the indigenous people of the New World. The Bloudy Tenent Williams secured his charter from Parliament for Providence Plantations in July 1644, after which he published his most famous book The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. The publication produced a great uproar; between 1644 and 1649, at least 60 pamphlets were published addressing the work's arguments. Parliament responded to Williams on August 9, 1644, by ordering the public hangman to burn all copies. By this time, however, Williams was already en route to New England, where he arrived with his charter in September. It took Williams several years to unify the settlements of Narragansett Bay under a single government given the opposition of William Coddington. The four villages finally united in 1647 into the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Freedom of conscience was again proclaimed, and the colony became a safe haven for people who were persecuted for their beliefs, including Baptists, Quakers, and Jews. Still, the divisions between the towns' powerful personalities did not bode well for the colony. Coddington disliked Williams and did not enjoy his position of subordination under the new charter government. Accordingly, Coddington sailed to England and returned to Rhode Island in 1651 with his own patent making him "Governor for Life" over Aquidneck and Conanicut Islands. As a result, Providence, Warwick, and Coddington's opponents on Aquidneck dispatched Roger Williams and John Clarke to England, seeking to cancel Coddington's commission. Williams sold his trading post at Cocumscussec (near Wickford, Rhode Island) to pay for his journey even though it provided his primary source of income. Williams and Clarke succeeded in rescinding Coddington's patent, with Clarke remaining in England for the following decade to protect the colonists' interests and secure a new charter. Williams returned to America in 1654 and was immediately elected the colony's president. He subsequently served in many offices in town and colonial governments. Slavery Williams did not write extensively about slavery. He consistently expressed disapproval of perpetual chattel slavery, though generally did not object to the enslavement of captured enemy combatants for a fixed duration, a practice from which he occasionally profited. During his life, Williams struggled with the morality of slavery and raised his concerns in letters to Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop concerning the treatment of the Pequots during the Pequot War (1636–1638). In these letters, he requested Winthrop to prevent the enslavement of Pequot