It is worthy of note that the most despicable and lawless of modern English kings did not venture to deny the right of Virginians to tax themselves by their own representatives. Howard’s instructions merely authorized him to “recommend” certain measures to the assembly. His attempt to get permission to levy a tax independently of the burgesses was such a recommendation. However arrogant and illegal in spirit, it still conceded to the colonists the constitutional principle over which the fatuous George III. and his rotten-borough parliaments were to try to ride rough-shod.

By 1688 Howard concluded that it would be pleasant and comfortable for him to live on his governor’s salary in England and send out a deputy-governor to deal with refractory burgesses. When he arrived in England he found William and Mary on the throne, but they showed no disposition to interfere with his plans. Just the right sort of man for deputy-governor appeared at the right moment. Francis Nicholson had held that position in New York under the viceroy of united New York and New England, Sir Edmund Andros. When that unpopular viceroy was deposed and cast into jail in Boston, Nicholson was deposed in New York by Jacob Leisler, and went to England with the tale of his woes, which King William sought to assuage by sending him to Virginia as deputy-governor.

Nicholson was a man of integrity and fair ability, though highly eccentric and cantankerous. “Laws of Virginia,” he cried one day, seizing the attorney-general by the lapel of his silk robe, “I know no laws of Virginia! I know my commands are going to be obeyed here!” At another time he told the council that they were “mere brutes who understood not manners, ... that he would beat them into better manners and make them feel that he was governor of Virginia.”85

In spite of his queer peppery ways, the rule of Nicholson was a decided relief after such worthless creatures as Culpeper and Howard. It is chiefly memorable for the founding of the second American college, a work which encountered such obstacles on both sides of the ocean as only an iron will could vanquish. Such was found in the person of James Blair, a Scotch clergyman, who in 1689 was appointed commissioner of the Church in Virginia. The need for a bishop was felt, and a little later there was some talk of sending out the famous Jonathan Swift in that capacity, but no Episcopal bishopric was created in America until after the War of Independence. Dr. Blair had a seat in the colonial council, presided at ecclesiastical trials, and exercised many of the powers of a bishop. Since the old scheme of Nicholas Ferrar and his friends for a college in Virginia had been extinguished amid lurid scenes of Indian massacre, nearly seventy years had elapsed86 when Blair in 1691 revived it. He began by collecting some £2,500 by subscription, and then went to England to get more money and obtain a charter. He was aided by two famous divines, Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, but from the treasury commissioner, Sir Edward Seymour, he received a coarse rebuff, which shows the frankly materialistic view at that time entertained by the British official mind regarding England’s colonies. When Blair urged that a college was needed for training up clergymen, Seymour thought it was no time to be sending money to America for such purposes; every penny was wanted in Europe for carrying on the necessary and righteous war against Louis XIV. Blair could not deny that it was an eminently righteous war, but he was not thus to be turned from his purpose. “You must not forget,” said he, “that people in Virginia have souls to save, as well as people in England.” “Souls!” cried Seymour, “damn your souls! Grow tobacco!” In spite of this discouraging view of the case, the good doctor persevered until he obtained from William and Mary the charter that founded the college ever since known by their names.

The college was established in 1693, with Blair for its president.87 Governor Nicholson, with seventeen other persons appointed by the assembly, formed the board of trustees. From the outset Nicholson was warmly in sympathy with the enterprise, but now this friend was called away for a time. In the anti-Catholic fervour which attended the accession of King William and Queen Mary, the palatinate government in Maryland had been overturned, and the new royal governor, Sir Lionel Copley, died in 1693. Nicholson was then promoted from deputy-governor of Virginia to be governor of Maryland. About the same time Lord Howard of Effingham resigned or was removed, and Sir Edmund Andros was sent out to Virginia as governor. It may seem a strange appointment in view of the obloquy which Andros had incurred at the north. But in all these appointments William III. seems to have acted upon a consistent policy of not disturbing, except in cases of necessity, the state of things which he found. As a rule he retained in his service the old officials against whom no grave charges were brought; and while the personality of Andros was not prepossessing, there can be no doubt as to his integrity.

