THE ENGLISH IN MARYLAND, 1632-1691.
BY WILLIAM T. BRANTLY,
_Of the Maryland Historical Society._
MARYLAND was the first Proprietary colony established in America; and
its charter contained a more ample grant of power than was bestowed
upon any other English colony. To Maryland also belongs the honor
of having been the first government which proclaimed and practised
religious toleration. The charter was granted in 1632, by Charles I.,
to Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore. But the true founder of Maryland
was George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, a man of singular merit,
whose influence upon the fortunes of the colony was such that his
character and career belong to its history.
George Calvert was descended from a Flemish family which had long been
settled in Yorkshire, where he was born in the year 1582. Graduating
Bachelor of Arts at Oxford, he travelled on the Continent, and then
entered public life under the patronage of Sir Robert Cecil. Calvert
filled various offices until Cecil became Lord High Treasurer, when
he was appointed clerk of the Privy Council. He was knighted in 1617,
and, upon the disgrace of Sir Thomas Lake, in February, 1619, he was
appointed by James I. one of the two principal secretaries of state.
He was selected for this important post because there was work to be
done, and he had made himself valued in public life for his industry
and ability. It is true, indeed, that his theory of the Constitution
was similar to that held by the King. He had always been allied with
the Court as distinguished from the Country party, and was a stanch
supporter of the prerogatives of the Crown. In the Parliament of
1621 he was the leader of the Government forces, and the immediate
representative of the King in the House of Commons. When he came to
draw the charter of Maryland he framed such a government as the Court,
during this period, conceived that England ought to be.
Calvert was not altogether friendly to Spain.[866] It is a mistake to
suppose that his political fortunes were so bound up with the success
of the Spanish match, that, upon its final rupture in 1623, his
position became untenable. He did not resign his secretaryship until
February, 1625; and there is no sufficient reason for believing that he
did not then do so voluntarily.
[Illustration
See an account of this picture of the first Lord Baltimore, in the
Critical Essay.]
Fuller, the chief contemporary authority, says that “he freely
confessed to the King that he was then become a Roman Catholic, so
that he must be wanting in his trust or violate his conscience in
discharging his office.” It is certain that he had not forfeited
the favor of the King, nor incurred the enmity of the all-powerful
Buckingham. He was allowed to sell his secretaryship to his successor
for £6,000, and was retained in the Privy Council. A few weeks
after his withdrawal from office he was created Baron of Baltimore
in the Irish peerage; and in 1627 Buckingham summoned him to a
special conference with Charles I. upon foreign affairs. The date of
his conversion to the Church of Rome has been the subject of much
discussion, but there is no satisfactory evidence that it preceded, for
any length of time, the open profession of his new faith.
From early manhood Sir George Calvert had been interested in schemes
of colonization. He was a member of the Virginia Company until its
dissolution, and was, as secretary of state, one of the committee of
the Council for Plantation Affairs. While secretary he determined
to become himself the founder of a colony, and in 1620 he purchased
from Sir William Vaughan the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland.
In the following year he sent a body of settlers to this region, and
expended a large amount of money in establishing them at Ferryland.
James I. granted him in 1623 a patent constituting him the Proprietary
of this portion of Newfoundland which was called Avalon,—a patent
which afterwards became the model of the charter of Maryland. The
fertility and advantages of Avalon had been described to Lord Baltimore
with the usual exaggeration of discoverers. He made a short visit to
it in the summer of 1627, and in the following year he went there,
accompanied by several members of his family, with the intention of
remaining permanently; but the severity and long duration of the winter
convinced him that the attempt to plant an agricultural colony on that
inhospitable shore was doomed to failure. In August, 1629, he wrote to
the King that he found himself obliged to abandon Avalon to fishermen,
and to seek for himself some warmer climate in the New World. He also
announced his determination to go with some forty persons to Virginia,
and expressed the hope that the King would grant him there a precinct
of land, with privileges similar to those he enjoyed in Newfoundland.
Charles I., in reply, advised him to desist from further attempts and
to return to England, where he would be sure to enjoy such respect as
his former services merited,—“well weighing,” added the King, “that
men of your condition and breeding are fitter for other employments
than the framing of new plantations which commonly have rugged and
laborious beginnings.”
Without waiting for an answer to his letter Lord Baltimore sailed for
Virginia, where he arrived in October, 1629. To the Virginians he was
not a welcome visitor. They either honestly objected to receiving
Catholic settlers, being proud of their conformity to the Church of
England, or were apprehensive that he had designs upon their territory.
They tendered to him and his followers the oaths of allegiance and
supremacy. The latter was one which no Catholic could conscientiously
take, and it was therefore refused by Baltimore. His offer to take a
modified oath was rejected by the council, and they requested him to
leave the colony.
While in Virginia Lord Baltimore learned that the northern and southern
portions of the territory comprised within the old charter limits
of the colony had not been settled, and he determined to ask for an
independent grant of a part of this unsettled region. Upon his return
to England he learned that the King was willing to accede to his
request. Baltimore finally selected for his new colony the country
north of the Potomac, and prepared a charter to be submitted to the
King, modelled upon the Avalon patent. The name of the colony was left
to the choice of the King, who desired that it should be called Terra
Mariæ—in English, Maryland—in honor of his Queen Henrietta Maria.
This name was accordingly inserted in the patent; but before it passed
the seals Lord Baltimore died. His death took place April 15, 1632,
and he was buried beneath the chancel of St. Dunstan’s Church. But his
great scheme did not die with him. His rights were transmitted to his
son and heir Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, to whom the charter was
finally issued, June 20, 1632.
[Illustration: THE BALTIMORE ARMS.
[This is a fac-simile of the arms as engraved on the map accompanying
the _Relation_ of 1635. The motto was also that of the great seal,
furnished to the Province in 1648 by the second Lord Baltimore, which,
by a vote of the legislature in 1876, was re-established on the seal of
the State. See the Critical Essay.
It is worthy of remark that when an agent of Virginia was sent to
London in 1860, to discover papers relating to the bounds between
that State and Maryland, he found the representative of the Calverts,
and possessor of their family papers, a prisoner in the Queen’s Bench
prison, in a confinement for debt which had then lasted twenty years.
Colonel McDonald’s _Report_, March, 1861.—ED.]]
The territory granted was defined with accuracy. The southern boundary
was the further bank of the Potomac, from its source to its mouth in
the Bay of Chesapeake, and ran thence to the promontory called Watkins
Point, and thence east to the ocean. The eastern boundary was the ocean
and Delaware Bay to the fortieth degree of latitude; and the northern
boundary was a right line, on the fortieth degree of latitude, to the
meridian of the fountain of the Potomac, where the southern boundary
began. It will be seen that Maryland, as originally defined, comprised
all of the present State of Delaware and a large part of what is now
Pennsylvania.
The country described in the charter was expressly erected into a
Province of the empire; and the Baron of Baltimore, his heirs and
assigns, were constituted the absolute lords and proprietaries of the
soil. Their tenure was the most liberal known to the law. They held the
Province directly of the kings of England, in free and common socage,
by fealty only, yielding therefor two Indian arrows, on the Tuesday of
Easter week, to the King at the Castle of Windsor. The Province was
made a county palatine; and the Proprietary was invested with all the
royal rights, privileges, and prerogatives which had ever been enjoyed
by any Bishop of Durham within his county palatine. To the Proprietary
was also given all the power that any captain-general of an army ever
had; and he was authorized to call out the whole fighting population,
to wage war against all enemies of the Province, to put captives to
death, and, in case of rebellion or sedition, to exercise martial
law in the most ample manner. He was empowered to establish courts
and appoint judges, and to pardon crimes. He had also the right to
constitute ports of entry and departure, to erect towns into boroughs
and boroughs into cities with suitable immunities, and to levy duties
and tolls upon ships and merchandise exported and imported. He could
make grants of land to be held directly of himself, and erect portions
of the land granted into manors with the right to hold courts baron
and leet. It was further provided that, lest in so remote a region
all access to honors might seem to be barred to men well born, the
Proprietary might confer rewards upon deserving provincials, and adorn
them with any titles and dignities except such as were then in use in
England. All laws were to be made by the Proprietary with the advice
and assent of the freemen, who should be called together, personally
or by their deputies, for the framing of laws in the manner chosen
by the Proprietary. In the event of sudden accidents the Proprietary
might make ordinances for the government of the Province, provided they
should not deprive offenders of life, limb, or property. Freedom of
trade to all English ports was guaranteed.
Liberty to emigrate to the Province and there settle was given to
all subjects of the Crown, and all colonists and their children were
to enjoy the rights and liberties of native-born liegemen. There
was an express covenant on the part of the Crown that at no time
should any tax or custom be imposed upon the inhabitants or their
property, or upon any merchandise to be laden or unladen within the
Province. The charter concluded by directing that, in case any doubt
should arise concerning the true sense of any word or clause, that
interpretation should always be made which would be most beneficial to
the Proprietary, “provided, always, that no interpretation thereof be
made whereby God’s holy and true Christian religion, or the allegiance
due to us, our heirs and successors, may in anywise suffer by change,
prejudice, or diminution.”
It is especially to be remarked that the charter contained no
provision requiring the provincial laws to be submitted to the Crown
for approval. Nothing was reserved to the Crown except the allegiance
of the inhabitants and the fifth part of all the gold and silver ore
which might be found within the limits of the Province. But the powers
conferred on the Proprietary were of a sovereign character; he was
lord of the soil, the fountain of honor, and the source of justice.
These privileges were the work of a friend of high prerogative; yet the
rights of the people were not neglected. The freemen of the Province
were entitled to participate in the law-making power, to enjoy freedom
of trade, exemption from Crown taxation, and all the rights and
liberties of native-born Englishmen. All the laws of the Province must
be consonant with reason and not repugnant to the laws of England. If
it be true that the powers given to the Proprietary were greater than
those ever conferred on any other Proprietary, it is equally true that
the rights secured to the inhabitants were greater than an in any other
charter which had then been granted.
The charter expressly separated the Province from Virginia and made it
immediately dependent on the Crown. The entire territory of Maryland
had been included in the grants made in 1609, and subsequently to the
London company for the first colony of Virginia. This company became
obnoxious both to the Crown and the colonists, and, in 1624, a writ of
_quo warranto_ was issued against its patents, the judgment upon which
revoked all the charters and restored to the Crown all the franchises
formerly granted. Virginia then became a royal colony, and there could
be no question of the right of the King to partition its territory
at pleasure. But the grant of Maryland nevertheless caused a great
discontent in Virginia. Although no permanent settlements had been
made north of the Potomac, the Virginians regarded all the territory
comprised within the old charter limits as still belonging to them, and
objected to having it partitioned.
One member of the Virginia company had, indeed, established stations
for traffic with the Indians on Kent Island, almost in the centre of
Maryland, and on Palmer’s Island, at the mouth of the Susquehanna
River. This man was William Clayborne, destined to become famous in the
early history of the Province. He had been Secretary of the Virginia
colony and one of the Council. Before the visit of the first Lord
Baltimore to Jamestown, Clayborne had been commissioned to explore
the great bay and to trade with the Indians. He may then have set up
trading stations upon Kent and Palmer’s islands. In May, 1631, he
obtained from Charles I. a license authorizing him to trade for furs
and other commodities in all the coasts “in or near about those parts
of America for which there is not already a patent granted to others
for sole trade.” This license, which was merely passed under the privy
signet of Scotland, could not be construed as granting any title to the
soil or government. In Baltimore’s charter Maryland was described as
hitherto unsettled,—_hactenus inculta_,—and this unlucky phrase was
afterwards the source of innumerable difficulties. At the time of his
visit to Virginia the region was probably unsettled so far as he could
learn.
When intelligence of the grant of Maryland reached Virginia the
planters were moved to sign a petition to the King, in which they
remonstrated against the grant of a portion of the lands of the colony
which would cause a “general disheartening” to them. The petition was
referred to the Privy Council, which, after hearing both parties,
decided, in July, 1633, that Lord Baltimore should be left to his
patent and the Virginians to the course of law; and that, in the mean
time, the two colonies should “assist each other on all occasions as
becometh fellow-subjects.”
There can be no doubt that, from the outset, Lord Baltimore intended
that Maryland should be a place of refuge for the English Catholics,
who had as much reason as the Puritans to flee from persecution. The
political and religious hatred with which the mass of the English
people regarded the Church of Rome was increasing in bitterness, and
the Parliament of 1625 had besought the King to enforce more strictly
the penal statutes against recusants. Soon after the grant of his
charter Lord Baltimore treated with the Provincial of the Society
of Jesus, in England, for his assistance in establishing a mission
in the new colony. At the same time he wrote to the General of the
Order asking him to designate certain priests to accompany the first
emigration, whose duty it should be to confirm the Catholics in their
faith, convert the Protestant colonists, and propagate the Roman
faith among the savages. These requests were granted, and the first
expedition was accompanied by two Jesuits.
But Maryland was to be something more than a Catholic colony. Lord
Baltimore had already determined that it should be a “free soil for
Christianity.” When the charter was granted, it was well known that
Baltimore purposed to settle Maryland with Catholics. How came it to
pass that, under these circumstances, a Protestant king made a grant
of such large powers to a Catholic nobleman? Different views have
been taken of the clauses of the charter relating to religion. One
view is that by the patent the Church of England was established, and
any other form of worship was unlawful; another that the glory of
Maryland toleration is due to the charter, and under it no persecution
of Christians was lawful; while a third view is that the charter left
the whole matter vague and undetermined, and therefore within the
control of the Proprietary and his colonists. The only references to
religion in the charter that need be considered are two: the first,
in the fourth section, giving the Proprietary the advowsons of all
churches which might happen to be built, together with the liberty of
erecting churches and causing the same to be consecrated according to
the ecclesiastical laws of England; the second, in the twenty-second
section, providing that no law should be made prejudicial to God’s holy
and true Christian religion.
These are the exact phrases used in the Avalon patent, which was issued
to Sir George Calvert while still a member of the Church of England. In
that case they probably operated as an establishment of that church.
But these phrases were not retained in the charter granted to a Roman
Catholic without good reason. The fourth section merely empowered the
Proprietary to dedicate the churches which might be built; it did not
compel him to build them: and the fact of being a Catholic did not then
disable one from presenting to Anglican churches. There is, moreover,
nothing in this section disabling the Proprietary from building
churches of other faiths. The proviso in the twenty-second section was
conveniently vague. It cannot be held either to establish the Church
of England or to prohibit the exercise of any other worship. No such
construction was ever placed upon it by the Crown, or the Proprietary,
or the people. It is certain that Baltimore would not have accepted
a charter requiring the establishment of a church from which he and
those whom he intended to be his colonists dissented. It is still more
certain that he would not have accepted a charter prohibiting the
exercise of the Catholic worship.
