At the time he sailed (June, 1643), the principal Narragansett Bay settlements were Providence, those on the island of Aquidneck--Portsmouth and Newport--and the infant settlement of Warwick. During the seven years of its existence, Providence had continued to stand boldly for religious freedom. Aquidneck, too, while entirely separate from her sister colony, had been liberal from the beginning, as is shown by her court record of 1641, “that liberty of conscience in point of doctrine is perpetuated.” Roger Williams would have preferred to engage passage from Boston, but once more the Massachusetts authorities refused to let him enter their territory. He therefore decided to embark from New Amsterdam. Many persons in that Dutch settlement had reason to be thankful for the happy providence that sent him their way. A fierce Indian uprising was in progress, due largely to the ill-treatment of the savages by the whites. Roger Williams’ fame must have gone before him, for the settlers pleaded with him to save them. With his usual gracious willingness, he became peace-maker and with his customary success. Unhappily, many frightful tragedies had already occurred. Among these was the murder of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and members of her family who had moved from Aquidneck to the Dutch colony. The long, uncertain voyage that lay ahead of Roger Williams was most unlike the rapid crossings made in our modern luxurious ocean steamers that can calculate almost to an hour the length of the journey. Heavy seas, storms, contrary winds all had to be taken into account. Realizing the delay that might thus be caused, our traveler used his leisure to put together the Indian “Key,” as we have seen. It was a very different England which Roger Williams found in 1643 from that which he had left thirteen years before. Then royalty and bishops had been triumphant; now the king was a fugitive and the Star Chamber a thing of the past. The country was passing through a dreadful civil war. Parliament was fighting for its rights, long trampled upon, and it was a question whether that body or the king would win out in the end. The struggle was for both civil and religious freedom. Disturbed though the kingdom was, it was the very best occasion for Roger Williams to present his request. Parliament needed all the friends it could get on both sides of the water. It therefore listened with attention to what he had to say.