Nicholson’s career as royal governor of Maryland lasted until 1698, while Andros was having a hard time in Virginia trying to enforce with rigour the Navigation Act and to make life miserable for Dr. Blair. His conduct was far more moderate than it had been in New England, but he had his full share of trouble in Virginia. The moving cause of his hostility to the college of William and Mary is not distinctly assigned, but he is not unlikely to have believed, like many a dullard of his stripe, that education is apt to encourage a seditious and froward spirit. He did everything he could think of to thwart and annoy President Blair. At the election of burgesses he predicted that the establishment of a college would be sure to result in a terrible increase of taxes. He tried to persuade subscribers to withhold the payment of their subscriptions. He sought to arouse an absurd prejudice against Scotchmen, for which it was rather late in the day. Finally he connived at gross insults to the president and friends of the college. Among the young men to whom Andros showed especial favour was Daniel Parke, whose grandson, Daniel Parke Custis, is now remembered as the first husband of Martha Washington. This young Daniel did some things to which posterity could hardly point with pride. He is described as a “sparkish gentleman,” or as some would say a slashing blade. He was an expert with the rapier and anxious to thrust it between the ribs of people who supported the college. His challenges were numerous, but clergymen could not be reached in such a way. So “he set up a claim to the pew in church in which Mrs. Blair sat, and one Sunday,” as we are told, “with fury and violence he pulled her out of it in the presence of the minister and congregation, who were greatly scandalized at this ruffian and profane action.”88

This was going too far. The stout Scotchman had powerful friends in London; the outrage was discussed in Lambeth Palace; and Sir Edmund Andros, for winking at such behaviour, was removed. He was evidently a slow-witted official. His experiences in Boston, with Parson Willard of the Old South, ought to have cured him of his propensity to quarrel with aggressive and resolute clergymen. For two or three years after going home, Sir Edmund governed the little channel island of Jersey, and the rest of his days were spent in retirement, until his death in 1714.

The system of absentee governors, occasionally exemplified in such cases as those of Lord Delaware and Lord Howard, was now to be permanently adopted. A great favourite with William III. was George Hamilton Douglas, whose distinguished gallantry at the battle of the Boyne and other occasions had been rewarded with the earldom of Orkney. In 1697 he was appointed governor-in-chief of Virginia, and for the next forty years he drew his annual salary of £1,200 without ever crossing the ocean. Henceforth the official who represented him in Virginia was entitled lieutenant-governor, and the first was Francis Nicholson, who was brought back from Maryland in 1698.

One of Nicholson’s achievements in Maryland, as we shall see in the next chapter, had been the change of the seat of government from St. Mary’s to Annapolis. He now proceeded to make a similar change in Virginia. After perishing in Bacon’s rebellion, Jamestown was rebuilt by Lord Culpeper, but in the last decade of the century it was again destroyed by an accidental fire, and has never since risen from its ashes. Of that sacred spot, the first abiding-place of Englishmen in America, nothing now is left but the ivy-mantled ruins of the church tower and a few cracked and crumbling tombstones. The site of the hamlet is more than half submerged, and unless some kind of sea-wall is built to protect it, the unresting tides will soon wash everything away.89 Jamestown had always a bad reputation for malaria, and after its second burning people were not eager to restore it. Plans for moving the government elsewhere had been considered on more than one occasion. In 1699 the choice fell upon the site of Middle Plantation, half way between James and York rivers, with its salubrious air and wholesome water. It had already, in 1693, been selected as the site of the new college.90 Nicholson called the place Williamsburg, and began building a town there with streets so laid out as to make W and M, the initials of the king and queen, a plan soon abandoned as inconvenient. The town thus founded by Nicholson remained the capital of Virginia until 1780, when it was superseded by Richmond.

