CHAPTER V.
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.