and expression that he claimed for himself. One of his biographers wrote that, after Roger Williams, no man was more instrumental in establishing the foundation of equal civil rights and liberty in Rhode Island. Puritan scholar Philip Gura sees him as "not a dangerous and immoral troublemaker but rather a man who, more than any other New Englander, was in step with the religious politics of his times and whose history illuminates the complexity of the relationship of American to English Puritanism." Writings by and about Gorton Gorton's first book was Simplicities Defence. He wrote another book while in England entitled An Incorruptible Key composed of the CX. Psalms wherewith you may open the rest of the Scriptures. This book was published in 1647 and expanded the commentary on his radical beliefs. After returning to New England, he wrote Saltmarsh returned from the Dead (1655), inspired by the new model army chaplain John Saltmarsh who had died in 1647. The sequel to this was An Antidote against the Common Plague of the World (1656) which was dedicated to Oliver Cromwell. This volume centers on Matthew 23, in which the scribes and Pharisees are condemned for degrading God's will and word. Gorton's final published work was Antidote Against Pharisaical Teachers (1656), though he left behind an unpublished manuscript of several hundred pages entitled Exposition upon the Lord's Prayer. Two book-length biographical accounts of Gorton have been published. In 1896, Lewis G. Janes published Samuel Gorton: a forgotten Founder of our Liberties and Adelos Gorton published The Life and Times of Samuel Gorton in 1907. The latter work includes an extensive account of Rhode Island's earliest colonial records. Family and descendants Samuel Gorton was married prior to 11 January 1629/30 to Mary Mayplet, the daughter of John Mayplet who was a haberdasher. Mary was the granddaughter of the Reverend John Mayplet, Rector of Great Leighs Parish in Essex, Vicar of Northolt in Middlesex, and a writer on the topics of natural history and astrology. Mary Gorton's brother was Dr. John Mayplet, physician to King Charles II. See also List of colonial governors of Rhode Island List of early settlers of Rhode Island Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations References Notes a. The date is written this way in the original record. Citations Bibliography . Reprint, ed. W.R. Staples, Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society Vol. II (Marshall, Brown & Company,