of the whole duty of a State, these non-resistants left the weak colony in poor preparation for the great Indian warfare of 16751676. Wealthy and isolated, Newport and the island did not suffer incursion from the savages. Mr. Richman, in the Making of Rhode Island, cites Roger Williams as criticising our subject for inhospitality at Newport toward refugees from Providence. "Doth Mr. Coddington think to be so high a saint. .. yet in men's account loves the world exceedingly?" 1

This should not be construed too literally or exactly in considering the relative characters of Williams and Coddington. The best parts of the one were directly opposed to the better constituents of the other. Coddington believed in a severely tangible structure regulated by law and justice. Williams, reaching out for spiritual things beyond the scope of previous governments, relied on his individual soul to do right and wisely. The two differing men could not coalesce in any imperfect system of government practicable in the seventeenth century.

Certainly Coddington's fellow citizens soon forgave his errors and gave him their confidence in the administration of affairs. His portrait hangs in the council chamber at Newport-a memorial from a grateful people. In discussing the history of his appeal to England and vagaries of "usurpation," we must not forget the immense obligation to him, first of the local community and finally of the whole colony of Rhode Island, for forging out the structure of legal society. It is not easy to make a government, especially when that government is moving on lines new and untried, as the men explore new fields.

Chief Justice Thomas Durfee 2 remarks that in less than three years in the beginning of the island plantations, these common Anglo-Saxon freemen advanced from a town meeting to "a well organized judiciary," excellently suited to their wants and fully equipped for the dispensation of justice according to the methods and principles of the common law. The code has a homogeneity, as if, how many soever may have contributed to it, some one master mind had given it form and character. "If it was Coddington's, then to Coddington," whatever his subsequent demerit, belongs the unforfeitable credit of it. We may observe that John Clarke was the only 1 R. I. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1875-1876. 2 Judicial History of R. I., 6, 7.

other man among the planters who had sufficient ability for such an undertaking. His education was that of a physician, while his tastes and final calling carried him into the ministry.

This system of justice and judicial organization lasted with little change for some two centuries. It was adopted substantially by Providence Plantations. We can hardly comprehend how Rhode Island and Roger Williams' party could have endured and become a State capable of endurance without this legal structure or something like it. Williams and his nearest friends while marvellous in estimating and trusting the capacity of the individual soul in meeting the main responsibility of life, in the power of religion in brief, — had no conception of the action of law and government in the common necessities of daily living.

Coddington died in 1678, or about the time when the founders of these colonies were departing life and their civilization was becoming fairly settled. Every one studying the records has regarded him as possessing a strong intellect, excepting Doctor Palfrey. The doctor was not judicial in estimating either Antinomians or Quakers. He said of our subject:

Whether it was owing most to want of balance and want of force in his mind and character, or to the perversity of those whom he had undertaken to improve, profit, and govern, his hold on their confidence had not proved lasting. Happily for his peace of mind, from Antinomian he had turned Quaker; and the visions and controversies of his sect provided him with resources for enjoyment in his declining years.1

In our day this may be called a chromatic scale of dissolving views.

We may admit that his character lacked balance and could not carry through common life the power of his intellectual conceptions. Many men can conceive propositions, who cannot stand up against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, in meeting the ills of conduct and government. Let us turn to the wise comment of a true Rhode Islander, whose philosophic

1 Palfrey, New England (ed. 1882), III. 444. A little-known tract against the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts was written by Coddington and printed in London in 1674. It has for a title: A Demonstration of True Love unto you the Rulers of the Colony of the Massachusets, etc.

survey took in the whole world and was not limited like the ideals of Puritan enthusiasts. "He had in him a little too much of the future for Massachusetts, and a little too much of the past for Rhode Island, as she then was." This better renders the curious inconsistency of the then times, which only derive importance from their incipient future and are not necessary models for all time.

Doctor Turner, writing in 1878,1 while commenting very severely upon Coddington for his course in the "Usurpation,' treats his character very reasonably. The qualities of mind come out as he depicts his career.

