ITS MAKING AND ITS MEANING A Survey of the Annals of the Commonwealth from its 1636-1683 BY IRVING BERDINE RICHMAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES BRYCE, M.P., D.C.L. AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH VOLUME I G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS us 14048.1 A NOV 29 1902 LIBRARY COPYRIGHT, 1902 BY IRVING BERDINE RICHMAN The Knickerbocker Press, New York R INTRODUCTION HODE ISLAND is the smallest by far of all the States of the American Union; it has an area of only 1085 square miles, less than that of the County of Ayr in Scotland. But within this narrow space, and with a population which was until in recent years but slender, Providence grew into a great manufacturing city and Newport became the favorite home of wealth and luxury. Rhode Island has had a singularly interesting and eventful history, all the more interesting because in a tiny community the play of personal forces is best seen and the characters of individual men give color to the strife of principles and parties. Thus some touch of that dramatic quality which belongs to the cities of Greece and Italy recurs in this little republic on Narragansett Bay. Unlike in many ways as were the settlers who went forth from England under the Stuarts to the Greeks of two thousand years earlier, some of the questions which troubled both were the same, and bore fruits not wholly dissimilar. Nor are points of likeness wanting to the history of some of the older cantons of Switzerland. Mr. Richman, who is favorably known to stu |