Nicholson was in full sympathy with President Blair as regarded the college, but occasions for disagreement between them were at hand. On the lieutenant-governor’s arrival the wise parson read him a lesson upon the need for moderation in the display of his powers. The career of his predecessor Andros, in more than one colony, furnished abundant examples of the need for such moderation. Blair offered him some good advice tendered by the Bishop of London, whereupon Nicholson exclaimed, with a big round oath, “I know how to govern Virginia and Maryland better than all the bishops in England. If I had not hampered them in Maryland and kept them under, I should never have been able to govern them.” The doctor replied: “Sir, I do not pretend to [speak for] Maryland, but if I know anything of Virginia, they are a good-natured [and] tractable people as any in the world, and you may do anything with them by way of civility, but you will never be able to manage them in that way you speak of, by hampering and keeping them under.”91 The eccentric governor did not profit by this advice. Of actual tyranny there was not much in his administration, but his blustering tongue would give utterance to extravagant speeches whereat company would sit “amazed and silent.”

At last in a laughable way this blustering habit proved his ruin. Not far from Williamsburg lived Major Lewis Burwell, who had married a cousin of the rebel Bacon and had a whole houseful of blooming daughters. With one of these young ladies the worshipful governor fell madly in love, but to his unspeakable chagrin she promptly and decisively refused him. Poor Nicholson could not keep the matter to himself, but raved about it in public. He suspected that Dr. Blair’s brother was a favoured rival and threatened the whole family with dire vengeance. He swore that if Miss Burwell should undertake to marry anybody but himself, he would “cut the throats of three men: the bridegroom, the minister, and the justice who issued the license.” This truculent speech got reported in London, and one of Nicholson’s friends wrote him a letter counselling him not to be so unreasonable, but to remember that English women were the freest in the world, and that Virginia was not like those heathen Turkish countries where tender ladies were dragged into the arms of some pasha still reeking with the blood of their nearest relatives. But nothing could quiet the fury of a “governor scorned;” and one day when he suspected the minister of Hampton parish of being his rival, he went up to him and knocked his hat off. This sort of thing came to be too much for Dr. Blair; a memorial was sent to Queen Anne, and Nicholson was recalled to England in 1705. Afterwards we find him commanding the expedition which in 1710 captured the Acadian Port Royal from the French. He then served as governor of the newly conquered Nova Scotia and afterwards of South Carolina, was knighted, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and died in 1728.

Meanwhile the college of William and Mary, in which Nicholson felt so much interest, was flourishing. Unfortunately its first hall, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was destroyed by fire in 1705, but it was before long replaced by another. Until 1712 the faculty consisted of the president, a grammar master, writing master, and an usher; in that year a professor of mathematics was added. By 1729 there were six professors. Fifty years later the departments of law and medicine were added, and the name “College” was replaced by “University.”92

As in the case of Harvard, it was hoped that this college might prove effective in converting and educating Indians. In 1723 Brafferton Hall was built for their use, from a fund given by Robert Boyle, the famous chemist. It is still standing and used as a dormitory. We are told that the “Queen of Pamunkey” sent her son to college with a boy to wait upon him, and likewise two chiefs’ sons, “all handsomely cloathed after the Indian fashion;”93 but as to any effects wrought upon the barbarian mind by this Christian institution of learning, there is nothing to which we can point.

