England in America, 1580-1652 Part 11

[Footnote 8: _Md. Archives_, III., 21.]

[Footnote 9: Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_; Ba.s.sett, _Const.i.tutional Beginnings of North Carolina_; Lapsley, _County Palatinate of Durham_.]

[Footnote 10: _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund Publications_, No. 28), p. 132.]

[Footnote 11: _Md. Archives_, III., 23.]

[Footnote 12: White, _Relation_ (Force, _Tracts_, IV., No. xii.); letter of Leonard Calvert, _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund Publications_, No. 35), pp. 32-35; Baltimore, _Relation_ (London, 1635).]

[Footnote 13: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 166.]

[Footnote 14: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 80.]

[Footnote 15: Johnson, _Old Maryland Manors (Johns Hopkins University Studies_, I., No. iii.).]

[Footnote 16: _Md. Archives_, I., 1-24.]

[Footnote 17: _Md. Archives_, I., 32, 74, 243, 272.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARYLAND IN 1652]

CHAPTER VIII

CONTENTIONS IN MARYLAND

(1633-1652)

The delay in the const.i.tutional adjustment of Maryland, while mainly attributable to the proprietors, was partially due to the prolonged struggle with Virginia, which for years absorbed nearly all the energies of the infant community. The decision of the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations in July, 1633, disallowing the Virginia claim to unoccupied lands, was construed by the Virginians to mean that the king at any rate intended to respect actual possession. Now, prior to the Maryland charter, colonization in Virginia was stretching northward. In 1630, Chiskiack, on the York River, was settled; and in August, 1631, Claiborne planted a hundred men on Kent Island, one hundred and fifty miles from Jamestown.[1]

Though established under a license from the king for trade, Kent Island had all the appearance of a permanent settlement. Its inhabitants were never at any time as badly off as the settlers in the early days at Jamestown and Plymouth, and the island itself was stocked with cattle and had orchards and gardens, fields of tobacco, windmills for grinding corn, and women resident upon it. Had it, however, been only a trading-post, the extension over it of the laws of Virginia made the settlement a legal occupation. And we are told of Kent that warrants from Jamestown were directed there. "One man was brought down and tried in Virginia for felony, and many were arrested for debt and returned to appeare at James City."[2] In February, 1632, Kent Island and Chiskiack were represented at Jamestown by a common delegate, Captain Nicholas Martian.[3] The political existence of the whole Virginia colony, and its right to take up and settle lands, the king expressly recognized.

Accordingly, when Leonard Calvert, on his arrival at Point Comfort in February, 1634, called upon Claiborne to recognize Baltimore's paramount sovereignty over Kent Island, because of its lying within the limits of his charter, the council of Virginia, at the request of Claiborne, considered the claim, and declared that the colony had as much right to Kent Island as to "any other part of the country given by his majesty's patent" in 1609.[4] After this, acquiescence in Baltimore's wishes would have been treason, and Claiborne declined to acknowledge Lord Baltimore's authority in Kent Island, and continued to trade in the bay as freely as formerly.

Calvert's instructions[5] had been, in case of such a refusal, not to molest Claiborne for at least a year. But Captain Fleet, Claiborne's rival in the fur trade, started a story that Claiborne was the originator of the rumor which so greatly alarmed the Indians at the time of the arrival of the emigrants at St. Mary's. Though Claiborne promptly repelled the calumny, Baltimore, in September, 1634, sent an order to his brother Leonard to seize Kent Island, arrest Claiborne, and hold him prisoner.[6] As this mandate was contrary to the order in July, 1633, of the lords commissioners, which enjoined the parties to preserve "good correspondence one with another," Claiborne's partners pet.i.tioned the king against it.

Thereupon the king, by an order[7] dated October 8, 1634, peremptorily warned Lord Baltimore, or his agents, "not to interrupt the people of Kent Island in their fur trade or plantation." Nevertheless, April 5, 1635, Thomas Cornwallis, one of the Maryland councillors, confiscated a pinnace of Claiborne's for illegal trading, and this act brought on a miniature war in which several persons on both sides were killed.[8]

Great excitement prevailed in both colonies, and in Virginia the people arrested Harvey, their governor, who upheld Cornwallis's conduct, and s.h.i.+pped him off to England; while two of the councillors were sent to Maryland to protest against the violent proceedings affecting Claiborne.[9]

These measures induced a truce, and for nearly three years there were no further hostilities in the bay. Claiborne brought his case before the king, who referred it to the Lords Commissioners for Plantations; then, as his partners feared to take further risk, he carried on the trade in the bay almost solely with his own servants and resources. In December, 1636, these partners, becoming dissatisfied at their loss of profit, made the capital mistake of sending, as their agent to Kent Island, George Evelin, who pretended at first to be an ardent supporter of Claiborne, but presently, under a power of attorney, claimed control over all the partners.h.i.+p stock.

