These facts show, that Mr. Cotton and his grandson, Cotton Mather, were mistaken, when they affirmed of the church at Providence, that they “broke forth into anabaptism, and then into antibaptism and familism, and now finally into no church at all.”[216] Perhaps Mr. Cotton would not acknowledge, that the congregation of Baptists at Providence deserved the name of a church. Mr. Williams and his wife, with several others of the members, were excommunicated from the church at Salem, of which they were retained as members till they were baptized.[217] A Baptist church, thus constituted, could not be viewed with much favor by Mr. Cotton and his friends. A church, which was formed this year at Newport, though Congregational in form, and orthodox, it is presumed, in its doctrines, is mentioned, in a tone of censure, by Winthrop, and after him, by Hubbard, (339) as having been gathered in a “very disordered way, for they took some excommunicated persons, and others who were members of the church of Boston, and not dismissed.”[218] The leaders, both in church and state, in Massachusetts, were not then in a mood to be pleased with any thing which occurred in Rhode-Island. It would have been well if this feeling had expired with the first age. But local prejudice is almost as durable as the natural features of a country. Bœotia incurred, among the Greeks, a contempt, which the fame of Pindar, Hesiod and Epaminondas could not soften.[219] Nazareth seems to have acquired a similar distinction among the Jews.[220] Rhode-Island may regret, yet cannot greatly wonder, that her sisters have sometimes remembered the circumstances of her origin, better than the purity of her principles and the steadiness of her patriotism. Many, since Mr. Cotton, have been inclined to doubt, whether there was any true religion in Rhode-Island, and to believe, with Winthrop, that there was no good government. But let her not be moved. Time is brightening the fame of her founder, and the reflected lustre will attract the eyes of men to a fairer contemplation of her character. CHAPTER XIV. Affairs of the Indians—birth of Mr. Williams’ fourth child—disputes at Providence about boundaries—Committee of Arbitration—account of Samuel Gorton.