50

SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.

tobacco. Episcopacy continued to be the established religion, but dissenters were increasing so rapidly, that before the American revolution they amounted to two-thirds of the whole population. The statutes against them, though unrepealed, had become a dead letter.

CHAPTER IX.

SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.

By its second charter, Virginia included the whole territory which at present forms the state of Maryland. The country was explored by the Virginia settlers as early as 1621; a settlement was formed, and a trade with the Indians in furs established. An attempt was made to monopolise this trade by William Clayborne, a man of active and turbulent disposition, who long exerted an extensive and injurious influence over the fortunes of the rising state.

He had come out from England as a surveyor in 1621, and had sustained important offices in Virginia till 1629, when he was employed to survey the Chesapeake bay. The information which he obtained in executing this undertaking, induced him to form a company in England for trading with the Indians; and he obtained a royal licence, giving him the direction of an expedition for this purpose in 1631. Under these auspices trading establishments were formed on Kent Island in Maryland, and also near the mouth of the Susquehannah. Clayborne's authority was confirmed by a commission from the government of Virginia, and that colony claimed the advantages which were expected to result from commercial speculation extending far to the north of the present limits of the state of Virginia.

But a distinct colony was now formed on her borders under the auspices of the Calvert family. Sir George Calvert, a Roman catholic nobleman of enlarged capacity and liberal views, had become interested in American colonisation. He had spent a large amount of time and money in unsuccessful attempts to form settlements on Newfoundland. In 1628, he visited Virginia; but was deterred from settling within its limits by the intolerance of the colonial government towards his religious opinions.

CHARTER OF MARYLAND.

51

He therefore turned his attention towards the country beyond the Potomac; and, finding it at the disposal of the king of England, he easily obtained from him a charter for colonising it. This charter was of a liberal character, affording ample guarantees for the freedom of the colonists, and the rights and privileges of the proprietary. The boundaries which it prescribed were the Atlantic Ocean, the fortieth parallel of north latitude, the meridian of the western fountain of the Potomac, the river itself from its mouth to its source, and a line drawn due east from Watkins's Point to the ocean. The name given to the new colony was Maryland, in honour of Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and wife of Charles I. of England.

The charter assigned the country to Calvert, Lord Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, as absolute lord and proprietary, on payment of a feudal rent of two Indian arrows, and onefifth of all gold and silver ore which might be discovered. The right of legislation was given to the emigrants who should settle on the soil. They were also protected from injury by the proprietary, to their lives, liberty, or estates.

Although Sir George Calvert was a Roman Catholic, he allowed the most perfect religious liberty to the colonists under his charter; and Maryland was the first state in the world in which perfect religious freedom was enjoyed. All English subjects, without distinction, were allowed equal rights in respect to property and religious and civil franchises. A royal exemption from English taxation was another singular privilege obtained by Lord Baltimore for the people of his colony. All the extraordinary features of his charter owe their origin to the political foresight and sagacity of this remarkable man.

'Calvert,' says Mr. Bancroft, '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 corner 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.'

52

SETTLEMENT OF ST. MARY'S.

Before the patent was executed Sir George Calvert died, and was succeeded by his son, Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, who became the proprietor of Maryland, and transmitted his proprietary rights to many generations of his heirs.

Virginia remonstrated against what she considered an infringement of her rights and an invasion of her territory; but the remonstrance was disregarded at court; and in November, 1633, Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore, sailed from England with about two hundred Roman Catholics for America. He arrived in February, of the following year, at Point Comfort in Virginia, and was courteously received by the governor, Harvey. From this Point he sailed up the Potomac to the Indian town of Piscataqua, nearly opposite Mount Vernon, the chieftain of which told him he might use his own discretion about settling in his country.' Calvert, however, chose a site lower down the river, at the Indian town of Yoacomoco, on the St. Mary's river, which he named St. George's river. The Indians were induced, by presents, to give them up half the town, and promise the abandonment of the whole after harvest. Quiet possession of the place was accordingly taken by the colonists, and the town was named St. Mary's.

