The book, which occasioned these transactions, has not been preserved.[65] We know not in what terms Mr. Williams uttered his offensive opinions. The doctrine which he maintained, that the charter from the King of England could not convey to the colonists the right to occupy the lands of the Indians, without their consent, is, in the highest degree, honorable to his head and his heart. He clearly saw the utter absurdity and injustice of the pretension, whether made by the Pope or by a Protestant monarch, of sovereignty over other countries, merely on the ground of prior discovery, or of the barbarous and wandering character of the inhabitants. It may be a useful regulation among nations, that the first discoverers of a country shall possess a superior right to intercourse with the inhabitants for trade or other purposes. But no people, whether Pagans or Christians, can rightfully be subjected to a sway, to which they have not voluntarily submitted. This fundamental principle of human rights applies to the Indians. They were independent tribes, and could, in no sense, be considered as the subjects of the King of England. The fact, that some of his vessels had sailed along their coasts, no more gave him a title to be their sovereign, than the passage of one of their canoes up the Thames would have transferred to Canonicus or Powhatan a claim to the crown of England. If the King possessed no jurisdiction over the Indians, he could not, of course, convey a title to their lands. It was this point on which Mr. Williams insisted with special earnestness. “His own account of this matter,” says Mr. Backus, (vol. i. p. 58,) “informs us, that the sin of the patents which lay so heavy on his mind was, that therein ‘Christian Kings (so called) are invested with a right, by virtue of their _Christianity_, to take and give away the lands and countries of other men.’[66] And he tells us, that this evil so deeply afflicted his soul, that ‘before his troubles and banishment, he drew up a letter, not without the approbation of some of the chiefs of New-England, then tender also upon this point before God, directed unto the King himself, humbly acknowledging the evil of THAT PART of the patent, which respects the donation of lands,’” &c.[67] And the colonists themselves acted, generally, on the very principle which Mr. Williams advocated. They purchased the lands of the natives, for a trifling recompense, as it may seem to us, but such as satisfied the Indians. Cotton Mather states, though he reckons it as a proof of _civility_, that “notwithstanding the patent which they had for the country, they fairly purchased of the natives the several tracts of land which they afterwards possessed.”[68] Dr. Dwight asserts, that “exclusively of the country of the Pequods, the inhabitants of Connecticut bought, unless I am deceived, every inch of ground contained within that colony, of its native proprietors. The people of