It was as follows: THE RED CROSS While Roger Williams sat in Grandfather's chair, at his humble residence in Salem, John Endicott would often come to visit him.

As the clergy had great influence in temporal concerns, the minister and magistrate would talk over the occurrences of the day, and consult how the people might be governed according to scriptural laws.
One thing especially troubled them both.

In the old national banner of England, under which her soldiers have fought for hundreds of years, there is a Red Cross, which has been there ever since the days when England was in subjection to the Pope.

The Cross, though a holy symbol, was abhorred by the Puritans, because they considered it a relic of Popish idolatry.
Now, whenever the train-band of Salem was mustered, the soldiers, with Endicott at their head, had no other flag to march under than this same old papistical banner of England, with the Red Cross in the midst of it.
The banner of the Red Cross, likewise, was flying on the walls of the fort of Salem; and a similar one was displayed in Boston harbor, from the fortress on Castle Island.
"I profess, brother Williams," Captain Endicott would say, after they had been talking of this matter, "it distresses a Christian man's heart, to see this idolatrous Cross flying over our heads.

A stranger beholding it, would think that we had undergone all our hardships and dangers, by sea and in the wilderness, only to get new dominions for the Pope of Rome." "Truly, good Mr.Endicott," Roger Williams would answer, "you speak as an honest man and Protestant Christian should.