[Illustration]
The most plausible view of these provisions is that they covered a
secret understanding between the Proprietary and the King, to the
effect that both Catholics and members of the Established Church
should enjoy the same religious rights in Maryland.[867] The opinion
entertained by some that the charter itself enforced toleration is
altogether untenable. These provisions did not prevent the Church
of England from being afterwards established in Maryland nor avert
disabilities from Catholics and Dissenters. Apart from the supposed
agreement between Baltimore and the King, any persecution of
Conformists in the Province would have been extremely impolitic; it
would have resulted in the speedy loss of the patent. But Baltimore
could without danger have prohibited the immigration of Puritans, and
could have discouraged in many ways the settlement even of Conformists.
Not only did he not do any of these things, but he invited Christians
of every name to settle in Maryland. It is the glory of Lord Baltimore
and of the Province that, from the first, perfect freedom of Christian
worship was guaranteed to all comers. Because the event proved that
this magnanimity was the truest wisdom and resulted in populating the
Province, there have not been wanting those who declare that it was not
magnanimity at all, but only enlightened self-interest.
[Illustration]
By the decision of the Privy Council in July, 1633, upon the petition
of the Virginia planters, Lord Baltimore achieved his first victory
in the long struggle he was destined to wage with the enemies of his
colony. Regarding his title to the territory as unquestionable, he
now hastened his preparations for its colonization. He had purposed
to lead the colonists in person, but, finding it necessary to abandon
this intention, he confided the expedition to the care of his brother,
Leonard Calvert, whom he commissioned as Lieut.-General. Jerome Hawley
and Thomas Cornwallis were associated as councillors, and George
Calvert, another brother of the Proprietary, was one of the emigrants.
Lord Baltimore provided two vessels,—the “Ark,” of about three hundred
and fifty tons burden, and the “Dove,” a pinnace of about fifty tons.
In October, 1633, the colonists,—“gentlemen adventurers and their
servants,”—to the number of about two hundred, embarked at Gravesend.
The vessels stopped at the Isle of Wight, where Fathers White and
Altham (the Jesuits who had been designated for the service) and some
other emigrants were received on board. They finally set sail from
Cowes on the twenty-second day of November, 1633, and took the old
route by the Azores and West Indies.
Soon after their departure Lord Baltimore wrote to his own and his
father’s friend, the Earl of Strafford, that, after having overcome
many difficulties, he had sent a hopeful colony to Maryland with a fair
expectation of success. “There are two of my brothers gone,” he added,
“with very near twenty other gentlemen of very good fashion, and three
hundred laboring men well provided in all things.”
[Illustration: MAP OF MARYLAND, 1635.
This is a reduced fac-simile of the map accompanying _A Relation of
Maryland_, 1635. See Critical Essay. Compare the heliotype of Smith’s
map of Virginia, in chapter v.]
The vessels remained for some time at Barbadoes, and did not arrive
at Point Comfort until the 27th of February, 1634. Here the colonists
were received by Governor Harvey, of Virginia, “with much courtesy
and humanity,” in obedience to letters from the King. Fresh supplies
having been procured in Virginia, the “Ark” and “Dove” weighed anchor
and sailed up the bay to the mouth of the Potomac, which they entered
and proceeded up about fourteen leagues, to an island which they called
St. Clement’s. The emigrants landed here, and took formal possession
of Maryland “for our Saviour, and for our Sovereign Lord the King of
England.”
Governor Calvert left the “Ark” at the island and sailed up the river
with two pinnaces, in order to explore the country and conciliate the
Indian chieftains. He was accompanied by Captain Henry Fleet, of the
Virginia colony, who was versed in the Indian tongues and acquainted
with the country. They assured the chiefs that the strangers had not
come to make war upon them, but to impart the arts of civilization and
show their subjects the way to heaven. Not deeming it prudent to seat
the first colony so far in the interior, Calvert returned down the
river and was conducted by Captain Fleet up a tributary stream which
flows into the Potomac, from the north, a few miles above its mouth.
This river, which is now called the St. Mary’s, is a deep and wide
stream. Six or seven miles above its mouth the Governor’s exploring
party came to an Indian village, situate on a bluff on the left bank.
They determined to settle here, but, instead of forcibly dispossessing
the feeble tribe in possession, they purchased thirty miles of the land
from them for axes, hatchets, and cloth, and established the colony
with their consent. And thus the method of William Penn was antedated
by half a century. By the terms of the agreement the Indians were
to give up at once one half of the town to the English and part of
the growing crops, and at the end of the harvest to leave the place
altogether. The “Ark” was sent for, and on the 27th of March, 1634,
amid salvoes of artillery from the ships, the emigrants disembarked and
took possession of their new home, which they called St. Mary’s.
Attention was first given to building a guardhouse and a general
storehouse, their intercourse meanwhile with the natives being of the
most genial character. The Indian women taught them how to use corn
meal, and with the Indian men they hunted deer and were initiated into
the mysteries of woodcraft. They planted the cleared land, and in
the autumn of the same year were able to send a cargo of corn to New
England in exchange for salt fish and other provisions. From Virginia
the colonists procured swine and cattle; and, within a few months after
landing, the settlement was enjoying a high degree of prosperity. The
English race had now learned the art of colonization.
Although Governor Harvey visited St. Mary’s and seems always to have
been friendly to the new colony, the Virginians were bitterly hostile.
Captain Young wrote to Sir Tobie Matthew from Jamestown, in July, 1634,
that it was there “accounted a crime almost as heinous as treason to
favor, nay, to speak well of, that colony” of Lord Baltimore. Sympathy
with what they regarded as Clayborne’s wrongs increased their enmity.
Soon after the “Ark” and “Dove” left Point Comfort, Clayborne informed
the Governor and Council of Virginia that Calvert had notified him that
the settlement upon Kent Island would henceforth be deemed a part of
Maryland, and requested the opinion of the Board as to his duty in the
premises. The Board expressed surprise at the question. and said that
there was no more reason for surrendering Kent Island than any other
part of the colony; and that, the validity of Lord Baltimore’s patent
being yet undetermined, they were bound to maintain the rights of their
colony. It was probably on account of remonstrances from Virginia
that the committee of the Privy Council for plantations wrote to the
Virginians in July, 1634, that there was no intention to affect the
interests which had been settled when Virginia was under a corporation,
and that for the present they might enjoy their estates with the same
freedom as before the recalling of their patents. This letter, which
was merely designed to show that Baltimore’s charter should not invade
any individual right, appears to have been regarded by Clayborne as
justifying his resistance to Calvert’s claim of jurisdiction over his
trading stations.
Clayborne endeavored at once to incite the Indians to acts of hostility
against the colony. He told them that the new-comers were Spaniards,
enemies of the English, and had come to rob them. These insinuations
caused a change in the demeanor of the Indians, which greatly alarmed
the people of St. Mary’s. The suspicions of the natives, however, were
soon dispelled and friendly relations with them were renewed. Clayborne
now resolved to wage an open war against the colony. Early in 1635 a
_casus belli_ was found in the capture by the Maryland authorities
of a pinnace belonging to Clayborne, upon the ground that it was a
Virginia vessel trading in Maryland waters without a license. Clayborne
thereupon placed an armed vessel under the command of Lieutenant
Warren, with orders to seize any of the ships belonging to St. Mary’s.
Governor Calvert determined to show at once that this seditious
opposition would not be tolerated. He equipped two small vessels and
sent them against Kent Island. A naval engagement between the hostile
forces took place in April, 1635, which resulted in the killing of one
of the Maryland crew, and of Lieutenant Warren and two others of the
Kent Island crew. Clayborne’s men then surrendered and were carried to
St. Mary’s. Clayborne himself took refuge in Virginia, and Governor
Calvert demanded his surrender. This demand was not granted, and two
years later Clayborne went to England. He presented a petition to the
King, complaining that Baltimore’s agents had sought to dispossess him
of his plantations, killing some of his men and taking their boats. He
offered to pay the King £100 per annum for the two islands, and prayed
for a confirmation of his license and an order directing Lord Baltimore
not to interfere with him.
This petition was referred to a committee of the Privy Council, before
which Clayborne appeared in person, and arguments upon both sides
were heard. The committee decided, in April, 1638, that Clayborne’s
license to trade, under the signet of Scotland, gave him no right or
title to the Isle of Kent, or to any other place within the limits of
Baltimore’s patent, and did not warrant any plantation, and that no
trade with the Indians ought to be allowed within Maryland without
license from Lord Baltimore. As to the wrongs complained of, the
committee found no reason to remove them, but left both sides to the
ordinary course of justice. Clayborne returned to Virginia, postponing
but not abandoning his vengeance, and Kent Island was subjected to
the government of St. Mary’s, Captain George Evelyn being appointed
commander of the isle. In the same year Palmer’s Island was seized, and
Clayborne’s property there confiscated.
In February, 1635, the first legislative assembly of the Province
was convened. Owing to the destruction of most of the early records
during Ingle’s Rebellion, no account of the proceedings of this
Assembly has come down to us. The charter required the assent of the
Proprietary to the laws, and when the acts of this Assembly were laid
before Lord Baltimore he disallowed them. In April, 1637, he sent over
a new commission, constituting Leonard Calvert the lieut.-general,
admiral, and commander, and also the chancellor and chief-justice
of the Province. In certain cases, he was directed to consult the
council, which was composed of Jerome Hawley, Thomas Cornwallis, and
John Lewger. The governor was directed to assemble the freemen of the
Province, or their deputies, upon the 25th of January ensuing, and
signify the Proprietary’s dissent from the laws made at the previous
assembly, and at the same time to submit to them a body of laws which
he would himself send over. John Lewger, the new member of the council,
and secretary of the Province, came to St. Mary’s in November, 1637,
accompanied by his family and several servants. He was distinguished
as a scholar at Oxford, and had been converted to Catholicism by the
celebrated controversialist Chillingworth. His appointment is an
evidence of the solicitude shown by the Proprietary for the affairs of
his plantation. During the first years of the settlement he and his
friends expended above £40,000 in sending over colonists and providing
them with necessaries, of which sum at least £20,000 was out of
Baltimore’s own purse.
[Illustration]
There can be no doubt that the Proprietary contemplated the foundation
of an aristocratic State, with large tracts of land in the hands of
individuals who would be interested in upholding his authority. He
published, from time to time, certain “conditions of plantation,”
stating the quantity of land to which emigrants would be entitled.
In the conditions issued in 1636 he directs that to every first
adventurer, for every five men brought into the Province in 1634, there
should be granted two thousand acres of land for the yearly rent of
four hundred pounds of wheat; and to each bringing a less number, one
hundred acres for himself, and one hundred acres for his wife and each
servant, and fifty acres for every child, under the rent of ten pounds
of wheat for each fifty acres. The conditions offered to subsequent
adventurers were, naturally, less favorable. All these grants were
of fee-simple estates of inheritance, and the colonists received in
addition grants of small lots in the town of St. Mary’s. Each tract
of a thousand acres or more was erected into a manor, with the right
to hold courts baron and leet, and the other privileges belonging
to manors in England. A large number of manors were laid off in the
Province, and in some instances courts baron and leet were held.[868]
It was only in this regard that the design of transplanting the
institutions of expiring feudalism to the New World was carried out.
Political and social equality resulted from the conditions of the
environment. The “freemen,” who were entitled to make laws, were
early held to include all but indented servants, whether they owned
a freehold or not. The second Assembly, which met in January, 1638,
was a pure democracy. Writs of summons had been issued to every
freeman directing his personal attendance. The governor presided
as speaker, and the council sat as members. Those freemen who did
not choose to attend gave proxies. Proclamation was made that all
persons omitted in the writs should make their claim to a voice in
the Assembly, “whereupon claim was made by John Robinson, carpenter,
and was admitted.” Upon the question of the adoption of the body of
laws proposed by Lord Baltimore, the Speaker and Lewger (who counted
by proxies fourteen voices) were in the affirmative, and all the
rest of the Assembly, being thirty-seven voices, in the negative.
Thus was begun a constitutional struggle between the people and the
Proprietary. The latter held that, under the charter, the right of
originating legislation belonged exclusively to him. For this reason,
he had rejected the laws made in 1635, and had himself proposed a
number of bills. The colonists were unwilling to concede this claim,
and now rejected, in turn, the propositions of the Proprietary. This
early evidence of the persistence with which a handful of emigrants
maintained what they conceived to be their rights possesses a peculiar
interest. The immediate result of the contest was to leave the colony
without any laws under which criminal jurisdiction could be exercised.
This subject next occupied the attention of the House. Subsequently
a number of laws were made, but with the exception of an act of
attainder against Clayborne, their titles only remain. They were sent
to Lord Baltimore, who promptly exercised his veto power upon them.
In February, 1638, a county court was held at which Thomas Smith,
who had been captured in the naval engagement described above, and
subsequently held a prisoner, was indicted by a grand jury for murder
and piracy. There being no court legally constituted to try Smith, he
was arraigned and tried before the Assembly, Secretary Lewger acting
as the prosecuting attorney. The House found him guilty, with but one
dissenting voice, and he was sentenced to be hanged.
Soon after Lord Baltimore had for the second time rejected the acts of
the Assembly, he wisely determined to yield his claim of the right to
originate legislation. Accordingly he wrote to his brother in August,
1638, giving him power to assent to such laws as he might approve. The
assent of the governor was to give force to the laws till the dissent
of the Proprietary should be signified. This double veto power was
similar to that which existed in most of the royal colonies, where the
first negative was in the governor and the second in the king. In a
Palatinate government, like Maryland, the Proprietary exercised the
royal prerogative. There being no further obstacle to legislation an
Assembly was called to meet in February. 1639, which body was composed
partly of delegates elected by the people, and partly of freemen
specially summoned by the governor’s writ. It was also held that any
freeman, who had not participated in the election of deputies, might
sit in his individual right. The laws passed at this session provided
principally for the administration of justice in criminal and civil
cases. It was enacted that the inhabitants should have all their rights
and liberties according to the Great Charter.