The first Commencement exercises were held in the year 1700, and it is said that not only were Virginians and Indians present on that gala day, but so great was the fame of it that people came in sloops from Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even from New York.94 The journals of what we may call the “faculty meetings” throw light upon the manner of living at the college. There is a matron, or housekeeper, who is thus carefully instructed: “1. That you never concern yourself with any of the Boys only when you have a Complaint against any of them, and then that you make it to his or their proper Master.—2. That there be always both fresh and salt Meat for Dinner; and twice in the Week, as well as on Sunday in particular, that there be either Puddings or Pies besides; that there be always Plenty of Victuals; that Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper be serv’d up in the cleanest and neatest manner possible; and for this Reason the Society not only allow but desire you to get a Cook; that the Boys Suppers be not as usual made up of different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sor^t: and when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for them; that when they are sick, you yourself see their Victuals before it be carry’d to them, that it be clean, decent, and fit for them; that the Person appointed to take Care of them be constantly with them, and give their Medicine regularly. The general Complaints of the Visitors, and other Gentlemen throughout the whole Colony, plainly shew the Necessity of a strict and regular Compliance with the above Directions.... 4. That a proper Stocking-mender be procured to live in or near the college, and as both Masters and Boys complain of losing their Stockings, you are desired to look over their Notes given with their Linnen to the Wash, both at the Delivery and Return of them.... 5. That the Negroes be trusted with no keys; ... that fresh Butter be look’d out for in Time, that the Boys may not be forced to eat salt in Summer.—6. As we all know that Negroes will not perform their Duties without the Mistress’ constant Eye, especially in so large a Family as the College, and as we all observe You going abroad more frequently then even the Mistress of a private Family can do without the affairs of her province greatly suffering, We particularly request it of you, that your visits for the future in Town and Country may not be so frequent, by which Means we doubt not but Complaints will be greatly lessened.”95

At another meeting it is ordered “y^t no scholar belonging to any school in the College, of w^t Age, Rank, or Quality, soever, do keep any race Horse at y^e College, in y^e Town—or any where in the neighbourhood—y^t they be not anyway concerned in making races, or in backing, or abetting, those made by others, and y^t all Race Horses, kept in y^e neighbourhood of y^e College & belonging to any of y^e scholars, be immediately dispatched & sent off, & never again brought back, and all of this under Pain of y^e severest Animadversion and Punishment.”

There is a stress in the wording of this order which makes one suspect that the faculty had encountered difficulty in suppressing horse-racing. Similar orders forbid students to take part in cock-fighting, to frequent “y^e Ordinaries,” to bet, to play at billiards, or to bring cards or dice into the college. Punishment is most emphatically threatened for any student who may “presume to go out of y^e Bounds of y^e College, particularly towards the mill pond” without express leave; but why the mill pond was to be so sedulously shunned, we are left to conjecture. Finally, “to y^e End y^t no Person may pretend Ignorance of y^e foregoing ... Regulations, ... it is Ordered ... y^t a clear & legible copy of y^m be posted up in every School of y^e College.”96

One of the brightest traditions in the history of the college is that which tells of the wooing and wedding of Parson Camm, a gentleman famous once, whose fame deserves to be revived. John Camm was born in 1718 and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a man of good scholarship and sturdy character, an uncompromising Tory, one of the leaders in that “Parsons’ Cause” which made Patrick Henry famous.97 He lived to be the last president of William and Mary before the Revolution. After he had attained middle age, but while he was as yet only a preacher and professor, and like all professors in those days at William and Mary a bachelor, there came to him the romance which brightened his life. Among those who listened to his preaching was Miss Betsy Hansford, of the family of Hansford the rebel and martyr. A young friend, who had wooed Miss Betsy without success, persuaded the worthy parson to aid him with his eloquence. But it was in vain that Mr. Camm besieged the young lady with texts from the Bible enjoining matrimony as a duty. She proved herself able to beat him at his own game when she suggested that if the parson would go home and look at 2 Samuel xii. 7, he might be able to divine the reason of her obduracy. When Mr. Camm proceeded to search the Scriptures he found these significant words staring him in the face: “And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man!” The sequel is told in an item of the Virginia Gazette, announcing the marriage of Rev. John Camm and Miss Betsy Hansford.98

So, Virginia, too, had its Priscilla! In the words of the sweet mediæval poem:—

But this marriage was an infringement of the customs of the college, and was rebuked in an order that hereafter the marriage of a professor should ipso facto vacate his office.

The college founded by James Blair was a most valuable centre for culture for Virginia, and has been remarkable in many ways. It was the first college in America to introduce teaching by lectures, and the elective system of study; it was the first to unite a group of faculties into a university; it was the second in the English world to have a chair of Municipal Law, George Wythe coming to such a professorship a few years after Sir William Blackstone; it was the first in America to establish a chair of History and Political Science; and it was one of the first to pursue a thoroughly secular and unsectarian policy. Though until lately its number of students at any one time had never reached one hundred and fifty, it has given to our country fifteen senators and seventy representatives in congress; seventeen governors of states, and thirty-seven judges; three presidents of the United States,—Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler; and the great Chief Justice Marshall.100 It was a noble work for America that was done by the Scotch parson, James Blair.

