Pocasset

Thus did the men of Providence put into practice their doctrine of a church separable from the state and of a political order in which there were no magistrates, no elders exercising civil as well as spiritual authority, and no restraint on soul liberty.

A year or two later, William Coddington, loyal ally of Anne Hutchinson, with others, Clark, Cogshall, and Aspinwall, who resented the aggressive attitude of Boston, purchased from the Indians the island of Aquidneck in Narragansett Bay and at the northern end planted Pocasset, afterwards Portsmouth, the second settlement in the colony of Rhode Island.

They too entered into a covenant to join themselves into a body politic and elected Coddington as their judge and five others as elders.

But this modeling of the government after the practices of the Old Testament was not pleasing to a majority of the community, which desired a more democratic organization.