ill
June, 1654, when Williams returned from England. Then Coddington
yielded,[29] and, August 31, commissioners from the four towns voted
to restore the government constituted seven years before. The
consolidation of Rhode Island was perfected when, in 1658,
Massachusetts released her claims to jurisdiction there.[30]

Liberty of conscience as asserted by Roger Williams did not involve
the abrogation of civil restraint, and when one William Harris
disturbed the peace in 1656, by asserting this doctrine in a
pamphlet,[31] Williams, then governor, had a warrant issued for his
apprehension. When, in 1658, Williams retired to private life the
possibility of founding a state in which "religious freedom and civil
order could stand together" was fully proved to the world.[32]

Besides the Indian power, as many as six independent jurisdictions
existed originally in the present state of Connecticut. (1) The Dutch
fort of "Good Hope," established in 1633, on the Connecticut River,
had jurisdiction over a small area of country. (2) The Plymouth colony
owned some territory on the Connecticut River and built a fort there
soon after the Dutch came. (3) Next was the jurisdiction of Fort
Saybrook, the sole evidence of possession on the part of the holders
of a patent from the earl of Warwick, president of the Council for New
England, who claimed to own the whole of Connecticut. (4) A much
larger jurisdiction was that of the Connecticut River towns, settled
in 1635-1636, contemporaneously with the banishment of Roger Williams.
(5) New Haven was settled in 1638, in the height of the Antinomian
difficulties. (6) A claim was advanced by the marquis of Hamilton for
a tract of land running from the mouth of the Connecticut River to
Narragansett Bay, assigned to him in the division of 1635, but it did
not become a disturbing factor till 1665.

The early relations between the Dutch and English colonies were, as we
have seen, characterized by kindness and good-fellowship. The Dutch
advised the Plymouth settlers to remove from their "present barren
quarters," and commended to them the valley of the "Fresh River"
(Connecticut), referring to it as a fine place both for plantation and
trade.[33] Afterwards, some Mohegan Indians visiting Plymouth in 1631
made similar representations. Their chief, Uncas, an able,
unscrupulous, and ambitious savage, made it his great ambition to
attain the headship of his aggressive western neighbors, the Pequots.