In 1643, Williams went to England to obtain a charter for his plantation. He “found all in a flame; civil war raging, Hampden just killed, Charles fled from London, and the city and the government in the hands of the Parliament.” Here he lived on intimate terms with Sir Harry Vane and Milton, kindred spirits, who were doing in England what he had done in America. His mission was successful, and a twelvemonth later he returned to Providence with a liberal patent, the free-will offering of jubilant democracy across the water.[873] Eight years later, under the Protectorate, Roger Williams once more visited England on colonial business; and his admission and recognition among the foremost thinkers of the time were general and hearty. The acquaintance with Vane and Milton was continued, and Marvell and Cromwell were added to his list of friends.[874] But his heart was in America, and in 1654 he came back to Providence;[875] whereupon he was elected president of the cluster of plantations which, in after-days, were moulded into the little state of Rhode Island.[876] For many years Williams and his colony were under the frown of their brother Pilgrims; but through it all they bore cheerily up, trusting to God, time, and success, to remove all prejudice, and “keeping always to that one principle, ‘that every man should have liberty to worship God according to the light of his own conscience.’”[877] Roger Williams had learned that most difficult of lessons, to return good for evil. He never wearied in well-doing; and his fine tact, broad statesmanship, and friendly zeal, on more than one occasion came between the colonists who had flung him into dishonorable banishment and impending harm.[878] With the Indians he was singularly influential, and frequently his presence at their camp-fires and in their wigwams served to explode a maturing conspiracy.[879] On the Restoration, an event occurred which finely illustrates the beautiful text, that “He who goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” The American republican had been the warm friend and coadjutor of Cromwell, and Milton, and Pym. When Charles II. came to the throne, all looked to see his hand stretched across the Atlantic to menace and chastise. It was outstretched, but only to bless; for the foppish Stuart actually renewed the charter which the wise Protector had first granted to the Providence plantations. He paid unconscious homage to the principle of Roger Williams, and assented to what Gammel calls “the freest paper that ever bore the signature of a king—the wonder of the age.”[880]