Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/178

CHAPTER X THE INCORPORATION OF SWANSEA Population — Plymouth Democracy — Separation of Town and Church — Principles of Town and State Government — Willett, Brown, and Myles, the Founders — Grant of New Swansea, 1667 — Plymouth Court — Orders relative to the New Town — Captain Willett's Pro- posals — Reply of Mr. T^Iyles and his Church — Proposals Ratified by Town — Inhabitants Subscribe to Agreement — An Act to Prevent Unworthy Citizenship. PRIOR to 1667, the attractions of climate, soil, meadows — fresh and salt, and the shell and fin fisheries of the bay and rivers, had led many people from the eastern towns of Ply- mouth Colony to make their homes at Sowams, " The garden of the Patent," as Standish and Winslow called it. The eminent respectability of the proprietors undoubtedly had much to do in influencing the best class of New England emigrants to settle on this territory bordering on Narragan- sett Bay, and the Sowams River. So many settlers had come, to the number of two hundred, probably, the formation of a town was talked of, for this was the first step towards the goal of their purpose, a free government. The organization of towns and the establishment of town governments after the democratic order, belong by right of origin to New England. The town was the germ of the the state. From Plymouth and Providence sprang the com- monwealths of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Provi- dence Plantations. The original settlers formed a pure democracy with inherent rights for determining the policy of the settlement, the character of its inhabitants, the ofifi- cers who should govern them, and the spirit and form of the laws which should control them. As the population of the first settlement increased, the nature of the government