One of the acts declared that “Holy Church within this Province shall
have all her rights and liberties.” A similar law was made in the
following year. Both are founded upon the first clause of Magna Charta
and must be held to apply to the Roman Church, since the phrase “Holy
Church” was never used in speaking of the Church of England. But these
acts can hardly be regarded as evidence of an intention to establish
the Roman Church. They do not seem to have had any practical effect
whatever. We have seen that Lord Baltimore purposed to make all creeds
equal in Maryland. Apart from this fixed purpose, from which he never
swerved, the impolicy of granting any peculiar privileges to the
Catholic Church, in a province subject to England, was so apparent
that it was recognized by the Jesuits themselves. Among the Stonyhurst
Manuscripts there is preserved the form of an agreement between the
Provincial of the Society of Jesus, and Lord Baltimore, in which, after
a statement of the manner in which Maryland had been obtained and
settled, it is recited that it is “evident that, as affairs now are,
those privileges, etc., usually granted to ecclesiastics of the Roman
Catholic Church by Catholic princes in their own countries, could not
possibly be granted here without grave offence to the King and State
of England (which offence may be called a hazard both to the Baron and
especially to the whole colony).” The agreement then binds the members
of the society in Maryland not to demand any such privileges except
those relating to corporal punishments.[869]
It is certain that, from the time the emigrants first landed at
St. Mary’s, religious toleration was the established custom of the
Province. The history of Maryland toleration does not begin with
the famous Act of 1649. That was merely a legislative confirmation
of the unwritten law. Long before that enactment, at a time when
intolerance and martyrdom was almost the law of Christendom, and
while the annals of the other colonies of the New World were being
stained with the record of crimes committed in the name of religion,
in Maryland the doctrine of religious liberty was clearly proclaimed
and practised. It is the imperishable glory of Lord Baltimore and of
the State. For the first time in the history of the world there was a
regularly constituted government under which all Christians possessed
equal rights. All churches were tolerated, none was established. To
this “land of the sanctuary” came the Puritans who were whipped and
imprisoned in Virginia, and the Prelatists who were persecuted in
New England. In 1638 one William Lewis was fined by the council five
hundred pounds of tobacco, and required to give security for his good
behavior, because he had abused Protestants and forbidden his servants
to read Protestant books. The Puritans were invited to settle in
Maryland. In 1643 Lord Baltimore wrote to Captain Gibbons of Boston,
offering land to any inhabitants of New England that would remove
to his province, with liberty in matter of religion, and all other
privileges.[870]
It appears from a case that came before the Assembly in 1642 that
there was at that time no Protestant clergyman in Maryland. The
only religious guides were the Jesuit missionaries, and they formed
the only Catholic mission ever established in any of the English
colonies in America. Two priests, as we have seen, accompanied the
first emigration. In 1636 the mission numbered four priests and one
coadjutor. They labored among the Indians in the spirit of Xavier,
establishing stations at points distant from St. Mary’s. Their efforts
to elevate the savage were not without success. One of their converts
was Tayac, the chief of the Piscataways. He and his wife were baptized
in 1640, when Governor Calvert and many of the principal men of the
colony were present at the ceremony. The Jesuits also succeeded in
converting many Protestants. The annual letter of 1638, as communicated
to their Superior, states that nearly all the Protestants who came from
England in that year, and many others, had been converted.
Although the missionaries did much towards conciliating the Indians,
and a fair and gentle treatment of them was the constant policy of the
colony, it was yet impossible to preserve a perfect peace with all the
tribes. The increase of the colonists began to alarm them, and they
were constantly committing petty depredations. All the inhabitants
capable of bearing arms were trained in military discipline, and a
certain quantity of arms and ammunition was required to be kept at
each dwelling-house. Expeditions were frequently made for the purpose
of punishing particular tribes which had committed “sundry insolencies
and rapines.” Scarcely anything is known of the details of these Indian
wars. It was made a penal offence for the colonists to supply any
Indian with arms, but the Swedes on the Delaware had no scruples in
this respect.
In 1640 another Assembly was held. St. Mary’s County had now been
divided into hundreds, and conservators of the peace appointed for
each hundred. In addition to the burgesses elected in each hundred,
the governor summoned certain freemen by special writ, as had been
previously done. The theory upon which this Assembly and those held in
the following years proceeded, in framing laws, was that justice should
be done according to the law of England, except in so far as changed
by provincial enactments.
The Civil War was now at its height in England, and that mighty
convulsion filled all the colonies with alarm and uncertainty. The
supremacy of the Puritans foreboded danger to the colony of a Catholic
nobleman, who still adhered to the cause of the King. Governor Calvert
determined to consult his brother personally in regard to the course
to be pursued in this crisis. Delegating his powers to Giles Brent, he
sailed for England and soon after joined his brother at Oxford. They
received from the King a commission to seize any London ships that
might come to St. Mary’s. Baltimore sent this commission to Maryland;
and in January, 1644, when one Richard Ingle appeared in the Province
with an armed ship from London, Governor Brent seized the vessel, and
issued a proclamation against Ingle, charging him with treason to the
King. Ingle was taken, but soon after made his escape and returned to
England. Governor Calvert arrived in September, 1644, and found the
Province torn with internal feuds and harassed by Indian incursions.
Many thought that the triumph of Parliament would put an end to the
Proprietary dominion. Clayborne availed himself of the confusion to
renew his designs upon Kent Island, and, by the end of the year, he had
regained his former possession. Ingle soon after arrived in another
ship, with parliamentary letters of marque. The Proprietary was as
powerless as the King with whose fortunes his own were thought to be
linked. Ingle landed his men, allied himself with the disaffected,
and easily took possession of the government. Governor Calvert fled
to Virginia, and the insurgents were undisturbed. The records of the
Province brand Ingle as a pirate. To plunder seems indeed to have been
his main purpose, and it is not clear that he even professed to act
on behalf of the Commonwealth. He afterwards alleged, in a petition
to Parliament, that, when he arrived in Maryland, he found that the
governor had received a commission from Oxford to seize all London
ships, and to execute a tyrannical power against Protestants; and that,
therefore, he felt himself to be conscientiously obliged to come to the
help of the Protestants against the Papists and Malignants. His only
statement as to his proceedings in the Province is that “it pleased
God to enable him to take divers places from them, and to make him a
support to the well-affected.” It is, however, certain that the period
of Ingle’s usurpation was marked with much oppression and extortion.
The Jesuits were sent in chains to England, and most of those deemed
loyal to the Proprietary were deprived of their property and banished.
Towards the close of 1646 Governor Calvert, who had been watching the
progress of events from Virginia, deemed that the time was ripe for
a counter revolution. He appeared at St. Mary’s, at the head of a
small force levied in Virginia, and regained the government without
resistance. Ingle left the Province, and the body of the people
returned to their allegiance with marked alacrity. The most permanent
evil caused by this usurpation—commonly called Clayborne and Ingle’s
Rebellion, although they do not appear to have acted in concert—was
the destruction of the greater part of the then existing records.
The entire period is, consequently, involved in obscurity; and it is
impossible to determine why it was that so many of the inhabitants
were ready to join Ingle in what they afterwards called his “heinous
rebellion.” Kent Island alone held out, and Governor Calvert went
there in person, and brought back the island to subjection. The entire
Province was now tranquillized; but Leonard Calvert did not live to
enter upon his labors. On the 9th of June, 1647, he died at the little
capital of St. Mary’s, which he had founded seventeen years before, and
where he had long exercised, with wisdom and moderation, the highest
executive and judicial functions. He had led out the colony from
England when a young man of twenty-six years, and in the discharge of
various offices he had, in the language of his commission, displayed
“such wisdom, fidelity, industry, and other virtues as rendered him
capable and worthy of the trust reposed in him.” Upon his death-bed
he named Thomas Greene his successor, who now assumed the duties of
governor. Greene proclaimed a general pardon to those in the Province
who had “unfortunately run themselves into a rebellion,” and a pardon
to those who had fled the Province, “acknowledging sorrow for his
fault,” except “Richard Ingle, mariner.”[871]
[Illustration]
The cause of the monarchy was now prostrate in England, and in the
supremacy of Parliament Lord Baltimore saw great danger threatening
his colonial dominion. It was necessary to put it out of the power of
his enemies to say that Maryland was a Catholic colony, and at the
same time he felt bound to protect his co-religionists. He therefore
determined to pursue at once a policy of conciliation to the Puritans
and of protection to the Catholics. The course he adopted was one well
calculated to attain this double end. In August, 1648, he removed
Greene, who was a Catholic, and appointed William Stone governor. Stone
was a Virginian, and well known as a zealous Protestant and adherent of
the Parliament. Lord Baltimore at the same time issued a new commission
of the Council of State appointing five councillors, three of whom were
Protestants, and he also appointed a Protestant secretary. Accompanying
the commissions were oaths to be taken by the governor and councillors.
Each was required to swear that he would not trouble or molest any
person in the Province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, “and
in particular no Roman Catholick for, or in respect of, his or her
religion.” While the usual power to assent to laws in the name of the
Proprietary was given to Stone, his commission contained a proviso that
he should not assent to the _repeal_ of any law—already made or which
should thereafter be made—which might in any way concern matters of
religion, without special warrant under the seal of the Proprietary.
The object of this restriction was to prevent the repeal, by subsequent
legislatures, of the act of religious toleration which Lord Baltimore
purposed to have passed by the next Assembly. By this act he did not
design to have the custom of religious liberty, which had prevailed
from the settlement, at all enlarged, but only to be a law of the land
beyond the reach of alteration. This security was the more necessary
since Stone had agreed to procure five hundred settlers to reside in
Maryland, and these might create an overwhelming Protestant majority.
[Illustration]
The new governor and council entered upon their duties in the beginning
of 1649, and in April of that year the Assembly met. The first law made
was the famous “act concerning religion;” which, at least so far as it
related to toleration, was doubtless one of the sixteen proposed laws
which Lord Baltimore had sent over in the preceding year with the new
commissions. The memorable words of this act, the first law securing
religious liberty that ever passed a legally constituted legislature,
provide that—
“Whereas, the inforcing of the conscience in matters of religion
hath frequently fallen out to bee of dangerous consequence in those
commonwealths where it hath beene practised, and for the more quiet
and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve
mutuall love and unity amongst the inhabitants here,” it was enacted
that no person “professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall, from
henceforth, be any waies troubled, molested, or discountenanced for,
or in respect of, his or her religion, nor in the free exercise
thereof within this province, ... nor any way compelled to the beleefe
or exercise of any other religion, against his or her consent.”
The Assembly was composed of sixteen members, nine burgesses, the
governor, and six councillors. Their faith has been a matter of
dispute, but the most recent investigations make it certain that a
majority were Catholics. The governor, three of the council, and two of
the burgesses were, without doubt, Protestants. It is equally certain
that three of the council and five burgesses were Catholics. The faith
of the remaining two members is doubtful; and there is also doubt
whether the governor and council sat as a distinct upper house or not.
By the other sections of the “act of toleration,” blasphemy, and
denying the divinity of Christ, or the Trinity, were made punishable
with death; and those using reproachful words concerning the Virgin
Mary or the Apostles, or in matters of religion applying opprobrious
epithets to persons, were punishable by a fine, and in default of
payment by imprisonment or whipping. It does not appear that any of
these penalties were ever inflicted. The toleration established by
this act is so far in advance of all contemporary legislation, that it
would be invidious to reproach the law-givers because they were not
still more enlightened. It may have been that they regarded any broader
toleration as prohibited by the provision of the charter respecting the
Christian religion, or as likely to excite the animadversion of the
Puritans in England. Parliament had recently passed a law (Act of 1648,
chapter 114) for the preventing of the growth of heresy and blasphemy,
by which the “maintaining with obstinacy” of any one of a number of
enumerated heresies—such as that Christ is not ascended into heaven
bodily, or that the bodies of men shall not rise again after they are
dead—was made a felony punishable with death.
[Illustration: ENDORSEMENT OF THE TOLERATION ACT.]
In 1649 Governor Stone invited a body of Puritans who were banished
from Virginia, on account of their refusal to conform to the Church
of England, to settle in Maryland. These Puritans, the fruits of a
mission which had been sent from New England to “convert the ungodly
Virginians,” numbered over one hundred. Stone having promised them
liberty in the matter of religion and the privileges of English
subjects, they accepted the invitation, and in this year settled at a
place which they called Providence,—now the site of Annapolis. The
settlement was, at the next Assembly, erected into a county, and named
Anne Arundel, in honor of Lord Baltimore’s wife, recently deceased, who
was a daughter of the Earl of Arundel. The conditions of plantation
required every person taking up land in the Province to subscribe an
oath of fidelity to his lordship, acknowledging him to be “the true
and absolute lord and Proprietary of this province.” The Puritans
objected to this oath as being against their consciences, because it
required them to acknowledge an absolute power, and bound them to obey
a government which countenanced the Roman religion. It is clear that
these refugees from intolerance were eager to be intolerant themselves.
During a temporary absence of Stone in November, 1649, Greene, the
deputy-governor, foolishly proclaimed Charles II. king, and granted a
general pardon in furtherance of the common rejoicing. Although this
act was promptly disavowed, it afterwards became a formidable weapon
against Lord Baltimore.
Notwithstanding their scruples, the Providence Puritans sent two
burgesses to the Assembly of 1650, one of whom was elected speaker of
the lower house. At this session there was first made a permanent
division of the Assembly into two houses, which lasted till the
Revolution of 1776. The lower house consisted of the burgesses, and the
upper of the governor, secretary, and council. The majority of this
Assembly were Protestants; but they made a law enacting, as “a memorial
to all posterities” of their thankfulness, fidelity, and obedience
to the Proprietary, that, “being bound thereunto by the laws both
of God and man,” they acknowledged him “to be the true and absolute
lord and Proprietary of this province,” and declaring that they would
maintain his jurisdiction till “the last drop of our blood be spent.”
Another act was passed altering the oath of fidelity prescribed by the
conditions of plantation. The new oath afforded ample opportunity for
mental reservation. By it the subscribers bound themselves to maintain
“the just and lawful” right and dominion of the Proprietary, “not in
any wise understood to infringe or prejudice liberty of conscience in
point of religion.”
Lord Baltimore’s trimming at this crisis aroused the displeasure of
Charles II. Although a powerless exile, he deposed the Proprietary,
and appointed Sir William Davenant royal governor of Maryland, on the
ground that Baltimore “did visibly adhere to the rebels in England,
and admitted all kinds of sectaries and schismatics and ill affected
persons into the plantation.” Baltimore afterwards used this assertion
to prove his fidelity to Parliament. Sir William collected a force of
French and sailed for Maryland, but was captured in the channel.
Lord Baltimore was soon after threatened from a much more formidable
quarter. The revolt of the island of Barbadoes called the attention
of Parliament to the necessity of subjecting the colonies to its
power, and by an act passed Oct. 3, 1650, for reducing Barbadoes,
Antigua, “and other islands and places in America” to their due
obedience, the Council of State was authorized to send ships to any
of the plantations, and to commission officers “to enforce all such
to obedience as do or shall stand in opposition to Parliament.” When
the news of this act reached Maryland, the Puritans of Providence
thought that the days of the Proprietary dominion were numbered, and
they consequently refused to send burgesses to the Assembly which met
in March, 1651. Upon information of their conduct and of the perturbed
state of the Province being transmitted to Lord Baltimore, he sent in
August, 1651, a long message to the governor and Assembly. He declared
that the reports concerning the dissolution of his government were
unfounded, and directed that in case any of the inhabitants should
persist in their refusal to send burgesses to the Assembly, they should
be proceeded against as rebels. He also requested the governor and
council to use their best endeavors to suppress such false rumors, and
suggested that a law be made punishing those spreading false news.
