VANE'S CONTROVERSY WITH WINTHROP. 185

after the usual customs of respect, when he entered the town on his return from the session of the legislature; and, at last, the public mind generally, and in all parts of the colony, showed so much discontent on the subject of the law, that Governor Winthrop was driven to the necessity of a formal public appeal in its behalf and his own. A warm controversy ensued, in which Vane was his chief and most formidable opponent.

This discussion is only to be alluded to here in so far as it illustrates the character of Vane as a statesman, so long misunderstood, and, by writers of English history, so unjustly handled. It is in proof during its progress, that he was the first to declare at this early period of his life, and at the greatest personal hazard, that the theory on which New England had been planted and was proposed to be maintained, was absolutely visionary and impracticable. He was in fact a clear-headed and practical politician. He could never understand what was meant, as applied to the case of New England, by a settlement of religious liberty in a peculiar sense alone, and subject to conditions which destroyed it in fact. He held that they who in a large society had contended for the rights of conscience, when they were themselves sufferers, could not upon any pretext, in a society however small, turn against others, and, upon points of speculative difference, violate their rights of conscience, because they had acquired the power and opportunity to do it. The result proved Vane to have been right; he had hit the true principle of religious liberty; and he was the first English statesman to declare and to act upon that principle up to its very fullest extent.* The party in power, however, were too strong to be shaken; and baffled in his best hopes and purposes, Vane now resolved to return to England. He took his passage in August, 1637, not "fain to steal away by night,” as Baxter would have it, but openly, nay with marks of honour from his friends, which even his enemies were obliged to take part in, and accompanied by the young Lord Ley, son and heir of the

* Forster.

VOL. I. 24

Earl of Marlborough, who had come over a short time before to see the country. A large concourse of the people of Boston attended him with every form of affectionate respect, to the vessel's side, which he ascended amidst the strongest demonstrations of love and esteem for his person, and admiration for his character and services. A parting salute was fired from the town, and another from the castle; and as he sailed from the shores of New England, he left behind him a name which, as years went on, became more and more endeared to the people; a name which is venerated there to this day; and gives a kind of religious interest to the small house in Boston which is still pointed out as one of his places of residence, with an honourable gratitude and pride.*

Before the departure of Vane, a general synod of the clergy was called, in which the doctrines recently broached by Mrs. Hutchinson, were condemned as erroneous and heretical. As this proceeding served only to provoke the professors of these doctrines to assert them with increased warmth and pertinacity, the leaders of the party were summoned before the general court, and Mrs. Hutchinson, her brother, Mr. Wheelwright, and Mr. Aspinwall, were by its sentence banished from the colony; and the religious dissension known in the history of Massachusetts as the Antinomian controversy, was thus brought to a termination. One of its most important consequences was the scattering of new parties of emigrants into various regions of the country; a considerable number of those who were dissatisfied with the proceedings of the synod and the general court of Massachusetts, having voluntarily joined the exiles, forsook the colony. Some of these proceeding to New Hampshire under the guidance of Wheel-. wright, founded the town of Exeter.

Another party, led by John Clarke and William Coddington, *Milton, whose intercourse with Vane afforded him ample opportunities of understanding his character, pronounces a noble eulogy on him in the sonnet which commences,

"Vane, young in years, but in sage counsels old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome."

SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND.

187

united themselves with Roger Williams and his friends at Providence; and in March, 1638, by his aid, these exiles obtained from Miantonomo, the great sachem of the Narragansetts, a deed of the fertile island which subsequently acquired the name of Rhode Island. One of Vane's first acts, after his return to England, was to exert himself in procuring a charter for the new colony. Williams himself acknowledges the influence of Vane's powerful name with the Indian chief, as well as the British government. "It was not price and money," says he, "that could have purchased Rhode Island; but it was obtained by love,- that love and favour, which that honoured gentleman, Sir Henry Vane, and myself had with the great sachem, Miantonomo, about the league which I procured between the Massachusetts English and the Narragansetts, in the Pequot war. This I mention, as the truly noble Sir Henry Vane had been so good an instrument in the hand of God, for rescuing this island from the barbarians, as also, for procuring and confirming the charter, that it may be recorded with all thankfulness."*

The settlers of Rhode Island had their written constitution, their governor and assistants, after the example of the Plymouth colony. Coddington was their first governor, or judge, as he was styled, after the ancient practice of the Israelites. As might have been anticipated from the character of its founders, Rhode Island enjoyed the most ample provision for "liberty of conscience." In this In this respect it claims precedence among Christian States, its institutions. in this respect being more liberal than even those of Lord Baltimore.

Mrs. Hutchinson, whose controversy with the clergy and government of Massachusetts, had led to such important results, found a shelter in Rhode Island, where she remained several years. Being left a widow, she emigrated with her family to East Chester, within the limits of New Netherlands. In an Indian war which occurred after her removal to this place, her house was attacked and burned, and this remarkable *Upham. Hist. Coll.

188

DEATH OF MRS. HUTCHINSON.

woman, with all her family except one child, fell victims to the ferocity of the savages.

The decided character of Mrs. Hutchinson, the extensive influence exerted by her over some of the most extraordinary men of the age, and the part which she took in the controversy, which was followed by such important results, will cause her name to be held in remembrance to the latest time.

66

CHAPTER XIV.

COLONIZATION OF CONNECTICUT.

W

HEN Lord Brooke and Lords Say and Seal proposed to emigrate to New England, they obtained from the Earl of Warwick, an assignment of a grant which he had received from the Plymouth council, for lands on the Connecticut river, and they had proceeded so far

in their design as to send out

an agent to take possession of the territory and build a fort. Happily for America, the sentiments and habits that rendered them unfit members of a society where complete civil liberty and perfect simplicity of manners were esteemed requisite to the general happiness, prevented these noblemen