their Negotiations with us, as with a Colony established by the Royal Authority of the State of England. This Patent Mr. Williams publicly and vehemently preached against, as containing matter of falsehood and injustice: falsehood in making the King the first Christian Prince who had discovered these parts, and injustice, in giving the Country to his English Subjects, which belonged to the Native Indians. This therefore he pressed upon the Magistrates and People to be humbled for, from time to time, in days of solemn Humiliation, and to return the Patent back again to the King. It was answered to him, first, that it was neither the King's intendment, nor the English Planters', to take possession of the Country by murther of the Natives, or by robbery; but either to take possession of the void places of the Country by the Law of Nature, (for Vacuum Domicilium cedit occupanti :) or if we took any Lands from the Natives, it was by way of purchase, and1 free consent. A little before our coming God had, by pestilence, and other contagious diseases, swept away many thousands of the Natives, who had inhabited the Bay of Massachusetts, for which the Patent was granted. Such few of them as survived were glad of the coming of the English, who might preserve them from the oppression of the Narrhagansets. For it is the manner of the Natives, the stronger Nations3 to oppress the weaker. This answer did not satisfy Mr. Williams, who pleaded, the Natives, though they did not, nor could subdue the Country, (but left it vacuum Domicilium,) yet they hunted all the Country over, and for the expedition of their hunting voyages, they burnt up all the underwoods in the Country, once or twice a year, and therefore as Noblemen *in England* possessed great Parks, and the King great Forests in England only for their game, and no man might lawfully invade their Propriety so might the Natives challenge the like Propriety [of the Country'] here. It was replied unto him,

1. That the King and Noblemen in England, as they possessed greater Territories than other men, so they did greater service to Church and Commonwealth,

1 Or in the MS.-н. stronger of the natives.-H.

Or in the MS.-н.

'The MS. reads, the

Not in the MS.-н.

2. [That'] they employed their Parks and Forests, not for hunting only, but for Timber, and for the nourishment of tame beasts, as well as wild, and also for habitation to sundry Tenants.

3. That our Towns here did not disturb the huntings of the Natives, but did rather keep their Game fitter for their taking; for they take their Deer by Traps, and not by Hounds.

4. That if they complained of any straits we put upon them, we gave satisfaction in some payments or other, to their content.

5. We did not conceive that it is a just Title to so vast a Continent, to make no other improvement of millions of Acres in it, but only to burn it up for pastime.

But these Answers not satisfying him, this was still pressed by him as a National sin, to hold to the Patent, yea, and a National duty to renounce the Patent; which to have done, had subverted the fundamental State and Government of the country.

§2. The second offence which procured his Banishment, (as was touched before,) was this. The Magistrates and other members of the General Court, upon Intelligence of some Episcopal and malignant practices against the country, they made an Order of Court to take trial of the fidelity of the People, (not by imposing upon them, but) by offering to them an Oath of Fidelity that in case any should refuse to take it, they might not betrust them with place of Public charge and Command. This Oath, when it came abroad, he vehemently withstood it, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as he said, Christ's Prerogative, to have his Office established by Oath partly because an oath was a part of God's worship, and God's worship was not to be put upon carnal persons, as he conceived many of the People to be. So by his Tenent, neither might Church-members, nor other godly men, take the Oath, because it was the establishment, not of Christ, but of mortal men in their office; nor might men out of the Church take it, because, in his eye, they were but carnal. So the Court

was forced' to desist from that proceeding: which practice of his was held to be the more dangerous, because it tended to unsettle all the Kingdoms and Commonwealths in Europe. These were (as I took it, saith Mr. Cotton,) the causes of his Banishment; two other things fell in upon these, that hastened the Sentence. The former fell out thus the Magistrates discerning, by the former passages, the heady and turbulent spirit of Mr. Williams, both they and others advised the Church of Salem not to call him to office in their Church; nevertheless, the major part of the Church made choice of him. Soon after, when the Church made suit to the Court for a parcel of Land adjoining to them, the Court delayed to grant their Request, (as hath been mentioned before,) because the Church had refused to hearken to the Magistrates and others, in forbearing the choice of Mr. Williams. Whereupon Mr. Williams took occasion to stir up the Church to join with him in writing Letters of Admonition unto all the Churches, whereof those Magistrates were members, to admonish them of their open transgression of the Rule of Justice. Which Letters, coming to the several Churches, provoked the Magistrates to take the more speedy course with so heady and violent a Spirit. But to prevent his sufferings, (if it might be,) it was moved by some of the Elders, that themselves might have liberty (according to the Rule of Christ) to deal with him, and with the Church also, in a Church-way. It might be, the Church might hear us3 and he the Church; which being consented to, some of our Churches wrote to the Church of Salem, to present before them the offensive Spirit, and way of their Officer, (Mr. Williams) both in Judgment and practice. The Church finally began to hearken to us and accordingly began to address themselves to the healing of his Spirit. Which he discerning, renounced communion with the Church of Salem, pretending they held communion with the Churches in the Bay, and the Churches in the Bay held communion with the Parish Churches in England, because they suffered their members to hear the word amongst them in England, as they

