STUDIES IN THE CIVIL, SOCIAL 
 • AND ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED TO THE YOUNG MEN OF 
 
 THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE OF 
 
 MARYLAND 
 
 Rev. THEODORE C. GAMBRALL, A.M., D.D 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHURCH LIFE IN COLONIAL MARYLAND 
 
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Though these lectures were prepared for the young 
 men of Maryland, they will be found to contain much of 
 both information and interest to all those whose minds 
 have been drawn to the early history of our country. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In a very marked degree Maryland history has 
 suffered at the hands of its friends. Desiring to be just, 
 and often truly enthusiastic, they have viewed its 
 course in the direct light of their own prejudices, and 
 the consequence has been a perverted, incomplete, 
 unphilosophical presentation. For Maryland history is 
 many-sided, having, in its course, involved many ques- 
 tions of ver>r diverse kinds,— ecclesiastical, civil, social, 
 political, military. Starting in a small, unique colony, 
 with peculiar institutions created by a charter, itself the 
 outcome of political notions that were fast losing their 
 hold on the popular mind, it had to fight its way, often 
 in weakness, through those institutions up into larger 
 and truer ideas of human liberty. Fight its way; for 
 there was always a sufficient number of conservative men, 
 who held by what was old, to make the efforts of the 
 liberal majority difficult, and to necessitate years of effort 
 before success could crown their endeavors. 
 ^ And this contest went on in all the departments of 
 life, political, civil, social and ecclesiastical; in the last 
 as eminently as in any other; for ecclesiastical affairs be- 
 longed as much to the political life of a people then as 
 civil or social affairs did, and probably excited always far 
 more of prejudice and passion than either of them. 
 
 To form a just estimate of the history of a people a 
 man must transplant himself into the days which he is 
 describing. For nearly as much as the Maryland of 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 1776 differed from the Maryland of 1634, does the Mary- 
 land of 1893 differ from the Maryland of 1700, the 
 period of the greatest and most radical changes in govern- 
 ment and policy; and to stand now and argue about 
 questions of the policy of the colony then from the civil 
 or social ideas of this present time, is folly. We must 
 view things from the standpoint of those times, — put our- 
 selves in their place; for what might be folly now was 
 wisdom then, and certainly what is wisdom now it would 
 have proven wicked and absurd to have attempted then. 
 And yet this is the way some have attempted to write 
 Maryland history. 
 
 Again, Maryland has been unfortunate in the bent of 
 mind of her historians. Too many have approached the 
 matter in a partisan spirit, as if they would fortify a posi- 
 tion, defend a claim, out of her records. In ecclesiasti- 
 cal matters this has been most notable. She has had her 
 Protestant historians and her Romanist historians. She 
 has also had her infidel, or at any rate agnostic, historians, 
 and great questions have been tossed about, pretensions 
 derided, claims scorned, assumptions set up, assertions 
 made, with reckless eftVontery. 
 
 All that can be said is, that such is not the way to write 
 history. It is to be written by first determining the facts, 
 viewing them according to their setting in the midst of their 
 own times, explaining them according to the exigencies 
 that created them or the purposes for which they were 
 called into being. We are not wiser than the people of 
 those former days. W^e may be better grown than they; 
 our state of society may be more mature. But according 
 to their day and generation they knew as well what was 
 good for them as we know now what is good for us. And 
 the way to write history is to recognize this fact. 
 
PREFACE. Vii 
 
 It is in this spirit I have attempted to write these lec- 
 tures. I do not call the book a history, for that is an 
 ambitious word and very often misapplied. It will be 
 found, I trust, a series of panoramic views, full and suffi- 
 ciently clear in outline to give every one definite and 
 accurate ideas of that earlier life of our State. I have 
 endeavored to write without prejudice, and to follow out 
 the principles of historical writing that I would suggest 
 to others. The people of the province were a sturdy set 
 and worthy of all respect. They were of heterogeneous 
 elements, viewed in whatever way we will, but at the same 
 time they had that power of cohesion and assimilation 
 that gave a oneness to their colonial life. And as they 
 passed on from year to year they gave to Maryland 
 features that commanded the esteem of the country and 
 of the world. 
 
 It is gratifying to know that Maryland made herself. 
 Neither king nor proprietary was ever her friend, save 
 as her prosperity promoted their own. She grew, and 
 did so by the liberality of the principles on which her 
 government was administered. 
 
 It is my earnest hope that this work may commend 
 itself to the favorable judgment of all that shall read it, 
 and especially to the judgment of the children of Mary- 
 land herself. 
 
 T. C. G. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. — COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Apathy of the English; cause, the Reformation. By what title 
 colonies might be planted. Commission of Henry VII. to 
 the Cabots. Gift of Pope Nicolas to Portugal; of Alex- 
 ander VI. to SpaiQ. Settlements of the Atlantic coast 
 when charter to Mainland given. Early English attempts. 
 Gilbert, Raleigh, Gates. A province imder a charter pri- 
 vate property and alienable. Territory discovered or con- 
 quered belonged to Crown. Provincials, though English 
 subjects, subject to arbitrary will of the king. Prerogative 
 the rule of the day. Afterwards parliamentary conti-ol. 
 Charter of Maryland: description of. James I. as law- 
 maker P- 9 
 
 SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 COMPARISON OF COLONIAL CHARTERS. 
 
 Contrast between charters of different periods. Grantees of 
 chai-ters to be at their own charges. Maryland charter 
 drawn up after that for Newfoundland. Description of 
 proprietary colony. How charter for Pennsylvania differed 
 from others. Absolute power and personal freedom. 
 Privileges granted to induce emigration. The right of 
 legislation by people. People of Maryland insist upon 
 right to propose laws. Claims in charters to extend re- 
 ligion. Advowson of churches and right to build granted 
 Lord Baltimore p. 25 
 
2 CONTENTS. 
 
 THIRD LECTUIIE. 
 
 LORD BALTIMORE AND THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 
 
 Commemoration of fomiders by various nations. George Cal- 
 vert, character, offices, speculations. CeciUus Calvert, 
 character, wisdom, success. The troubled times when 
 charter given. He-^.erogeneous classes in population of 
 Maryland. Maryland charter expression of king's notions 
 of best form of government. Manors and manorial prerogar 
 tives granted. Revenues to Lord Baltimore from Mary- 
 land. Maryland exempted from taxation by king . p. 42 
 
 FOLRTH LECTURE. 
 
 COMING OP THE COLONISTS. 
 
 "Maryland first colony erected into a province." Distinction 
 between "colony" and "province." Maryland first colony 
 to have boundaries determined. Maryland's loss of ter- 
 ritory. First body of immigrants; character of; " servants." 
 Disturbances and insurrections. Battle on the Severn. 
 Proprietary administration discontinued 1689-1715. Cause 
 of troubles. Religion and oaths of supremacy and alle- 
 giance. Fu-st colony recalled to take oaths. Ecclesiastical 
 claims of Jesuits in Maryland p. 61 
 
 FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE LEGISLATION OF THE COLONY. 
 
 " Conditions of Plantation." Thomas Comwaleys and the 
 number of servants introduced. Maryland law-making 
 practical. Locke and the laws of Noi-th Carolina. Magna 
 Charta and Lord Baltimore's charter rights. Claims of 
 Jesuits formulated in 1638. "Conditions of Plantation" 
 of 1641. Secretary Lewger,— the man and his position. 
 "Parhament composed, with but few exceptions, of 
 
CONTENTS. 3 
 
 heretics." Lord Baltimore's policy in administration of 
 province. Early disagreement in matter of proceeding in 
 Assembly. Membership of early Assemblies; imiversal 
 right, proxy, representation, special writ. Upper house and 
 its membership. Early laws: "Holy Church" and her 
 rights and liberties. Trial by jurj-. Right of all men to 
 common law. All men rights and Uberties accorduig to 
 Great Charter p. 80 
 
 SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE LEGISLATION OF THE COLONY. — CONTINUED. 
 
 "Act concemmg Religion" of 1649. How widely discussed. 
 Suggested by Lord Baltimore to Assembly. Honor of it 
 claimed by Roman Catholic Church. Religious hberty, how 
 grew to be recognized. Nations in early stages knew 
 nothing of it. Conscience toward God, late growth. A 
 great disturber. Character of early religions. True view 
 of reU.gious liberty. WilUam the Silent the true exponent. 
 Circumstances preceding the Act. " In leading the colony to 
 Maryland by far the greater part heretics." Roman 
 CathoUcs would not come to Maryland. Change of policy 
 in 1648. Oaths of office changed. Review of the Act by 
 sections p 99 
 
 SEVENTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE PROTESTANT EEVOLUTION. 
 
 Peace from 1660 to 1689. English policy toward colonies. 
 Events of 1689 consequent upon events in England in 
 1688. :Maryland peculiarly circumstanced; the proprietary 
 a Roman CathoUc. Charges against Lord Baltimore. 
 Protestant Association and its methods. The Revolution; 
 in what it consisted. Royal province, meaning. What 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 reserved to Lord Baltimore; what taken away. Why 
 Church provided with settled maintenance. Prevalence of 
 immorality; testimony of Yeo, of President of Assembly. 
 The law reviewed. "Anglican Toleration" a misnomer. 
 Religion and education promoted by the Protestant Revo- 
 lution p. 120 
 
 EIGHTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT TO THE END OF THE COLONIAL 
 ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 Proprietary government restored. Occasion of the restoration. 
 Development of spirit of people during royal government. 
 Proprietary government favorable to development of 
 republican ideas. Consei-vatism of the upper house. Char- 
 acter of Charles Lord Baltimore. Character of Frederick 
 Lord Baltimore. Great periods of agitation regarding pro- 
 vincial matters. The extension of EngUsh laws to colony; 
 requisitions for carrying on French War; the Proclamation 
 Act p. 142 
 
 NINTH LECTURE. 
 
 MARYLAND AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 Development of a sense of Uberty. Maryland no desire to 
 separate from British empire. Illogical position of Eng- 
 lish people with regard to the colonies. Question of prin- 
 ciple, not of money, with the colonies. Influence of the 
 Stamp Act agitation upon development of a love of Ub- 
 erty. Maryland constantly excited by great questions. 
 Maryland and the General Congress of 1765. Treatment 
 of Stamp Act commissioner. Arbitrary interference of 
 George III. in English administration. The tax on tea. 
 The Boston Port BiU and public feeling. Eddis' descrip- 
 
CONTENTS. 5 
 
 Hon of condition of Maryland. The Convention of 1774. 
 The destruction of tea in Annapolis harbor. The Conti- 
 nental Congress of 1774; Maryland's relation with. iMary- 
 land and the Declaration of Independence. Maryland dur- 
 ing the war. Washington's letter p. 163 
 
 TENTH LECTURE. 
 
 ODDS AND ENDS OF MARYLAND LEGISLATION. 
 
 1634-1784, period of transition. Methods of punishment found 
 in :Maryland records; hanging, drawing, quartering, be- 
 heading, burning, the pillory, stocks, whipping, cropping, 
 slitting the nose, cutting off the hand, the ducking-stool, 
 branding in the forehead or hand, boring the tongue. 
 Laws in regard to debtors, plaintiffs, defendants. Jury- 
 men responsible for a questionable verdict. "Privileged 
 Attorneys one of flie Grand Grievances." "Act to reform 
 Attorneys, Counsellors, etc." Temperance laws; drunken- 
 ness criminal. Ordinaries, laws in regard to. Marriage of 
 white woman to negro, the penalty. Maryland and the 
 Quakers. IVIaryland and witchcraft. Maryland and the 
 Indians. Maryland and the Roman Catholic-s after the 
 Protestant Revolution p. 187 
 
 Appendix. 
 Chronological Table of Leading Events in Maryland . p. 211 
 
 "The Twenty Cases" of Father White, S. J. . . .p. 221 
 Memorial of Father More, Provincial to the Sacred Congre- 
 gation for the Propagation of the Faith . . . .p. 228 
 
 Index p. 235 
 
HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND 
 
FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 Colonization in the- Sixteenth Century. 
 
 In reviewing the history of colonization in the period 
 subsequent to the discovery of America, we are struck 
 with how Httle activity was shown by the EngUsh nation, 
 the more so because in these later days the English 
 people have shown so much more activity than all the 
 rest of the world. By nature they are evidently a rest- 
 less people; nor is there any territory nor any clime to 
 which they are not ambitious to penetrate, and penetrat- 
 ing, to leave permanent results of their presence. It may 
 be said of them that they never let go what they have 
 once had their hand on, and that they not only retain, 
 but also incorporate into their empire, whatever they have 
 once possessed. 
 
