man who fearlessly asserted his principles, and practiced upon them to their fullest extent. Persecution could not drive him to a renunciation of his opinions. His observance of any principle which he adopted was conscientiously strict; but this very strictness of observance had its advantages, in enabling him with more certainty to detect any latent error which his opinions involved. He was as free to declare his errors as he was to assert whatever appeared to him to be right. His very honesty in this respect has given occasion to his enemies to brand his character with inconsistency and apostacy; but he remained true to every principle espoused by him, which posterity has since sanctioned, and inconstant in those things only which are unimportant in themselves, and which are unsettled even in the present day. A tacit confession of his own fallibility was implied in the great principle of which he was the earliest asserter, that government ought not to interfere in matters of conscience; and therein consisted a wide difference between his errors, whatever they were, and those of his persecutors. This fact, in estimating the character of Williams, cannot be too well considered.
"Subsequently to his banishment, he was permitted to remain until spring, on condition that he did not attempt to draw others to his opinions." But the friends of Williams could not consent to see their favorite pastor leave them, without frequently visiting him whilst they yet had an opportunity. In these interviews, the plan of establishing a colony in the Narraganset country, where the principle of Religious Freedom (the assertion of which had been the chief cause of his banishment) should be carried into effect, was discussed and matured. It is also highly probable that he did not fail to do what he conceived to be the duty of a faithful pastor in other respects. At length the rumor of these meetings reached the ears of the civil authorities; and in January, 1635, (O. S.,) "The governor and assistants," says Winthrop, "met in Boston to consider about Mr. Williams; for they were credibly informed, that he, notwithstanding the injunction laid upon him, (upon liberty granted him to stay until spring,) not to go about to draw others to his opinions, did use to entertain company in his house, and to preach to them even of such points as he had been sentenced for; and it was agreed to send him into England by a ship then ready to depart. The reason was because
