- wise set forth to Williams, has continued to the present day in
the possession of his descendants. We are probably indebted to the name which Williams gave the first mentioned field, for the preservation of this tradition.
STANZA XXXVII.
Ay, almost hears the future pavements jar
Beneath a people's wealth, and half divines
From thee, Soul-Liberty! what glories wait
Thy earliest altars—thy predestined state.
To show that Williams was not without a presentiment of the temporal advantages that might arise to his projected settlement, from a full liberty in religious concernments, I quote the following from his memorial to Parliament, prefixed to his Bloody Tenent made more bloody, &c. Speaking of Holland he says: "From Enchuysen, therefore, a den of persecuting lions and mountain leopards, the persecuted fled to Amsterdam, a poor fishing town, yet harborous and favorable to the flying, though dissenting consciences. This confluence of the persecuted, by God's most gracious coming with them, drew boats—drew trade—drew shipping, and that so mightily in so short a time, that shipping, trade, wealth, greatness, honor, (almost to astonishment in the eyes of all Europe and the world), have appeared to fall, as out of Heaven, in a crown or garland upon the head of this poor fishertown."
STANZA XL.
From wild Pawtucket to Pawtuxet's bounds,
To thee and thine be all the teeming grounds.
The first grant made by Canonicus and Miantonomi to Williams, appears to have been a verbal grant of all the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshausick and Wanaskatucket; but on the 24th of March, 1637, they confirmed this grant by deed, and, in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he was constantly rendering them, made the bounds Pawtuxet river on the south, Pawtucket on the northwest, and the town of Mashapauge on the west, This grant includes nearly all the county of Providence, and a part of the county of Kent.