 Why then were they so apathetic through the whole 
 sixteenth century? Spain and Portugal were both won- 
 derfully active, and extended their dominions and reaped 
 wonderful results. Wealth and prosperity and power 
 were the immediate results, to Spain especially, so that 
 she was able to assume the first position among European 
 nations and to dominate her neighbors. Is it that the 
 English people have changed in their nature and dispo- 
 sition? By no means; for as soon as the success of 
 Columbus became known, and the existence of another 
 world was determined, we find Henry the Seventh sending 
 
10 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 out an expedition under the direction of the Cabots, and 
 securing for himself a title, under the law of nations, to the 
 Atlantic coast of North America, which was aften\ards 
 covered with English colonies. 
 
 Besides, nations do not change their nature or dispo- 
 sition. They have idiosyncrasies as much as individuals 
 have, certain peculiar qualities that belong to their char- 
 acter; and while varying circumstances may foster or 
 repress their manifestation, yet they are there all the time. 
 And as we see, the idiosyncrasy of colonization has been 
 manifested by the English people for the last three hun- 
 dred years. Other nations, by emulation, have sought 
 to colonize, France and Germany, for instance; but their 
 attempts have been in a great degree failures, their colo- 
 nies flourishing for a while and then languishing, or 
 passing into the hands of other people. But the English 
 people do not know how to relinquish a colony, imless 
 the lesson is taught them by the children of their own 
 blood, as the colonies of North America taught them in 
 seventeen hundred and seventy-six. They are a colo- 
 nizing people, as much so as the Greeks and Romans 
 were of old, and like them they carry their own language 
 and institutions with them, and make every colony a 
 new center for the outspreading of the empire. How 
 notable this is in America, where though but a hand- 
 ful of people were planted at the first, and where thous- 
 ands and ten thousands have been coming through the 
 centuries from every country under heaven, yet it is the 
 daughter of England still, in language, in institutions, in 
 sympathies, in aspirations and, apparently, in destiny. 
 
 No, the apathy of England through the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, when Spain was extending her American empire, 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. II 
 
 is not to be explained in that way. There has been no 
 change in her nature or disposition. The probable and 
 almost certain reason is that the English mind was 
 occupied in another way, that the thought and the 
 energies of the people were given to another subject, a 
 subject that had, however, a remote but distinct bearing 
 upon the nature of English enterprise whenever ihat 
 should be developed. 
 
 And what was that subject? It was the great agi- 
 tation that arose early in the sixteenth century concern- 
 ing religion, the Reformation period, during which, while 
 the nations of southern Europe — Spain, France, Italy, 
 Portugal — were disturbed only in a slight degree, so that 
 their enterprises were not hindered, the nations of north- 
 ern Europe — Germany, Switzerland, Holland, England — 
 were agitated to their very center, so that any propensity 
 that might have been indicated by Henry the Seventh or 
 Henry the Eighth, was quickly submerged in the wild 
 waters of discussion, controversy and persecution. 
 The world generally attends to but one thing at a time, 
 being business-like in its habits. One subject masters a 
 period, and only when that subject is disposed of, does the 
 public mind feel capable of turning its attention to some 
 new thing. 
 
 And so it was that when the whole subject of religion 
 had become definitely settled, when the Protestant Church 
 of England, with Protestant doctrines, had been definitely 
 established in the days of Elizabeth and James the 
 First, the English people turned their attention to the 
 Western world, and to the extensive territory they had 
 acquired a century before by the right of discovery. 
 Soon, however, the new spirit developed, and throughout 
 
12 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 all the classes of society the question of new settlements 
 was discussed. With some it was a matter of individual 
 enterprise and the bettering of their private fortunes; 
 with some it was pure love of adventure; with some it 
 may have been, as the old charters said, to extend the 
 benefits of the Christian religion to the natives and to 
 extend the English dominion; with some it certainly was 
 to enjoy greater freedom in religion themselves and the 
 right to worship in their own way, as denied by the 
 laws of England. But from whatever motive, the whole 
 kingdom soon became alive to the great question of 
 planting colonies. 
 
 Another interesting subject may well be considered 
 in this lecture: by what title it was that colonies might 
 be planted in the new countries discovered. It was, 
 briefly, by the might of the strongest. Had Columbus 
 reached the shores of Asia as he had anticipated he 
 would, and as the writings of Marco Polo, who had 
 traveled across Asia about the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, had led him to believe he should, the Spaniards 
 would never have attempted to fix colonies there, or if 
 they had they would soon have been compelled to desist. 
 There would not have been might enough to secure the 
 title. As it was, however, the land discovered had but 
 few inhabitants and they not capable of coping with the 
 well-armed and well-disciplined Europeans, and conse- 
 quently colonies were planted according to the will of che 
 adventurers. In some places, it is true, the rights c,i the 
 aborigines were recognized, as in Maryland and Penn- 
 sylvania, and their lands purchased from them, though 
 hardly in any case at an appreciable price. In most 
 cases, however, and in particular by the Spaniards, both 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 1 3 
 
 the countries and the inhabitants were looked upon as 
 a spoil, and the lands, with towns and cities, were appro- 
 priated to themselves by the discoverers, and the people 
 reduced to a hopeless bondage. 
 
 There can, however, be no reasonable doubt of the 
 right of the Europeans to plant their colonies on the 
 American continent, with the approval of the natives, if 
 possible, and without that approval if necessary. God 
 created the earth for man, and a few savage tribes wan- 
 dering over immense wastes of forest was never within 
 His intention. There are laws superior to written ones, 
 laws which man recognizes by his intuition; and looking 
 at the matter from this point in time, we feel that the 
 right of the strongest, as then exercised, is a natural 
 and legitimate right. We must reprobate the cruelties 
 practised; we must hedge about the law by insisting on 
 all individual rights; we must remember that it was only 
 that right that justified to those engaged in it, the whole 
 base slave trade when millions were torn from their 
 homes in Africa to supply the white man with profitable 
 labor. It is a law that requires and commands unlimited 
 Christian charity for its commentary. It is a law that 
 allowed the nations of antiquity to indulge to brutality 
 all their vices upon conquered people, often far better 
 than they. It is a terrible instrument in the hands 
 of selfish men. But still it is a law, and if it had not been 
 observed, and its privileges insisted on, the fairest 
 dominion on the face of God'searth would never have been 
 created, and the noblest institutions, such as we have,, 
 for the fostering of the human spirit, might never have 
 existed. 
 
14 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 But what was the right avowed by the nations of 
 Europe when they sent out their colonies to this conti- 
 nent? As regards England, this is seen in the com- 
 mission given by Henry the Seventh to the Cabots ^vho 
 sailed under the English flag. The commission bears 
 date of 1496, four years after the discovery by Columbus, 
 and runs thus: 
 
 " We grant and give license to the same and either of 
 them, or either of their heirs and deputies, to afflx our 
 aforesaid banners and insignia on any town, city, castle, 
 island or continent by them newly discovered. And 
 that the aforesaid John (Cabot), and his sons or heirs, 
 and their deputies, may possess and occupy all the afore- 
 said towns, castles, cities and islands by them discovered, 
 which may of right be subjugated and occupied, as our 
 vassals, and their governors, lieutenants and deputies; 
 they obtaining for us the dominion, title and jurisdiction of 
 the said towns, castles and islands and continents so dis- 
 covered." 
 
 The right avowed, therefore, w^as the right to go in 
 and subjugate and occupy, — a heathenish application of 
 the right of the strongest, as villainous and brutal as any 
 that ever disgraced the Pharaohs of old. To recognize 
 the rights of the savage at the same time that we would 
 recover the wastes of the wilderness, and extend the bless- 
 ings of religion and civilization, has ever been difficult. 
 As it turned out, the coast that the English visited did 
 not present towns, castles, cities for sitbjugation; but 
 according to the terms, if the Cabots had found America 
 teeming with a population as thick and as elevated in 
 civilization as England itself, they would have been jus- 
 tified in making the attempt, with fire and sword if 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 1 5 
 
 necessaty, to bring the inhabitants under the EngHsh 
 dominion. We all remember how, where there was a 
 duly organized society, as in Mexico and Peru, the 
 Spaniards felt themselves justified in reducing, at what- 
 ever cost of cruelty, the whole aboriginal population. 
 
 We find, however, that the Spaniards rested their 
 right to possession and dominion on another plea. As 
 you probably know, the Portuguese were, at the time of 
 the discovery of America, much more of a maritime 
 people than the Spaniards; for the internal struggles of 
 Spain to secure unity for the kingdom, by the subjuga- 
 tion of the Moors, had enlisted all the energy and the 
 resources at the command of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 The Portuguese, meanwhile, were cultivating the spirit 
 of discovery, and Columbus, before he approached the 
 Spanish throne, had endeavored to make the king of 
 Portugal his patron, by whom, however, he was rejected. 
 In their enterprise at this time the Portuguese had, in 
 the year i486, reached the Cape of Good Hope and dis- 
 covered the way to India; a most valuable discovery, 
 because it saved the necessity for the long, and dangerous 
 route overland, by which, up to this time, India had been 
 reached. 
 
 It is easy to understand, then, how they must have been 
 filled with alarm when news came of the success of 
 Columbus in 1492, for in the ignorance of the whole nature 
 of the land to the west, Columbus himself believing that 
 he had reached the Indies by his western course, we can 
 see how Portugal must have felt that the prize she had 
 almost in her grasp was about to be lost. The only 
 recourse in such a case was either to maintain their right 
 by arms or else to appeal to the Pope, who had at this 
 
l6 * HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 time made himself arbiter of the nations, deciding in 
 their affairs, often with a plenitude of authority which 
 is to us of this day astonishing. 
 
 In the year 1454 Pope Nicholas had granted to Por- 
 tugal the empire of Guinea, with authority to subdue it, 
 and at the same time he prohibited all persons from sail- 
 ing thither without the permission of the Portuguese. 
 Such a proposition belonged to that time, however 
 extravagant it would appear now that any nation of Europe 
 should seek the Pope's consent, either to secure a prov- 
 ince in Africa or anywhere else, or having secured it, to 
 defend it against all intruders. Such rights are now 
 secured and defended in altogether another way. 
 
 The claims of the Pope to such jurisdiction are fully 
 set forth in his grant in 1493, after the return of Colum- 
 bus, and when the conflict of jurisdiction was anticipated 
 between Portugal and Spain. The grant runs thus : 
 
 " Given at Rome, 7th of May, 1493. From our mo- 
 tion, not moved thereto by your petition or that of any 
 other in your behalf, but of our own mere liberality and 
 certain knowledge, and the plenitude of Apostolic 
 authority, we grant to you and your successors, Kings of 
 Castile and Leon, all islands and continents, found and 
 to be found, discovered and to be discovered, towards the 
 west and south (drawing a line from one pole to the 
 other at a hundred leagues west of the Azores) by the 
 authority granted us in the blessed Peter, and by the 
 vicarship of Jesus Christ which we discharge on earth, 
 with all the dominion, states, etc., to the same belonging. 
 And we constitute, ordain and appoint you, your heirs 
 and successors, as aforesaid, lords of the same, with full, 
 free and all manner of power, authority and jurisdiction." 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 1/ 
 
 You see the nature of the authority claimed: as the 
 successor of St. Peter and as the vicar of Jesus Christy 
 to whom the earth belongs. This was what was meant 
 then by the temporal power of the Pope. Everything 
 discovered or to be discovered; it was a most magnifi- 
 cent gift. All to the east was given to the Portuguese, 
 but the American continent and islands were to belong to 
 Spain. This most bountiful Pope was the celebrated 
 Borgia, Alexandria VI, who is described as " the most 
 infamous Pope that ever lived, and the most vicious 
 prince of his age." 
 
 This line of one hundred leagues, however, did not 
 satisfy Portugal, and consequently a commission was 
 appointed, of three members from each country, with 
 plenipotentiary power, who carried the line two hundred 
 and seventy leagues farther west, a most fortunate cir- 
 cumstance for Portugal, as by accidental discovery in 
 1499 Brazil fell to her lot, lying, as it did, within the 
 lines given. 
 
