safety: let them, by one final sentence of all or the greater part of them, end all, and set the whole into an unanimous posture and order, and let them set a censure upon any that shall oppose their sentence. One log, without your gentle help, I cannot stir; it is this: How shall the minds of the towns be known? How shall the persons chosen be called? Time and place appointed in any expedition? For myself I can thankfully embrace the help of Mr. Coddington or Mr. Clarke, joined or apart, but how many are there who will attend, (as our distempers are) to neither? It is, gentlemen, in the power of the body to require the help of any of her members, and both King and Parliament plead, that in extraordinary cases they have been forced to extraordinary ways for common safety. Let me be friendly construed, if (for expedition) I am bold to be too forward in this service, and to say, that if within twenty days of the date hereof, you please to send to my house, at Providence, the name of him whom you please to nominate, at your desire I will acquaint all the persons chosen with place and time, unto which in your name I shall desire their meeting within ten days, or thereabouts, after the receipt of your letter. I am your mournful and unworthy ROGER WILLIAMS.” “This address,” says Mr. Backus, “had such an effect, that Mr. Williams was received to act as President of the colony, till their election at Warwick, May 22, 1649.” The following letter to Mr. Winthrop, throws some light on the state of things at that time: “For my much honored, kind friend, Mr. John Winthrop, at his house, at Nameug, these. “_Cawcawmsqussick, 23, 7, 48, (so called.)_ “Kind Sir, “Best salutations to your dear selves and loving sister. I am bold and yet glad to trouble you, that by this occasion I may hear of your welfare. Capt. Mason lately requested me to forbid the Narragansets to hunt at Pequod, and to assure them of his visiting of them if they so did. I have written now an answer, which I am bold to request you to send at your next opportunity. Two days since I was at Providence, and then Mr. Brown was not returned, only he had wrote home some angry passage against the Narragansets, who are now in expectation of some assault from the English. Sir, whether it please God to visit us with peace or war, in life and death I desire to be “Yours ever in Christ Jesus, “ROGER WILLIAMS.