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HISTORY OF THE COLONIES.
[BOOK I.
bay extendeth southerly unto the mouth of the river running towards Providence and thence along the easterly side or bank of the said river up to the falls, called Patucket Falls, and thence in a strait line due north till it meets the Massachusetts line.[1] The territory was to be holden as of the manor of East Greenwich in free and common soccage. It further secured a free trade with all the other colonies.
§ 97. But the most remarkable circumstance in the charter, and that, which exhibits the strong feeling and spirit of the colony, is the provision respecting religious freedom. The charter, after reciting the petition of the inhabitants, "that it is much in their hearts, (if they be permitted,) to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and be best maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments, and that true piety, rightly grounded upon gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignty," proceeds to to declare:[2] "We being willing to encourage the hopeful undertaking of our said loyal and loving subjects, and to secure them in the free exercise and enjoyment of all their civil and religious rights appertaining to them as our loving subjects, and to preserve to them that liberty in the true Christian faith and worship of God, which they have sought with so much travel, and with peaceful minds and loyal subjection to our royal progenitors and ourselves to enjoy; and because some of the people and inhabitants of the same colony cannot, in their private opinion, conform to the public exercise of