 How greatly have the laws of political economy 
 changed since that day. Europe was just then emerging 
 from feudalism, during the long prevalence of which 
 human rights, and grace, mercy, gentleness, were almost 
 unknown. Now, there are laws of nations and interna- 
 tional amenities. Now, there is a public opinion among 
 nations, and nations seek to justify themselves to the 
 minds of other nations. "A decent respect for the 
 opinions of mankind" enters into all great movements. 
 Then men were in many instances only half-civilized, 
 even in Christian lands, and some power like the Papal 
 was very beneficial for ameliorating international rela- 
 tions. The whole seems out of place now, because men 
 
1 8 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 are no longer half-civilized; but nations, resting upon 
 more elevated notions of conduct, are frequently able to 
 determine questions peaceably that in other days would 
 have precipitated gigantic war. The Papal assumptions, 
 however regarded at this day, were the growth and out- 
 come of the circumstances of those earlier times. The 
 misfortune was that the circumstances that gave occasion 
 for the assumptions proved also the ruin of the papacy. 
 Her achievement of good diminished as her opportunity 
 for good increased. 
 
 When the charter for the province of Maryland was 
 given, attention had for some years been bestowed on the 
 settlement of the Atlantic coast of North America. The 
 French had secured foothold in Canada and established 
 what was to all appearance a permanent settlement; for 
 they were able to maintain their position until the close 
 of the French war, which began in the year 1754. Other 
 attempts had been made by them, but without success. 
 Along with their settlement in Canada will be re- 
 membered their immense claims in the valley of the 
 Mississippi which were extinguished by purchase by the 
 United States in 1803. Also they had attempted a settle- 
 ment in Carolina and another in Florida after the middle 
 of the sixteenth century, but both of these came to 
 nothing, — that in Florida having been exterminated by the 
 Spaniards, as they avowed, because of religious hatred. 
 The Spaniards also settled St. Augustine in the year 
 1565, though almost all their activity was confined to the 
 region about the Gulf of Mexico and on the Pacific coast. 
 Spain was exceedingly jealous of any nations making 
 settlements in America, all of which she called her own 
 by right of prior discovery and the gift of the Pope; 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. I9 
 
 but by the treaty of Madrid in the year 1670 between 
 England and Spain the territories of each were finally 
 detennined. 
 
 England herself, however, made various efforts at 
 colonization before she finally succeeded. One attempt 
 was made in 1583 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert on 
 the island of Newfoundland, but failed, and the 
 effort to colonize was for the time abandoned. Another 
 was made, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, by 
 Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 on Roanoke Island, but 
 this also failed. Other attempts were made, but with 
 no permanent results, till the charter granted by James 
 the First to Sir Thomas Gates and others in the year 
 1606. It is interesting to note how generous the king 
 was, as the lands bestowed by this charter extended from 
 the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degrees of latitude, 
 which cover the whole territory between Cape Fear and 
 the southern border of North Carolina on the south and 
 the northern boundary of Vermont. This was the origi- 
 nal grant, though the king and his successors afterwards 
 assumed the prerogative of giving lands and taking them 
 back again to bestow on other favorites; and so this 
 territory came to be divided up at last between various 
 individuals. 
 
 The Dutch, however, did not by any means feel dis- 
 posed to accept the claimiS the English crown made of 
 exclusive right to this part of North America, and so 
 in 1609 they sent out an expedition, which, entering the 
 Hudson river, took possession of the country and estab- 
 lished a colony. They also made settlements on the 
 Delaware. Afterwards, during the war in the reign of 
 Charles the Second their settlements fell into the hands 
 
20 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 of the English. The Dutch again for a while recovered 
 the territory, but finally in 1673 the whole became an 
 English possession. Charles granted it to his brother 
 James the Duke of York, from whom the name of the 
 colony on the Hudson was derived. 
 
 A part of the New York of that time was New Jersey. 
 This James sold off as private property to various pri- 
 vate gentlemen, who again, in their turn, sold it to others. 
 I make this point because I want to emphasize what we 
 would now regard as a very peculiar thing. The whole 
 territory of the province of Maryland, say, was the private 
 property of a private English gentleman, given to him, 
 his heirs and assigns, an entailed estate, descending like 
 any other from father to son. The people under the 
 charter had certain privileges, and they had certain rights 
 in the soil, theirs either by purchase or by gift of the 
 proprietary. But by the charter all the land was given 
 to the proprietor, and he might alienate it in whole or in 
 parcels. The jurisdiction also, the powder to propose and 
 to veto laws, the power to appoint the chief executive 
 and other officers, also belonged to him, and descended 
 from father to son. In the case of the Jerseys, even 
 jurisdiction was alienated, that is, the proprietors sold out 
 the right of governing, an analogous case to which was 
 found in Maryland, where, in the failure of legal heirs, 
 the province was conveyed by will to Henry Harford, the 
 natural son of the former proprietor. As it was, the 
 emoluments of the province of Maryland were so exten- 
 sive that, while there was a legal heir, there was no desire 
 to sell. Such a state of things, however natural they 
 appeared in that day when feudal notions still lingered in 
 the popular mind, seems strange and very unnatural to us. 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 21 
 
 There is no country probably, even of Europe (except 
 possibly Russia, whose condition is to us an anachronisn::), 
 where the alienable proprietary government of a province 
 would be now accepted as legitimate; yet in the colonial 
 period of America, scarcely more than one hundred years 
 ago, the thing seemed normal. 
 
 According to the accepted principles of that day, all such 
 foreign territory as was obtained by conquest belonged 
 to the crown, and of his own free and independent will 
 and pleasure the king bestowed it on whom he would. 
 It was a figment of the law, and went back to the time 
 when the strongest among a body of feudal lords would 
 lead his followers into some new country, and having con- 
 quered it, would parcel out the domain, either as a reward 
 or to secure a following, to such of his knights and barons 
 as he felt could be relied on. There had been no raising 
 of an army, no leading of mailed legions in respect of 
 America. At most there had been a few dollars spent 
 on the equipment of a ship or two, and small ones at that, 
 and that out of moneys obtained from the people; but 
 all that was seen or imagined of the new country was 
 declared to be the king's by conquest. And then he would 
 give it to whom he would, with the right of jurisdiction 
 to nominate or even to make laws, to appoint officers 
 or to rule by oneself, to derive taxes and duties, as well 
 as to sell the land to whom he would, and even, as we have 
 seen, to transfer these prerogatives of sovereignty to some 
 one else for a consideration, however unworthy that one 
 might be, however unfitted for his office and duties, how- 
 ever personally offensive to the people over whom he 
 purchased the right to rule. 
 
22 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 To our minds it was a strange state of things, but for 
 some time the strangeness was not recognized. All the 
 time, also, the provincials were called English subjects, 
 entitled to all the privileges and rights of Englishmen. 
 From time immemorial an English subject had been pro- 
 tected from the arbitrary rule of the sovereign by the 
 Parliament, whose voice was necessary for the making 
 of laws and for the imposition of taxes. But according to 
 the royal notions in respect of parceling out the exten- 
 sive foreign territory, Parliament had no voice at all. 
 Everything was in the hands and power of the king. By 
 his charters he prescribed what prerogatives should belong 
 to the proprietary and what should be extended to the 
 people, and in some instances, in royal colonies, an inde- 
 pendent monarchical power was exercised by the gov- 
 ernors, as in Virginia in 1618, when the deputy governor 
 published a number of edicts as of his own supreme will. 
 The fullness of his supremacy, as he understood it, is indi- 
 cated by the character of the edicts, which were such as 
 these: That merchandise should be sold at an advance 
 of twenty-five in the hundred; that tobacco should be 
 taken in payment of debts at three shillings a pound, 
 under penalty of three years' servitude; that no one 
 should privately traffic with the Indians, or teach them 
 to use firearms, under pain of death to teacher and 
 scholar; that no one should hunt deer or hogs without the 
 governor's leave; that no one should shoot (except in 
 necessary self-defense) till a new supply of ammunition 
 should arrive, on pain of a year's personal service; that 
 no one should go on board the ships at Jamestown with- 
 out the governor's leave; that every one should go to 
 church Sundays and holy days, on pain of penal service 
 
COLONIZATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 23 
 
 during the following week; for second offense the pen- 
 alty was the same penal service for a month, and for the 
 third for a year and a day. 
 
 This was prerogative of the direst kind, and of course 
 such extreme presumption could last but a short time. 
 The first James and the first Charles, however, had very 
 extreme notions of prerogative; and in bestowing, of 
 their free grace and bounty, immense territories on their 
 favorites they had but little thought of the rights of the 
 people. As late as 1638, Governor Harvey, of Virginia, 
 exercised even tyrannical jurisdiction. 
 
 Prerogative, however, was the rule of the day where- 
 ever it could be exercised, and it will be seen how that, 
 though Lord Baltimore's charter required the calling of 
 assemblies of the people, yet the people themselves had 
 to contend, in the beginning, against the assumption 
 under the charter that the initiative of all laws should pro- 
 ceed from the proprietar}^ They insisted that when a 
 law was felt to be necessary they should have th-e power 
 of passing it subject to the veto, and that they should 
 not have to wait till the law was submitted by the pro- 
 prietary for their consideration. You will all doubdess 
 recollect that it was this very question of prerogative 
 and the attempted exercise of it, that brought on in Eng- 
 land the civil w^ar that ended with the death of the king 
 and the overthrow of the monarchy. 
 
 As regards the colonies, the parliament at last came to 
 assert its right and to question and restrict the royal 
 claims to exclusive jurisdiction. Parliamentary control 
 was asserted over the colonies, laws of trade and shipping 
 acts were passed, and later, in the times immediately pre- 
 ceding the American Revolution, and leading to it, the 
 
24 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 stamp act and taxes on various articles were imposed, for 
 the purpose of raising- a revenue for the weighty burdens 
 of the home government. A charter was a law bestow- 
 ing certain privileges and rights upon an English subject, 
 and parliament came at last to deny to royal authority 
 alone the power of enacting such a law. It would, doubt- 
 less, never have been allowed had the value of the 
 colonies been from the beginning understood; but the 
 land lay so far away, the idea of revenue was so very 
 remote, and so very few persons had any definite notions 
 of what the colonies w^ere capable of becoming, that while 
 prerogative in English affairs was reprobated, as applied 
 to America it was a matter of indifference; and if ihe 
 king chose to sport the kingly gift he could be left to his 
 amusement. It was this to James the First, who among 
 all the many occasions of showing his vanity, embraced 
 this, and strove to prove himself an excellent statesman 
 and lawmaker for the new communities he was fostering 
 into life. 
 
SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 Comparison of Charters. 
 
 To-day we will consider the various colonial charters, 
 comparing them with each other and with that of Mary- 
 land. This will show out various fundamental character- 
 istics of the times when these were given, and will 
 also indicate a certain progress in thought and in the 
 apprehension of civil and religious liberty; for the period 
 from the first Virginia charter to that for Georgia extends 
 over a good deal more than a hundred years, during 
 which great questions were agitated, and the human mind 
 was advancing towards a clearer sense of what consti- 
 tuted human rights and liberty. 
 
 These, as we have seen, were by royal gram, and all ran 
 in the name of the king, on the ground that all such ter- 
 ritories as were held by right of discovery, belonged to the 
 king. Those to whom the charters were granted, how- 
 ever, were compelled to be at their own charges in secur- 
 ing their setdements, and as in the beginning the majority 
 of those who were willing to leave their homes and 
 the security of English life for the insecurity and 
 exposure of the wilderness, as well as for the long and 
 doubtful sea voyage, as it was then, were poor men, the 
 expense to those sending them out was necessarily very 
 great. For besides the charges of the outward voyage, 
 cost of vessels, etc., provision had necessarily to be made 
 for the support of the colony tmtil crops could be planted 
 
26 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 and matured, as well as for all the other incidental costs 
 of building, clearing up lands, placating the natives. The 
 expenses were very great, and the failure to meet them, 
 and to make provision for the many necessary demands 
 that must arise, was the cause of various failures among 
 the early adventurers. 
 
 Lord Baltimore, who had learned experience by his 
 father's attempts in Newfoundland, and by his association 
 with the Virginia Company, spent, we are told, forty 
 thousand pounds sterling in getting his colony firmly and 
 definitely started; a venture that very few would have 
 felt themselves justified in making even if they had the 
 ability. Colonization by the English was a new thing, 
 and for its success required boldness as well as large 
 resources. Besides, Lord Baltimore, being the sole 
 grantee of the charter, was not hampered by a multitude 
 of counsellors, among whom there will always be some 
 doubtful and timid spirits, and some who, if not doubtful 
 and timid, can always find some reason for questioning 
 every proposition. Doubless one great cause why Mary- 
 land and Pennsylvania succeeded so well, was that in 
 each case one man was at the head of affairs, and so all 
 rivalry and jealousy in the source of administration, were 
 avoided. 
 