But they who asserted that the Proprietary dominion was about to
fall, did not “spread false news.” That steps were not immediately
taken to execute the Act of 1650 was probably owing to the fact that
Scotland was now in arms under the banner of Charles II. But after
the “crowning mercy” of the battle of Worcester, the Council of State,
Sept. 20, 1651, appointed two officers of the navy, and Richard
Bennett and William Clayborne of Virginia, commissioners under the
act. They were directed to use their “best endeavors to reduce all the
plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake to their due obedience to the
Parliament and the Commonwealth of England.” Maryland was at first
expressly named in these instructions; but before they were issued,
Baltimore went before the committee of the Council and showed that
Governor Stone had always been well affected to Parliament; proved
by merchants, who traded to Maryland, that it was not in opposition,
and declared that when the friends of the Commonwealth had been
compelled to leave Virginia he had caused them to be well received in
his province. The name of Maryland was thereupon stricken out of the
instructions; but when they were finally issued, a term was used under
which the Province might be included.
Clayborne and Bennett were in Virginia; the other commissioners soon
after sailed with a fleet carrying a regiment of men, and one hundred
and fifty Scotch prisoners who were to be sold as servants in Virginia.
A part of the fleet finally reached Jamestown in March, 1652. The
commissioners speedily came to terms with Sir William Berkeley, and
then turned their attention to Maryland. They appeared at St. Mary’s
toward the last of March, and demanded submission in two particulars:
first, that all writs and proclamations should be issued in the name
of the Keepers of the Liberties of England, and not in that of the
Proprietary; and second, that all the inhabitants should subscribe
the test, called “the engagement,” which was an oath of allegiance to
Parliament. The instructions of the commissioners expressly authorized
them to insist upon these terms. The governor and council acceded to
the second demand, but refused the first on the ground that process in
Maryland had never run in the name of the king, and that it was not the
intention of Parliament to deprive Lord Baltimore of his rights in the
Province. The commissioners immediately removed Stone and appointed a
council of six to govern the Province independently of the Proprietary.
Bennett and Clayborne then returned to Virginia, where they appointed
themselves respectively governor and secretary of that colony. A few
months later Stone, deeming that he could best subserve the interests
of the Proprietary by temporizing, submitted to the terms of the
commissioners, who, finding that Stone was too popular a man to be
disregarded, reinstated him in his office June 28, 1652.
Now that Virginia and Maryland were both under the authority of the
same commissioners, the Virginians thought that the time had arrived
when an attempt to regain their lost territory was likely to prosper.
In August, 1652, a petition was presented to Parliament praying that
Virginia might have its ancient limits as granted by the charters
of former kings, and that Parliament would grant a new charter in
opposition to those intrenching upon these limits. This petition was
referred to the committee of the navy with directions to consider what
patent was proper to be granted to Virginia. The committee reported
Dec. 31, 1652. They found that Kent Island had been settled three years
before the settlement of Maryland; that Clayborne had been unlawfully
dispossessed of it; that Baltimore had exacted oaths of fealty to
himself; that several laws of Maryland were repugnant to the statutes
of England, such as the one protecting Papists; that persons of Dutch,
French, and Italian descent enjoyed equal privileges with the English
in Maryland; and that in March, 1652, the governor and council of
Maryland had refused to issue writs in the name of the Keepers of the
Liberties of England. No action was taken upon this report. Baltimore
had previously presented a paper containing reasons of state why it
would be more advantageous for the Commonwealth to keep Maryland under
a separate government than to join it to Virginia. These reasons were
adapted to the existing condition of affairs, and are sufficiently
ingenious.
The Province seems to have been quiet during the year 1653. In
England, Cromwell turned Parliament out of doors, and the whole
strength of the nation was devoted to the Dutch War. Lord Baltimore
thought the time propitious for an attempt to recover his colony.
Accordingly, in the latter part of the year, he directed Stone to
cause all persons who had failed to sue out patents for their land,
or had not taken the amended oath of fidelity to the Proprietary,
to do so within three months upon pain of forfeiture of their land.
Stone was also directed to issue all writs and processes in the name
of the Proprietary. In pursuance of these instructions Stone issued a
proclamation in February, 1654, requiring those seated upon lands to
obtain patents, and swear allegiance to Lord Baltimore. A few weeks
later he commanded all officers of justice to issue their writs in
the name of the Proprietary, and showed that this change would not
infringe their “engagement” to the Commonwealth. In May he proclaimed
Cromwell Lord Protector. But the Puritans were not mollified by this
act. Before the proclamation of February had been issued, information
as to Baltimore’s instructions had reached the Puritans on the Severn
and Patuxent; and they had sent petitions to Bennett and Clayborne,
in which they complained that the oath of fidelity to be required of
them was “a very real grievance, and such an oppression as we are not
able to bear,” and prayed for relief according to the cause and power
wherewith the commissioners were intrusted. The open disaffection of
the Puritans caused Stone in July, 1654, to issue a proclamation in
which he charged Bennett and Clayborne, and the whole Puritan party,
with leading the people into “faction, sedition, and rebellion against
the Lord Baltimore.” The commissioners, still acting under their old
authority, resolved again to reduce Maryland. They put themselves at
the head of the Providence party, and advanced against St. Mary’s.
At the same time a force levied in Virginia, threatened an invasion
from the south. Stone, deeming resistance hopeless, submitted. The
commissioners deposed him, and by an order dated Aug. 1, 1654,
committed the government of the Province to Captain Fuller and a
Puritan council. An Assembly was called to meet in the ensuing October
for which Roman Catholics were disabled from voting or being elected
members. And thus the fugitives from oppression proceeded to oppress
those who had given them an asylum. “Ingratitude to benefactors is the
first of revolutionary virtues.” The new Assembly met at the house of
an adherent on the Patuxent River. Its first act was one denying the
right of Lord Baltimore to interfere in the affairs of the Province. An
act concerning religion was passed, declaring that none who professed
the Popish religion could be protected in the Province, “but to be
restrained from the exercise thereof.”
When the news of the deposition of his officers reached Lord Baltimore
he despatched a special messenger with letters to Stone, upbraiding him
for having yielded the Province without striking a blow, and directing
him to make every effort to re-establish the proprietary government.
Stone, thus commanded, resolved to dispute the possession of the
government with the Puritans. He armed the population of St. Mary’s,
and caused the records, which had been removed to the Patuxent, and
a quantity of ammunition to be seized. In March, 1655, he advanced
against Providence with about two hundred men and a small fleet of bay
craft. He sent ahead of him envoys with a demand for submission which
was rejected. The Puritans obtained the aid of Roger Heamans, master of
the “Golden Lion,” an armed merchantman lying in the port, and prepared
for resistance. Stone landed his men near the town on the evening of
the 24th of March, and on the next morning the hostile forces advanced
against each other. The battle-cry of the Puritans was, “In the name
of God fall on!” that of their opponents, “Hey for St. Mary’s!” The
fight was short and decisive. The Puritans were completely victorious.
About fifty of Stone’s men were killed or wounded, and nearly all the
rest, including Stone himself, who was wounded, were taken prisoners.
The loss of the Puritans was trifling, but they did not use their
victory with moderation. A drum-head court-martial condemned ten
prisoners to death, upon four of whom the sentence was executed. Among
those thus tried and condemned was Governor Stone, but the soldiers
themselves refused to take his life. It is said that the intercessions
of the women caused the lives of the others to be spared. They were
however kept in confinement, and the estates of the “delinquents” were
confiscated.
Each party was now anxious to find favor in the sight of the Protector.
Lord Baltimore presented the affidavit of certain Protestants in the
Province as to the high-handed proceedings of the Puritans; while
the commissioners transmitted documents to prove that he was hostile
to the Protector. In the course of the year several pamphlets were
published on either side of the controversy. Cromwell, however, does
not appear to have concerned himself about the dispute, since both
parties acknowledged his supremacy. In January, 1655, Baltimore
had obtained from him a letter to Bennett, directing the latter to
forbear disturbing the Proprietary or his people in Maryland. Soon
after the receipt of this letter Bennett abandoned the governorship
of Virginia and went to England. He there made such representations
to the Protector, that, in September, 1655, Cromwell wrote to the
“Commissioners of Maryland,” explaining that his former letter related
only to the boundary disputes between Maryland and Virginia. After the
battle of Providence, Cromwell referred the matter to the Commissioners
of the Great Seal, and declared his pleasure that in the mean time
the government of Maryland should remain as settled by Clayborne. The
Commissioners of the Great Seal reported to the council of state in
the following year. This report was not acted upon, but was itself
referred to the Commissioners for Trade. It was probably favorable to
Lord Baltimore, for he made another effort to wrest his Province from
the hands of the Puritans. In July, 1656, he appointed Josias Fendall
governor of the Province, with all the powers formerly exercised by
Stone. Fendall was in reality only a persistent and unscrupulous
revolutionist, but his activity had hitherto been exercised on behalf
of the Proprietary. Even before his appointment his conduct had excited
the suspicions of the Puritan council. He was arrested by them on the
charge of “dangerousness to the public peace,” and kept in confinement
till September, 1656, when he was released upon taking an oath not to
disturb the existing government until the matter was determined in
England.
[Illustration]
On the 16th of September, 1656, the Commissioners of Trade reported
to the Lord Protector entirely in favor of Baltimore. The report was
not acted upon, and Bennett and Matthews, the agents of the Puritans,
continued the contest. In October they sent to the Protector a paper
entitled, _Objections against Lord Baltimore’s patent, and reasons why
the government of Maryland should not be put into his hands_. These
objections merely recite the old grievances. Baltimore did not wait
for the report to be confirmed, but, confident that his province would
be restored to him, directed Fendall to assume the administration of
affairs. He also directed large grants of land to be made to those who
had been conspicuous for their fidelity to him, and instructed the
Council to make provision, out of his own rents, for the widows of
those who had lost their lives in his service. Towards the close of
the year the Proprietary sent his brother, Philip Calvert, to Maryland
as a member of the Council and secretary of the Province. Maryland was
now divided between the rival governments. The Puritans held undisputed
sway over Anne Arundel, Kent Island, and most of the settlements, while
Fendall’s authority seems to have been confined to St. Mary’s County.
But there were no acts of hostility between the opposing factions. In
September, 1657, the Puritans held another Assembly at Patuxent, at
which they again passed an act in recognition of their own authority,
and imposed taxes for the payment of the public charges.
Such was the posture of affairs when an agreement was reached by Lord
Baltimore and the Puritan agents in England. The favor with which
the Protector regarded the old nobility, and his failure to notice
the remonstrances which the Puritan agents had addressed to him,
caused the latter to despair of setting aside the adverse report of
the Commissioners of Trade. The new agent of Virginia, Digges, acted
as the intermediary between Baltimore and Bennett and Matthews, and
the articles of agreement were signed on the 30th of November, 1657.
After reciting the controversies and the “very sad, distracted, and
unsettled condition” of the Province, they provide for the submission
of those in opposition to the Proprietary and their surrender of the
records and great seal. Lord Baltimore, on his part, promised “upon
his honor” that he would punish no offenders, but would grant land to
all having claims under the conditions of plantation, and that any
persons desiring to leave the Province should have liberty to do so.
The Puritans now desired the protection of the Toleration Act, and
Lord Baltimore therefore stipulated that he would never assent to its
repeal. Fendall, who had gone to England for the purpose of consulting
the Proprietary, immediately returned to Maryland with a copy of this
agreement. At the same time Bennett wrote to Captain Fuller, apprising
him of the engagement which had been made on behalf of his party.
Fendall arrived in the Province in February, 1658; and the Providence
council were requested to meet the officers of Lord Baltimore in order
to treat for the performance of the agreement. A meeting of the rival
councillors accordingly took place in March. The Puritans, fatigued
by the long struggle, were not unwilling to submit, but insisted upon
making some changes in the articles of surrender. Fendall accepted
their terms, and the new agreement was signed on the 24th of March,
1658. It was stipulated that the oath of fidelity should not be pressed
upon the people then resident in the Province, but that, in its place,
each person should subscribe an engagement to submit to Lord Baltimore,
according to his patent, and not to obey any in opposition to him.
It was further agreed that no persons should be disarmed; that there
should be a general indemnity for all acts done since December, 1649,
and that the proceedings of the Puritan assemblies and courts, in cases
relating to property rights, should not be annulled. Proclamation was
then made of this agreement and of the governor’s commission, and writs
were issued for an Assembly to be held in the ensuing April. At this
Assembly the articles of surrender were confirmed. And thus, after six
years of civil broils, the Proprietary sway was re-established.
But the spirit of that revolutionary epoch was not yet extinct in
Maryland. Another attempt to subvert the authority of Lord Baltimore
was made in the following year. This time the leader was Fendall
himself, who, after having broken faith with the Puritans, now broke
faith with the Proprietary. Upon the confusion which followed the death
of Cromwell, Fendall thought that the opportune moment had come for
shaking off the rule of his feudal lord. At a session of the Assembly
held in March, 1660, the burgesses, in pursuance of Fendall’s scheme,
sent to the upper house a message, in which they claimed to be a lawful
assembly, without dependence on any other power, and the highest court
of judicature. “If any objection can be made to the contrary,” the
message concluded, “we desire to hear it.” A conference between the
houses was held, at which Fendall stated that he was only commissioned
to confirm laws till the Proprietary should declare his dissent, but
that in his opinion the true meaning of the charter was that the laws
made by the freemen and published by them in his lordship’s name should
at once be of full force. On the same day the lower house came in a
body to the upper, and declared that they would not permit the latter
to continue its sittings, but that its members might take seats among
them. Fendall then dissolved the upper house, and, surrendering the
powers he had received from the Proprietary, accepted a new commission
from the burgesses. Philip Calvert protested against the proceedings,
and left the house. The burgesses sought to fortify their authority by
making it a felony to disturb the government as established by them.
Lord Baltimore made short work of these treacherous proceedings. As
soon as the tidings reached him, in the following June, he appointed
Philip Calvert governor. Soon after he obtained from Charles II. a
letter commanding all the inhabitants of the Province to submit to
his authority. Philip Calvert was sworn in at the Provincial Court
held at Patuxent in December, 1660, and had no difficulty in obtaining
control of the Province. No one ventured to disobey the commands of
a monarch who had just been restored to the throne amid universal
enthusiasm. Fendall, indeed, attempted to excite an insurrection, but,
failing in this, surrendered himself voluntarily. Lord Baltimore had
instructed his deputy not to permit Fendall to escape with his life;
and subsequently, while proclaiming a general amnesty, he excepted
Hatch and “that perfidious and perjured fellow Fendall, whom we lately
entrusted to be our lieutenant of Maryland.” Notwithstanding these
instructions, Fendall was punished only by a fine and disfranchisement.
[Illustration]
Charles II. was duly proclaimed, and the power of King and Proprietary
permanently revived. The tranquillity which now came to the exhausted
colony was destined to last, without interruption, till the mighty wave
of another revolution in England proved fatal to the lord paramount
of Maryland. Clayborne, who has been called the evil genius of the
Province, now disappears from its history. His courage and energy have
won the admiration of some writers; but, according to the settled
principles of public law, his claim upon Kent Island was entirely
without foundation. Towards the close of 1661 Charles Calvert, the
eldest son of the Proprietary, was appointed governor, and remained
in that office till the death of his father. The history of the
Province becomes the record of peaceful progress under his wise and
just administration. The population, which in 1660 was 12,000, had
increased, five years later, to 16,000. In 1676 Lord Baltimore wrote
to the Privy Council that the population was 20,000. The provincial
assemblies continued to be held at St. Mary’s, and new counties were
from time to time erected.
[Illustration: THE BALTIMORE COINS.
[See a “Sketch of the Early Currency of Maryland and Virginia,” by S.
F. Streeter, in _Historical Magazine_, February, 1858, vol. ii. p.
42; and Crosby’s _Early Coins of America_, from which we have been
permitted to borrow our cuts. Specimens of the coins were given by the
late George Peabody to the Maryland Historical Society; but they have
been surreptitiously removed. Other originals are in the cabinet of
William S. Appleton, Esq., of Boston.—ED.]]
The cultivation of tobacco was, from the earliest period, the main
occupation of the colonists. Indeed, the prosperity of all the middle
colonies reposed chiefly upon this foundation. It was almost the sole
export of Maryland. There were no manufactures and no large towns in
the Province. It was an agricultural community, scattered along the
shores of the noble bay, and of the Potomac and other tributary streams
which intersected the country in every direction. The abundance of
these natural highways relieved the infant State from a large part of
the burden of maintaining roads. Every large planter had at his own
door a boat-landing, where he received his supplies, and from which
his tobacco was taken to be shipped upon foreign-bound vessels. The
high price of tobacco in the second quarter of the seventeenth century
(ten times its present value), and the large demand for it by Dutch
traders, led the colonists to devote themselves so exclusively to
its cultivation, that, on more than one occasion, they suffered from
a scarcity of food. Beginning in 1639, numerous acts were passed to
enforce the planting of cereals. In order to maintain the excellence
of the tobacco exported, the Assembly in 1640 enacted the first
tobacco-inspection law,—and thus began a system which has, in some
form, been maintained down to the present day. According to the Act of
1640, no tobacco could be exported till scaled by a sworn viewer; and
when a hogshead was found bad for the greater part, it was to be burned.
Tobacco was not only the great staple of the Province, but also its
chief currency. Taxes were assessed, fines imposed, and salaries
paid in tobacco. After the Restoration the restrictive measures, to
which we shall refer, and the overproduction of tobacco caused great
depreciation in the value of the article. The consequent inconvenience
was such that in 1661 the Assembly prayed the Proprietary to establish
a mint for the coining of money. Lord Baltimore, by a doubtful stretch
of his palatinate prerogatives, caused a large quantity of shillings,
sixpences, and groats to be coined for the Province. These coins
were put into circulation under an act, passed in 1662, requiring
every freeman to take up ten shillings’ worth of them per poll for
every taxable person in his custody, and to pay for the same in
tobacco at the rate of two pence per pound. But their introduction
did not give permanent relief, and tobacco continued to be the chief
medium of exchange. Its value decreased so much, that, early in 1663,
commissioners were appointed by Virginia and Maryland to consider
the evil and its remedy. They could only suggest a diminution of the
quantity raised. In the following year the Virginia agents represented
to the Privy Council the necessity of lessening the cultivation of
tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, and offered proposals for effecting
it. These proposals did not meet the approval of Lord Baltimore. The
Privy Council ordered that there should be no cessation of the planting
of tobacco; but, in order to encourage the planters in cultivating
other articles, directed that pitch, tar, and hemp, of the production
of those colonies, should be imported into England free of duty for
five years. In 1666 an agreement was made between delegates from
Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina, providing for a total cessation
in the planting of tobacco for one year. The legislatures of these
colonies passed acts to enforce this agreement; but the Maryland act
was vetoed by Lord Baltimore, upon the ground that it would work great
injury to the poorer sort of planters, as well as cause a loss of
revenue to the Crown. For various reasons these efforts to control the
market by limiting the supply never succeeded.
The colonists did not then fully perceive where the root of the evil
lay. There was not too much tobacco but too few buyers; and the number
of buyers had been artificially lessened. The real cause of this
colonial distress was the famous Navigation Act and the statutes which
had been made in pursuance of the policy then begun. The Navigation
Act, passed by the Long Parliament in October, 1651, provided that no
goods should be imported from Asia, Africa, or America but in English
vessels, under the penalty of the forfeiture of both goods and ship.
Originally designed as a blow at the commercial supremacy of the
Dutch, this Act became, to use the language of Burke, the corner-stone
of the policy of England with regard to the colonies. This Act was
supplemented by still more restrictive statutes passed in 1660 and in
1663 (15 Car. II. c. 7). The result of these regulations was that the
colonists could buy nothing except from English merchants, and could
sell nothing except to English merchants. They were not even permitted
to export their own goods in their own vessels. They suffered from
a triple monopoly of sale, of purchase, and of transportation. They
bought in the dearest and sold in the cheapest market.
The chief source of the revenue derived by the Proprietary from the
Province arose from the quit-rents which, from the earliest period,
had been charged on all grants of land. These rents were at first
payable in wheat. In later grants they were made payable in money or
the commodities of the country, at the option of the Proprietary, until
1671, when an export duty of two shillings per hogshead was imposed on
all tobacco, one half of which went to the support of the government,
and the other half was granted to the Proprietary in consideration of
his commuting his money quit-rents and alienation fines for tobacco,
at the rate of two pence per pound. After 1658 another source of
Proprietary revenue was an alienation fine of one year’s rent, which
was made a condition precedent to the validity of every conveyance. In
1661 there was given to the Proprietary a port and anchorage duty of
half a pound of powder and three pounds of shot on all foreign vessels
trading to the Province. The fines and forfeitures imposed in courts
of justice inured to the Proprietary as the fountain of justice and
standing _in loco regis_. The royal nature of the Proprietary dominion
was also shown in the use of his name in all writs and processes, as
the name of the king was used in England. Provincial laws were enacted
in his name, by and with the advice and consent of the upper and
lower houses. Indictments, including those upon the penal statutes of
England, charged the offences to be against his peace, good rule, and
government.
The first mention of negro slaves occurs in an act passed in 1664; but
they had probably been previously introduced into the Province from
Virginia, where slavery existed before the settlement of Maryland. In
1671 an act was passed to encourage their importation, and slavery
was thenceforth established. It was long, however, before slaves
took the place of indented servants, who formed a large part of the
population down to the time of the Revolution. They at first consisted
of those who had signed an indenture of service for a limited number
of years and were brought into the Province by the masters themselves.
Subsequently the traffic in servants was taken up by shipowners and
others, who sold them for the remainder of their term to the highest
bidders. The term of service, which was at first five years, was
reduced by the Act of 1638 to four years. Upon the expiration of his
indenture a servant was entitled to fifty acres of land and a year’s
supply of necessaries. These servants were called “Redemptioners,”
and many of them became valuable citizens. After the Restoration the
practice of kidnapping men in English seaports and selling them as
servants in the colonies became very common. Among the Maryland papers
is the petition of one Mrs. Beale to the king, complaining that the
master of a ship had taken her brother as his apprentice on a voyage to
Maryland, and there sold him as a servant. The lord mayor and aldermen
of London complained to the Council that “certain persons, called
spirits, do inveigle, and, by lewd subtilities, entice away” youth to
be sold as servants in the plantations. Owing to its equable climate,
Maryland had more of these indented servants than any other colony, and
the statute book contains many acts relating to them. The practice of
sending convicts to America, however, was warmly resisted, and in 1676
an act was passed to prevent it.
A temporary exception to the universal religious toleration, which was
a capital principle of government in Maryland, occurred in the case
of the Quakers. The first Quaker missionaries appeared in Maryland
in 1657. Two years later other preachers of that sect visited the
Province and caused “considerable convincement.” Their refusal to bear
arms, or to subscribe the engagement of fidelity, or to give testimony,
or to serve as jurors, was mistaken for sedition.
[Illustration: CECIL, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE.
[See the Critical Essay for an account of this picture.—ED.]]
On July 23, 1659, under Fendall’s administration, an order was passed
directing that if “any of the vagabonds and idle persons known by the
name of Quakers” should again come into the Province, the justices
of the peace should arrest them and cause them to be whipped from
constable to constable out of the Province. There is no evidence that
this penalty was ever enforced. The most active Quaker missionary
simply received a sentence of banishment; and after the suppression of
Fendall’s rebellion there was no persecution of the Quakers. They found
a refuge in Maryland from the intolerance of New England and Virginia.
In 1672 George Fox arrived in the Province and attended two “general
meetings for all Maryland Friends,” which he describes in his journal
as having been largely attended, not only by Quakers but by “other
people, divers of whom were of considerable quality in the world’s
account.” Maryland was also sought by many French, Bohemian, and Dutch
families. In 1666 the first act of naturalization was passed admitting
certain French and Bohemians to the rights of citizenship, and from
that time forward numerous similar acts were passed.
On the 30th of November, 1675, died Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, after
having inscribed his name upon one of the fairest pages in the history
of America. The magnificent heritage left him by his father was
beset with difficulties; but his courage, perseverance, and skill
had triumphed over the hostility of Virginia and the intrigues of
Clayborne, over domestic insurrection and Puritan hatred. The first
ruler who established and maintained religious toleration is entitled
to enduring honor in the eyes of posterity. His name is that of one
of the most enlightened and magnanimous statesmen who ever founded a
commonwealth.
In the year following his death, Governor Charles Calvert, now the Lord
Proprietary, called an assembly at which a thorough revision of the
laws of the Province was made. Among the laws continued in force was
the Toleration Act of 1649. In the same year Lord Baltimore appointed
Thomas Notley deputy-governor, and then sailed for England, where he
remained three years. Upon his arrival he found that a clergyman of
the Church of England, named Yeo, residing in Maryland, had written
to the Archbishop of Canterbury, under the date of 25th May, 1676,
begging him to solicit from Lord Baltimore an established support
for the Protestant ministry. “Here are ten or twelve counties,” he
writes, “and in them at least twenty thousand souls, and but three
Protestant ministers of the Church of England. The priests are provided
for, and the Quakers take care of those that are speakers, but no
care is taken to build up churches in the Protestant religion. The
Lord’s day is profaned. Religion is despised, and all notorious vices
are committed, so that it is become a Sodom of uncleanness and a
pest-house of iniquity.” There is reason to believe that this letter
was an exaggerated libel. At any rate the writer considered it easy to
cure the evil. It would be sufficient to impose an established church
upon the Province. The Archbishop referred the letter to the Bishop
of London, who asked the Privy Council to “prevail with Baltimore to
settle a revenue for the ministry in his province.” The Privy Council
wrote to Baltimore communicating the unfavorable information with
regard to the dissolute life of the inhabitants of his province,
and desiring an account of the number of Established and Dissenting
ministers there. Lord Baltimore replied that in every county of
the Province there were a sufficient number of churches which were
supported by the voluntary contributions of those attending them, and
that there were, to his knowledge, four clergymen of the Church of
England in the Province. He also urged that at least three fourths
of the inhabitants were Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and
Quakers, the members both of the Church of England and of the Church
of Rome being the fewest, “so that it will be a most difficult task
to draw such persons to consent unto a law which shall compel them
to maintain ministers of a contrary persuasion to themselves, they
having already assurance by an Act for Religion that they shall have
all freedom in point of religion and divine worship, and no penalties
imposed upon them in that particular.” The Council, however, directed
that some provision should be made for the ministry of the Church of
England, and that the laws against vice should be enforced. Baltimore
returned to Maryland in 1680, but nothing was done to carry out the
orders of the Council.
Soon after his return the restless Fendall, in conjunction with John
Coode, attempted to stir up an insurrection of the Protestants against
the Proprietary. Baltimore, having early notice of the proceedings,
arrested Fendall. He was punished by fine and banishment, and the
enterprise ended almost as soon as it began. The great preponderance
of the Protestant population, and the course of affairs in England
were fast making the position of a Catholic Proprietary untenable.
Complaints of the favor shown to Catholics were constantly sent to
England. In October, 1681, the Privy Council wrote to Baltimore that
impartiality must be shown in admitting Catholics and Protestants
to the council and in the distribution of arms. In reply to these
complaints a declaration was issued in May, 1682, signed by twenty-five
Protestants of the Church of England residing in the Province. This
declaration certified that places of honor, trust, and profit were
conferred on the most qualified, without any regard to the religion
of the participants, and that in point of fact most of the offices
were filled with Protestants, one half of the council, and by far
the greater part of the justices of the peace and militia officers,
being Protestants. The subscribers published to the world the general
freedom and privilege which all the inhabitants of the Province enjoyed
in their lives, liberties, and estates, and in the free and public
exercise of their religion.
The first Proprietary had finally come off successful in the long
contest for his territory with Virginia and Clayborne. The second
Proprietary was now called upon to begin a longer and less successful
struggle with William Penn. The charter limits of Maryland included the
present State of Delaware and a large part of Pennsylvania. In 1638
a settlement of Swedes was made on the Delaware, which was brought
under subjection to the government of the States General in 1655.[872]
In 1659 the governor and council, in pursuance of Lord Baltimore’s
instructions, ordered Colonel Utie to “repair to the pretended governor
of a people seated on the Delaware Bay, within his lordship’s province,
and to require them to depart the province.” Utie had an interview with
the authorities of New Amstel, and threatened them with war in case
of a refusal to leave. They replied that the matter must be left to
their principals in England and Holland. Towards the close of the year
the Dutch sent Augustine Hermann and Resolved Waldron as ambassadors
to Maryland. They had an interview with the governor and council in
which the claim of Holland to the territory in question was formally
presented. The governor asserted the title of Lord Baltimore and
demanded the submission of the settlements. This demand was rejected
and the interview terminated. The Dutch power in America was soon
after brought to an end by the Duke of York, to whom Charles II. in
1664 granted all the territory between the Connecticut and Delaware
rivers.[873] In 1680 Penn asked for a grant of the territory west of
the Delaware and north of Maryland. In his patent, which passed the
seals in March, 1681, the southern boundary of his province was a
“circle of twelve miles drawn around New Castle to the beginning of
the forty degrees of latitude,”—a description which it was impossible
to gratify. In April, 1681, the King wrote to Baltimore notifying him
of Penn’s grant, and directing him to aid Penn in seating himself, and
to appoint some persons to make a division between the provinces, in
conjunction with Penn’s agents.[874] Lord Baltimore met Penn’s deputy,
in September, 1682, at Upland (now Chester), when it was found, by a
precise observation, that the fortieth degree of latitude was beyond
Upland itself. The knowledge of this fact caused Penn to be anxious to
obtain a grant of Delaware. Though the Duke of York’s grant did not
extend south of the Delaware, Penn, by dint of importunity, obtained
from him in August, 1682, a grant of the territory twelve miles around
New Castle, and southward, along the river, to Cape Henlopen. Penn
asked for that which he knew to be within the boundaries of Maryland,
and beyond the power of the Duke to grant. He also received a release
of the Duke’s claim to the territory of Pennsylvania, and soon
afterwards sailed for his province.
On August 19, 1682, he had procured from the King a letter to Baltimore
directing the latter to hasten the adjustment of the boundaries. An
interview between the two Proprietaries took place in December, when
Penn handed to Lord Baltimore the King’s letter. Baltimore insisted
upon the fortieth degree as his northern boundary, and the conference
was fruitless. They had another interview, at New Castle, in the
following year, which also made it apparent that no agreement between
the rival Proprietaries was possible. Penn now raised against the
Maryland charter an objection similar to that which had been urged by
Virginia and Clayborne,—that Delaware had been settled by the Dutch
before the grant of the charter, and that, if this were not the case,
Baltimore had forfeited his rights by failure to extend his settlements
there.
Both Penn and Lord Baltimore now resolved to go to England to
contest the matter before the King and Council. Baltimore called an
assembly—the last over which he presided in person—in April, 1684. He
acquainted them with the necessity he was under of going to England,
and assured them that his stay would be no longer than requisite for
the decision of the differences between Penn and himself. The Assembly
then proceeded to revise the laws of the Province; after which the
Proprietary appointed a council of nine, under the presidency of
William Joseph, to govern the Province during his absence, and sailed
for England. Baltimore found that he was no match in court influence
for Penn. In November, 1685, the Board of Trade decided that the
Maryland charter included only “lands uncultivated and inhabited by
savages, and that the territory along the Delaware had been settled by
Christians antecedently to his grant, and was therefore not included in
it;” and they directed that the peninsula between the two bays should
be divided equally by a line drawn from the latitude of Cape Henlopen
to the fortieth degree, and that the western portion was Baltimore’s
and the eastern Penn’s. The Revolution, however, came in time to
prevent the execution of this decision, and the vexed question was not
finally settled till the middle of the following century.
The accession of James II. brought increased danger to Lord Baltimore.
To a king who designed the subversion of the liberties of the colonies
as well as of England, the liberal charter of Maryland was especially
odious. In April, 1687, an order in Council was made directing the
prosecution of a writ of _quo warranto_ against the Maryland charter.
In that age the issuing of such a writ seldom failed to achieve its
object; but before judgment could be obtained against Baltimore the
Revolution of 1688 had occurred, and the Stuart dynasty was at an end.
The tidings that a writ had been issued against Baltimore’s charter
alarmed the imaginations of the provincials. When the Assembly met in
November, 1688, President Joseph sought to counteract this state of
feeling in a manner which only served to increase the anxiety. In his
opening speech he claimed his right to rule _jure divino_, tracing
it from God to the King, from the King to the Proprietary, and from
the Proprietary to himself. He then took the unprecedented step of
demanding an oath of fidelity from the Houses. The burgesses at first
refused, and were with difficulty persuaded to yield. The Assembly
showed its loyalty to the monarch, who was then a fugitive from his
kingdom, by passing an act for a perpetual thanksgiving for the birth
of the prince, and fixed a commemoration of it each succeeding tenth
day of June.
Upon the accession of William and Mary the Privy Council directed
Lord Baltimore to cause their majesties to be proclaimed in Maryland.
He immediately despatched a messenger with orders to his council to
proclaim the king and queen with the usual ceremonies. This messenger
unfortunately died at Plymouth, and, although William and Mary had
been acknowledged in the other colonies, the Maryland council shrank
from acting without orders from the Proprietary, while they alarmed
the inhabitants by collecting arms and ammunition. Information of
this delay was sent to the Board of Trade from Virginia. Baltimore
was consequently summoned before it, when he explained that he
had sent the required directions to Maryland, but that they had
failed to arrive. He was ordered to despatch duplicate instructions,
but before they reached the Province the Proprietary’s power was
overthrown. The absence of all colonial records from the close of the
session of 1688 to the year 1692 makes it difficult to understand the
exact cause of this revolution. Enough appears from other sources,
however, to show that it was a rebellion fostered by falsehood and
intimidation,—“a provincial Popish plot.” In April, 1689, John Coode
and other disaffected persons formed “An Association in arms for
the defence of the Protestant religion, and for asserting the right
of King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland and all
the English dominions.” Early in July they began to gather in large
numbers on the Potomac. They alleged that the Catholics had invited the
northern Indians to join them in a general massacre of the Protestants
in the following month, and that they had taken arms to defeat this
conspiracy. When a similar rumor had been set on foot, in the preceding
March, a declaration had been published, signed by several of those
who were now Associators, asserting that the subscribers had examined
into all the circumstances of the pretended design, and “found it to be
nothing but a sleveless fear and imagination fomented by the artifice
of some ill-minded persons.” But in July the Association availed itself
of this baseless rumor to obtain the adherence of those who were
foolish enough to believe it; while to others they asserted that their
purpose was only to proclaim William and Mary.
By these means the neutrality or support of the greater part of the
population was secured, and the Associators moved upon St. Mary’s.
The council prepared for resistance, but, upon the approach of Coode
with greatly superior forces, they surrendered the State House and
the provincial records. The Association then published a “Declaration
of the reasons and motives for the present appearing in arms of their
Majesties’ Protestant subjects in the Province of Maryland.” This
Declaration, dated July 25, 1689, signed by Coode and many others, was
printed at St. Mary’s.[875] It is an ingenious and able paper, but
certainly an audacious calumny, which could only have found credence
in England. It set forth that, by the contrivances of Lord Baltimore
and his officers, “the tyranny under which we groan is palliated,” and
“our grievances shrouded from the eye of observation and the hand of
redress.” These grievances were then stated in general terms. In the
mean time Joseph and his council retired to a fort on the Patuxent.
When Coode marched against them with several hundred men they were
again compelled to surrender, and the Associators became masters of
the situation. On the third of August, 1689, they sent an address
to the king and queen congratulating them upon having restored the
laws and liberties of England to their “ancient lustre, purity, and
splendor,” and declaring that, without the expense of a drop of blood,
they had rescued the government of Maryland from the hands of their
enemies, and would hold it securely till a settlement thereof should
be made. A convention was called to meet on the 23d of August, to which
however several counties refused to send delegates. The convention
sent an address to the King asking that their rights and religion
might be secured under a Protestant government. The matter was now
to be determined in England, and addresses from all the counties and
from both parties poured in to the King. Many Protestants favored the
Proprietary, and, in their addresses, denounced the falsehoods of the
Associators. A number of the Protestants of Kent County declared in
their address that “we have here enjoyed many halcyon days under the
immediate government of Charles, Lord Baron of Baltimore, and his
honorable father, ... by charter of your royal progenitors, wherein our
rights and freedoms are so interwoven with his Lordship’s prerogative
that we have always had the same liberties and privileges secured to
us as other of your Majesty’s subjects in the Kingdom of England.” The
greater number of signers, however, sided with the revolutionists.
A friend of Lord Baltimore wrote that “people in debt think it the
bravest time that ever was. No courts open nor no law proceedings,
which they pray may continue as long as they live.” The same writer
asserted that the best men and the best Protestants stood stiffly up
for the Proprietary’s interest.
Those who had benefited by a Protestant Revolution in England were
naturally disposed to look with favor upon a similar Revolution in
America. And thus it came to pass that the Proprietary government “fell
without a crime.”
King William on Feb. 1, 1690, in pursuance of the recommendation of
the committee of the Council for Trade and Plantations, wrote to
those in the administration of Maryland, acknowledging the receipt of
their addresses and approving their motives for taking up arms. He
authorized them to continue in the administration, and in the mean
time to preserve the public peace. Lord Baltimore struggled hard to
retain his province, although his chance of obtaining justice was
desperate. He presented to the King and Council various affidavits and
narratives showing the falsity of the charges against his government.
In January, 1690, he petitioned the Board of Trade to grant a hearing
to such inhabitants and merchants as had lived in and dealt with
Maryland for upwards of twenty-five years, at the same time forwarding
a list of their names. A few days later he requested the Board to
hear his account of the disturbances, to the end that the government
might be restored to him. In August, however, the Council directed
the attorney-general to proceed by _scire facias_ against Baltimore’s
charter. Chief-Justice Holt had previously given an opinion that the
King could appoint a governor of Maryland whose authority would be
legal; and the attorney-general and solicitor-general were directed to
draft a commission of governor.
On the 12th of March, 1691, Queen Mary wrote to the Grand Committee
of Maryland that the Province was taken under the King’s immediate
superintendence, that Copley would be governor, and, until his
arrival, they were to administer the government in the names of their
Majesties. In the following August Sir Lionel Copley was commissioned
by the king and queen. He reached Maryland early in 1692, and the
Province became a royal colony for a quarter of a century. The
Proprietary was still allowed to receive his quit-rents and export
duty, but all his other prerogatives were at an end.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE earliest publication relating to Maryland was a pamphlet which
appeared in London in 1634. It is entitled _A Relation of the
Successful Beginnings of the Lord Baltemore’s Plantation in Maryland:
being an extract of certaine Letters written from thence by some of the
Adventurers to their friends in England_.[876] The similarity of the
language of this relation with Father White’s _Relatio Itineris_ would
seem to show that he was its author. The relation describes the first
settlement and the products of the soil, and narrates the naïve wonder
of the Indians at the big ships and the thunder of the guns. It is
dated “From Saint Marie’s in Maryland, 27 May, 1634.”
The next publication was, _A Relation of Maryland_, London, Sept. 8,
1635,—a work of great value to the student. It was evidently prepared
under the direction of Lord Baltimore, and is an extensive colonizing
programme. It recounts the planting of the colony and their intercourse
with the Indians, and describes the commodities which the country
naturally afforded and those that might be procured by industry. It
also contains the “conditions propounded by the Lord Baltemore to
such as shall goe or adventure into Maryland,” and gives elaborate
instructions as to what the adventurers should take with them, together
with an estimate of the cost of transporting servants and providing
them with necessaries.[877]
A very full account of the voyage of the “Ark and Dove” to Maryland
is contained in a letter written by Father Andrew White, S. J., to
the General of the Order. The originals of this letter, as well as of
different letters from the Jesuit missionaries in Maryland from 1635
to 1677, were discovered, about fifty years ago, by the Rev. W. M.
Sherry, who was afterwards Provincial of the Jesuits in Maryland, in
the archives of the Society in Rome. The copy he then made of these
manuscripts is now in the possession of Loyola College, Baltimore. In
1874 and 1877 the Maryland Historical Society published this _Relatio
Itineris_, and extracts from the annual letters, in the original
Mediæval Latin, with a translation by Mr. Josiah Holmes Converse.
This publication also contains an account of the colony in which the
character of the country and its numerous sources of wealth are set
forth in the glowing colors of anticipation. The original of this
_Declaratio Coloniæ_ was also found at Rome. It was probably written
by Lord Baltimore soon after the grant of his patent, and sent to the
General of the Society at the time of his request that priests might be
sent out to the colony. These publications are enriched with the notes
of the late Rev. E. A. Dalrymple, S. T. D.[878] then Corresponding
Secretary of the Maryland Historical Society. The letters, which have
been frequently used in the preceding narrative, throw much light
upon the early days of the Province, and give a vivid picture of the
activity of the missionaries.[879]
The reduction of Maryland at the time of the Commonwealth caused
several pamphlets upon its affairs to be published in London. The first
of these was _The Lord Baltemore’s case concerning the Province of
Maryland, adjoyning to Virginia in America with full and clear answers
to all material objections touching his Rights, jurisdiction, and
Proceedings there_, etc. London, 1653. This tract was probably called
forth by the report of the committee of the Navy on Maryland affairs
in December, 1652. Although written by Lord Baltimore, or under his
direction, it is a temperate and reliable statement. It contains his
reasons of state why it would be more advantageous for the Commonwealth
to keep Maryland and Virginia separate.
An answer to this pamphlet was published in London in 1655, entitled,
_Virginia and Maryland, or The Lord Baltemore’s printed case uncased
and answered_, etc.[880] This work is of value in giving a full
statement of the Puritan side of the controversy down to 1655. It has
the proceedings in Parliament in 1652 relating to Maryland, copies of
the instructions of the commissioners for the reduction, and other
documents.
There are four pamphlets bearing upon the battle of Providence in
March, 1655. The first is called, _An additional brief narrative of a
late Bloody design against The Protestants in Ann Arundel County and
Severn in Maryland in the County of Virginia.... Set forth by Roger
Heaman, Commander of the Ship Golden Lyon, an eye-witness there_.
London, July 24, 1655. The author gives a detailed but unfair account
of the fight, and of his connection with it, and of the previous
proceedings of Governor Stone. Heamans was answered by John Hammond,
“a sufferer in these calamities,” in a tract, called _Hammond_ vs.
_Heamans; Or, an answer to an audacious pamphlet published by an
impudent and ridiculous fellow named Roger Heamans_, etc. The author
was the person despatched by Stone, early in 1655, to remove the
records from Patuxent. He declares that he “went unarmed amongst these
sons of Thunder, and myself alone seized and carried away the records
in defiance.” In the same year were published both _Babylon’s Fall in
Maryland_, etc., by Leonard Strong, and John Langford’s _Refutation of
Babylon’s Fall_, etc. Strong, the author of the former pamphlet, was
one of the leading Puritans of Providence, and afterwards their agent
in London, where he wrote the tract. It is a party work, containing a
garbled statement of the facts. Langford’s _Refutation_ has a letter
from Governor Stone’s wife to Lord Baltimore describing the conduct of
the Puritans and their treatment of her husband. Langford was rewarded
for this work by Lord Baltimore with a gift of fifteen hundred acres of
land in Maryland.[881]
In 1656 John Hammond published his _Leah and Rachel; or, the Two
fruitfull Sisters Virginia and Maryland_. _Their present condition
impartially stated and related_, etc.[882] This pamphlet is favorable
to Lord Baltimore and condemns the Puritans.
A highly curious production is, _A Character of the Province of
Maryland_, by George Alsop. London, 1666.[883] Alsop had been an
indented servant in Maryland, and gives a favorable account of the
condition of Maryland apprentices. The tract is written in a jocular
style, and was designed to encourage emigration to the Province. It
contains some interesting details concerning the Indian tribes.
Various causes, chief among which are Ingle’s Rebellion, time, and
negligence, have resulted in the destruction of a large part of the
early records of the Province. The principal portion of what now
remains relating to the period before the Protestant Revolution is
contained in the following manuscript folio volumes:—
1. Liber Z. The Proprietary Record-book from 1637-1642. This is
the oldest record-book extant. It contains a full account of the
proceedings of the Assembly held in 1638, and of the process against
William Lewis for his violation of the proclamation prohibiting
religious disputes. This volume also has the records of the Council
acting as a county court, and of proceedings in testamentary causes.
Many of the original signatures of Leonard Calvert, Secretary Lewger,
and others are scattered through the volume.
2. A. 1647-1651. The original second Record-book of the Province. The
first fifty-eight pages and several of the last are wanting. It has in
it proceedings of assemblies, court records, appointments to office,
demands and surveys of land, wills, etc.
3. Y. 1649-1669. Journals and acts of different assemblies,
commissions from the Proprietary, etc. This volume contains the
Toleration Act of 1649[884] and the proceedings of Fendall’s
revolutionary assembly in 1660.
4. H. H. 1656-1668. Council proceedings. The original volume
containing instructions from the Proprietary, commissions of Fendall
and others, ordinances, and the proceedings against the Quakers.[885]
5. A. M. 1669-1673. Council Proceedings. A copy probably made in the
last century.
6. F. 1637-1642. Council Proceedings and other documents in vol. i. of
the Land-Office Records. This copy of the original, which is lost, was
made in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and is certified
by a Judge of the Provincial Court to be correct. This volume contains
Governor Leonard Calvert’s commission, Clayborne’s petition to the
King, orders of the Privy Council, etc.
7. A. 1647-1650. Council and Court Proceedings. Some part of the
original is lost. A copy in vol. ii. of the Land-Office Records.
8. B. 1648-1657. Council and Court Proceedings and Acts of Assembly.
The original is lost. A copy is in vols. i. and iii. of the
Land-Office Records. This volume contains the proceedings of Captain
Fuller’s council and of the Puritan Assembly in 1654, lists of
servants for whose importation land was demanded, etc.
9. Vellum folio. 1636-1657. Council Proceedings. A copy made in the
eighteenth century. This volume has Stone’s commission, the conditions
of plantation in 1648 and 1649, the proceedings of Bennett and
Clayborne in the reduction of Maryland, and of Stone and the Puritans.
The documents in this volume are not arranged in chronological order.
10. Vellum folio. 1637-1658. Proceedings of Assemblies. A copy.
11. F. F. 1659-1699. Upper House Journals. A copy. Contains a full
account of the proceedings.
12. X. 1661-1663. Council-book. This original volume contains
instructions from the Proprietary to Philip Calvert and Fendall,
demands and grants of land, etc.
13. 1676-1702. Votes and Proceedings of the Lower House. A copy made
by the State Librarian in 1838 from the original papers, which are
not now to be found. It has the proceedings of the Assemblies in
1676,1683, and 1684.
14. C. B. 1683-1684. The original Council-book for land.
The first five of the above volumes are in the possession of the
Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, having been entrusted to its
guardianship by a resolution of the Legislature in 1847. The remaining
folios are in the Land Office at Annapolis.
The three following manuscript volumes are in the office of the Clerk
of the Court of Appeals, at Annapolis:—
15. Liber W. H. Laws: erroneously lettered on the back 1676-1678.
This volume contains laws made at different Assemblies from 1640 to
1688. They are not placed in strict chronological order. These copies
were made in the seventeenth century, and many of the transcripts are
attested by Philip Calvert as _Cancellarius_.
16. W. H. and L. 1640-1692. Laws made at some of the Assemblies held
during these years.
17. C. and W. H. 1638-1678. Laws. A copy from older books made in
1726, and certified to be correct.
The two following original volumes are in the State Library at
Annapolis:—
18. Proprietary, 1642-1644. Contains proceedings of the Council
sitting as the Provincial Court, proclamations, commissions, etc. A
part of this volume has been transcribed into one of the Land-Office
Records.
19. Provincial Court of Maryland. Records. March, 1658-November, 1662.
This volume is in bad condition and several pages are wanting. It
contains the records of the Council as a Court, oaths of officers,
depositions, etc.
A calendar of the state papers contained in Nos. 1-13 of the above
volumes, and in some of a later date, was compiled in 1860 by the Rev.
Ethan Allen, under the direction of J. H. Alexander.[886] No systematic
publication of extracts from these records has ever been made. After
the death of Mr. S. F. Streeter, in 1864, his large collection of
manuscripts pertaining to the provincial history of Maryland was
placed in the hands of Henry Stockbridge Esq., who prepared them for
publication, and in 1876 some extracts from these with notes by Mr.
Stockbridge were published by the Maryland Historical Society in a
volume entitled, _Papers Relating to the Early History of Maryland_, by
S. F. Streeter. This volume contains the proceedings and acts of the
Assembly of 1638, with a list of the members and their occupations, the
record of the case against William Lewis, the first will, the first
marriage license and various court proceedings.
The Legislature of Maryland at its January session, 1882, passed an
act directing that all the records and state papers belonging to the
period prior to the Revolution be transferred to the custody of the
Maryland Historical Society, and appropriating the sum of two thousand
dollars to be expended by the Society in the publication of extracts
from these documents.
In 1694, when the capital was removed from St. Mary’s to
Annapolis,—then called Anne Arundel Town,—the Assembly directed that
the records should be transported on horses, and in bags sealed with
the great seal and covered with hides. The persons charged with this
duty afterward reported to the Assembly that they had safely delivered
the books to the sheriff of Anne Arundel County. There is a full list
of these volumes in the Journal of the Lower House, and one perceives
with regret that the greater part of them no longer exist. Many state
papers were greatly damaged during this removal, and others were
lost in the fire which destroyed the State House in 1704. When the
government of the Province was restored to Lord Baltimore in 1716, an
act was passed appointing commissioners to inspect the records and to
employ clerks to transcribe and bind them. The preamble to the act set
forth the loss of several important records, and that a great part of
what remained was “much worn and damnified;” which was partly owing to
the want of proper books at first. On such general revisions of the
laws as were made in 1676, 1692, and at other times, it was customary
to make transcripts in a “Book of Laws” only of those acts which were
continued in force. The record of the laws not re-enacted was then
neglected.
Very little care was bestowed upon the state papers generally. Many
of the volumes cited by Bacon in his _Laws of Maryland_, published in
1765, are not now to be found. In 1836 the State librarian (Ridgely)
made three reports to the governor and council upon the early records,
which contain a partial list of those then discovered. He says that in
the treasury department he found “the remains of two large sea-chests
and one box which had contained records and files of papers which were
in a state of total ruin.” He also discovered many early records, whose
existence had not been suspected, in different public offices, and some
“under the stairway as you ascend the dome.”[887]
Other original authorities for the history of the Province, second in
importance only to its own records, are the documents preserved in the
state-paper office in London. The peculiar nature of the palatinate
proprietorship of Maryland, and the fact that the Proprietary
generally resided in England, have caused the Maryland papers to be
more abundant than those of any other colony. It was customary to
send to the Proprietary documents concerning all the public affairs
of the Province. A large number of these, as well as of the papers
directly transmitted to the Privy Council or the Board of Trade, are
in the state-paper office.[888] In 1852 Mr. George Peabody gave to
the Maryland Historical Society a manuscript index, prepared by Henry
Stevens, to the Maryland papers, then accessible in that office. This
index contains abstracts of 1,729 documents relating to Maryland
affairs between the years 1626 and 1780; and the abstracts are somewhat
more full than those in Sainsbury’s _Calendars of State Papers_.[889]
Additional papers have been placed in the state-paper office since
the Peabody Index was made, and it is therefore necessary to consult
both calendars. There are other manuscripts relating to Maryland in
the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, and elsewhere in England, of
which no calendars have been published.[890]
[Illustration]
A letter of Captain Thomas Yong to Sir Tobie Matthew, written from
Virginia in July, 1634, describes his interviews with Clayborne and
Captain Cornwallis, and passes an unfavorable judgment upon the
former. Yong gives an account of various plots of Clayborne and other
Virginians against the colony at St. Mary’s, and of Clayborne’s refusal
to attend a conference which had been arranged for the adjustment of
the controversy. The letter is printed in _Documents connected with the
history of South Carolina_, edited by P. C. J. Weston, London, 1856,
p. 29, and in 4 _Mass. Hist. Coll._ ix. p. 81 (Aspinwall Papers), and
in the Appendix to Streeter’s _Papers Relating to the Early History of
Maryland_.
* * * * *
There are scarcely any remains of the buildings erected in the Province
before 1688. Lord Baltimore wrote to the Lords of the Committee for
Trade and Plantations in 1678 that “the principal place or town is
called St. Mary’s where the General Assembly and provincial court are
kept, and whither all ships trading there do in the first place resort;
but it can hardly be called a town, it being in length by the water
about five miles, and in breadth upwards towards the land not above one
mile,—in all which space, excepting only my own house and buildings
wherein the said courts and offices are kept, there are not above
thirty houses, and those at considerable distance from each other, and
the buildings (as in all other parts of the Province), very mean and
little, and generally after the manner of the meanest farm-houses in
England. Other places we have none that are called or can be called
towns, the people there not affecting to build near each other, but
so as to have their houses near the water for convenience of trade,
and their lands on each side of and behind their houses, by which it
happens that in most places there are not above fifty houses in the
space of thirty miles.”[891]
The principal building at St. Mary’s was the State House, erected in
1674, at a cost of 330,000 pounds of tobacco. In 1720 it was given to
the parish of William and Mary to be used as a church; and in 1830,
being very much decayed, it was pulled down, and a new edifice built in
the neighborhood. Lord Baltimore’s house—called the Castle—stood on
the plain of St. Mary’s, at the head of St. John’s Creek. The spot is
marked by a few mouldering bricks and broken tiles, and a square pit
overgrown with bushes.[892] At St. Inigoe’s manor, near St. Mary’s,
there is preserved the original round table at which the first council
sat, besides a few other relics.[893]
The earliest historian of Maryland was George Chalmers, whose
_Political Annals of the present United Colonies_ was published in
London in 1780. Chalmers was a Maryland lawyer, who returned to England
at the outbreak of the Revolution. He had access to the English state
papers in writing his work, and his account of Maryland is fair and,
for the most part, accurate.[894]
The ablest man who has written upon the history of the Province was
John V. L. McMahon. He was born in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1800,
and, after graduating at Princeton, began the practice of the law in
Maryland, where he soon became one of the leaders of a very able bar.
The first volume of his _Historical view of the Government of Maryland
from its Colonization to the Present Day_ was published in 1831. Though
the author did not die till 1871, this volume was never followed by
its promised successor. The manuscript of the second volume is in the
possession of McMahon’s heirs. The volume published brings the history
of the Province down to the Revolution, but its strictly historical
part is less than one half of the whole, and treats the subject only
in outline. The remainder of the book is devoted to an examination of
the legal aspects of the charter, the sources of Maryland law, and the
distribution of legislative power under the State government. The work
is founded on an original study of the records, so far as was thought
necessary for its limited historical scope.[895]
_The History of Maryland from its first settlement in 1633 to the
Restoration in 1660_, in two volumes, by John Leeds Bozman, was
published in 1837. The manuscript of this work was offered to the State
in 1834, after the death of its author, on condition of its being
printed within two years. The offer was accepted by the Legislature,
and the book was published under its direction. The first volume is
introductory, and the history of the Province proper is contained in
the second volume. The work is based on an exact study of the original
records, and is a very careful and accurate summary in great detail.
Bozman did not have access to the papers preserved in the English
state-paper office, and much other material has been brought to light
since he wrote. His strict pursuance of the chronological order often
results in sacrificing the interest of the narrative. The appendix
to the second volume has a valuable collection of extracts from the
records. The work as a whole may be said to furnish materials for
the history of the Province rather than to be the finished history
itself.[896]
_The History of Maryland from its first Settlement, in 1634, to
the year 1848_, in one volume, by James McSherry, a lawyer of
Frederick City, Maryland, was first published in 1849. It is written
in an agreeable style, and, so far as relates to the period under
consideration, gives a clear summary of the leading occurrences, but
does not appear to have been founded on original investigation of the
sources.
In Burnap’s _Life of Leonard Calvert_, published in Sparks’s _American
Biography_,[897] there is an excellent history of the colony to the
death of Governor Calvert in 1647. Dr. Burnap was for many years pastor
of the Unitarian Church in Baltimore. His chief authorities were Bozman
and Father White’s _Relatio Itineris_.
To Mr. George Lynn-Lachlan Davis, a member of the Baltimore Bar, who
died a few years ago, is due the credit of having settled the vexed
question of the religious faith of the legislators who passed the
Toleration Act of 1649. His work was based on an examination of wills,
rent-rolls, and other records. His conclusions are those stated in the
preceding narrative. The result of his investigations was published in
1855 in a volume entitled, _The Day Star of American Freedom: or, The
Birth and Early Growth of Toleration in the Province of Maryland_. It
also contains a summary of all that is known of the entire personal
history of each member of the Assembly of 1649.[898]
The Rev. E. D. Neill’s _Terra Mariæ: or, Threads of Maryland Colonial
History_, published in 1867, is a digressive account of the career
of the first Lord Baltimore, with some notices of men more or less
connected with the Province in its early days. He quotes many letters
of the seventeenth century, but rarely refers to the source from which
he drew them.[899] What the volume contains relative to the internal
affairs of the Province is not always accurate. Mr. Neill has published
several pamphlets and articles on the early history of Maryland, in
which he endeavors to show that Maryland never was a Roman Catholic
colony, that a majority of the colonists were from the beginning
Protestants, and that the Church of England was established by the
charter.[900]
The latest and most comprehensive _History of Maryland_ is that by
Mr. J. T. Scharf, in three octavo volumes, published in 1879. This
work extends from the earliest period to the present day. Mr. Scharf
publishes in full many valuable documents from the English state-paper
office, among which is an English translation of the charter of
Avalon.[901]
Histories of Kent, Cecil, and some other counties in the State have
also been published.[902]
* * * * *
The subject of religious toleration in Maryland—its causes and
significance—has given rise to much discussion both within and without
the State. We shall refer only to a few of the many pamphlets and
articles which have appeared on this topic. In 1845 the late John P.
Kennedy delivered a discourse before the Maryland Historical Society
on the _Life and Character of the first Lord Baltimore_. He maintained
that toleration was in the charter and not in the Act of 1649, and that
as much credit was due to the Protestant prince who granted as to the
Catholic nobleman who received the patent, and that the settlement of
the Province was mainly a commercial speculation. This discourse was
reviewed in 1846 by Mr. B. U. Campbell, who contended with so much show
of reason that the honor of the policy of toleration must be attributed
to the Proprietary and the first settlers, that Mr. Kennedy felt called
upon in the same year to reply to the review.[903] In 1855 the Rev.
