The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... twenty-three as Deputy Governor, dying in office, May 23, 1714, at the age of seventy-four. When Mr. Clarke was a Deputy in 1667, the burning question was the protection of the Colony from the threatened invasion of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Governor and Council was authorized to raise and equip men, horses, vessels, to erect beacons, to alarm the towns, to establish and maintain forts and other defences, to appoint and commission officers and commanders for special service and to dispose of the military and artillery as they should see fit. The threatened invasion was based on the claim that the Bay Colony made to certain territory within the Rhode Island Patent. In 1668 the contest as to the disputed jurisdiction of Connecticut over the Narragansett country and the Pawcatuck river, including the present town of Westerly, waxed warm and decisive, and as a result the town of Westerly was created in 1669, the fifth town in the Colony. When Mr. Clarke came to the Governorship in 1676, as successor to Governor Coddington, the terrible ravages of Philip's War had wasted the towns of the Colony for nearly a year. Rhode Island disapproved of the war, for the reason that she was not a member of the New England Confederacy and not bound to take part in hostilities provoked by the other Colonies. The government too was in the hands of the Quakers, whose policy was peace, not war. The Narragansett Swamp Fight on December 19, 1675, m which a force of eleven hundred and thirty-five men from Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Connecticut Colonies nearly annihilated the Narragansetts, was an invasion of Rhode Island territory, which the Colony had occasion to resent. Notwithstanding these things, the law of self-preservation asserted itself and Governor...