Claiborne, naturally indignant and not suspecting any danger, sailed for England in May, 1637, to settle accounts with his partners, having just previously established another settlement on Palmer's Island at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, believed by him to be north of the Maryland patent. After he was gone, Evelin tried to persuade the inhabitants to disown Claiborne and submit to Lord Baltimore; and when they declined he urged Governor Calvert to attempt the reduction of the island by force. After some hesitation the latter consented, and while the a.s.sembly was sitting at St. Mary's, in February, 1638, Calvert made a landing at night with thirty men, and, taking the inhabitants by surprise, succeeded in reducing the island to submission.[10]

Calvert's after-conduct reflects little credit upon his reputation for leniency. In March, 1638, he caused Claiborne to be attainted by the a.s.sembly as a rebel and his property confiscated, and Thomas Smith, who commanded one of Claiborne's pinnaces in the battles three years before, was tried and hanged for murder and piracy.[11] In England, in the mean time, Claiborne and Baltimore were contending zealously for the favor of the king. Both had powerful interests behind them, but Baltimore's were the stronger. At last the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations rendered a report (April 4, 1638), giving Kent Island and the right of trade in the bay wholly to Lord Baltimore, leaving all personal wrongs to be redressed by the courts.

The question of t.i.tle at least seemed settled, and in October, 1638, Sir John Harvey, now restored as governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation recognizing the validity of the decision. Claiborne submitted, and, being left to "the course of the law," empowered George Scovell to recover, if possible, some of the confiscated property in Maryland; but Scovell was told that the law-courts of Maryland were closed against such a rebel as Claiborne.[12] The justice of the English decision depends on the impartiality of the board which made it, and of any board with Bishop Laud at the head only partisans.h.i.+p could be expected.

While these turbulent proceedings were going on, the Jesuit priests introduced into the colony by Lord Baltimore were performing a work of peace and love. They visited the Indian tribes and made many Christian converts. Tayac, chief of the Piscataquas, received baptism, and his example was followed by the chiefs and inhabitants of Port Tobacco.

The main trouble came from the Nantic.o.kes on the eastern sh.o.r.e, and the fierce Susquehannas to the north of the settlements, and at different times armed expeditions were sent out against them; but there was nothing like a war.

For sixteen years the only clergy in the colony were priests, who were so zealous in their propaganda that nearly all the Protestants who came in 1638 were converted to Catholicism and many later conversions were made.[13] Nevertheless, the Catholic governor and council acted up to the spirit of the instructions given by Baltimore to his brother on the sailing of the first emigrants from the port of London, and would permit no language tending to insult or breach of peace. Not long after the arrival at St. Mary's a proclamation to this end was issued, of which only two violations appear in the records; in both cases the offenders were Roman Catholics, and they were arrested and promptly punished.[14]

Baltimore would not even exempt the Jesuit priests in Maryland from the ordinary laws as to lands and taxes, and by the "Conditions of Plantations," published in 1648, he prohibited any society, temporal or spiritual, from taking up land.[15] In 1643 his liberality carried him so far as to induce him to extend, through Major Edward Gibbons, an invitation to the Puritans of Ma.s.sachusetts to emigrate to Maryland, with a full a.s.surance of "free liberty of religion"; but Winthrop grimly writes, "None of our people had temptation that way."[16]

In the year of this invitation the possibility of a new shuffle of the political cards occurred through the breaking out of the war so long brewing in England between the king and Parliament. The struggle of party made itself strongly felt in Maryland, where, among the Protestants, sympathy with Parliament was supplemented by hatred of Catholics. In 1643, Governor Leonard Calvert repaired to England, where he received letters of marque from the king at Oxford commissioning him to seize s.h.i.+ps belonging to Parliament. Accordingly, when, three months later, in January, 1644, Captain Richard Ingle arrived in his s.h.i.+p at St. Mary's and uttered some blatant words against the king, he was arrested by Acting Governor Brent, for treason. The charges were dismissed by the grand jury as unfounded, but Brent treated Ingle harshly, and fined and exiled Thomas Cornwallis for a.s.sisting the captain in escaping.[17]

In September, 1644, when Calvert returned to Maryland, there were strong symptoms of revolt, which came to a head when Ingle came back to St. Mary's with a commission from Parliament in February, 1645.

