Early Rhode Island

rt took the initiative, and her political ascendancy prevailed in the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations for a century and a quarter. The tendencies of the Coddington party toward strong government did not immediately affect the Newport plantation. In March, 1641, they could enact sensibly " the Government which this Bodie Politick doth attend unto in this Island, and the Jurisdiction thereof, in favor of our Prince is a Democracie, or Popular Government." 12 This democracy lasted until the union of the towns under the royal charter in 1647. (jn 1644, they adopted the name " Isle of Rodes, or Rhode Island." 13 The name according to Williams, as confirmed by the best modern research, is "in Greek an Isle of Roses.'14 The land system of the Island was like that of Providence generally, and an important act ordained in 1640- 41 that, " none be accounted a delinquent for Doctrine: Provided it be not " directly repugnant to the Government or Lawes established." The settlers at Portsmouth would have been Congregationalists had the ruling powers at the Bay permitted. Winthrop says, in 1639, " they gathered a church in a very disordered way; for they took some excommunicated persons, and others who were members of the Church at Boston and not dismissed." And the lawyer Lechford, more orthodox than the par- " " R. I. Col. Rec.," Vol. 1, 112. is/6id, 127. i4 Cf. Brigham, " R. I.," p. 51. ; -1 1640] Separation of Baptists and Quakers 59 sons ...