 Again, the charters differed very greatly one from the 
 other, not only in respect of whether they were granted 
 to one person or many, but also radically as to character, 
 and as to the prerogatives, greater or less, which were 
 bestowed by them. There were charters creating royal 
 colonies, for instance, in which the great power of over- 
 sight was retained by the king. And even here, also, 
 there was great difference; for while in some instances, 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 2/ 
 
 as later in Virginia, and when Maryland was for a while 
 withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Lords Baltimore, 
 the governor was appointed by the king and held only 
 of the king; in other cases, as in the first charters of Vir- 
 ginia, the council (to which the regulation of affairs in 
 the colony was entrusted, and which could itself be ap- 
 pointed and removed by the king) had the power of 
 appointing the governor and other officers. Of these 
 councils for Virginia there were two, — one in England 
 and the other in the colony; and according to the charter, 
 " the laws, ordinances and instructions " that were to 
 guide them, were to be such as shall in that behalf be 
 given and signed by the king's hand and sign-manual, 
 and pass under the privy seal of the realm of England. 
 
 Again, also, in a royal colony all laws passed by the 
 colonial assembly (for such a body came soon to be 
 recognized as essential in every colony) were transmitted 
 to the king for his approval; while in other cases, as 
 in the proprietary government of Maryland, the king 
 was not known, but the right to confimi or veto was in 
 the proprietor. In the year 1620 a new charter was 
 granted for New England, as it came now to be called, 
 which w^as conferred upon "the council established at 
 Plymouth for the planting, ruling, ordering, and govern- 
 ing of New England; according to which the council was 
 to make and revoke governors, officers and ministers, 
 also to make, ordain, establish all manner of orders, laws, 
 directions, instructions, forms, ceremonies of government 
 of said colony, only that the same be not contrary to 
 the laws and statutes of this our realm of England." The 
 governor was also empowered to exercise martial law 
 upon emergency. 
 
28 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 When, however, the Brownists, coming from Hol- 
 land, settled at New Plymouth in 1620, they did so with- 
 out a charter, — squatters, as they would be defined in 
 these days, — and consequently were able to enjoy in a 
 very high degree self-government, electing their officers, 
 passing their own laws, regulating their own affairs. 
 Later on, when they had grown to power, and were 
 often disposed to show towards the government at home 
 the independence that made up so large a part of their 
 character, their power was restricted, governors were sent 
 from England, and they were watched with a jealous eye. 
 Such royal control was also exercised over the other New 
 England colonies. This was, however, only in the 
 reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second; for 
 during the civil war and the commonwealth, which covered 
 so large a part of the earlier period of the colonies, the 
 New England colonies were too much in sympathy with 
 the parliamentary cause to apprehend any restriction of 
 privileges. 
 
 The proprietary colonies differed from the royal in 
 this, that the whole territory was passed over by the 
 king to one or more individuals, the only recognition of 
 the royal right reserved being a nominal rent; as, for 
 instance, in the case of Avalon, a white horse, whenever 
 the king should demand it in person within the prov- 
 ince; which was in every sense nominal, — a king of 
 England visiting the cold shores of Newfoundland 
 being hardly conceivable as a possibility. In the charter 
 of Maryland the recognition of the king's right was the 
 presentation of two arrow-heads, to be delivered at 
 Windsor annually. In the beginning, at any rate, Lord 
 Baltimore was careful to make this delivery, as the 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 2g 
 
 receipts among his papers show. A notable case of this 
 kind of colony was that of the Carolinas, given by 
 Charles the Second in the year 1663 to various courtiers. 
 This territory was made a province by the fifth clause 
 of the charter, and the consideration was the more sub- 
 stantial but insignificant payment of twenty marks lawful 
 money. In Georgia, hov/ever, whose charter was be- 
 stowed in 1732, the king required that four shillings 
 be paid him and his successors for every hundred acres 
 settled, the payment to commence ten years after the 
 establishment of the colony. According to all the char- 
 ters, however, the king reserved to himself a certain 
 pordon, one-fourth or one-fifth, of the gold and silver 
 ore found in the colony. This was also the case, as you 
 will recollect, in the Spanish colonies; for the planting 
 of colonies always filled the mind of the royal giver 
 with expectations of filling his empty coffers, for kingly 
 coffers were as apt to get empty as those of other people. 
 In die case of the Spaniards, as we know, that hope was 
 attained in a marvelous degree. The same cannot be 
 said of the English colonies, though they did something 
 infinitely better: they developed, both in themselves and 
 in England, a commercial activity and enterprise that 
 stimulated the best energies of human nature, by which 
 they became able to reap rich harvests of gold from all 
 the earth. 
 
 These proprietary charters were very much alike, 
 though when the time came to make some of the later 
 ones the grants w^ere not so generous as they had been 
 before their value was fully understood. When we 
 reach Lord Baltimore's charter we can analyze, and in 
 that way understand more fully, the meaning of the name 
 
30 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND, 
 
 given them. All that need be dwelt upon at this point 
 is the distinction between the royal and proprietary colo- 
 nies; in the former, as we have seen, the king retaining 
 within his prerogative a large amount of direction and 
 jurisdiction, while in the latter the proprietary is tlie 
 highest offtcer. King James, for instance, when he 
 granted the charter to the two Virginia companies, him- 
 self prepared a whole body of laws and transmitted them, 
 while the proprietaries could either submit laws to the 
 Assembly of the people for their approval, or could 
 establish a law w^ien it had passed the Assembly. In 
 the case of Pennsylvania, in 1681, this proprietary pre- 
 rogative was farther limited by the requirement that all 
 laws should be submitted within four years to the Eng- 
 lish Privy Council. 
 
 The charters also provided for em.ergencies by giving 
 to the proprietaries, by themselves or their executive 
 officers, from time to time to make and ordain fit and 
 wholesome orders and ordinances, which ordinances " w^e 
 do by these presents straightly charge and command to 
 be inviolably observed within the province, under the 
 penalties therein expressed, so that such ordinances be 
 reasonable and not repugnant to the laws and statutes 
 of the Kingdom of England." It is to be observed 
 here that the writ of Habeas Corpus, by which personal 
 safety is secured to every one against arbitrary arrest, 
 was not extended to the colonies till the reign of Queen 
 Anne. Possibly the constitutional principle had been 
 recognized all the way along, as it had been in England 
 since the day of Magna Charta. The act, however, of 
 the thirty-first year of Charles the Second, which gave 
 the principle definite form and substance, was not ex- 
 
' COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 3 1 
 
 tended to the colonies till the time given. No better 
 protection has ever been devised for the citizen than the 
 law extending this right of investigation; for under it 
 any one could demand to know the reasons of his arrest, 
 with such an amount of preliminary investigation as to' 
 show reasonable ground for suspicion and indictment. 
 
 The reason why Charles the Second, in granting the 
 charter to William Penn, limited his prerogative by re- 
 serving to the Privy Council the right of reviewing all 
 laws passed in the colony, was that after his restoration 
 m^ 1660 New England had indicated an independent 
 spirit, and the claim of a right to control her own affairs, 
 which could not but gall one who felt that all the domain 
 of America belonged to him, and was held only by his 
 grace and that of his fathers. In fact, there was always 
 present in the colonies a certain conflict between two 
 great and powerful principles, the one being the absolute 
 power of the king, the other the freedom of the subject 
 This was a conflict that had begun definitely in En-land 
 during the reign of Elizabeth, or rather was definitely 
 renewed in her day. For it had begun and been to 
 some degree settled in the fourteenth century; only the 
 long and terrible wars between the houses of York and 
 Lancaster, that desolated the land and reduced the 
 strength of the nobles and the people, had prepared the 
 way for the absolute power that was exercised during the 
 reigns of Henry the Seventh and his immediate suc- 
 cessors.. 
 
 By the days of Elizabeth, however, the people had 
 recovered some of their old prosperity, and, with it 
 their spirit; not the nobility, but the people, for feudal- 
 ism was practically dead, and power had passed into the 
 
32 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 hands of the ' people. These principles were in conflict 
 all along through the colonial period, and as they had 
 brought about the Great l^ebellion in England, so there 
 was a constant protest in the colonies, a protest that 
 grew more and more pronoimced, until the long struggle 
 ended in, as it had trained the colonies for, national 
 independence. Even in the charter of New York, 
 granted to the Puke of York, afterwards James the 
 Second, by his brother Charles, we find the jealousy of 
 colonial independence manifested, for in some respects 
 the duke's privileges were inferior even to those granted 
 to other proprietaries. 
 
 There are certain things common to many of the 
 charters which it would be well for us to remember, 
 among them the privilege of removal granted to those 
 who desired to go into the colonies. We are so accus- 
 tomed to the right of changing our abode, going to any 
 foreign land, or to any part of our own land, that we 
 cannot understand readily the denial or limitation of this 
 right as it existed in the days when charters were given. 
 For among the privileges granted by these is this, that 
 persons so desiring should be free to go over to the colo- 
 nies to make their homes there. And this was because 
 of an old law of the reign of Elizabeth, according to 
 which "if any subject or denizen shall depart the realm 
 without license under the great seal, he shall forfeit his 
 personal estate and lose the profits of his land during his 
 life." The liberty granted, therefore, was very necessary, 
 being only a relaxation of the law in behalf of the colo- 
 nies. Even within the kingdom itself free passage was 
 not allowed from place to place, but license had to be 
 obtained. Thousfh all of this survives in some parts 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 33 
 
 of Europe to-day, most notably in Russia, where every 
 one belongs to some commune, to which he may be re- 
 turned wherever he may be found within any part of 
 the great empire. 
 
 This restriction of personal freedom was seen in a 
 most oppressive form in the charter of Virginia in the 
 year 1612, one clause of which was that certain persons 
 having returned from Virginia and given an evil report of 
 the condition of things there, the king granted power to 
 the home council " to apprehend and bind over with 
 good sureties, or else to remand and send back the said 
 offenders to the said colony of Virginia, there to be pro- 
 ceeded against and punished as governor, deputy, or 
 council there, for the time being, shall think meet." We 
 should think it a strange thing if any one coming back 
 from our western country, or from Alaska, and bringing 
 a report of disappointment and distress, should be ar- 
 rested and bound over to keep silent, or else be sent back 
 again, to be dealt with by those who had every private 
 and selfish reason for making the world believe that all 
 was encouraging. But private rights, as we know them, 
 were not known in 161 2. 
 
 Another privilege granted, which is also common to 
 the charters, is that of transmitting goods into the colo- 
 nies and of shipping from the colonies any productions. 
 But this latter was subject to conditions. For it was a 
 universal law that the home country possessed the mo- 
 nopoly of the trade of the colonies, and no ships of other 
 nations were allowed to trade directly with them. And 
 nothing was watched more jealously than this. Goods 
 from the colonies did reach other countries, but they 
 had first to be shipped to England, Scotland or Ireland, 
 
34 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 and then afterwards to h& reshipped to any other port. 
 By this means the Enghsh agents of the colonists reaped 
 a heavy commission, and the necessity arose that all 
 goods from whatever country should first pass through 
 the hands of British or Irish merchants. It will be remem- 
 bered how Massachusetts repudiated this right of Eng- 
 lish interference with her trade, and by all possible and 
 sometimes absurd excuses, sought to extenuate her no- 
 torious violations of the law. For Massachusetts was 
 always at the forefront of protest against British preten- 
 sions. 
 
 In the matter of the legislative power of the people, 
 and their right to determine what laws should bind them, 
 we find a good deal of interest, from the fact that the 
 Stuart kings by no means looked upon the exercise of 
 this right by the people with pleasure, and called their 
 representatives together in parliament as seldom as their 
 own needs w^ould allow. For at that day it was different 
 from what it is now, for the people did not govern the 
 realm, but only came together to assist the king to do 
 it, whenever he called them, and this was only so often as 
 he needed money, which he could not get without them. 
 It will be remembered that it was King Charles' effort to 
 get money without the people's consent that aroused 
 Hampden, and with Hampden the whole English world, 
 and precipitated the civil war, and overthrew the mon- 
 archy, and compassed the death of the king. 
 
