The teachings of this apostle of liberty were considered subversive of all good government; the ministers in a body declared “any one worthy of banishment” who should assert, as Williams had done, that magistrates ought not to interfere even to stop a church from heresy, or that an English royal grant was wanting in moral validity. A committee of divines was sent to Salem “to deal with him and the church in a church way,” and a tract of land to which the people of Salem laid claim was withheld from them as a punishment. Williams, seeing his townspeople thus suffering on his account, wrote a letter to all the churches of which these magistrates were members, asking that they might be admonished of their injustice. This was the finishing stroke to his offending. The general court proceeded to disfranchise Salem until apology should be made for the letter. All now yielded to the storm; not a voice in Salem was raised in his behalf; even his wife reproached him as an evil-doer. But Christ, his great master, had been deserted by all, even by the beloved disciple. Williams could not forget this trial of his prototype; and declared to the court before which he was arraigned that “he was ready to be bound and banished, nay, even to die in New England, rather than renounce the opinions which had dawned upon him in the clearness of light.” The court, influenced by Cotton, pronounced against him the sentence of exile, but as winter was at hand, he was allowed to remain till spring. This reprieve gave time for the affection of his friends to revive; throngs collected to hear the beloved pastor so soon to be removed from them. Twofold value seemed now to attach to his opinions; his views began to spread; his enemies were alarmed; and it was resolved at once to remove him on board a pinnace and ship him off to England. But he was already gone. It was now the depth of winter; for fourteen weeks, he says, he was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed meant; often in a stormy night he had neither food, fire, nor company, nor better lodging than a hollow tree. But God was with him through all, and cared for him; he was fed in the wilderness as the prophet had been of old. The Indians were his friends; already while residing at Plymouth he had become acquainted with their principal sachems, and studied their language until he was able to converse with them freely. Their simple hearts had opened to his apostolic virtues; the cruel chiefs of the forest declared that they loved him as their son.