had given
control into the hands of Parliament; and then a general meeting was
held at Portsmouth consisting of the freemen of Warwick, Portsmouth, and
Newport, and ten representatives from Providence. The patent did not
state how affairs were to be managed, and the colonials, meeting in
subsequent assemblies, worked out the problem in their own way. They
refused to have a governor, and, creating only a presiding officer with
four assistants, constituted a court of trials for the hearing of
important criminal and civil causes. No general court was created by
law, but a legislative body soon came into existence consisting of six
deputies from each town. Before this Portsmouth meeting of 1647
adjourned, it adopted a code of laws in which witchcraft trials and
imprisonment for debt were forbidden, capital punishment was largely
abolished, and divorce was granted for adultery only. In 1652, the
assembly passed a noteworthy law against the holding of negroes in
slavery.

But the new patent did not bring peace to the colony. In 1649, Roger
Williams wrote to Governor Winthrop: "Our poor colony is in civil
dissension. Their last meeting [of the assembly] at which I have not
been, have fallen into factions. Mr. Coddington and Captain Partridge,
etc., are the heads of one, and Captain Clarke, Mr. Easton, etc., the
heads of the other." What had happened was this. Coddington,
representing the conservative and theocratic wing of the assembly and
opposing those who were more liberally minded, had evidently applied to
Massachusetts and Plymouth for support in the effort to obtain an
independent government for Aquidneck. This plan would have destroyed
what unity the colony had obtained under the patent, but Coddington
wished to be governor of a colony of his own. Both Massachusetts and
Plymouth were favorable to this plan, as they hoped to further their own
claims to the territory of islands and mainland. Twice Coddington made
application to the newly formed Confederation of New England for
admission, but was refused unless he would bring in Aquidneck as part of
Massachusetts or Plymouth, the latter of which laid claim to it.
Coddington himself was willing to do this but found the opposition to
the plan so vehement that he gave up the attempt and went to England to
secure a patent of his own. After long negotiations he was successful in
his quest and returned with a document which appointed him governor for
life with almost viceregal