As for Governor Nicholson, who was so deeply interested in that work, he played a memorable part in the history of the United States, which deserves mention before we leave the subject of his connection with Virginia. When he was first transferred from the governorship of New York to that of the Old Dominion, with his head full of experiences gained in New York, he proposed a grand Union of the English colonies for mutual defence against the encroachments of the French. King William approved the scheme and recommended it to the favourable consideration of the colonial assemblies. But a desire for union was not strong in any of these bodies, and as for Virginia, she was too remote from the Canadian border to feel warmly interested in it. The act of 1695, authorizing the governor to apply £500 from the liquor excise to the relief of New York, shows a notably generous spirit in the Virginia burgesses, but the pressure which was to drive people into a Federal Union was still in the hidden future. The attitude of the several colonies so exasperated Nicholson as to lead him to recommend that they should all be placed under a single viceroy and taxed for the support of a standing army. When this plan was submitted to Queen Anne and her ministers, it was rejected as unwise, and no British ministry ever ventured to try any part of such a policy until the reign of George III. Francis Nicholson should be remembered as one of the very first to conceive and suggest the policy that afterward drove the colonies into their Declaration of Independence.

CHAPTER XIII.
MARYLAND’S VICISSITUDES.

The accession of William and Mary, which wrought so little change in Virginia, furnished the occasion for a revolution in the palatinate of Maryland. To trace the causes of this revolution, we must return to 1658, the year which witnessed the death of Oliver Cromwell and saw Lord Baltimore’s government firmly set upon its feet through the favour of that mighty potentate. The compromises which were then adopted put an end to the conflict between Virginia and Maryland, and from that time forth the relations between the two colonies were nearly always cordial. For the next century the constitutional development of Maryland proceeded without interference from Virginia, although on many occasions the smaller colony was profoundly influenced by what went on in its larger neighbour, as well as by those currents of feeling that from time to time pervaded the English world and swayed both colonies alike. We shall presently see, for example, that marked effects were wrought in Maryland by Bacon’s rebellion, and we shall observe what various echoes of the political situation in England were heard in all the colonies, from the wild scare of the Popish Plot in 1678 down to the assured triumph of William III. in 1691, and even later.

It will be remembered that when the Puritans of Providence, in March, 1658, gave in their assent to the compromises by which Lord Baltimore’s authority was securely established in Maryland, only three years had elapsed since their victory at the Severn had given them supreme control over the country. While the defeated Governor Stone languished in jail, the victorious leader, William Fuller, exercised complete sway and for a moment could afford to laugh at the pretensions of Josias Fendall, the new governor whom Baltimore appointed in 1656. But this state of things came abruptly to an end when it was discovered that Lord Baltimore was upheld by Cromwell. Virginia, with her Puritan rulers, Bennett and Claiborne and Mathews, was thus at once detached from the support of Fuller, so that nothing was left for him but to come to terms. Fendall’s policy toward his late antagonists was pacific and generous, so much so that in the assembly of 1659 we find the names of Fuller and other Puritan leaders enrolled among the burgesses. Associated with Fendall, and second to him in authority, was the secretary and receiver-general, Philip Calvert, younger brother of Cecilius, Lord Baltimore.