Ethan Allen published a pamphlet on _Maryland Toleration_, in which he
upheld Clayborne’s side of the controversy with Lord Baltimore, denied
that Maryland was a Catholic colony, and asserted that protection to
all religions was guaranteed by the charter. This question was also
referred to in the discussion between Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal
Manning, concerning the Vatican decrees, in 1875. Cardinal Manning
had pointed to the toleration established by Catholics in Maryland to
refute Mr. Gladstone’s assertion that the Roman Church of this day
would, if she could, use torture and force in matters of religious
belief. Mr. Gladstone replied, in his _Vaticanism_, that toleration in
Maryland was really defensive, and its purpose was to secure the free
exercise of the Catholic religion, because it was apprehended that the
Puritans would flood the Province.[904]
Students of Maryland history are fortunate in possessing an admirable
edition of the laws of the Province, compiled in 1765 by Thomas Bacon,
chaplain to the last Lord Baltimore. It contains all the laws then in
force, and the titles of all the acts passed in the several assemblies
from the settlement. There are references to the books where the
different acts are recorded, and numerous notes upon historical and
legal points.
The chief impetus to the study of the history of Maryland and to the
preservation of its archives has been given by the Maryland Historical
Society, which was organized in 1844.[905] One of the originators of
this Society was Mr. Brantz Mayer, an accomplished man of letters, who
until his death, two years ago, was active and efficient in promoting
its welfare. The Society has a large membership and occupies a suitable
building in Baltimore. Its library contains about 20,000 volumes,
including nearly every book relating to the history of Maryland. The
collection of manuscripts bearing upon the Colonial and Revolutionary
history of the State is large and valuable. It has also many rare
American maps, coins, and pamphlets, and a large collection of Maryland
newspapers from the year 1728. The Society has published about eight
volumes, relating chiefly to the history of Maryland. It now has a
permanent publication fund, which it also owes to the generosity of
George Peabody.
Notwithstanding the loss of many original records, there is still
in the State archives an abundance of historical material which has
never been adequately worked up by any writer. This material is now
better known and more accessible than formerly. Many documents in the
state-paper office are now being made known for the first time by the
calendars published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. It
is probable that the papers in the British Museum and Bodleian Library
will also be calendared. This varied treasure of interesting and
important material relating to the provincial history of Maryland has
never been thoroughly searched, and the history in which a satisfactory
use of it is made remains to be written.
[Illustration:
Signature of W. T. Brantly.]
INDEX.
[Reference is commonly made but once to a book if repeatedly mentioned
in the text; but other references are made when additional information
about the book is conveyed.]
AA, VAN DER, _Versameling_, 79, 188.
Abelin, J. P, 167.
Accomac, 147, 179.
Achter Kol, 429.
Acomenticus, charter of, 364;
river, 322.
_See_ Agamenticus.
Acosta, map in (1598), 196.
Acquines (Hawkins), 82.
Adams, _Annals of Portsmouth_, 366.
Adams, Charles-Francis, Jr., edits _Morton’s New English Canaan_, 348;
on “old planters” about Boston Harbor, 347.
Adams, Clement, 36, 41, 43, 44, 47.
Adams, C. K., _Manual of Historical Literature_, 166, 368.
Adams, Henry, on the Pocahontas story, 162.
Adams, J. Q., on the New England Confederacy, 354.
“Admiral”, ship, 171.
Adventurers in Virginia, 127.
Agamenticus, 190. _See_ Acomenticus.
Aggoncy, 184.
Agnese, Baptista, map (1554), 218;
his portolanos, 218.
Agostino, 77.
Agriculture in New England, 316.
Ahasimus, 422.
Aitzema, _Histoire_, 415.
Albany, 390, 407.
Alcocke, John, autog., 338.
Alden, John, in Duxbury, 272, 273;
autog., 268;
last survivor of the signers of the Pilgrims’ compact, 271.
Aldsworth, 321.
Alexander, James, 452;
his Bill in Chancery, 452.
Alexander, J. H., 556.
Alexander, Sir William, 327;
his map, 306, 341;
his grant, 299;
his _Encouragement to Colonies_, 305.
Alexandria, province of, 306.
Allard, C., view of New York, 416;
map of New York, 417.
Allard, _Minor Atlas_, 384,
Allen, Rev. Ethan, 556, 557, 560;
_St. Ann’s Parish_, 561;
_Maryland Toleration_, 561.
Allen, James, autog., 319.
Allen, Nathaniel, 479.
Allen, S. M., 562.
Allen, Zachariah, 377;
_Founding of Rhode Island_, 377.
Allerton, Isaac, 273, 276, 277;
autog., 268;
assistant, 275.
Allyn, John, 334;
autog, 335, 374.
Alsop, George, _Province of Maryland_, 555.
Amadas, Philip, 108, 111, 122.
Amazons, 118.
America, part of Asia, 69;
earliest English publications on, 199;
earliest instance of the name on maps, 214.
American Antiquarian Society, 344.
Amsterdam, English Brownists in, 261.
Amyrault, Moses, 474.
Anderson, J. S. M., _History of the Church of England in the
Colonies_, 155, 286.
Andress, Lawrence, 436.
Andringa, Joris, 397.
Andros, Sir Edmund, his rule in Plymouth, 282;
in Connecticut, 335;
in Rhode Island, 339;
governor of New York, 398, 429;
administration, 400;
knighted, 401;
vice-admiral, 401;
arrests Carteret, 401;
portrait, 402;
governor of New England, 407, 444;
New York added, 409;
in Massachusetts, 321;
imprisoned, 411;
interferes in New Jersey, 433, 434;
collects duties in New Jersey, 431.
_Andros Tracts_, 362.
Andrus, Silas, 371.
Anian straits, 68, 80, 203;
sought by Drake, 69;
gulf, 68;
regnum, 68.
“Ann”, ship, 292.
Ann, Cape. _See_ Cape Ann.
Annapolis in Maryland, 535, 561.
Anne Arundel county in Maryland, 535;
town, 557.
Anonaebo, 77.
Antillæ, 201.
Antinomian controversy, literature of, 349, 351, 352;
in Rhode Island, 336.
_Antiquary_, a London periodical, 160.
Apian’s map (1532), 199.
Appleton, W. S., 543.
Aquedneck, 336, 376, 377. _See_ Rhode Island.
Arber’s _English Garner_, 346.
Arboledo, Cape, 77.
_Archæologia Americana_, or Transactions of the American Antiquarian
Society, 123.
“Archangel”, ship, 175, 191.
Archdale, 324.
Archer, Gabriel, 130;
his Relation, 131;
his account of Newport’s explorations, 154.
Arctic regions, Cabot in, 36, 39;
discoveries in 1586, 42;
bibliographies, 97.
_See_ Northwest Passage.
Arembec, 170, 185. _See_ Norumbega.
Arenas, C. de las, 197, 213.
Argall, Samuel, 159, 301, 305;
arrested, 142;
expedition to Acadia, 140;
elected deputy-governor of Virginia, 141;
on the Maine coast, 178, 179, 193;
at Jamestown, 134, 139.
Arica, 67.
“Ark”, ship, 524.
Arlington, Lord, 150.
Armor, _Governors of Pennsylvania_, 475.
Armstrong, Edward, 510, 516;
edits Budd’s _Good Order_, 451;
edits the Penn Correspondence, 506;
on Penn’s landing, 513.
Arnold, James N., 381.
Arnold, S. G., _History of Rhode Island_, 376.
Arran, Earl of, 370.
Arundell, Earl of, 297.
Asher, G. M., _Hudson the Navigator_, 99, 104;
_List of Maps and Views of New York_, 417.
Ashley, Anthony, 207.
Ashton, Robert, _Works and Life of Robinson_, 286.
Aspinwall, Colonel Thomas, 350;
his library, 159;
on the Narragansett Patent, 379;
Papers, 164.
Assacumet, 180.
Astrolabe, 207.
Atherton Company, 338. _See_ Narragansett.
Atkinson, Joseph, _History of Newark_, 456.
Atlas, earliest marine, 207.
Atwater, E. E., _History of New Haven Colony_, 375.
Augusta (Me.), 365.
Austerfield, 283, 284;
map of vicinity, 259;
church at, 260.
Avalon, 519, 523;
charter, 561.
“Ayde”, ship, 87.
Baccalaos, 3, 9, 10, 12, 14, 26, 27, 29,32, 37, 42, 56, 101, 185,
203, 213, 215, 216.
Backus, Isaac, 377;
_History of New England_, 377;
_Church History of New England_, 377.
Bacon, Francis, aspersions on Ralegh, 120;
his _Declaration_ about Ralegh, 121;
autog., 121;
his _Certain Considerations_, 247;
_Controversies of the Church of England_, 217.
Bacon, Leonard, _Genesis of the New England Churches_, 285;
_Thirteen Historical Discourses_, 359, 371;
on New Haven’s civil government, 375.
Bacon, Nathaniel, Jr., 151.
Bacon, Thomas, 561;
_Laws of Maryland_, 561.
Bacon’s laws (Virginia), 152.
Bacon’s rebellion, 151;
authorities, 164.
Badajoz, junta at, 4, 48.
Baffin, William, 93;
autog., 94;
authorities, 99.
Baffin’s Bay, 99;
Luke Fox’s map, 98.
Bagaduce, 190.
_See_ Pentagöet.
Bagnall, Anthony, 131.
Bagnall, Walter, 322.
Baillie, R., _Anabaptism_, 288.
Baker, _Northamptonshire_, 457.
Balboa, 65.
Ballard, Edward, 210.
Baltimore, Lord. _See_ Calvert.
Baltimore (town), histories of, 561.
Bamfield, 483.
Bancroft, George, 154, 160, 162;
on the Cabots, 43;
controversy with Josiah Quincy, 378;
on the Quakers, 509.
Baptists, 228, 377;
in Pennsylvania, 494.
Barber, _Connecticut Historical Collections_, 375.
Barcia, _Ensayo Chronologico_, 48.
Barclay, Alex., 199, 202.
Barclay, David, 435.
Barclay, Robert, 435, 443;
governor of East Jersey, 436;
autog., 436;
his _Apology_, 436, 503.
Barclay, Robert (of our day), _Inner Life_, 251, 504.
Bardolo, G. G., 26.
Barentz, 217.
Barker, James N., _Settlements on the Delaware_, 463, 512.
Barker, J. W., _History of New Haven_, 372.
Barker, Thomas, 435; autog., 484.
Barlow, S. L. M., _Bibliotheca Barlowiana_, 159.
Barlow, William, _Navigator’s Supply_, 208.
Barlowe, Arthur, 108, 122.
Barney, C. G., 163.
Barret, Charles, 457.
Barrow, Sir John, _Chronological History of the Voyages to the Arctic
Regions_, 97;
_Life of Drake_, 79;
_Naval Worthies_, 102.
Barrowism, 219, 254.
Barry, J. S., _History of Massachusetts_, 286, 344;
and the Bradford MS., 286.
Bartlett, John Russell, _Bibliography of Rhode Island_, 354, 380;
_Naval History of Rhode Island_, 380;
_Catalogue of the Library of John Carter Brown_, 380;
edits _Rhode Island Records_, 377.
Bartlett, W. H., _Pilgrim Fathers_, 258, 284, 292.
Baudet, _Leven van Blaeu_, 216.
Bay Psalm-book, 350.
Baylie, _Dissuasive_, 351.
Baylies, Francis, _Memoir of New Plymouth_, 291.
Bayne, Peter, _English Puritanism_, 252.
Beach, _Indian Miscellany_, 167.
Beare, James, 102.
Beauvois, Eugene, _La Norambegue_, 184.
Becher on Frobisher, 103.
Bedford, Cape, 90, 91.
Beechey, _Voyage towards the North Pole_, 98.
Behaim, Martin, his astrolabe, 207;
globe, 212, 217;
life by Ghillany, 8.
Behring’s Straits, 69.
Belknap, Jeremy, _American Biography_, 94, 188, 291;
on Pilgrim history, 291;
founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 344;
his life, 344;
papers, 344, 368;
_History of New Hampshire_, 367.
Bell, C. H., on the Wheelwright deed, 366.
Belle isle, 213.
Belleforest, _Cosmographie_, 36.
Bellingham, Richard, governor of Massachusetts, 318.
Bennet, Richard, 148, 149, 537.
Bergen, 422, 428.
Bergenroth, 57.
Berkeley, John, 144, 145;
in New Jersey, 422;
autog., 422;
sells his right, 430.
Berkeley, Sir William, 147, 537;
autog., 147;
governor of Virginia, 149;
_Discourse_, 157.
Bermuda, 216;
Gates wrecked at, 134, 135, 156.
Bermuda in Virginia, 138.
Bernard, _Recueil de voiages_, 188.
Berry, John, 428, 436, 443.
Berry, Leonard, 118.
Bertius, Peter, 46.
_Beschrijvinghe van Virginia_, 415.
Besse, Joseph, on William Penn, 505;
_Sufferings of the People called Quakers_, 359, 503.
Beste, George, _True Discourse_, 36, 102, 204.
Bevan, Sylvanus, 475.
Beverley, Robert, _History of Virginia_,164.
Bezar, John, 479.
Bible, authority of the, 227, 229.
Biddle, Craig, 507.
Biddle, Richard, _Memoir of Sebastian Cabot_, 14, 43.
Biddle, William, 441.
Billings, Hammatt, 293.
Billington Sea, 272.
Binckes, 397.
Birch, Thomas, _Lives of Bacon_, 121;
General Dictionary, 121.
Biscayan fishermen, 12.
Bishop, George, _New England Judged_, 359.
Bishop, _History of American Manufactures_, 166.
Bittle, Edward, 515.
Blackstone, William, autog., 311.
Blackwell, Captain John, 495.
Blaeu map (1685) of New England, 381, 384;
atlas, 381;
globes, 216.
Blagrave, John, _Solace for Navigators_, 208.
Blanco, Cape, 8, 213.
Bland, Colonel Richard, 158.
Blaxton. _See_ Blackstone.
“Blessing”, ship, 134.
Block, Adrian, 376;
on the Connecticut River, 368.
Block Island, 382.
Blome, Richard, _Present State_, etc., 384, 449.
Bloody Point (Maine), 367.
Bloody Statute, The, 231.
Blue Hills (Massachusetts), 198, 342.
_See_ Cheviot Hills, Massachusetts Mount.
Blue Laws, 371, 372.
Blundeville, Thomas, _Universall Maps_, etc., 207;
his _Exercises_, 207, 208, 217.
Bodega Bay, 74, 75, 80.
Body of Liberties, 314, 350, 371.
Bollen, James, autog., 428.
Bollero’s map, 200.
Bolling, Robert, 141, 162.
Bolling, Thomas, 163.
Bonavista, Cape, 216.
Booth’s Bay, 191.
Bordone, _Libro_, 194.