“I first pitched and began to build at Seekonk, now Rehoboth, but I received a letter from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, then Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others’ love and respect to me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay, to remove but to the other side of the water, and then, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be as free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together.” Discouraging news, indeed! Was there never to be peace or rest for the banished one? “And surely, between those, my friends of the Bay and Plymouth, I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean, beside the yearly loss of no small matter in my trading with English and natives, being debarred from Boston, the chief mart and port of New England. God knows that many thousand pounds cannot repay the losses I have sustained.” With his face again set toward some new, unknown home, Roger Williams began reconnoitering. By this time (probably June, 1636), he had been joined by a fifth refugee from Salem, Joshua Verin--perhaps several others. One day, embarking in a canoe, Roger Williams sailed down the Seekonk River and crossed to the opposite shore. The story is told that at a jagged point, later called Slate Rock, the Indians came down to the water’s edge and greeted him with the friendly cry, “What cheer, Netop?” or, in other words, “How do you do, friend?” Kindly words, even though they came from the lips of savages! Best of all, the voyager was not asked to “move on.” Was it not a good omen that in his search for a permanent home, he should be greeted first of all by the Indians with whom he had labored so faithfully and lovingly? Whatcheer Field, in the vicinity of the rock, became the property of Roger Williams and was used by him for planting. The historic rock itself is now hidden underground back from the shore, but the spot has been marked by a monument dedicated “to the memory of Roger Williams, the Apostle of Soul Liberty.” The story of the meeting of the red men and their white friend has been further preserved in the form of the city seal of Providence. [Illustration: This monument, erected in 1906, is dedicated “To the memory of Roger Williams, the Apostle of Soul Liberty.” It is at the foot of Williams St., Providence, in Roger Williams Square, given to the city by the heirs of Governor James Fenner. A bronze bas-relief shows the landing of Roger Williams and his friends. The monument bears these words: “Below this spot, then at the water’s edge, stood the rock on which, according to tradition, Roger Williams, an exile for his devotion to freedom of conscience, landed 1636.”]