Thus originally written, but afterwards altered to must have been forced.-H. There in the MS.; probably an error of the transcriber.-H. Them in the MS.-H. The in the MS.-н.

came over into their native Country. He then refusing to resort to the Public Assembly of the Church, soon after sundry began to resort to his Family, where he preached to them on the Lord's day. But this carriage of his, in renouncing the Church upon such an occasion, and with them, all the Churches in the Country, and the1 spreading his Leaven to sundry that resorted to him; *this* gave the Magistrates the more cause to observe the heady unruliness of his spirit, and the incorrigibleness thereof by any Church-way, all the Churches in the Country being then renounced by him. And this was the other occasion which hastened the Sentence of his Banishment upon the former Grounds. If upon these Grounds Mr. Williams be ready, (as he professeth,) not only to be bound, and banished, but also to die in New England; let him remember (what he knows) Non pæna, sed causa facit Martyrem; no Martyr of Christ did ever suffer for such

a cause.

Thus men of great parts and strong affections, for want of stability in their judgments to discern the truth. in matters of controversy, like a vessel that carries too high a sail, are apt to overset in the stream, and ruin those that are embarked with them.

CHAP. XXXI.

The first planting of those parts of New England, on the east and west side of Pascataqua River, called the Province of Maine and New Hampshire, and the parts adjoining. Attempts for a new settlement of those lands by some of the Grand Council of New England, before they surrendered their Charter into the hands of the King. How great a sound soever is, or hath been, made about the Province of Maine, and the lands about Pascataqua River, comprehended in sundry Patents and Grants, that were long since said to be jointly and severally made to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, the whole history thereof may be comprised in a few words, so far as anything may be found in either of them worthy to be communicated to posterity.

1 In in the MS.-H.

In in the MS.-H.

That in the MS.-H.

See Cotton's "Bloudy Tenent Washed," (sm. 4to. Lond. 1647,) Pt. 2, pp. 27-30.-H.

The several vicissitudes and changes of government either of them have passed under are already touched upon in the second part of the Narrative of the troubles with the Indians in New England, printed at Boston in the year 1677. At present, therefore, only to insist upon what is most memorable about the first planting thereof, after it came first to be discovered by Captain Smith, and some others employed on that design, about the year 1614 and 1615.

Some merchants and other gentlemen in the west of England, belonging to the cities of Exeter, Bristol, [and] Shrewsbury, and towns of Plymouth, Dorchester, &c., incited no doubt by the fame of the Plantation begun at New Plymouth in the year 1620, having obtained Patents for several parts of the country of New England, from the Grand Council established at Plymouth, (into whose hands that whole country was committed) made some attempt of beginning a Plantation in some place about Pascataqua River, about the year 1623. For being encouraged by the report of divers mariners that came to make fishing voyages upon that coast, as well as by the aforementioned occasion, they sent over that year, one Mr. David Thompson,' with Mr. Edward Hilton, and his brother, Mr. William Hilton, who had been fishmongers in London, with some others, that came along with them, furnished with necessaries for carrying on a Plantation there. Possibly others might be sent after them in the years following, 1624 and 1625; some of whom first, in probability, seized on a place called the Little Harbor, on the west side of Pascataqua River, toward, or at, the mouth thereof; the Hiltons, in the mean while, setting up their stages higher up the river, toward the northwest, at or about a place since called Dover. But at that place called the Little Harbor, it is supposed, was the first house set up, that ever was built in those parts; the chimney, and some part of the stone wall, is standing at this day, and certainly was it, which was called then, or soon after, Mason Hall, because to it was annexed three or four thousand acres of land, with

1 "David Thomson, Gentleman." Robert Gorges's Patent.-H.