 But in the colonial charters provision soon came to 
 be made for the assembling of the people or their repre- 
 sentatives, and the requirement that no law should be of 
 force without their consent. In the first grant to the 
 Virginia Company no such provision was made. The 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 35 
 
 king made the laws and the council provided for the 
 government under them. In 1621, however, two houses 
 of assembly were created in Virginia— one appointed by 
 the treasurer and council of the Company, the other 
 composed of the governor, local council and two bur- 
 gesses to be chosen by the inhabitants of any town, hun- 
 dred or settlement. The governor was to have a veto 
 of the laws passed; while also, accepted by him, they had 
 to be further approved and confirmed by the general 
 court in England. Again, however, it was provided that 
 no order of the general court could bind the colony till 
 It was assented to by the colonial assembly. 
 
 Provision for such assembly by the charters became 
 the rule from that time out. The charter for Avalon, 
 for instance, granted to Lord Baltimore in 1623, before 
 he changed his religion and ceased to be Secretary of 
 State, provided that the freeholders were to be assembled 
 for the making of laws for the province, the condition 
 given being that the laws should not be repugnant or 
 contrary, but as near as conveniently may be, agreeable 
 to the laws and statutes of England. Lord Baltimore, 
 who was one of the most astute and observant men of his 
 day, saw the necessity, and had the provision incorpor- 
 ated. And again, when his second charter was given, 
 that^ for Maryland, the same clause was inserted. How 
 far it was only policy and how far it was the fruit of a 
 broad and liberal spirit, we do not know. We only 
 know that when the colony had been planted, and its 
 administration became a practical problem, his son, on 
 whom the world has been delighted to lavish its praise, 
 attempted so far to limit the privilege of the assembly as 
 to claim the sole initiative in the making of laws. This 
 
36 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 the people rejected, however, and proceeded to consider 
 the laws as of their own suggestion, a claim and pre- 
 rogative which his lordship was afterwards constrained 
 to allow. The right of initiative was recognized as be- 
 longing to both parties equally. Before a law couLd 
 become finally and completely part of the code of the 
 province it had not only to pass the assembly in both its 
 houses, but also to receive the approval of the governor 
 in the colony and afterwards of the proprietary. It went 
 into effect, however, upon its approval by the governor, 
 so that sometimes the anomaly was seen that a law was 
 in force and business carried on in the colony under it, 
 when in fact it was no law and was finally rejected by the 
 proprietor. There was of necessity a good deal of de 
 facto and not de jiire government under such circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Another notable peculiarity to be observed, is the 
 reference made to extending the Christian religion, as 
 being one of the purposes of sending out the colony, — 
 "Enlarging the extent of the Christian world," as the 
 charter of Avalon has it. Also the charter of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay of 1629 declares that converting the natives 
 is the principal end of the royal intention and of the 
 adventurers' free profession in the establishment of the 
 plantation. The charter for Maryland also contained 
 the same. How far such clauses are to be pushed, is 
 questionable, though we do know that whatever may 
 have been the intention either of the grantor or of the 
 grantee under the charter, efforts were made by godly, 
 earnest men to carry the word of God to the inhabitants 
 of the wilderness. The bitter spirit that was excited in 
 the Indians soon hindered in many places the zeal of the 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 37 
 
 missionaries, a bitterness created by the injustice and 
 brutality with which they were treated; yet to the very 
 utmost of their power, often preceding the trader and the 
 explorer, devoted men pursued their purpose even to 
 remote districts. This was the case not only in the 
 English colonies, but also in Canada, the account of their 
 efforts often reading more like a romance than like sober 
 and sometimes painful reality. The account we have 
 from Father Andrew White of his own work and that 
 of his colleagues in Maryland, cannot but fill us with 
 admiration for the single-mindedness and purity of in- 
 tention of his earnest soul. 
 
 Another point of interest is the taxation of the people. 
 The colonies were subjected to various custom charges, 
 port dues, etc., from which there was no appeal. In the 
 case of the Carolina charter of 1663 free trade was 
 allowed with England, Scotland and Ireland for seven 
 years, after which customs and dues were to be paid; but 
 in the earlier charters there were no charges for ship- 
 ments to England, but only when the same goods were 
 reshipped to some foreign port, when they had to pay the 
 same duties as were paid upon any other goods. A 
 singular exemption was allowed by the charter for Avalon, 
 as the products of the colony were to be relieved even 
 of this burden for a period of ten years; but upon per- 
 son, goods, chattels, tenements, lands, no taxes could 
 be levied save by and with the consent of the repre- 
 sentatives of the people. The king relinquished any 
 right he thought himself possessed of, and he provided 
 by the charters that the proprietaries should not exercise 
 any such right It certainly promoted the peace of the 
 colonies that that was fixed and determined, for there 
 
38 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 was none of the proprietaries that was not soon made to 
 feel that the people knew and were determined to exer- 
 cise, all the rights and privileges of English citizens and 
 subjects. 
 
 The question of religion, also, as it is suggested by 
 the various charters, may very well be touched upon 
 here. I have spo^ien of the claim that the grantees 
 were influenced by a desire to extend the blessings of the 
 Christian religion to the Indians. But I refer in this 
 place to the regulations concerning religion that were 
 contained in the charters, the assurance and limitation 
 of privileges, as bearing upon the residents of the prov- 
 ince. This was a matter of the first concern, for one of 
 the most powerful causes for impelling men to leave their 
 homes and seek a retreat in the colonies was the de- 
 sire to enjoy freedom of conscience and of worship. 
 
 The Virginia colony was from the beginning under 
 Church of England influences, and we have seen how, 
 with a high hand, the deputy governor, in 161 8, issued 
 his injunctions that every one should go to church on 
 Sundays and holy days, and that the penalty of refusing 
 to do so was compulsory labor. The church was part 
 and parcel of the very existence of things, church and 
 state being so close together that no defining line could 
 be drawn between them. In the charter granted to Sir 
 Geo. Calvert for Avalon, which was before he changed 
 his religion, there was given him the advowson of all 
 churches to be erected in the province; that is, the right 
 to appoint ministers, it being of the very sentiment of 
 England that churches should be built, and that the 
 patronage or right of appointment should be vested in 
 some individual. 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 39 
 
 In England various persons have this right; sometimes 
 official as where the Lord Chancellor has many churches 
 in his gift; or the faculty of the learned colleges; or 
 some of the church dignitaries, as the Bishops; or private 
 individuals, as when a church has been built upon a 
 private estate. And so when a title to the province was 
 given to Calvert, both as proprietor of the soil and as 
 possessing civil jurisdiction, this privilege was granted. 
 
 And so again in the charter for Maryland in 1632 we 
 find the same. At this time Calvert had become Baron 
 of Baltimore, and had avowed his conversion to the 
 Roman religion. The fourth clause confers upon him 
 the patronage and advowson of all the churches, together 
 with license and faculty to build churches and to cause 
 them to be dedicated and consecrated according to the 
 ecclesiastical laws of the kingdom of England. Though 
 Lord Baltimore had declared himself a Roman Catholic, 
 the charter refused to recognize the fact, and treated him 
 and insisted on his acting as a member of the estab- 
 lished Church of England. It is true he never built 
 churches or chapels, and none therefore were conse- 
 crated, and the function of patronage was never exer- 
 cised. It was about the only one of the privileges of 
 his charter that he did not exercise. It brought him no 
 emolument, it might have been an expense to him, and 
 it may have been against his conscience. Certain it is 
 that the failure to make such provision for the great 
 Protestant majority of his people, proved to him a great 
 misfortune, as it was one of the chief causes of his loss 
 of the administration of the province in the Protestant 
 revolution, and with it a large part of his revenue that 
 arose from the civil administration. Accepting the char- 
 
40 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 ter with the fourth clause, he was bound not to neglect 
 the spiritual needs of the people and not to appropriate 
 all the revenues to his private use. Here let me observe 
 that in speaking of Lord Baltimore I proceed upon the 
 principle that "The king is dead, long live the king." 
 When it is necessary to distinguish between the different 
 individuals that bore the title I shall do so. 
 
 The charter of the Carolinas, granted in 1663, con- 
 tained the same clause providing for the patronage of the 
 churches and their dedication. In the charter for Penn- 
 sylvania, however, we find a difference; for in that there 
 is a recognition that the grantee, Penn, was not of the 
 faith of the Church of England ; for the right was secured 
 to any persons to the number of twenty, to petition the 
 Bishop of London to send a minister to them, and he 
 was to be such a one as the Bishop would approve, the 
 king evidently fearing that Penn was not of a sufficiently 
 tolerant spirit to induce him to extend the liberty of 
 worship to all. The right of petition was to be exer- 
 cised irrespective of the will or pleasure of Penn. 
 
 A strong contrast is presented between the religious 
 spirit of New England and that of Georgia, suggesting 
 the progress that had been made between the year 1620 
 and 1732; for while in New England the spirit of the 
 time showed itself in repressing, as far as possible, re- 
 ligious liberty, and in the endeavor to hold state and 
 church within the bonds of a narrow denominationalism, — 
 the spirit of the times, I say, because then a persecuting 
 spirit was abroad in almost the whole world, — in Georgia 
 there was, from its foundation, a spirit of broader liberty, 
 freedom of conscience to all, and the right of public 
 worship to all except the Roman Catholics; who were 
 
COMPARISON OF CHARTERS. 4I 
 
 dreaded and repressed more for what were regarded as 
 their dangerous poHtical heresies than their erroneous 
 rehgious creed. It took many years for Protestant Eng- 
 land to become so conscious of her own power that she 
 could despise and ignore those heresies. 
 
THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Lord Baltimore and the Maryland Charter. 
 
 Modern nations, like ancient ones, cultivate as far as 
 possible the memory of their founders and of those who 
 in the earlier days of their existence, glorified the state 
 either, by their virtue, their wisdom or their deeds. The 
 ancient nations, it is true, losing the due balance be- 
 tween God and man, worshiped often these ancient 
 heroes, exalting them to a second place among the di- 
 vinities and paying them all reverence. And the great 
 deeds and wise words of those who lived in the histori- 
 cal period were likewise handed on, by poet as well as his- 
 torian, a halo gathered about them, glorifying what, may 
 be, thousands of men in their own time would have said 
 or done. Modern nations, it is true, do not so glorify their 
 founders, there is no hero-worship; still every nation is 
 proud of being able to point out illustrious men among 
 the fathers of the state, or those who by wisdom and de- 
 votion, have promoted its welfare and honor. England 
 has her Alfred of earlier days, her Henry the Fifth, her 
 William Pitt; France has her Charlemagne, her Louis 
 the Pious, her First Napoleon. America has not only 
 her Washington, but the whole galaxy of wisdom and de- 
 votion that vindicated the manhood of the nation by the 
 Declaration of Independence. Many of the separate 
 States have their champions, men that guided the course 
 of events in the earlier days or in the periods nearer our 
 own. 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 43 
 
 And well it is for nations that it should be so, for 
 such commemoration of the illustrious departed keeps 
 alive the national love of the institutions of the State, 
 makes men jealous of everything that can tarnish the 
 honor or destroy the integrity of the State. Patriotism 
 is something that has to be fostered. It may spring up 
 spontaneously in the himian heart, but unless it is culti- 
 vated, by keeping alive the memory of the honorable 
 if not heroic past, it will die, choked out by the weeds 
 of selfishness and self-indulgence, greed and ambition. 
 There may be, even without patriotism, enough of 
 courage preserved to call forth the efforts for the de- 
 fense of the country; but patriotism, — the love of country, 
 that fosters some of the highest virtues of the human 
 heart, and without which a nation is on the decline 
 of the plane that leads to hopeless disaster, — patriotism 
 can only be kept alive by a recollection of the country's 
 heroic antecedents, and of those who in the country's 
 behalf pledged their lives and their sacred honor in its 
 cause. 
 
 Now among the separate States of the Union that have 
 and glory in a notable past, is Maryland. Somehow she 
 has never made as much of her inheritance as some other 
 States have, though in recent years she has become 
 more zealous in searching into her records and present- 
 ing them, to the world. I presume that one cause of 
 her apathy in other days was that hers was a mixed 
 community ; that being a Border State, a very large portion 
 of her people were not native, but came here chiefly for 
 the sake of the many advantages which the State offered 
 in its soil and location, for commercial and manufac- 
 turing enterprises. When the second volume of a most 
 
44 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 excellent history never saw the light, because the first, 
 on which the author had bestowed so much and such 
 conscientious care and labor, the most worthy mxOnument 
 yet erected of the period it covered, was received with 
 so little interest, — I speak of McMahon's history of Mary- 
 land, — when such was the fact, it shows at how low an 
 ebb was the sentiment in Maryland in behalf of the 
 honor of Maryland. There is a different state of things 
 now, I grant, but it is altogether questionable how far 
 the sentiment extends. It is one purpose of these lec- 
 tures to endeavor to develop in the young men of Mary- 
 land a pride and love of the honorable old State. 
 