The faults of Coddington seem to me, those growing out of a weakness of character, rather than of wrong intent. He grew up probably in a position of wealth and importance under a strong government, and imbibed those sentiments of respect for authority which are natural to his class. He came to Massachusetts already alleged as an important member of the Council of Government, and so remained until his last year in Massachusetts, and, as he undoubtedly expected, was immediately acknowledged as the leading member of the settlement at Rhode Island. As the recognized head of that community, then in perfect accord with common objects and common interests, with no particular reason to anticipate differences which eventually arose, he very naturally looked at the very republican form of the institution they adopted, himself being the leading spirit, through a rose colored medium. But when the selfishness of human nature had had time to mature its never failing crop of differences and animosities, and his own superior consequence and influence began to decline, he began, as most men do, to lose his faith in the capacity of men to govern themselves, and could see no way to secure the young settlement from destruction, but the restoration of his own authority, under a form which should make it independent of the caprice of the people. Almost any man would be in favor of monarchy if he could be king.

The best recognition history can give Coddington is to emphasize the new confidence awarded him by his fellow pioneers, after he recanted the errors of his "usurpation." This proves the essential integrity of the man, though the ruler and governor had been found wanting. Over and beyond the lesser details of his career, stands the stability of the

1 R. I. Historical Tracts, No. 4, 49.

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colony and State of Rhode Island. The outcast community of Providence Plantations, possessing only soul-liberty, new and non-effective political doctrine then, - built itself up on the rock of Coddington's law and justice. A State maintaining the freedom of the soul then, has come to be one of the world's monuments now.

Governor LONG read a paper upon

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE.

Col. W. R. Livermore's paper descriptive of the first day at the battle of Gettysburg is so instructive that it is to be hoped that he will give us also the second and third days. Military campaigns and battles are a prolific source of differences of view and opinion, which are as many as there are critics. Our President, Mr. Adams, has in his recent paper renewed the emphasis of the caution with which we should form an estimate of Washington as a commander of an army, and his paper has to some extent suggested this one of mine. Equal caution is needed when we consider General Grant or General Lee or any other captain.

General Lee is the foremost figure on the Southern side of our great Civil War. He seems to me to be, more than any other American, like Washington in character and quality. Had the South succeeded, he too would have been a Father of his country. Neither of these men was a great genius; each was a great good man, using that term as defining excellence of character and quality. But that Lee is to be reckoned among the greatest military commanders, as is sometimes claimed for him, seems to me to be a mistaken estimate. I say "seems to me," remembering that I know nothing of military science, and am among the least qualified to pass judgment in that respect. Yet I am one of the overwhelming majority of the uninformed mass who have to make up our minds for ourselves as best we can.

There is no question of Lee's commanding ability, his masterful movements, his brilliant successes against odds. But as Washington made mistakes, as Grant made mistakes, as General Sherman, if I remember rightly, made few mistakes [here Mr. Adams, our President, interrupts me to say that General Sher

man made many mistakes but never repeated them, to which I reply that a man who never repeats a mistake may be said never to make one], so General Lee made mistakes and at Gettysburg so blundered that he there gave a death blow to the Southern Confederacy and made it a lost cause.

His campaign in West Virginia at the beginning of the war was anything but successful or promising. In the Peninsular campaign in 1862 he once or twice so rashly divided and weakened his lines that only the fighting incompetency and utter lack of initiative on the part of McClellan saved the Confederate army from disaster and Richmond from falling. His assault on Malvern was either ill-judged or ill-directed, and was disastrous. At Fredericksburg Lee was chargeable with the same inertness which our President, Mr. Adams, justly charges upon General Howe in letting Washington after the battle transport his troops across the East River to New York-Lee permitting the federals to cross back over the Rappahannock when he had their rear at his mercy. At Chancellorsville he again divided his army and exposed its wings to successive annihilation by our overwhelming numbers, had Hooker had all his reins in his hands and been capable of driving his big team - a wretched condition on which Lee could not have counted. That he won the battle is not so much due to generalship or an evidence of it, as it is due to luck in the incapacity of the "other feller" and in the lack of the most ordinary vigilance on the part of some of the "other feller's" corps and division commanders, of all which Lee had, however, at that time no proof.

The safety of the Southern Confederacy was in its army's remaining on the defensive. There Lee had found himself invulnerable for a long time. When he crossed into Maryland in 1862 and again in 1863, he made the mistake that Mr. Adams suggests that Washington made in advancing to the Brandywine, and thereby turned what had till then been the certainty of defence into the risk and failure of attack.

At Gettysburg is it too much to say that Lee lost his head, which a captain of the first rank does not do? Successful on the first day, he was at sea on the second. Leaving Longstreet to press the attack on the right, he failed to move Ewell to Longstreet's support with the great corps which Ewell commanded