With this spirited correspondence Mrs. Sadlier left the following memorandum: “Full little did he (Sir Edward Coke) think that he (Roger Williams) would have proved such a rebel to God, the king and his country. I leave his letters, that, if ever he has the face to return into his native country, Tyburn may give him welcome.” In spite of his busy days and the importance of the errand which was keeping him in England, Roger Williams was very homesick at times. He yearned to see the faces of his sons and daughters. He longed, too, for his gentle wife--his “dear yoke-fellow”--and even proposed her joining him over-seas in several of his letters. One of the pamphlets he published while abroad (the one that Mrs. Sadlier rejected) was in the form of a letter addressed to Mrs. Williams. It had been written some time before on the occasion of her recovery from a dangerous illness while he was absent from home working among the Indians. Though there is more of the sermon than love-letter about it, still we find these exquisite lines: “My dear love, since it pleaseth the Lord so to dispose of me, and of my affairs at present, that I cannot often see thee, I desire often to send to thee.... I send thee (though in winter) an handful of flowers made up in a little posy, for thy dear self and our dear children, to look and smell on.” Rather flowery language, perhaps, to apply to a religious tract, yet it affords a satisfying glimpse of deep husbandly and fatherly affection. Roger Williams finally made up his mind to return to New England, though the charter matter was not yet closed. It was not alone thoughts of his own immediate family that induced him to make this decision. His larger family--his unruly, quarrelsome colonial family--needed him quite as badly. He therefore left the interests of Providence Plantations in the hands of Mr. Clarke and turned homeward. The English government granted him a safe passage through Massachusetts and, early in the summer of 1654, he landed in Boston. CHAPTER XII ROGER WILLIAMS AS COLONIAL PRESIDENT What the people of Providence Plantations needed and deserved was a good round scolding. They received it in the form of a sharp letter addressed to the colony by Sir Henry Vane and entrusted to Roger Williams. He wrote: