COLONISATION OF MARYLAND.
The second charter granted to the London company embraced an extent of
country 200 miles north of old Point Comfort, thus including the whole
of the present state of Maryland. The country round the head of the
Chesapeake was early explored, and a commercial relationship established
with the natives whom Smith had been the first to visit. The hope of a
good trade in furs continued to animate adventurers into these remote
parts, and in 1631, William Clayborne, a man of a resolute and
enterprising spirit, who was destined to exercise a long-continued and
disturbing influence on the colony, obtained a royal license to trade
with the Indians, and to form a settlement on Kent Island.
Clayborne had been in the first instance sent out by the London company
as a surveyor to make a map of the country, and afterwards was appointed
by King James a member of the council, which appointment was confirmed
by Charles I. From 1627 to 1629 he was employed by the governor of
Virginia to explore the source of the Bay of Chesapeake with the
adjacent country, from the 34th to the 41st degree of latitude. By this
means he became familiar with the resources of the country and the
opportunities which it afforded for traffic; and in consequence of these
representations a company was formed in England for trading with the
natives, the royal license being granted in Clayborne’s name.
By virtue of this royal license, which was confirmed by the colonial
commission, Clayborne established a trading settlement on the island of
Kent, in the very heart of Maryland, and another near the mouth of
Susquehannah. Virginia anticipated that, as commander of the Bay of
Chesapeake and possessor of the soil on both banks of the Potomac, she
should secure immense commercial prosperity without the interference of
a rival. But while she was thus anticipating a brilliant future, the
territory on which her hopes were founded was snatched from her, and a
new government erected on her very threshold.
It has been the happy fortune of North America, that her states,
severally founded by men of various religious opinions, origin, and
purposes, have ever been the asylums of the persecuted. Men of truth and
high principle, suffering at home from the narrowness of state policy
and the bigotry of creeds, fled hither, and here, according as their
views approximated more nearly or more remotely with the broad spirit of
Christianity, succeeded in establishing that freedom of action and
opinion after which they had vainly sighed in the old countries.
Among the enlightened men of the age who suffered from the spirit of
religious animosity at that time prevailing in England, was Sir George
Calvert, a graduate of Oxford, a man whose mind had been enlarged by
travel, a member of Parliament for York, his native county, and who was
even advanced by his sovereign to the honour of secretary-of-state. All
historians are agreed in commending his knowledge of business, his
industry, and his uprightness of character. Disgusted and distressed by
the divisions and contentions of the protestant church, he
conscientiously adopted the catholic faith, and on the open avowal of
his conversion resigned the emoluments of office. King James, who was at
that time on the throne, and who was never bitter against Catholics,
retained him, however, in the Privy Council, and advanced him to the
dignity of the Irish peerage under the title of Lord Baltimore.
Lord Baltimore, who even while secretary-of-state was a member of the
Virginia company and a powerful advocate of American colonisation, had
obtained in his own name a patent for colonising the southern promontory
of Newfoundland, hoping there to establish a refuge for the persecuted
Catholics of his native country. This settlement, which was called
Avalon, on which he expended a large amount of his own private property,
and which he visited twice in person, was finally abandoned, owing to
the many difficulties against which it had to contend, partly from the
severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil, and partly from
the hostile attacks of the French, who were possessed of the surrounding
country.
Lord Baltimore now turned his thoughts to Virginia, where the climate
was mild, the land fertile, and the country beyond the Potomac as yet
unoccupied. In 1632, therefore, on the dissolution of the London
company, and the royal resumption of prerogative, it was not difficult
for him, a favourite with the monarch, to obtain a charter for domains
in that colony, which was no doubt all the more readily granted, as the
Dutch, the Swedes, and the French were prepared to occupy the country.
This charter, according to internal evidence and concurrent opinion, was
drawn up by Lord Baltimore himself, but owing to his death before it
received the royal assent, was ultimately made out in the name of his
son Cecil. The territory thus granted was comprised between the ocean
and the 40th degree of latitude. The meridian of the western fountains
of the Potomac, the river itself from its source to its mouth, and a
line drawn due east from Watkin’s Point to the ocean, were the
boundaries of this grant, which was erected into a separate province,
under the name of Maryland, from Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. The
country thus bestowed on Lord Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, as
absolute lord and proprietary, was to be held by the tenure of fealty
only, paying a yearly rent of two Indian arrows and a fifth of all gold
and silver which it might yield; and the charter, unlike any which had
hitherto obtained the royal assent, secured to the colonists equality in
religious and civil rights, and an independent share in the legislation
of the province. The laws of the colony were to be established with the
advice and approval of a majority of the freemen or their deputies; nor
could the authority of the absolute proprietary extend to the life,
freehold, or estate of any emigrant. “These,” says Bancroft, “were the
features which endeared the proprietary government to the people of
Maryland;” and he adds, “it is a singular fact, that the only
proprietary charters productive of considerable emolument to their
owners were those which conceded popular liberty. Lord Baltimore was a
Roman Catholic; yet, far from guarding his territory against any but
those of his own persuasion, as he had taken from himself and his
successors all arbitrary power by establishing the legislative
franchises of the people, so he took from them the means of being
intolerant in religion, inasmuch as, while Christianity was made the law
of the land, no preference whatever should be given to sect or party.”
To avoid dispute on the subject of the fisheries, all claim to these was
expressly renounced by the charter; Maryland was also carefully
separated from Virginia, the necessity of which Lord Baltimore had
clearly foreseen from his former visit to Virginia, when the oaths of
supremacy and allegiance were tendered to him in a form which he, as a
Catholic, could not subscribe; now, therefore, when about to establish
his colony within the jurisdiction of Virginia, he provided against
every possible cause of contention with the neighbour state. He also
provided, as far as was in his power, against any future aggressions of
the English monarch, who covenanted in the charter, by an express
stipulation, “that neither he, nor his heirs, nor successors, should
ever set any imposition, custom, or tax whatever, upon the inhabitants
of the province.” Maryland was by this means exempted from English
taxation for ever.
“Calvert, Lord Baltimore,” says the historian, “deserves to be ranked
among the most wise and benevolent lawgivers of all ages. He was the
first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious
security and peace by the practice of justice and not by the exercise of
power; to plan the establishment of popular institutions with the
enjoyment of liberty of conscience; to advance the career of
civilisation by recognising the rightful equality of all Christian
sects. The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote quarter of
the world, on the banks of rivers which as yet had hardly been explored,
the mild forbearance of a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the
basis of the state.”
Lord Baltimore having died, as we have said, before the charter had
passed the royal seal, his son Cecil Calvert, who succeeded not only to
his father’s title and honours, but to his liberal views and enlightened
opinions, soon succeeded in enlisting a sufficient number of emigrants
for the commencement of the colony, and these were soon joined by
gentlemen of fortune and enterprise. The second Lord Baltimore, however,
having, for reasons which are now unknown, abandoned his original
intention of going out in person with the emigrants, appointed his
brother, Leonard Calvert, as his lieutenant.
On Friday, the 22nd of November, in the year 1633, Leonard Calvert set
sail with about 200 persons, mostly Roman Catholic gentlemen and their
servants, in a ship of large burden called the Ark and the Dove,
together with a pinnace. They sailed by way of the West Indies, and in
the early spring arrived at Point Comfort in Virginia, where, by the
express orders of King Charles, they were courteously received by
Harvey, the governor. There also they were met by Clayborne, who had
already done all in his power, through persons of influence in England,
to prevent the granting of the charter, foreseeing that it might
interfere with his settlements on Kent Island and elsewhere. He now
presented himself as a prophet of evil, foretelling the hostility of the
natives, which he had already secretly fomented.
Disregarding all evil augury, the Ark and Dove, attended by the pinnace,
ascended the Potomac. Landing on an island, Calvert planted a cross,
claiming the country for Christ and England, and having proceeded about
150 miles, arrived at an Indian village on the eastern bank of the
river, called Piscataqua, the chief of which would neither bid him go
nor stay, but told him he might do as he liked. Calvert, however,
decided to establish his first settlement lower down the Potomac, which
he descended, and entering a river now called St. Mary’s, above ten
miles from its junction with the Potomac, purchased the little Indian
town of Yoacomoco from the natives, who having suffered from the
superior tribe of Susquehannahs were now about to desert it. Calvert
considered this a good situation for a settlement, and by presents of
cloth, axes, hose, and knives, secured the confidence and friendship of
the natives, with whom a treaty was entered into, by which the English
immediately obtained possession of one-half of the town, the whole of
which was surrendered to them after the getting in of harvest. Good
faith was maintained on both sides. On the 27th of March, the Catholics
came into peaceful possession; and now, at the humble village of St.
Mary, religious liberty found its first real home, its only safe home in
the whole world.
The Ark and Dove, fit emblems of their mission, anchored in the harbour.
The native chiefs came down to see the new emigrants and to establish
leagues of amity with them; all was peace and security. The Indian women
taught the wives of the English strangers to make bread of maize corn,
and the warriors of the tribes instructed the men in the mysteries of
the chase. Corn-fields and gardens were ready for cultivation; no
sufferings had to be endured, no want was apprehended; it seemed as if
the colony of Maryland was founded on a blessing. Within six months it
had increased greatly both in wealth and population.
Memorable as was the commencement of Maryland, still more so was the
spirit of her institutions. She was the first asserter of religious
toleration in the New World, and whilst religious persecution had even
been carried across the seas to their places of refuge by the Puritans,
the very men who had fled thither to escape from it in their native
country, Maryland bound her governor, by his oath of office, “neither by
himself nor by any other, directly or indirectly, to molest any person
professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of religion.”
Under these mild institutions and the liberal expenditure of Lord
Baltimore, who in the first two years of the settlement expended no less
a sum than £40,000 in advancing its interests, the colony prospered
wonderfully. Roman Catholics, oppressed by the laws of England, fled
hither as to their natural asylum, and hither also came suffering
Protestants, fleeing from the intolerance of their Protestant brethren.
For some time harmony, peace, and prosperity prevailed. The mild and
wise institutions of the proprietary were conducive to the interests of
the colonists, and won in return their attachment and gratitude. Every
heart, excepting Clayborne’s, was satisfied, and desired that things
should remain as they were. Clayborne from the first had rejected the
claim of Lord Baltimore, and refused to submit to it. Accordingly, in
the sitting of the first Legislative Assembly of Maryland, in February,
1635, at St. Mary’s, the jurisdiction of the state was vindicated, in
opposition to the claims of Clayborne. Nothing, however, daunted by this
measure, he determined to make good his claims by force of arms. A
bloody skirmish took place on one of the rivers of Maryland; several
lives were lost; Clayborne’s men were defeated and taken prisoners, and
he himself fled to Virginia, whence, to escape being given up to the
governor of Maryland, he was sent by Harvey, the governor of Virginia,
to England for trial.
The colony was well rid of this troublesome member, at least for a
while; he was declared by the Assembly guilty of treason, not only by
endeavouring to overthrow the government of the proprietary, but by
exciting the jealousies of the Indians against the settlers; and his
property on Kent Island was confiscated. In England he won at first a
favourable hearing from the king, Charles I.; but on the merits of the
case being more thoroughly investigated, it was decided that the charter
of Lord Baltimore superseded all earlier licences of traffic. Clayborne
was again defeated, and the claims of Lord Baltimore fully confirmed.
Men of strong intellect, ardent champions of popular liberty, were, as
we have seen, the founders of the early American states, hence we
universally find them not more jealous for the possession and
maintenance of territory, than for the establishment of principles of
democratic liberty. In 1639, therefore, the third annual General
Assembly was convened for the purpose of establishing “a more convenient
form of representative government,” and the people were allowed to send
as many delegates to the General Assembly as they should deem proper. A
declaration of rights was also drawn up; allegiance was declared to the
English sovereign, Lord Baltimore’s prerogatives as proprietary were
defined, and the liberties of Englishmen confirmed to the inhabitants of
Maryland. “There was as yet,” says our historian, “no jealousy of power,
no strife for place. Yet,” adds he, “while these laws prepared a frame
of government for future generations, we are reminded of the feebleness
and poverty of the state, when the whole people were at that very period
obliged to contribute to the setting up of a water-mill.”
In the year 1642, the inhabitants of Maryland, from a grateful sense of
Lord Baltimore’s “great charge and solicitude in maintaining the
government, and protecting them in their persons, rights, and liberties,
freely granted such a subsidy as the young and poor estate could bear.”
This was a subsidy of fifteen pounds weight of tobacco for every person
above twelve years of age.
In the same year the peace and prosperity of the colony was again
interrupted; firstly, by the bordering Indian tribes, who, alarmed at
the rapid spread of the colonists, and embittered towards them by the
suspicions with which the artful Clayborne had poisoned their minds,
made divers warlike incursions, causing the death of some and the alarm
of all. A fort was built on the Patuxent as a defence against the
Susquehannahs, and peace at length re-established on the usual terms of
Indian submission. A more formidable and annoying enemy in the meantime
made his appearance, this being no other than the contumacious
Clayborne. Clayborne, on the breaking out of civil war in England, had
allied himself with the popular party, and now, in the absence of
Calvert, the governor, who was then in England, and in connexion with
one Ingle, already convicted of treason in the colony, took the
opportunity of re-asserting his claims and exciting insubordination
among the disaffected. It may appear strange, that, under a form of
government so wise and liberal as that of Lord Baltimore, disaffection
should exist; but it must be borne in mind that the religious
contentions of England had been transported to America, and not even in
the Old World did papacy and puritanism come to closer quarters than on
the soil of Maryland. Whilst England herself was convulsed with the
birth of liberty, and whilst the popular will was standing in stout
array against the power of the monarch, it was not to be expected that
the men of America, who had fled from their native land in the very
spirit of this conflict, would abate one jot of it here. Besides this,
the demand of puritanism was fierce dogmatism, which not even the noble
toleration of Lord Baltimore’s government could appease, nay, which it
was even a virtue to oppose.
England had too much to do at home to care at this time about its
colonies beyond the Atlantic, and New England and Virginia legislated
for themselves almost without reference to the mother-country; and with
the Puritans the same independent spirit had entered Maryland. Whilst
England defied her king, Maryland began to question what were the rights
of any human proprietary, who was in fact but a sort of petty sovereign;
and this question once admitted into the heart of the colony, served as
the leaven of disaffection.
Not even the virtues of Lord Baltimore could insure his authority and
his rights against Puritanism and the spirit of democratic liberty.
Clayborne and Ingle appeared in arms, and gained possession of the Isle
of Kent, which was then held by Giles Brent, in whose hands the
administration had been placed by Calvert on his departure. For twelve
months anarchy prevailed throughout the colony, and the records, being
seized by Clayborne and Ingle, were destroyed. At length Calvert
returned, and by means of an armed force from Virginia subdued the
insurgents, though not without considerable loss. Peace and order were
re-established, and by a wise clemency of the government, an act of
amnesty was passed, which, by cancelling offences, allayed the
irritation of rebellion.
The power of the proprietary was once more confirmed, whilst in the
mother-country monarchy was overthrown and Puritanism was predominant.
At this crisis the Roman Catholic government of Maryland, with that
sagacious spirit of Christian moderation which marked all its
proceedings, resolved to meet any approaching danger by still further
strengthening the law of toleration. A second act for religious freedom
was placed on their statute-books in the following words: “And whereas
the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently
fallen out to be of dangerous consequences in those commonwealths where
it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government
of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among
the inhabitants, no person within this province professing to believe in
Jesus Christ shall be in any way troubled, molested, or discountenanced
for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.” Noble words,
noble spirit of religious liberty, worthy to be spoken by the genius of
the New World!
Years afterwards, when on some occasion it was necessary to defend the
measures of Lord Baltimore, it was declared that no person in Maryland
had ever been persecuted for religion, and that the colonists ever
enjoyed freedom of conscience no less than freedom of person and estate.
The persecuted both of Massachusetts and Virginia were welcomed to equal
liberty of conscience and equal political rights in the Catholic
province of Maryland.
In 1650 the legislative body was divided into an upper and lower house,
the former consisting of the governor and council, the latter of
representatives chosen by the people. The strength of the proprietary,
it was declared in the General Assembly, reposed “in the affections of
his people,” and all taxes were forbidden, unless granted by vote of the
deputies of the freemen of the province.
In the meantime Virginia, as we have already said in the account of that
state, having asserted its adherence to Charles II. on the execution of
his father, parliament sent out commissioners to enforce the obedience
of the colonies bordering on the Chesapeake to the commonwealth, the
troublesome Clayborne being one of these very commissioners. Maryland,
which had, though Catholic, already given in her allegiance to the
commonwealth, of course was not included among the disaffected, and
Virginia, as we already know, yielded without a blow being struck. The
opportunity, however, was too good to be lost. Clayborne, glad of any
plea to carry arms into Maryland, again put forth his claims to Kent
Island, and Virginia, which had never relished so fine a portion of her
territory being taken from her, revived also her claims to jurisdiction
beyond the Potomac; whilst Charles II., angry with Lord Baltimore for
his adhesion to the party of the commonwealth and for his religious
toleration, appointed Sir William Davenant, the dramatist, governor in
place of Stone, the deputy of Lord Baltimore. Again anarchy prevailed;
Clayborne and his commissioners assumed authority; the governor Stone
and his officers were deposed, and only reinstated on their submission.
As to Sir William Davenant, he set sail with a body of refugee loyalists
from France, but being met shortly after by the parliamentary fleet, was
taken prisoner and earned to London, where he owed his liberation to the
friendly mediation of Milton, then in high favour with the republican
party. On the dissolution of the Long Parliament, from which Clayborne
and the commissioners had derived their power, Stone reasserted the full
authority of the proprietary, which alarming the commission then in
Virginia, Clayborne appeared once more in Maryland, and by the help of
the Puritans of Ann Arundel county again compelled Stone to resign. One
William Fuller was appointed governor, and a new council and assembly
convened. The spirit of religious asperity and bigotry prevailed; and
imitating Cromwell’s measures in England, all were disfranchised by the
assembly who differed from them in religious opinion; Catholics were
excluded not only from participation in government, but were declared
not entitled to the protection of the laws of Maryland.
In January of the following year, Stone, receiving a reprimand from Lord
Baltimore for so easily yielding to Clayborne and his party, appeared in
arms with, a considerable force, and marched to “Mr. Preston’s house on
the Patuxent,” where the records of the colony were kept, which he
seized, and so proceeded on to Providence, as Ann Arundel was now
called, where he found the Puritan party fully prepared for their
reception. On March 25th a battle was fought, the Catholics advancing
with the cry of “Hey for St. Mary’s!” which was the seat of the Catholic
government, and the Puritans, whose numbers were inferior to those of
their enemies, shouting, “In the name of God, fall on! God is our
strength!”
The Catholics were completely defeated, about fifty were killed or
wounded, and the rest taken prisoners; of the Puritans but very few
fell. “God did appear wonderful in the field and in the hearts of his
people; all confessing him to be the only worker of this victory and
deliverance,” wrote the Puritan Leonard Strong.
Stone and his officers were tried by court-martial, and he and ten
others condemned to death. His life, however, was spared by the prayers
of the enemies’ own soldiers and by the petitions of the women, says
Mrs. Stone, in her letter to Lord Baltimore on this sad occasion; four,
however, were shot in cold blood, “which, by all relations that ever I
did hear of,” says she, “the like barbarous act was never done among
Christians.” The Puritan party was now dominant throughout the province.
In this miserable state of affairs, Cromwell was appealed to, that he
“would condescend to settle the country by declaring his determinate
will.” But Cromwell, though still acknowledging Lord Baltimore’s claim,
was unwilling to dispute the act of his own political party. Josiah
Fendall, who, with the approbation of Cromwell, was appointed governor
by Lord Baltimore, was immediately arrested by the Puritan party, and
thus Maryland lay for nearly two years the prey of two contending
factions.
On the death of Cromwell, in 1658, the republican party, uncertain of
the turn which affairs might take in England, agreed to a compromise,
and the government of the province was surrendered to Fendall. The
terms, however, of their resignation show their power in the colony.
These were, the possession of their arms, an indemnity for arrears,
confirmation of the acts and orders of the late Puritan assemblies, and,
strange enough, they especially demanded that the proprietary should
maintain the act of toleration by which they had gained a settlement in
the colony, but which they had so signally disregarded while themselves
in power.
The dissensions in the colony being thus adjusted by compromise, a
circumstance occurred which proved that the democratic leaven had
leavened the whole lump. On the 12th of March, 1660, the very day before
the burgesses of Virginia asserted their right to independent
legislation, the representatives of Maryland met in the house of one
Robert Slye, and declared themselves a lawful assembly independent of
any other power, refusing even to acknowledge the rights of the upper
house; and Fendall, on this occasion acting in the spirit of Berkeley in
Virginia, bowed to the supremacy of the people; and the supreme people,
hoping thus to secure a long tranquillity, passed an act making it
felony to disturb the order which they had established. Nor was the
order disturbed. On the Restoration, Lord Baltimore’s claims were fully
confirmed, and Philip Calvert was appointed governor. Fendall was tried
for treason, and found guilty, but with that clemency which had on
former occasions been evinced by Lord Baltimore, a general pardon was
proclaimed to him and all other political offenders, and mercy and peace
once more restored to Maryland their wonted blessings.
Spite of all her internal sorrows and dissensions, Maryland had grown
and prospered. In 1660 her population amounted to about 10,000; a strong
patriotic sentiment was alive in the hearts of all—Maryland was their
country, the country and the home of their children.