 Upon going back to the first days of the colony we 
 find two men standing out in strong prominence, father 
 and son, George and Cecilius Calvert, first and second 
 Lords Baltimore. The common name. Lord Baltimore, 
 seems to have caused a good deal of confusion, for Lord 
 Baltimore has often been referred to as if the whole 
 early history of the colony had been controlled and 
 directed by one man; whereas, as regards the offices of 
 father and son, they are as dififerent as the lives and 
 times of two men could possibly make them. 
 
 Of the first of these, the father, George Calvert, first 
 Lord Baltimore, there is very little that can be said, and 
 that little is neither good nor bad. For we do not know 
 enough of the man, his thoughts, feelings, purposes, to 
 give any very distinct portraiture of him. He was a 
 loving husband and an enterprising man, and as a poli- 
 tician he was fairly consistent in his principles. But 
 such things can probably be said of the largest part of 
 the human family. Bom about 1580, he in early man- 
 hood entered political life, filling various offices, includ- 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 45 
 
 ing that of principal Secretary of State and membership 
 of the Privy Council. James the First honored him 
 with many proofs of his confidence, which he attempted 
 to justify, not only by a faithful performance of his various 
 duties, but by standing forth as the advocate of the 
 king's claims when questioned by parliament or people. 
 George Calvert was a courtier in the strictest sense of the 
 v/ord, and was always as near the king as the king's 
 favor could bring him. And doubtless he was fitted to 
 be there, as a gentleman of education and excellent 
 intelligence. 
 
 At the same time he was always providing for him- 
 self, but in an honorable way. Had there been any means 
 of imputing evil conduct to him, doubtless it would have 
 been done. For he was not a favorite with the weak king's 
 favorite, and could he have been deprived of the king's 
 favor, to get him out of the way, doubtless it would have 
 been done. 
 
 But such qualities never make a hero, and George 
 Lord Baltimore was not a hero. He had alvays an eye 
 to business, so that there was hardly a foreign enterprise 
 prosecuted in which he had not an interest, colonization 
 being a specialty with him. He was one of the original 
 associates of the Virginia Company, and continued so 
 till 1620. In 1609 and 1614 he put money in the East 
 India Company. In 1622 he was a member of the New 
 England Company. In 1620 he bought an extensive 
 plantation in Newfoundland, and in 1623 he secured a 
 charter for this, creating it a province, and giving him 
 almost roval honors and prerogatives. Avalon, how- 
 ever, failing him in his expectations, he secured from 
 King Charles the gift of a section of Virginia, extending 
 
46 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 also into North Carolina, and called Carolana; but find- 
 ing he would have trouble in securing the actual pos- 
 session he relinquished it. And then in the year 1632 
 we find him obtaining the province of Maryland, though 
 dying before the gift was finally completed. Also in 
 the year 1621 the king granted him twenty-three hundred 
 acres of land in I^-eland, which he endeavored to colonize. 
 All these transactions indicate that he was a man of 
 great enterprise and business intelligence, and judging 
 from the amounts he and his son claimed to have spent 
 upon Avalon and Maryland, about forty-six thousand 
 pounds sterling, he must have been very successful in 
 the various enterprises in which he was interested. 
 
 But all these things do not make a hero. Sometimes 
 it is claimed he sought to establish a colony in Maryland 
 as a refuge for the members of his church and religious 
 faith who were denied freedom of religious worship in 
 their own country; that that was the purpose he had in 
 view. And the attempt has been made on this account 
 to glorify him and to lift him up above the narrow views 
 and unworthy contentions that belittled the whole 
 religious mind of that day. But for over twenty years 
 right along, from the foundation of the second Virginia 
 Company in 1609, he had been engaged in this very 
 business of colonization. Also in 1620 he bought 
 estates, as we have seen, for which he secured a patent 
 in 1623, a year and more before he avowed any change 
 in religion, and yet the charters of both are nearly iden- 
 tical, evidently drawn by the same hand, and that probably 
 his own. He was a great speculator on a large scale; 
 Virginia, New England, India, Newfoundland, Carolana, 
 and Marvland, as well as Ireland, being the fields of 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 47 
 
 his operations. But he was wiser or more fortunate 
 than some speculators, because, though he did not Hve 
 to reap the fruits of his ventures, his children and his 
 heirs did; for their patrimony in Maryland proved a 
 splendid source of revenue. George Calvert was not of 
 the stuff out of which heroes are made. 
 
 As to his change of religious views, we are sometimes 
 told that he made it at a great sacrifice. But I do not 
 suppose that any one would be more disposed to smile 
 at such an assertion than Calvert himself. No one 
 questions his sincerity, for it required great sincerity to 
 avow a change of religion from that of the established 
 to that of the Roman faith, which was then so severely 
 under the popular ban. Politics ran high, and religion 
 . was part of the national sentiment. Politics and religion 
 were inseparably united, not only because religion was 
 established, but because of the claims which on both 
 the royal and Roman Catholic sides, the rulers put forth. 
 The kings of England, for instance, claimed supremacy 
 in religious matters, and in the king and parliament was 
 the power of passing laws for the government of the 
 church. The great dignitaries of the church also were 
 appointed by the king, while in the House of Lords, 
 at that time far more influential than now as a consti- 
 tuent body of the realm, the Bishops had their place. 
 It is well known how the royal and state authority in 
 religion passed down all the way through all the ranks 
 of the people. 
 
 On the other hand, we know what were the claims 
 of the Pope, — to unmake kings, to absolve their people 
 from their allegiance, to possess supreme jurisdiction 
 everywhere. And these contrary claims caused in Eng- 
 
48 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 land the most violent contentions, so that the minority 
 were placed severely under the ban, and every one 
 professing the unpopular religion, was declared incapable 
 of holding any ofhce. The oaths of office were so 
 searching that no Roman Catholic could, without de- 
 liberate perjury, take them. 
 
 When, therefore, George Lord Baltimore avowed in 
 1624 his change of faith from that of the established 
 church, he proved his sincerity. When he changed his 
 creed he ran great risk of personal loss. How long 
 before his avowal he had changed we do not know. We 
 only know he chose a very opportune time for the 
 avowal; for his popularity with the king had for some 
 time been very much diminished, because the Duke of 
 Buckingham had found Lord Baltimore standing in the 
 way of his political schemes, chiefly the proposed French 
 marriage for the Prince of Wales; and what the duke 
 abhorred the king rejected. Now, however, both the 
 duke and the king had turned a favoring look upon him, 
 and at that moment, while the skies were propitious, the 
 avowal was made, with the result that, unlike his prede- 
 cessor in the same office, he was allowed to sell out his 
 secretaryship for six thousand pounds sterling, he had the 
 lordship conferred upon him, becoming Baron of Balti- 
 more in Ireland, his fine estate in Ireland of twenty- 
 three hundred acres was renewed to him, the oath of 
 supremacy being waived, and he continued in possession 
 of Avalon. His change of religion therefore cost him 
 nothing, but was probably one of the most successful 
 ventures he ever made; for beside the immediate emolu- 
 ment it brought him, it set him free to pursue those 
 plans of empire beyond the sea on which his mind had 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 49 
 
 for years been set, and from which he hoped and his 
 heirs derived, such large reward. 
 
 When, however, we turn to CeciUus Calvert we find 
 one whose wisdom was shown to be great by his found- 
 ing and administration of, the province of Maryland. 
 The foundation of Maryland was made in troublous 
 times, when both the religious and political currents 
 were running wildly through all English life, and not 
 only in England, but on the Continent as well. You 
 will recollect that at this time the Thirty Years' War was 
 going on, having begun in 1618, a war that involved all 
 Europe, and in which not only religious antagonisms 
 existed, but political ambition as well. For while the 
 war began as a reaction from the Reformation of the 
 century before, yet soon the questions of territory, the 
 seizing upon the spoils of war, entered in, and in the 
 course of it all Europe was devastated. The connec- 
 tion between the kingdoms on the Continent and Eng- 
 land was not as immediate and as sensitive then as now, 
 yet not only for political and religious reasons was the 
 feeling of the English people aroused, but also for family 
 reasons, the daughter of James the First being the wife 
 cf Elector Palatine, the elected king of Bohemia, who 
 was one of the chief victims and sufferers of the war. 
 
 The times were troubled also in England, for it was 
 during this period that the people of England began 
 to assert strongly the rights of English freemen as against 
 the claims of royal prerogative and arbitrary government. 
 The contest began back in Queen Elizabeth's day, the 
 Commons from time to time indicating their will in such 
 a way that the queen saw it was wisdom to acquiesce. 
 But in the days of James, for whom as a Scotchman 
 
50 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 and a foreigner the people had no hereditary love, and 
 who had no shining qualities to constrain their admira- 
 tion or forbearance, the voice of the people became 
 more distinct and emphatic. And when Charles the 
 First came to the throne in 1625 the position was as 
 advanced as the voice was pronounced and clear. As 
 I am not writing English history, however, I must not 
 go into detail. Only you will recollect that, after con- 
 tentions in parliament and then a long cessation of par- 
 liament, the king attempting to rule without it, and the 
 attempt also by the king to provide for the public neces- 
 sities by the seizure of private property without the 
 sanction of law, and then the calling of the Long Parlia- 
 ment which would not be dissolved, — you will recollect, 
 I say, that after all this came the civil war, and the 
 beheading of the king in the beginning of the year 1649. 
 The times were troubled. 
 
 Along with the religious agitation of the time there 
 was the religious as well, for religion and politics were 
 strongly blended. Through generations there had been 
 scarcely a distinction between them. The king had 
 been at the head of the church in temporal things, and 
 the ministers of the church, especially the Bishops, had 
 filled many ofilices in the temporal administration of the 
 kingdom. And this was the case, not only in England, 
 but e;very where. Beside this, religious malignity was 
 shown, owing to certain claims to political and temporal 
 power which were put forth in the name of religion; so 
 that the agitation went on everywhere and involved the 
 strongest emotions. 
 
 Now it was in the midst of such commotions as these 
 that Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, began and 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 5 1 
 
 prosecuted his enterprise. His father had died in 1632, 
 having before his death secured the promise of the grant 
 of Maryland. The report is the king only hesitated to 
 grant it from a desire to retain Lord Baltimore near 
 himself, having need of the services of a tried and expe- 
 rienced statesman and diplomatist. To prosecute the 
 enterprise required all the wisdom of which a man might 
 seem capable. He was of the unpopular side in religion, 
 around every member of which there existed the sus- 
 picion that he was a traitor and capable of betraying the 
 state. His father had been a convert, and probably he 
 also, for we do not know enough concerning the inner 
 life of the family to know when or why they changed 
 their faith. There is contemporary evidence to show 
 that there was a good deal of apparent vacillation in the 
 father before his convictions became established. As 
 early as 1620 he was suspected to be "popishly affected," 
 and by others it was supposed he had always been 
 inclined that way. One contemporary writer states that 
 he had three different times avowed his change of faith. 
 Probably, however, it was only his association with the 
 proposed Spanish match, which he earnestly championed, 
 that caused such imputations. But converts, we know, 
 excite more suspicion and enmity than those bom to 
 the faith. The father and consequently the whole family, 
 were associated with the court, and so had become iden- 
 tified in the minds of the people with the extreme, 
 arbitrary views of the king and court, identification jus- 
 tified by the whole course of the father while he was in 
 oflfice. ' ' 
 
 And yet though these were his circumstances, and he 
 but twenty-six years old when the inheritance fell to him, 
 
 JUN 11 1908 
 
52 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 we find Cecilius conducting his affairs with a good 
 judgment and wise policy that brought him through 
 every trouble and enabled him to hold his own, or if 
 for a while deprived of it by the temporary success of 
 his enemies, to recover it again and hand it on to his 
 successor, a strong, vigorous, growing, wealthy colony. 
 Such skill and such success demonstrate the man. 
 When also we remember that it was not only troubles 
 without, but troubles within, that he had a mixed multi- 
 tude to govern as well as to conciliate, a multitude com- 
 posed of all classes and conditions of life, in part the 
 high-toned and spirited, jealous of individual rights and 
 dignity, and in part the very refuse of England, with those 
 of every intervening condition; when we remember also 
 that he had the members of his own church to restrain, 
 lest they should succeed in their claims, which would 
 have crushed down his own rights, as well as excited 
 tumult among the colonists; when we remember the 
 bigotry of the same class of refugees who had set Eng- 
 land on fire, and who now settled in Maryland, having 
 been expelled from Virginia, and who had to inflame 
 them the sense that they were martyrs for their faith, 
 that they held the truth and no one else did, and that 
 the Lord had blessed their cause in England by the over- 
 throw of all their enemies, — when we remember all this, 
 and yet see how successfully he conducted his whole 
 administration through forty-three years, we cannot but 
 be struck with the wisdom of the man. 
 