The Indians now entered into a permanent treaty with the settlers; their women taught the wives of the English to make bread of maize, and the men instructed their visitors in the arts of the chase. The ground being already tilled, and a supply of food and cattle from Virginia being always within reach, the province advanced rapidly in wealth and industry. In six months it had increased more than Virginia had done in as many years. The proprietary was liberal in his disbursements, spending forty thousand pounds in the first two years.

In 1635, the first colonial assembly was convened, and passed laws for protecting its rights against the encroachments of Clayborne. He had made an attack on the colonists on one of the rivers near the isle of Kent, but his men had been defeated and taken prisoners. Clayborne himself fled to Virginia, and when reclaimed by the governor of Maryland, was sent by Harvey to England.

He was declared a traitor, and his estates were pronounced forfeited by an act of the Maryland assembly. His attempts to obtain redress in England were unavailing; and the right

MARYLAND DURING THE CIVIL WARS.

53

of Lord Baltimore to the jurisdiction of Maryland was fully confirmed by the British government.

Meantime the assembly of Maryland was labouring in the cause of civil liberty; at the same time that it recognised the sovereignty of the king of England, and the rights of the proprietary, it confirmed the rights of Englishmen to the inhabitants of Maryland; established a representative government; and asserted for itself similar powers to those of the British House of Commons.

In 1642, the gratitude of the colonists towards Lord Baltimore was manifested by the grant of such a subsidy as they could afford.

About the same time, the Indians, instigated by Clayborne, commenced hostilities, but were reduced to submission without much difficulty, and measures were taken by the assembly to insure the future tranquillity of the colony.

In 1643, Clayborne succeeded in raising a rebellion, which kept the province in a state of disturbance for three years; and at one time the governor was compelled to fly, and the public records were lost or embezzled.

The government, however, was eventually triumphant, and confirmed its victory by the wise and humane expedient of a general amnesty.

The civil wars of England extended their influence to Maryland as well as the other colonies. When the authority of Cromwell was defied by the Virginians, and commissioners were sent to reduce them to obedience, Clayborne, the ever active enemy of the Marylanders, seized the occasion for extending his authority over them; and a long series of fresh troubles and disturbances were brought on by his measures. Stone, the deputy of Lord Baltimore, was repeatedly deprived of his commission: the Catholic inhabitants were persecuted for their religious opinions, and the province to was kept for years in a state of alarm and confusion. The authority of the proprietary was, however, finally

1652

1658

restored.

In 1660, the representatives of Maryland declared their right of independent legislation, and passed an act making it felony to disturb the order thus established. From that time forward the province enjoyed comparative repose. Their pulation had already reached the number of twelve thousand.

po

CHAPTER X.

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.

SEVERAL abortive attempts were made to colonise the country now called New England, before the famous expedition of the Pilgrim Fathers, which planted the earliest permanent colony.

Two expeditions were sent out from the west of England as early as 1606, neither of which left settlers; but in 1607, two ships, commanded by Raleigh Gilbert, sailed with a colony of emigrants under the presidency of George Popham. These adventurers landed and formed a settlement near the mouth of Kennebec river, which they called St. George. Forty-five persons were left here by the ships on their return to England, in December.

During the winter the little colony suffered many hardships and misfortunes. Their president died; and on the return of the ships with supplies, Gilbert, who had succeeded to the presidency, learning that chief justice Popham, the principal patron of the colony, was dead; and that he himself had, by the decease of his brother, become heir to a considerable estate, abandoned the plantation; and the whole company returned to the mother country.

In 1614, Captain John Smith, the hero whose name is so celebrated in the history of Virginia, set sail with two ships for the coast north of Virginia, and performed a prosperous voyage, during which he explored the coast, and prepared a map of it, from the Penobscot river to Cape Cod. He gave to the country the name of New England.

His success in this enterprise encouraged him to attempt the settlement of a colony for Sir Ferdinand Gorges and others, of the Plymouth company. But after two attempts he was intercepted on his voyage by French pirates, lost his vessel, and finally escaped from the harbour of Rochelle, alone, in an Whereopen boat. Smith was a perfect hero of romance. ever we hear of his being, we are sure to find him performing some extraordinary act, some feat of chivalry or herculean labour, such as no ordinary man would ever have thought of attempting. His fortune was as extraordinary as his genius.