power over men’s consciences, so long as humane orders in poynt of civility are not corrupted and voyalated, which our neighbors aboute us doe frequently practise, whereof many of us have large experience, and doe judge it to bee no less than a poynt of absolute crueltie.”[57] On the collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth in England, Samuell Gorton was appointed on a Committee to select agents of the Colony in England, and prepare an address to his Majesty, King Charles the Second.[58] As a result of this action, and of the wise intercession of John Clarke, then representing the Colony in England, the Charter of 1663 was secured, in which Samuell Gorton was named as one of the incorporators of the new Commonwealth. In 1663 he was also appointed by the Town Council “overseer” of the will of John Smith, Deputy from Warwick, under the curious provision by which the towns in Rhode Island made wills for persons dying intestate, dividing their property according to the communal sense of justice. In 1666, after the purchase of Pomham’s claim, Mr. Gorton was assigned ten shares in Warwick Neck, and was still further recognized in another division in the following year.[59] In 1675, during the storm and stress of King Philip’s war, tradition says that Samuell Gorton’s life was saved by friendly Indians, who rowed him across the Bay to a place of safety. He was always on amicable terms with the aborigines, treating them justly, teaching and exhorting in their settlements, and wisely advising them in various emergencies. Warwick suffered severely in the contest with King Philip, which would doubtless have been prevented had the policy of Roger Williams and Samuell Gorton in dealing with the Indians been generally adopted. The town was depopulated, the houses and barns were burned, and the cattle driven into the wilderness. A pitched battle was fought in an open cedar swamp in Warwick between the Indians under Canonchet and a company of men from Plymouth.[60] Many of the colonists took refuge on Aquidneck, the waters around which were patrolled night and day by a flotilla of four boats, filled with armed men. Judge Staples tells us that John Wickes, the friend and colleague of Samuell Gorton, trusting too implicitly to the friendship of the savages, remained and was slain; his head being set upon a pole as a warning to others. In this, he must be mistaken, however, since the will of John Wickes, dated the second day of March, 1688, and signed by himself, though written and witnessed by Samuell Gorton, the younger, may be seen to-day in the library of the Historical Society in Providence. This interesting document also contains the signatures of two others of the founders, of Warwick,—Randall Holden, the justice before whom it was proved, and John Greene, who signs in behalf of himself and the other members of the Town Council.