George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

[393] therefore ordered by the whole body of freemen, and

Chap. IX.}

‘unanimously agreed upon, that the government, which this body politic doth attend unto in this island, and the jurisdiction thereof, in favor of our Prince, is a Democracie, or popular government; that is to say it is in the power of the body of freemen orderly assembled, or major part of them, to make or constitute just Lawes, by which they will be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man.’¹ ‘It was farther ordered, that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine;’ the law for ‘liberty of conscience was perpetuated.’ The little community was held together by the bonds of affection and freedom of opinion: benevolence was their rule: they trusted in the power of love to win the victory; and ‘the signet for the state’ was ordered to be ‘a sheafe of arrows,’ with ‘the motto Amor Vincet Omnia.’ A patent from England seemed necessary

1641 Sept 9.

for their protection; and to whom could they direct their letters but to the now powerful Henry Vane?²

Such were the institutions which sprung from the party of Anne Hutchinson. But she did not long enjoy their protection. Recovering from a transient dejection of mind, she had gloried in her sufferings, as her greatest happiness;³ and, making her way through the forest, she travelled by land⁴ to the settlement of Roger Williams, and from thence joined her friends on the island, sharing with them the hardships of early