Chaotic times ensued, during which Catholics were made victims of the cruel prejudices of the Protestants. The two Jesuit priests, Father Andrew White and Father Philip Fisher, were arrested, loaded with irons,[18] and sent prisoners into England, while Leonard Calvert himself was driven from Maryland into Virginia.[19]

During these tumults so many persons went over from Virginia to Maryland that the Virginia a.s.sembly sent Captain Edward Hill and Captain Thomas Willoughby to compel the return of the absentees,[20]

with curious result. As the province was without a governor, some of the council of Maryland issued, in the name of the refugee Calvert, a commission to Hill to act as governor of Maryland. The revolutionists flattered themselves that a stable government under a Protestant governor was now at hand. But the unexpected came to pa.s.s, when, in December, 1646, Governor Calvert suddenly appeared with a strong body of soldiers furnished by Sir William Berkeley and re-established his authority by capturing both Hill and the Protestant a.s.sembly then sitting at St. Mary's.

These two years of civil war in Maryland are called the "plundering time." Claiborne again appears, though there is no evidence that he had any part in Ingle's spoliations.[21] He did visit Kent Island about Christmas, 1645, and put Captain Brent, to whom Governor Calvert had a.s.signed his house and property, in a terrible fright. One year later he visited the island a second time, when he offered to aid the Kent Islanders in marching upon St. Mary's with a view of reinstating Hill. When the men of Kent declined to take the risk, Claiborne returned to Virginia, and Kent Island fell once more under the government of Lord Baltimore.[22] On this visit Claiborne, instead of posing as a friend of the Parliament, showed a commission and letter from the king, by whom he appears to have stood till the king's death in 1649. Charles I., in his turn, who deposed Lord Baltimore as a "notorious parliamentarian," appointed Claiborne, in 1642, treasurer of Virginia;[23] and Charles II. included his name among the list of councillors in the commission issued by Sir William Berkeley in 1650.[24]

While Maryland was thus convulsed with civil war an ordinance settling the Maryland government in Protestant hands pa.s.sed the House of Lords.

Before the Commons could concur, Lord Baltimore appeared and asked for time to inquire into the charges. This was after the battle of Marston Moor, and perhaps marks the moment when Lord Baltimore, conceiving the king's cause desperate, began to trim his sails to the parliamentary side. His request was granted, and Parliament, diverted from immediate action, left Baltimore's authority unaffected for several years.[25]

In this interval Baltimore busied himself in reorganizing his government on a Protestant basis. Leonard Calvert died in June, 1647, not long after his _coup d'etat_ at St. Mary's, and upon his deathbed he appointed Thomas Greene, a Catholic and royalist, as his successor.

Lord Baltimore removed him and appointed in his stead a Protestant, Captain William Stone, of Northampton County, Virginia, giving him a Protestant secretary and a Protestant majority of councillors. Yet Baltimore took care not to surrender the cardinal principle of his government. Before Stone and his chief officers were allowed to take office they were required to swear not to "molest any person in the colony professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his or her religion, and in particular no Roman Catholic."[26]

The famous Toleration Act of 1649 was pa.s.sed at the first a.s.sembly succeeding Stone's appointment. It was very probably in great part a copy of a bill in the code of sixteen laws which Baltimore sent over at this time, and it very nearly repeated the provisions of the oath required of Governor Stone. While the terms of the act did not place the right on that broad plane of universal principle stated later in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, it proclaimed toleration, even if it was a toleration of a very limited nature.[27]

Stone had recommended himself to Calvert by promising to lead five hundred persons of British or Irish descent[28] into Maryland; and this engagement he was soon able to perform through the Puritans, whose story of persecution in Virginia has been already related. The new emigrants called the country where they settled "Providence," from feelings akin to those which led Roger Williams to give that comforting name to his settlement on Narragansett Bay. They were to prove a thorn in Baltimore's flesh, but for the moment they seemed tolerably submissive. In January, 1650, soon after their arrival, Governor Stone called an a.s.sembly to meet at St. Mary's in April, and to this a.s.sembly the colony at "Providence" sent two representatives, one of whom was made speaker.

