Rhode-Island, Plymouth, Massachusetts and New-Hampshire, proceeded wholly in the same equitable manner. Until Philip’s war, in 1675, not a single foot of ground was claimed or occupied by the colonists on any other score but that of fair purchase.”[69] These facts are honorable to the pilgrims, and assuredly Roger Williams is entitled to some praise for steadily advocating this policy from the beginning. He, perhaps, construed the patent with too much rigor. The King did not, it may be, mean all that his lofty royal style implied. In his patent to the Plymouth Company, he alludes to the “wonderful plague” which had raged among the natives, and left the “large and goodly territories deserted as it were by the natural inhabitants.” He nevertheless calls himself the “sovereign lord” of the whole continent, and therefore by his “special grace, mere motion, and certain knowledge,” gives and grants to the Company a large part of the continent, from sea to sea, without intimating that any rights belonged to the natives. A warm friend to the Indians might easily construe such an instrument as a designed and flagrant usurpation of their rights. We have seen how the colonists of New-England practised under the patent, and Mr. Cotton, in his reply to Roger Williams, affirms: “It was neither the King’s intendment, nor the English planters’, to take possession of the country by murder or by robbery, but either to take possession of the void places of the country, by the law of nature, (for _vacuum domicilium cedit occupanti_) or if we took any lands from the natives, it was by way of purchase and free consent. We have not our land merely by right of patent from the King, but that the natives are true owners of all that they possess or improve. Neither do I know any amongst us, that either then were, or now are, of another mind.” Bloody Tenet Washed, p. 26. But this subject deserves a more full consideration than we can here give it. The suggestions now offered may suffice to exhibit the upright integrity and sound judgment which drew from Mr. Williams his declarations in favor of the natives. It seems, that his book discussed the abstract question, and probably it was called forth by some expression of the opposite doctrine. It was not intended for the public eye, but was a private communication to the Governor and other gentlemen of Plymouth. He could not be charged with a public attack in this book on the charter. Nor is it certain, that he questioned the authority of the charter, so far as it could operate without an infringement of the rights of the Indians. He was, indeed, charged by Mr. Cotton (Hubbard, 210) with insisting that the charter ought to be returned to the King. This would certainly have been very unwise, but we can hardly suppose that Mr. Williams would carry his opposition to this unreasonable length. Winthrop does not intimate that any such opinion was expressed, and Mr. Cotton may have misunderstood Mr. Williams’ real meaning.