And now, his flight being in the winter, he came to the Indians. Alone, and on foot, he arrived at Seekonk on the Pawtucket river, and was kindly received by Massasoit, the sachem. Seekonk lay, however, within the Plymouth grant, and this was not to be his abiding place. God, rather than man, willed not that he should remain here. In a short time he received a letter from Winslow, the governor of Plymouth, an excellent man, who was secretly his friend, “lovingly advising him, since he was fallen into the edge of their bounds, to remove to the other side of the water, where the country would be all free before him.” [Illustration: ROGER WILLIAMS’ DEPARTURE FROM SALEM.] Williams received this friendly advice as the council of God, and directed his course to Narragansett Bay. In the month of June, he, and five of his friends who had followed him into exile, landed from a frail Indian canoe on a spot near the mouth of the Moshassuck river. Tradition has hallowed the spot as being near a spring of clear water, which remains to this day. Here he took up his abode, calling the place Providence, in grateful commemoration of God’s merciful providence to him in his distress. He had landed within the territory of the Narragansett Indians, the sachems of whom were the aged Canonicus and his nephew, the bold Miantonomoh, who received him kindly and granted him a settlement on their borders. Here for two years he lived, labouring not alone as a preacher of the gospel, though his daily life was a gospel sermon, but, as he himself says, “day and night, at home and abroad, on the land and the water, at the hoe and the oar for bread.” During this time he was joined by many others, and probably, also, by his wife and family. In March, 1638, he received a free gift of territory from the associate chiefs “in consideration,” say they, “of the many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, we do freely give unto him all that land” which is then primitively indicated by the boundary of rivers and great hills, “with its grass and meadows and fresh waters.”