After the fires of civil dudgeon had briskly burned for so many years, it was not strange that their smouldering embers should send forth a few fitful gleams before dying. Apart from questions of religion or of loyalty, there were difficulties in regard to taxation that can hardly have been without their effect. There seems to have been more or less widely diffused a feeling of uneasiness upon which agitators could play. In 1647 the assembly had granted to the lord proprietor a duty of ten shillings per hogshead on all tobacco exported from the colony. This grant called forth remonstrances which seem to have had their effect, as in 1649 the act was replaced by another which granted to the proprietor for seven years a similar duty upon all tobacco exported on Dutch vessels if not bound to some English port.101 This act seemed to carry with it the repeal of that of 1647, concerning which it was silent; if the first act continued in force, the second was meaningless. During the turbulence that ensued after 1650 it is not likely that the revenue laws were rigidly enforced. In 1659 Baltimore directed Fendall to have the act of 1647 explicitly repealed on condition that the assembly should grant him two shillings per hogshead on tobacco when shipped to British ports and ten shillings when shipped to foreign ports. Whether this demand was popular or not, we may gather from dates that are more eloquent than words. The act of 1647 was repealed by the assembly in 1660, but no grant in return was made to the proprietor until 1671, and then it was a uniform duty of two shillings. Unless the demand had been unpopular it would not have been resisted for eleven years.

When the assembly met on the last day of February, 1660, to consider this and other questions, memorable changes had occurred in England. The death of mighty Oliver, in September, 1658, threatened the realm with anarchy; and the prospect for a moment grew darker when in May, 1659, his gentle son Richard dropped the burden which he had not strength to carry. For nine months England seemed drifting without compass or helm. When our assembly met, one notable thing had just happened, early in February, when George Monk, “honest old George,” entered London at the head of his army, and assumed control of affairs. The news of this event had not yet crossed the ocean, and even if it had, our Marylanders would not have understood what it portended. To some of them it seemed as if in this season of chaos whoever should seize upon the government of their little world would be likely to keep it. So Governor Fendall seems to have thought, and with him Thomas Gerrard, a member of the council and a Catholic, but disloyal to Baltimore. Why should not the government be held independently of the lord proprietor and all fees and duties to him be avoided? In this view of the case Fendall had two or three sympathizers in the council, and probably a good many in the House of Burgesses, especially among the Puritan members, who were in number three fourths of the whole.

In the course of the discussion over the tobacco duty the burgesses sent a message to Governor Fendall and the council, saying that they judged themselves to be a lawful assembly without dependence upon any other power now existing within the province, and if anybody had any objections to this view of the case they should like to hear them. The upper house answered by asking the lower house if they meant that they were a complete assembly without the upper house, and also that they were independent of the lord proprietor. These questions led to a conference, in which, among other things, Fendall declared it to be his opinion that laws passed by the assembly and published in the lord proprietor’s name should at once be in full force. Two of the council, Gerrard and Utie, agreed with this view, while the secretary, Philip Calvert, and all the rest, dissented. In these proceedings the governor was plainly in league with the lower house, and this vote demonstrated the necessity of getting rid of the upper house. Accordingly the burgesses sent word to the governor and council, that they would not acknowledge them as an upper house, but they might come and take seats in the lower house if they liked. Secretary Calvert observed that in that case the governor would become president of the joint assembly, and the speaker of the burgesses must give place to him. A compromise was presently reached, according to which the governor should preside, with a casting vote, but the right of adjourning or dissolving the assembly should be exercised by the speaker. Hereupon Calvert protested, and demanded that his protest be put on record, but Fendall refused. Then Calvert and his most staunch adherent, Councillor Brooke, requested permission to leave the room. “You may if you please,” quoth Fendall, “we shall not force you to go or stay.” With the departure of these gentlemen the upper house was virtually abolished, and now Fendall quite threw off the mask by surrendering his commission from Lord Baltimore and accepting a new one from the assembly. Thus the palatinate government was overthrown, and it only remained for Fendall and his assembly to declare it felony for anybody in Maryland to acknowledge Lord Baltimore’s authority.

