After Williams had built and planted at Seekonk, he was visited by a messenger from Plymouth with a letter from Winslow, then Governor. Professing his and others’ friendship for him, he lovingly advised Williams, since he had fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay, to remove but to the other side of the water, and there he had the country before him, and might be as free as themselves, and they should be loving neighbors together.--See Williams’ letter to Mason. Mass. His. Col. STANZA XLV. _Thy purchase feigned was by the prophet shown To Dudley, and by him to us made known._ Williams, in his letter to Mason, says, that Governor Winthrop and some of the council of Massachusetts were disposed to recall him from banishment, and confer upon him some mark of distinguished favor for his services. “It is known,” says Williams, “who hindered--who never promoted the liberty of other men’s consciences.” Mr. Davis, in a note to his edition of the New England Memorial, conjectures that he alludes to Mr. Dudley. The reader will not consider me as doing violence to historical probability, by supposing that this man gave information to the magistrates of Plymouth that Williams had established himself within the limits of their patent, and required his expulsion. He was the author of the following lines: “Let men of God in courts and churches watch O’er such as do a toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison all with heresy and vice. If men be left and otherwise combine, My epitaph’s I dy’d no libertine.” Yet we ought, perhaps, to blame the system, rather than the magistrate whose duty it was to carry it into effect. STANZA XLVII. _God gave James Stuart this, and James gave us._ The patents of the companies which settled in this country granted them lands without any reference to the rights of the natives. But the companies never availed themselves of these grants to that extent. Whatever may have been their opinions, they acted under them as if they had only invested them with the right of pre-emption. Cotton Mather is the only historian, that I recollect, who makes a merit of paying the Indians for their lands, and of not expelling them immediately from the soil in virtue of these patents. CANTO NINTH. STANZA III. _Early that morn, beside the tranquil flood, Where, ready trimmed, rode Waban’s frail canoe, The banished man, his spouse and children stood, And bade their lately blooming hopes adieu._