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The Flight of Roger Williams: England

He must be sent back to England, or he will break up our religion," said the Puritan leaders, and they straightway ordered him before the General Court.

Little mercy did they show the brave minister. "Back you go to England in six weeks, or else you must stop preaching those dangerous doctrines," was what they told him. "I shall not go to England. I came here to find freedom for my conscience and here I find nothing but persecution. You are trying to do in America the very thing for which we left England," replied Williams boldly.

So he went on preaching his own doctrines and the Puritans decided to seize him, put him on board a ship, and send him to England. The kind Governor Winthrop secretly sent him word that he had better escape, or else he would be arrested.

When Williams received the message, he hastily left his wife and children, and, taking a package of food and a heavy cane, committed himself to the wilderness. It was mid-winter when he started.

The ground was covered with snow, and he had only a small pocket compass to guide him through the forest. Fearing that the officers of the General Court would try to overtake him, he traveled only at night, hiding by day in caves or in the deep shelter of the woods.

Thus he wandered for fourteen weeks. At night he built a fire as best he could, and cooked the game he had caught in the snow. Oftentimes he had only acorns to eat. If it had not been for the wigwams of his Indian friends, which he found along his journey, he would have frozen to death; and but for their aid he would long since have starved.