These proceedings in Maryland become perfectly intelligible if we compare them with what was going on at the very same moment in Virginia. In March, 1660, the assembly at Jamestown, in view of the fact that there was no acknowledged supreme authority then resident in England, declared that the supreme power in Virginia was in the assembly, and that all writs should issue in its name, until such command should come from England as the assembly should judge to be lawful. This assembly then elected Sir William Berkeley to the governorship, and he accepted from it provisionally his commission.102

Now in Maryland there was a superficial resemblance to these proceedings, in so far as the supreme power was lodged in the assembly and the governor accepted his commission from it. But there was a profound difference in the two situations, and while the people of Virginia read their own situation correctly, Fendall and his abettors did not. The assembly at Jamestown was predominantly Cavalier in its composition and in full sympathy with the expected restoration of the monarchy; and its proceedings were promptly sanctioned by Charles II., whose royal commission to Sir William Berkeley came in October of the same year. On the other hand, the assembly at St. Mary’s was predominantly Puritan in its composition, and one of its most influential members was that William Fuller who five years before had defeated Lord Baltimore’s governor in the battle of the Severn, and executed drumhead justice upon several of his adherents. The election had been managed in the interest of the Puritans, as is shown by Fuller’s county, Anne Arundel, returning seven delegates, whereas it was only entitled to four. The collusion between Fuller and Fendall is unmistakable. For two years the Puritans had acquiesced in Lord Baltimore’s rule, because they had not dared resist Cromwell. Now if Puritanism were to remain uppermost in England, they might once more hope to overthrow him; if the monarchy were to be restored, the prospect was also good, for it did not seem likely that Charles II. would befriend the man whom Cromwell had befriended. Here was the fatal error of Fendall and his people. Charles II. had long ago recovered from his little tiff with Cecilius for appointing a Parliamentarian governor, and as a Romanist at heart he was more than ready to show favour to Catholics. Thus with rare good fortune—defended in turn by a king and a lord protector, and by another king, and aided at every turn by his own consummate tact, did Cecilius triumphantly weather all the storms. When the news of Fendall’s treachery reached London it found Charles II. seated firmly on the throne. All persons were at once instructed to respect Lord Baltimore’s authority over Maryland, and Sir William Berkeley was ordered to bring the force of Virginia to his aid if necessary; Cecilius appointed his brother Philip to the governorship; the rebellion instantly collapsed, and its ringleaders were seized. Vengeance was denounced against Fendall and Fuller and all who had been concerned in the execution of Baltimore’s men after the battle of the Severn. Philip Calvert was instructed to hang them all, and to proclaim martial law if necessary, but on second thought so much severity was deemed impolitic. Such punishments were inflicted as banishment, confiscation, and loss of civil rights, but nobody was put to death. Such was the end of Fendall’s rebellion. In the course of the year 1661, Cecilius sent over his only son, Charles Calvert, to be governor of the palatinate, while Philip remained as chancellor; and this arrangement continued for many years.

Fendall’s administration had witnessed two events of especial interest, in the arrival of Quakers in the colony and of Dutchmen in a part of its territory. Quakers came from Massachusetts and Virginia, where they suffered so much ill usage, into Maryland, where they also got into trouble, though it does not appear that the objections against them were of a religious nature. The peculiar notions of the Quakers often brought them into conflict with governments on purely civil grounds, as when they refused to be enrolled in the militia, or to serve on juries, or give testimony under oath. For such reasons, two zealous Quaker preachers, Thurston and Cole, were arrested and tried in 1658, but it does not appear that they were treated with harshness or that at any time there was anything like persecution of Quakers in Maryland. When George Fox visited the country in 1672, his followers there were numerous and held regular meetings.

