When the general court met in September, Salem was punished with the loss of representation, and thereupon gave way and submitted.  Not so Williams.  In October, 1635, he was again “convented,” and on his refusing, in the presence of all the ministers of the colony, to renounce his opinions, he was banished from Massachusetts.  The time given him to depart was only six weeks, and though some of the laymen in the church opposed the decree, every clerical member save one approved it.

Liberty to remain till spring was afterwards granted Williams, but he was admonished not to go about to draw others to his opinions.  As Williams was one of those contentious people who must talk, this inhibition was futile.  It is true that he no longer preached in his church, as the congregation had submitted to the will of those in power.  But he conversed in private with some of his friends, and arranged a plan of establishing a new settlement on the shores of Narragansett Bay.

When information of this design reached Boston in January, 1636, the authorities, on the plea that an heretical settlement in the neighborhood might affect the peace of the colony, determined to get rid of Williams altogether by shipping him to England.  An order was sent to him to come to Boston, which he declined to obey on account of ill-health.  Captain Underhill was then sent to take him by force, but before the doughty captain could arrive, Williams, getting intelligence of his purpose, sick as he was, left his wife and two infant children and hurried away, and no one at Salem would give Underhill any information.[7]

Thirty-five years later Williams wrote, “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bed or bread did mean.”  In this extremity he experienced the benefits of the friendly relations which he had cultivated with the Indians at Plymouth, for the Pokanokets received him kindly and gave him some land on the Seekonk River.

The long arm of the Massachusetts authorities reached out for him even here.  He was soon advised by his friend, Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, that as his plantation was within the limits of the Plymouth colony he had better remove to the other side of the river, as his government was “loath to displease the Bay.”  So Williams, with five of his friends, who now joined him, embarked in his canoe and established his settlement in June, 1636, at Providence, where he was joined by many members of the church of Salem.[8] This was the beginning of Rhode Island, or, rather, of one of the beginnings of their complex colony.

The religion of the ruling class in Massachusetts, though bitterly hostile to the ritual of the English church, was a matter of strict regulation—­there were rules regarding fast days, Sabbath attendance, prayer-meetings, apparel, and speech.  The wrath of God and eternal punishment formed the substance of every sermon.  In the church at Boston this rigid system found a standard exponent in the pastor, John Wilson; but the “teacher,” John Cotton, a man of far greater ability, sometimes preached sermons in which he dwelt upon the divine mercy and love.  The result was that the people crowded to hear him, and more persons were converted and added to the church in Boston in the earlier months of Cotton’s residence than in all the other churches in the colony.[9]