 All the glory belongs to him and not to his father. 
 He was a man of eminent policy if not of wisdom. 
 Though never a friend to the people of England, but 
 only a useful member of the court, he pursued his way 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 53 
 
 SO cleverly that when the evil day came and the favor 
 of the court was so far withdrawn that he had no reason 
 to foster further hopes, he was able to retire well laden 
 with both the honors and the substantial rewards of ser- 
 vice, a very wealthy man. To Cecilius belongs all the 
 honor of the successful administration of Maryland. 
 What may have been his motives is one thing, and we 
 may not judge of other men's motives, but of his actions 
 we may judge. His administration may have been one 
 of policy and a shrewd recognition of the necessities 
 of his position, or it may have been the genius of the 
 high-toned statesman. Either thing could have deter- 
 mined his course in the way he took. The probabilities, 
 however, are in his favor, for mere skill of policy is never 
 consistent, and in time is almost certain to overreach 
 itself to the ruin of all its schemes. As we have seen 
 from first to last, Cecilius Lord Baltimore met with no 
 such fate, but imder king, under parliament, under com- 
 monwealth, and under restored kingdom, maintained or 
 soon recovered his own. 
 
 The next thing that ought to occupy our attention, 
 to proceed logically, is the charter under which the colony 
 was sent to Maryland. As we have seen, George Calvert, 
 the first Lord Baltimore, had been for many years con- 
 nected with efforts at colonization, and as a practical man 
 he had seen the difficulties and the failures that had 
 attended them. He was, therefore, prepared, when he 
 sought the charter for Avalon, to avoid those causes which 
 had produced failure ; and the charter for Maryland, which 
 he secured nine years after, only proves how convinced he 
 was that he had discovered the right means of success; 
 for the charter for Maryland is almost identically the 
 
54 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 same as that for Avalon, the differences being in minor 
 features. 
 
 The great distinctive feature of both charters was that 
 the whole gift was to one, and the whole administration 
 placed in the hands of one. The earlier gifts by the crown 
 had proven failures, because the intention of the grantees 
 had not been to establish a colony, an empire, for the sake 
 of the empire, in which the good of the people was to be 
 looked to, and in which all laws and regulations should 
 be such as would promote the permanent welfare of the 
 people; but their intention had been to secure to them- 
 selves certain commercial advantages through trade with 
 the natives; and when this was not achieved, or the ex- 
 pense was found too great, the charter was allowed to fall. 
 Besides, instead of having one man at the head of affairs, 
 and so a consistent administration, there was a council in 
 England, and a council in the colony, each composed of 
 many members, which must of necessity produce, either 
 apathy from divided counsels, or else antagonism and 
 jealousy. 
 
 Lord Baltimore avoided all this in both his charters. 
 They w^ere each given at a time when the heart of the 
 king was warm to him; and to the king's mind such a 
 territory even as Maryland was to be lightly esteemed, — 
 a wilderness inhabited only by savages, if inhabited at all. 
 The king also, either James or Charles, would have had 
 no objection to granting such a charter, conveying such 
 powers, for it was exactly the f onn of government that they 
 thought was the best, and the form they would have 
 secured for themselves at home had it been possible. 
 For, first of all, there was the inherent and essential right 
 of the absolute lord, which was the title granted by the 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 55 
 
 .charter, and the title which the Lords BaUimore claimed 
 and vised all the way down. Their right was absolute, 
 something which the people had not given and which 
 they could not take away. Now-a-days for the king to 
 attempt to confer such high-sounding phrases would be 
 deemed absurd, but not so then; for, as we have' seen, the 
 king claimed the right, and it was allowed, of absolute 
 control over all foreign territories gotten by discovery, or, 
 as they said, by right of conquest. The king ruled by 
 right divine, and not by act of Parliament. The kingdom 
 belonged to him, and while it came to be that he could 
 not exercise absolute power, though Henry the Seventh 
 and his immediate successors did, over their home coun- 
 try, the rights of the people to the foreign dominions had 
 not yet been perceived. To-day they are so well per- 
 ceived, that if Queen Victoria were to attempt to bestow 
 a hundred-acre farm in Africa or Australia by patent in 
 virtue of any absolute right in British possessions there, 
 the world would look on in amused astonishment. 
 
 But if he was made absolute lord, powers were given 
 to make that title real. All the gifts under the charter 
 were to run from father to son forever, not only title to 
 the soil, but the powers of government. It was intended to 
 be an hereditary monarchy, as much so as England itself , 
 and, as will be remembered, it continued to be so till the 
 family became extinct. There were intervals when they 
 were deprived of the administration, but in each case 
 restoration took place after a while. 
 
 Another feature in keeping with the royal mind of that 
 day, was the privilege granted by the fourteenth section, 
 of conferring favors, rewards, honors, and to adorn with 
 titles and dignities. Lord Baltimore had gotten his two 
 
56 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 titles of Knight and Baron from King James. It was a 
 royal privilege. And so, when Charles would bestow his 
 gift, he granted to the absolute lord he made the same 
 privilege, only limiting that the titles and dignities con- 
 ferred should not be the same with those of England. 
 This same privilege was granted in other charters, and 
 though there were some absurd titles proposed in North 
 Carolina, yet it is astonishing that through the colonial 
 period, with the fond infatuation that many have for that 
 kind of honor, so very few, if any, such titles were con- 
 ferred. Your Excellency, as associated with office; your 
 Honor, as associated with the bench, with colonels, gen- 
 erals, doctors, scattered with no parsimonious hand, are 
 about all the American mind has ever cared for. 
 
 The creating of manors also, with manorial rights, was 
 provided for, the right cognate with the royal one of 
 creating a province; with the right of the holder of the 
 manor to set up Court leet and court baron to regulate 
 justice within his territory, to raise the hue and cry, that 
 is, to summon the whole body of the people for the appre- 
 hension of an accused person. This was a feudal right, 
 and to a small extent it was exercised. It was not, however, 
 harmonious with the spirit of the colony and soon fell 
 into disuse. 
 
 Another royal right conferred was that of proposing 
 laws, the sixth clause of the charter running in this way: 
 We grant to the same Baron, etc.: to ordain, make and 
 enact laws, of what kind soever, of and with the advice, 
 assent, and approbation of the free men of the same pro- 
 vince, or of the greater part of them. Here the intention 
 evidently was that the laws should proceed from the 
 proprietary, who had the power to ordain, make and enact, 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 5/ 
 
 while the function and privilege granted to the free men 
 were to assent to them. The people could originate 
 nothing. They could refuse to accept, that was all. We 
 can at once see what a vast attribute of tyranny was here 
 claimed. The thousand things that in a body politic 
 would have to be provided for, must be neglected until 
 the lord proprietary should suggest a law covering them, 
 and then the law would have to be such as suited him, and 
 not such as the people might think bfest fitted for the need. 
 In other words, he was the law-making power, and the 
 people only had the veto, as if to-day the President of the 
 United States, or the Governor of this State, should have 
 the exclusive power to propose the laws, which the people 
 must accept or else go without; an entire reversal of all 
 our notions of the relative duties of ruler and people. 
 
 Lord Baltimore tried to carry out the terms of this 
 clause when the people came together to legislate for the 
 welfare of the colony, but he soon found that his scheme 
 would not work; for the people refused to recognize his 
 laws as proposed, and then proceeded to consider them 
 as if originatifig with themselves. In this they estab- 
 lished a precedent which Lord Baltimore saw it best to 
 accept in his future administration. The power to pro- 
 pose laws became the equal power of both. The disast- 
 rous consequences of the attempted method would have 
 been the greater because Cecilius Lord Baltimore was 
 never in the colony, and his laws were sent over from Eng- 
 land. One condition, however, was associated with the 
 law-making power bestowed, "that the laws should be 
 consonant to reason, and not repugnant or contrary, but 
 so far as conveniently may be, agreeable to the laws, 
 statutes, customs and rights of our kingdom of England." 
 
58 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 The police power of providing for emergencies was also 
 granted by the charter, even to the liberty of proclaiming 
 martial law in the time of insurrection or rebellion. 
 
 One thing, however, was strongly insisted on all the 
 time, that all the citizens of the colony were always to be 
 regarded as being liege subjects of the king of England. 
 The allegiance of the lord of the province might be indi- 
 cated by a very simple and easy service, the presentation 
 of two arrow-heads once a year, but with it went the 
 duties as well as the rights and privileges of all the people 
 as English subjects. What a battle was fought out on 
 that line in the after-days of the colony! It was a most 
 excellent principle on which to hang a claim; and that is 
 what the people did, and contended for it till they had 
 secured a victory. We shall see this further on. 
 
 Abundant provision was made for the emoluments of 
 the proprietary. He claims to have spent forty thousand 
 pounds sterling in establishing his province, and there is 
 no reason to doubt that he did. How it could have been 
 spent in or on the colony it would defy any attempt now 
 to explain. P'or the whole outfit was insignificant, and the 
 colony was composed of men who were capable of paying 
 their own charges, for themselves and their servants, 
 whose remuneration was received not in money, but in 
 land. Probably far the greater part of this sum went into 
 the pockets of courtiers who would use their influence in 
 Lord Baltimore's behalf; for everything was bought and 
 sold in that day, and courtiers were always needy ; though 
 possibly a very large sum may have gone into the cofifers 
 of the king himself, who was the most needy of them all. 
 We know that when Charles the Second bestowed the 
 charter of Pennsylvania upon William Penn, it was in 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 59 
 
 liquidation of certain claims against the state which 
 Penn had inherited from his father. Charles the First, 
 who held back from no means by which he could obtain 
 money, would not have failed to avail himself of such an 
 opportunity as the alienation of an extensive province. 
 In all transfers there is very apt to be a consideration, 
 even if it is not avowed. In this way we can see how the 
 forty thousand pounds might have been spent in the 
 founding of Maryland. 
 
 But Lord Baltimore's emoluments were abundant, and 
 in time proved an excellent interest on his money. For 
 by the charter the revenues of the province were to be 
 his. Whatever export or import duties were levied 
 were to be his; also all fines and forfeitures; also the pro- 
 ceeds of the quit-rents, or the yearly charges upon the 
 land; for the lands bestowed by him upon immigrants 
 were always subject to a yearly charge, made known in 
 the conditions of plantation. These last amounted in the 
 year 1770 to seven thousand five hundred pounds sterling, 
 net, and with the revenue from other sources gave him a 
 total sum of about twelve thousand pounds. In the 
 earlier years of the colony, of course, the amount received 
 was insignificant alongside of this, but then the people 
 sometimes supplemented the small revenues by free gifts. 
 
 By the twentieth section the king went even farther 
 than this. He pledged and bound himself and his heirs 
 and successors, that at no time would they "impose 
 or cause to be imposed, any impositions, customs, 
 or other taxations, quotas or contributions what- 
 soever upon the residents or inhabitants of the pro- 
 vince aforesaid, for their goods, lands, tenements, within 
 the said province." All revenues from taxes, which were 
 
60 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 to be imposed by the proprietary and people, were to be 
 for the use of the proprietary and the good government 
 of the colony. This, some of you will recollect, gave 
 Maryland a fair ground, above all the other colonies, for 
 protesting against any kind of imposition of taxes by the 
 English government; for the exemption by the charter 
 even went so far as to cover " goods and merchandise to 
 be laden or unladen in any of the ports or harbors of the 
 province." It is true. Parliament did not recognize or 
 allow this right of the king to exempt any colony, but it 
 belonged to the charter rights of Maryland, which had 
 been acquiesced in by Parliament for over a hundred 
 years. Maryland's position, therefore, when she refused 
 the stamped paper, or when she destroyed the cargo of 
 tea in Annapolis harbor, was a stronger one that that of 
 any of the other colonies. In the colony of Georgia, 
 when her charter was given, in 1732, the right of Parlia- 
 ment to levy taxes upon the people was distinctly 
 asserted. 
 
