The magistrates, though deeply "incensed" against him, probably felt at the last some reluctance to banish such a man. Six weeks were accorded him in which to leave. Winthrop, who was Williams's friend, and who seems to have been loath to consent to his banishment, wrote to him to "steer his course for Narragansett Bay," where there was territory beyond the bounds of Massachusetts and Plymouth. The forest journeys or boat voyages to Boston and back, the bitter controversies there, and the uproar of indignation which was produced in Salem by the news of the verdict, the desertion of Williams by Endecott, convinced by force, and by Sharpe, the ruling elder, who had been also dealt with, the natural yielding of the Salem church after a while to the pressure from the General Court, and to the desire of the townsmen to secure the lands at Marble Neck, put a strain on Williams which, added to his necessary toil in the field, broke his health and he fell ill. The General Court probably also felt the recoil of its act. When six weeks had expired consent was given that Williams should remain during the winter provided he would refrain from preaching. But Williams was in Salem, and in Salem he was the center of interest--just now he was the center of explosion. It was impossible for the great Separatist to be silent. A few faithful friends, come-outers like himself, clave to him and repudiated as he did communion with the church at Salem, which could condone the offenses of the magistrates for the sake of "these children's toys of land, meadows, cattle, and government." These fellow-Separatists, some of whom perhaps had removed from Plymouth out of love for this unworldly saint, loved him none the less for his courage and his sorrows. They frequented his house on Sunday as he convalesced. Indeed, the attachment to him was so great that the "ordinances" which had been appointed by the magistrates and enforced on Salem as the price of the common land on Marble Neck, were neglected and almost deserted. Williams could not refrain from speech with this concourse of visitors, and at length word came to Boston that more than twenty persons had definitely adhered to the opinions of their former teacher, unconvinced by the argument of the rod of justice applied to Endecott and Sharpe, or by the valuable land on Marble Neck. These disciples proposed to remove in the spring with Williams to the shores of Narragansett Bay. This might meet the approval of the sagacious and kindly Winthrop, who had directed Williams's attention to that promising place, and who foresaw perhaps the usefulness of such a man in the dangerous Indian crisis now threatening the colony. But to devotees of uniformity, the prospect of a community on the very border of the land of the saints tolerating all sorts of opinionists was insufferable. When once the civil government weights itself with spiritual considerations, its whole equilibrium is disturbed. Liberty