Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/231

TOWN AND COLONrAL LEGISLATION. 181 the town taking into consideration the great destruction of Indian corn by crows, blackbirds and squirrels, agreed that every householder in the town should kill or cause to be killed six of the great sort of blackbirds or six squirrles and one crow should pass in law for two blackbirds or squirrles ; and they were to be killed and their heads brought in, by the loth of the following June, to men appointed for the purpose of counting them ; and if any householder should neglect or refuse this duty, as aforesaid, he shall for his defect, pay two pence for every head that is wanting of the number, at the loth of June; and the committee appointed to count the heads were empowered by the town to prosecute the order and dispose the fines as the law directed. Massachusetts Bay Colony, less liberal than Plymouth, made demand on the town in 171 2 for the establishment of a gospel ministry, when the people gave answer at a full town meeting, by a unanimous vote, " that all the inhabi- tants of this town shall enjoy their conscience liberty, agree- able to the foundation settlement of said town, and are not obliged to uphold and maintain the worship of God else- where than where they choose respectively to belong or to assemble." True to the same principles of conscience liberty as the founders of the town, the people of Swansea, in 17 17, prior to the separation of Barrington, made declaration of the same great truths by the following vote: "After consider- able fair and loving conference with said petitioners upon the premises," it was voted, "that all the inhabitants of the town should enjoy their conscience liberty, according to said foundation establishment of said town ; and are obliged to uphold and maintain the ministry and worship of God, only in the several churches or congregations where they respectively choose to belong or to assemble, and not obliged to support any church but where they partake of its teaching." These are noble words for the town to utter in the first years of the i8th century, when " conscience liberty " as to