“The towns on the main met at Providence, May 17, 1653, and elected their officers. An assembly met at the same time on the island, and chose Mr. Sanford their President, and some freemen coming from the main, they chose an assistant for each town in the colony; and they sent Mr. James Barker and Mr. Richard Knight to Mr. Coddington, to demand the statute book and book of records. And as it was then a time of war betwixt England and Holland, and a mention was made of it in the letters which confirmed their charter, Dyre thought to make his advantage thereby, and procured commissions for himself, Capt. Underhill and Edward Hull, to act against the Dutch in America; and some cannon, with twenty men, were sent to the English, on the east end of Long-Island, to enable them to act against the Dutch, who lay to the westward of them. This alarmed Providence colony, who met again in June, and a third time at Warwick, on August 13, when they answered a letter from the Massachusetts, and remonstrated against being drawn into a war with the Dutch; and wrote to Mr. Williams an account of Dyre’s conduct, and of their being urged to give up their former actings as null; but, say they, ‘being still in the same order you left us, and observing two great evils that such a course would bring upon us: First, the hazard of involving in all the disorders and bloodshed which have been committed on Rhode-Island since their separation from us.’ Secondly, ‘the invading and frustrating of justice in divers weighty causes, then orderly depending in our courts, in some of which causes, Mr. Smith, President, William Field, &c. were deeply concerned;’ therefore they could not yield to such a motion.” Mr. Williams and Mr. Clarke continued in England, endeavoring to sustain the rights of the colony. They had many opposers, but they found a steady and powerful friend in Sir Henry Vane.[283] At his seat Mr. Williams spent a portion of his time. While there, he wrote the following letter to the towns of Providence and Warwick. It exhibits his generous self-devotion for the public good, his love for his family, and his characteristic regard for the Indians: “From Sir Henry Vane’s, at Belleau, in Lincolnshire. “_April 1st, 53, (so called.)_