents, Jacob Eelkens, committed an outrage upon the Indians in 1622, which threatened to break off all trading with the Dutch, and was severely punished by his superiors. It is claimed that the Dutch projected and began a small fort, "The Hope," on the Fresh River in 1623, but little could have been done, and the Dutch West India Company is charged with preventing the construction and settlement of the fort, not being desirous of favoring what might become a rival in the Indian trade. The opportunity to preëmpt this territory was thus lost, and some years passed before the Pilgrims of New Plymouth were invited to remove to that place, as described in the text.