With the arrival of Quakers there appeared on the northeastern horizon a menace from the Dutch, and incidents occurred that curiously affected the future growth of Lord Baltimore’s princely domain. Since 1638 parties of Swedes had been establishing themselves on the western bank of the Delaware River, on and about the present sites of Newcastle and Wilmington. This region they called New Sweden, but in 1655 Peter Stuyvesant despatched from Manhattan a force of Dutchmen which speedily overcame the little colony. Stuyvesant then divided his conquest into two provinces, which he called New Amstel and Altona, and appointed a governor over each. It was now Maryland’s turn to be aroused. The governor of New Netherland had no business to be setting up jurisdictions west of Delaware River. That whole region was expressly included in Lord Baltimore’s charter. Accordingly the Dutch governors of New Amstel and Altona were politely informed that they must either acknowledge Baltimore’s jurisdiction or leave the country. This led to Stuyvesant’s sending an envoy to St. Mary’s, to discuss the proprietorship of the territory in question. The person selected for this business was a man of no ordinary mould, a native of Prague, with the German name of Augustine Herman. He came to New Amsterdam at some time before 1647, in which year he was appointed one of the Nine Men whose business it was to advise the governor. This Herman was a man of broad intelligence, rare executive ability, and perfect courage. He was by profession a land surveyor and draughtsman, but in the course of his life he accumulated a great fortune by trade. His portrait, painted from life, shows us a masterful face, clean shaven, with powerful jaw, firm-set lips, imperious eyes, and long hair flowing upon his shoulders over a red coat richly ruffled.103 Such was the man whom Stuyvesant chose to dispute Lord Baltimore’s title to the smiling fields of New Amstel and Altona. He well understood the wisdom of claiming everything, and when the discovery of North America by John Cabot was cited against him, he boldly set up the priority of Christopher Columbus as giving the Spaniards a claim upon the whole hemisphere. To the Dutch, he said, as victors over their wicked stepmother Spain, her claims had naturally passed! One is inclined to wonder if such an argument was announced without something like a twinkle in those piercing eyes. At all events, it was not long before the astute ambassador abandoned his logic and changed his allegiance. Romantic tradition has assigned various grounds for Herman’s leaving New Amsterdam. Whether it was because of a quarrel with Stuyvesant, and whether the quarrel had its source in love of woman or love of pelf, we know not; but in 1660 Herman wrote to Lord Baltimore, asking for the grant of a manor, and offering to pay for it by making a map of Maryland. The proposal was accepted. The map, which was completed after careful surveys extending over ten years and was engraved in London in 1673, with a portrait of Herman attached, is still preserved in the British Museum. For this important service the enterprising surveyor received an estate on the Elk River, which by successive accretions came to include more than 20,000 acres.104 It is still called by the name which Herman gave it, Bohemia Manor. There he grew immensely rich by trade with the Indians along the very routes which Claiborne had hoped to monopolize, and there in his great manor house, in spite of matrimonial infelicities like those of Socrates and the elder Mr. Weller, he lived to a good old age and dispensed a regal hospitality, in which the items of rum and brandy, strong beer, sound wines, and “best cider out of the orchard” were not forgotten. Herman’s tomb is still to be seen hard by the vestiges of his house and his deer park. Six of his descendants succeeded him as lords of Bohemia Manor, until its legal existence came to an end in 1789. The fact is not without interest that Margaret Shippen, wife of Benedict Arnold, counted among her ancestors the sturdy Augustine Herman.

A noteworthy episode in the history of Bohemia Manor is the settlement of a small sect of Mystics, known as Labadists, from the name of their French founder, Jean de Labadie. Their professed aim was to restore the simplicity of life and doctrine attributed to the primitive Christians. Their views of spiritual things were brightened by an inward light, their drift of thought was toward antinomianism, they held all goods in common, and their notions about marriage were such as to render them liable to be molested on civil grounds. The persistent recurrence of such little communities, age after age, each one ignorant of the existence of its predecessors and supremely innocent of all knowledge of the world, is one of the interesting freaks in religious history. Even in the tolerant atmosphere of Holland these Labadists led an uneasy life, and in 1679 two of their brethren, Sluyter and Dankers, came over to New York, to make fresh converts and find a new home. One of their first converts was Ephraim, the weak-minded son of Augustine Herman, and it may have been through the son’s persuasion that the father was induced to grant nearly 4,000 acres of his manor to the community. A company settled there in 1683 and were joined by persons from New York. As often happens in such communities the affair ended in a despotism, in which the people were ruled with a rod of iron by Brother Sluyter and his wife, who set themselves up as a kind of abbot and abbess. On Sluyter’s death in 1722 the sect seems to have come to an end, but to this day the land is known as “the Labadie tract.”