Apprehension of William Claiborne was still felt, and the a.s.sembly, though dominated by the new-comers, declared their readiness to resist any attempts of his to seize Kent Island.[29] Only in one particular at this time did they oppose Lord Baltimore's policy. The oath of fidelity required them to acknowledge Lord Baltimore as "absolute lord" and his jurisdiction as "royal jurisdiction."[30] The Puritans, having scruples about these words, struck them out and inserted a proviso that the oath "be not in any wise understood to infringe or prejudice liberty of conscience."[31] About this time Charles II., although a powerless exile, issued an order deposing Baltimore from his government and appointing Sir William Davenant as his successor, for the reason that Baltimore "did visibly adhere to the rebels in England and admit all kinds of schismatics and sectaries and ill-affected persons into the plantation."[32]

Thus when Parliament soon after took up his case again, Lord Baltimore came full-handed with proofs of loyalty to the commonwealth. His enemies produced evidence that Charles II., in 1649, was proclaimed in Maryland, but Baltimore showed that it was done without his authority by Thomas Greene, who acted as governor a second time during a brief absence of Captain Stone from Maryland. When they accused him of being an enemy of Protestants he produced the proclamation of Charles II., deposing him from the government on account of his adherence to them.

Finally, he exhibited a declaration in his behalf signed by many of the Puritan emigrants from Virginia, among whom were William Durand, their elder, and James c.o.x and Samuel Puddington, the two burgesses from Providence in the a.s.sembly of 1650.[33]

Nevertheless, Baltimore played a losing game. At heart the Puritans in England were unfriendly to him because of his religion; and, when persistent rumors reached Maryland that Baltimore's patent was doomed, some of the men of Providence appeared in England and urged that it be revoked.[34] At length, October 3, 1650, Parliament pa.s.sed an ordinance authorizing the Council of State to reduce to obedience Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas, and "Virginia," the last being a term which in England was often used to include Maryland. Baltimore struggled hard to have Maryland left out of the instructions drawn up afterwards by the Council of State; but though he was apparently successful, a descriptive phrase including his province was inserted, for the commissioners, Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, with an armed fleet, were instructed "to use their best endeavors to reduce _all the plantations within the Bay of Chesopiack_ to their due obedience to the Parliament of England."[35]

After the commissioners had reduced Virginia, they found even less resistance in Maryland. The commissioners landed at St. Mary's, and, professing their intention to respect the "just rights" of Lord Baltimore, demanded that Stone should change the form of the writs from the name of Lord Baltimore to that of Parliament. Stone at first declined to comply, and the commissioners, March 29, 1652, put the government into the hands of a council of leading Protestants. Stone then reconsidered his action, and Claiborne and Bennett, returning to St. Mary's, restored him to the government, June 28, 1652, in conjunction with the councillors already appointed. The ascendency of Claiborne seemed complete, but beyond renewing his property claim to Kent and Palmer islands, he did not then further interfere.[36]

Maryland consisted at this time of four counties: St. Mary's, erected in 1634, Kent, 1642, and Charles and Anne Arundelin 1650, and contained a population perhaps of eight thousand. The settlements reached on both sides of the bay, from the Potomac to the Susquehanna.

Society was distinctly democratic, for while there were favored families there was no privileged cla.s.s, and the existence of African slavery and the temporary servitude of convicts and redemptioners tended to place all freemen on an equality. As there was no state church, educational opportunities in the province were small, but it was a land of plenty and hospitality, and charity in religion made the execution of the criminal law singularly mild. In spite of turmoils and dissensions, Maryland prospered and flourished. A home feeling existed, and there were many even among the recent exiles from Virginia who looked with hope to its future and spoke of it as "a country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my days, in which I covet to make my grave."[37]

[Footnote 1: _Md. Archives_, III., 32.]

[Footnote 2: _Md. Archives_, V., 158.]

[Footnote 3: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 154. ]

[Footnote 4: _Md. Archives_, III., 33. ]

[Footnote 5: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 49.]