There could never, of course, be a doubt as to who drew up this state paper.  During his last visit to England, three years before, Roger Williams had spent several weeks at Sir Harry Vane’s country house in Lincolnshire, and he had also been intimately associated with Cromwell and Milton.  The views of these great men were the most advanced of that age.  They were coming to understand the true principle upon which toleration should be based. (See my Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp. 247, 289-293.) Vane had said in Parliament, “Why should the labours of any be suppressed, if sober, though never so different?  We now profess to seek God, we desire to see light!” [Sidenote:  Roger Williams appeals to Cromwell]

This Williams called a “heavenly speech.”  The sentiment it expressed was in accordance with the practical policy of Cromwell, and in the appeal of the president of Rhode Island to the Lord Protector one hears the tone with which friend speaks to friend.

In thus protecting the Quakers, Williams never for a moment concealed his antipathy to their doctrines.  The author of “George Fox digged out of his Burrowes,” the sturdy controversialist who in his seventy-third year rowed himself in a boat the whole length of Narragansett bay to engage in a theological tournament against three Quaker champions, was animated by nothing less than the broadest liberalism in his bold reply to the Federal Commissioners in 1657.  The event showed that under his guidance the policy of Rhode Island was not only honourable but wise.  The four confederated colonies all proceeded to pass laws banishing Quakers and making it a penal offence for shipmasters to bring them to New England.  These laws differed in severity.  Those of Connecticut, in which we may trace the influence of the younger John Winthrop, were the mildest; those of Massachusetts were the most severe, and as Quakers kept coming all the more in spite of them, they grew harsher and harsher.  At first the Quaker who persisted in returning was to be flogged and imprisoned at hard labour, next his ears were to be cut off, and for a third offence his tongue was to be bored with a hot iron.  At length in 1658, the Federal Commissioners, sitting at Boston with Endicott as chairman, recommended capital punishment.  It must be borne in mind that the general reluctance toward prescribing or inflicting the death penalty was much weaker then than now.  On the statute-books there were not less than fifteen capital crimes, including such offences as idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, marriage within the Levitical degrees, “presumptuous sabbath-breaking,” and cursing or smiting one’s parents. [26] The infliction of the penalty, however, lay practically very much within the discretion of the court, and was generally avoided except in cases of murder or other heinous felony.  In some of these ecclesiastical offences the statute seems to have served the purpose of a threat, and was therefore perhaps the more easily enacted.  Yet none of the colonies except Massachusetts now adopted the suggestion of the Federal Commissioners and threatened the Quakers with death. [Sidenote:  Laws passed against the Quakers]