 The charter was wonderfully drawn up. It created an 
 empire within the empire. It gave most extensive func- 
 tions to the head of the government. It made Maryland 
 practically free of Great Britain from the beginning. It 
 did not attempt to enjoy its full freedom, for often the 
 people found it very convenient to limit the extensive 
 prerogatives of the proprietary by claiming the rights 
 and privileges of liege subjects of England. Still, the free- 
 dom was there, to be pleaded against England to restrain 
 her presumptions when injustice or tyranny was attempted ; 
 and the spirit was fostered by it to restrain her own gov- 
 ernors and officer's, when under the charter their claims or 
 exactions were in danger of becoming extravagant. 
 
FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 The Coming of the Colonists. 
 
 " Maryland has always enjoyed the unrivaled honor of 
 being the first colony which was erected into a province 
 of the English empire and governed regularly by laws 
 enacted in a provincial assembly." These are the words 
 of Chalmers, whose work on the American Colonies 
 stands at the head, both as to time and value, of the 
 standard authorities in the matter of the English settle- 
 ments on the Atlantic! coast. "The unrivaled honor of 
 being the first colony erected into a province"; for a 
 colony differs from a province, in that " colony " is a less 
 exact term, indicating nothing more definite than a settle- 
 ment, while a province implies a definite government, a 
 fixed order. It is a section of the empire, and a part of it, 
 while it possesses, subordinate to the empire, a certain 
 independence of jurisdiction. We recollect the provinces 
 of the Roman empire, over which there were placed consuls 
 or other great officers of state, who, while the emperor 
 could appoint them or remove them, could at the same 
 time exercise the highest functions of government, mili- 
 tary and civil, subject in certain cases to appeal. The 
 province was part of the empire. The Greek colonies, 
 however, were often merely the overflow of the parent 
 state, sailing away, whether to Asia or to Italy, and 
 becoming themselves a new state. 
 
 Of this class of colonies was Massachusetts, or to speak 
 more correctly, the settlement at Plymouth, whose mem- 
 
62 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 bers landed in America in 1620. They had formeriy been 
 a colony in Holland, but deprived in that gracious land of 
 that stimulus that could alone excite their enthusiasm and 
 devotion, persecution at the hands of those who did not 
 hold with them, they came to America and settled, mak- 
 ing their own laws, choosing their own officers, executing 
 the functions of state as best pleased them. They would 
 have been a colony in that sense if they had gone to the 
 Pacific coast or found their home in the South seas. But 
 Maryland was a province, a definite part of the empire. 
 Other such provinces were afterwards created, but Mary- 
 land was the first. 
 
 This function of a province is expressed in the second 
 clause of the quotation: "governed regularly by laws 
 enacted in a provincial assembly." The earlier charters, 
 as we have seen, did not provide for such assemblies, but 
 a council, appointed by the king, made laws, or the people 
 were governed by proclamation. The charter of Avalon 
 did provide for the assembly of the freemen, but that was 
 an abortive attempt and soon came to nothing. From the 
 beginning, however, Maryland had her assemblies, who 
 determined for themselves what laws should govern them, 
 refusing to accept any that they did not approve, and inti- 
 mating distinctly what they wished to have. It was this 
 freedom of making laws for their own government, which 
 came afterwards to be possessed and exercised by all the 
 colonies, that fostered the spirit of freedom that at last 
 demanded independence. Self - government went on, 
 becoming more and more definite year after year, so that 
 finally, in response to an attempt to exercise humiliating 
 and undue control, the colonies, one and all, said, We will 
 be entirely free. And Maryland first possessed this honor. 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 63 
 
 Let US now look at the province of Maryland as under 
 the charter it was first intended to be. It was the first of 
 all the colonies to have its boundaries definitely deter- 
 mined, and according to them it ought to be a great deal 
 larger than it is now. For on the north it was to run with 
 the fortieth degree of north latitude, and yet, if you will 
 examine the map, you will find that that line will carry 
 the state beyond Philadelphia, Again, on the west it was 
 to be bounded by a north and south line to the farthest 
 source of the Potomac; yet, if you will look, to-day you 
 will see that a large section of the territory that is included 
 within that line, belongs to West Virginia. Again follow- 
 ing the farthest bank of the Potomac to the mouth of the 
 river, the line was to pass across the bay and the eastern 
 peninsula to the Atlantic ocean; but instead, the present 
 line of division is to the north of that. Then the line was 
 to run with the Atlantic and the Delaware bay and river 
 back to the fortieth degree of north latitude; but within 
 that region lies the State of Delaware. You see, therefore, 
 how large a part of Maryland has been lost to it. 
 
 Why? Because other parties possessed greater skill 
 and greater influence than Lord Baltimore did. As 
 regards the large section of Pennsylvania that of right 
 belonged to Maryland, it is to be said that neither Lord 
 Baltimore nor William Penn knew about the boundaries 
 of their two territories where the fortieth degree would 
 run; and that afterwards, when it was discovered that 
 Lord Baltimore's right, in virtue of prior grant, covered 
 the territory above where Penn had fixed his city of 
 brotherly love, it became an earnest and shrewd effort on 
 Penn's part, by every conceivable subtlety of misrepresen- 
 tation, to claim the region as far south as the present 
 
64 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 boundary. Penn wanted for his colony the commercial 
 advantages which would be furnished by the Delaware 
 bay and river, and he and his sons, being of superior skill 
 to Lord Baltimore and his son, got at last what they 
 desired, though the long contention was not finally settled 
 till the year 1760. 
 
 Penn's ambition, however, did not stop with desiring 
 this large section on the north of Maryland. He soon 
 came to yearn for Delaware as well. This was, as we 
 have seen, a part of Maryland beyond all question; but it 
 was lost to her through two pleas. The first of these was, 
 that when Lord Baltimore got his charter it was expressly 
 stipulated that the territory given should be found uncul- 
 tivated, whereas it was said that Delaware was already 
 occupied along its shores by the Dutch and Swedes, and 
 that this invalidated his title. The other plea was, that 
 the Dutch and Swedes having been permitted to con- 
 tinue and retain their settlements, without having been 
 compelled to acknowledge Lord Baltimore as proprietor, 
 it was a tacit acquiescence in their right, and that when 
 they, along with New York, were reduced by the English, 
 their settlement, as a dependency of the Dutch colony, 
 passed to the Duke of York when that territory was 
 bestowed upon him. 
 
 William Penn, in his desire for commercial advantages 
 for his province, of course yearned for Delaware also, a 
 yearning that James satisfied by passing it to him. Con- 
 tentions arose, Lord Baltimore struggling to retain his 
 own. In 1685, however, James being now king, the deci- 
 sion was given against Baltimore's right, and the present 
 division of the peninsula between Delaware and Mary- 
 land took place. As to the claim that the Dutch and 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 65 
 
 Swedes occupied the territory, the fact that the English 
 did not recognize their right but regarded them as inter- 
 lopers, ought to have been a sufficient answer in law. The 
 whole, however, was rather a question of influence and of 
 private favor, than of law. 
 
 As to the loss of territory on the western part of the 
 province, the question was in the beginning, which was 
 the farthest source of the Potomac; for the geography of 
 Mar}dand was then wholly undetermined. There was no 
 distinct purpose of fraud, as in the other case, no evident 
 intention to seize, through influence in high quarters, 
 upon what belonged to another. According to the con- 
 ditions of the charter, however, the south branch of the 
 Potomac is the true line of division. The same also is 
 true of the small bit of territory along the southern line, 
 on the Eastern Shore. 
 
 The first body of immigrants that came to Maryland 
 brought with it every assurance of success that the enter- 
 prise admitted of. Lord Baltimore himself did not come 
 over, seeing it to be his interest to remain in England to 
 guard his rights, which were sure to be assailed. But the 
 men that did come possessed, as a body, every qualifica- 
 tion that promised success. For, first of all, the company 
 consisted in part of twenty ^'gentlemen," which meant 
 men well born, of fair intelligence and some education. 
 They were such men as in England would have exercised 
 influence in their own communities. There may have 
 been exceptions among them as regards some of these 
 particulars, but that probably was the character of the prin- 
 cipal body. Again, they were certainly men of enterprise ; 
 for everything indicates that they did not come out to 
 America " to play the gentleman," or to discover gold and 
 
66 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 silver mines, or to trade in a lucrative way with the Indians 
 and to get rich suddenly ; but they came over to take up 
 land and work, and make Maryland their home. All their 
 interests were to be in the colony. They were also men 
 of some property, not merely bankrupts that came over to 
 improve their fortunes. This is seen in the fact that they 
 brought with theai servants, for whose expenses of all 
 kinds they had to provide, not only in the coming over, 
 but also for the whole time that was to elapse till the first 
 harvests could be gotten in. For it was not for Lord Bal- 
 timore to provide for the colony in these things. They 
 were to be at their own expense and charges, and were to 
 receive in compensation certain quantities of land, accord- 
 ing to the number of servants introduced. This number 
 in the first company that came was from six to ten to each 
 " gentleman." 
 
 Observe, the servants here spoken of were not negroes, 
 but white men, men that, wanting to come into the colony, 
 and not having the means to pay their expenses, sold 
 themselves for a term of years. There were negro slaves 
 here from the foundation of the colony, but they were at 
 first few in number, and these white men were doubtless 
 often men of enterprise, and sometimes of as good birth 
 and training as their masters. Only they were anxious to 
 come to the province and had not the means necessary. 
 For after they had worked out their time, they became 
 freemen and were entitled for themselves and for their 
 wives and children, to a certain portion of land, and so 
 to become freeholders and exercise all the rights and 
 privileges of the rest of the citizens. 
 
 Evejy quality, therefore, was found in the early colonists, 
 intelligence, property, character, industry. These quali- 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 6/ 
 
 ties were demonstrated when the citizens were called to- 
 gether to pass upon the condition of the colony and to 
 provide laws for its government. There was another class 
 of immigrants that came in afterwards, who were far from 
 being so desirable, criminals of various classes and 
 degrees, whom England shipped from her own shores to 
 plague her colonies. They either died out or reformed, 
 and it is possible that some of the best blood of Maryland 
 had its origin in that source ; though it is none the worse 
 for that. Possibly, also, through the influence of what 
 scientific men call heredity, some of our great scamps and 
 rascals are direct descendants of these same unwelcome 
 importations. Certainly, there are found, sometimes in 
 good society, families that have a taint of the blood, so 
 that for generations past it has been true that no one of 
 the name or connection has commanded public confi- 
 dence. Later in the provincial history immigrants came 
 into Maryland from many quarters, attracted by the liberal 
 local institutions of the province, as well as by its generous 
 naturalization laws and conditions of plantation. 
 
 Now, though Maryland had such a good start, and 
 such a good proprietary and such a good local governor; 
 for Lord Baltimore showed his sincere faith in the enter- 
 prise by sending his brother with the colony as governor; 
 yet Maryland was not blessed for many years with peace, 
 but contention followed Contention right along for a long 
 while. I do not speak of discussions and disputations, 
 such as took place in the House of Assembly over the 
 rights and privileges of the people. For such things were 
 right and according to a law of nature. Public claims 
 have to come on as a surging tide and beat down barriers. 
 It is the only way in which such can be beaten down. 
 
68 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Tempests in houses of Parliament and in Congress, 
 whether American, or Enghsh, or Continental, may 
 frighten timid souls, but they are, by the law of nature, 
 grand manifestations of the human spirit. A mighty, boil- 
 ing, foaming human sea they may seem to be, but that is 
 the way the ocean of human life is kept pure. And those 
 who attempt to build barriers against such tempests prove 
 their folly by the ruin that overtakes their works. So 
 Charles the First demonstrated his folly, so George the 
 Third demonstrated his, and so Louis the Sixteenth his. 
 The great power in this world's affairs is not the right 
 divine of kings, but the divine right of God's voice speak- 
 ing by the people. 
 
 That is, therefore, not the kind of contentions I mean. 
 Maryland had them all the way along, too, and our fathers 
 of the state demonstrated their manhood in that way. 
 But the contentions I mean were those great commo- 
 tions in which the power and authority of the proprietary 
 and his government were overthrown, and other power 
 and authority set up in their stead. When Lord Balti- 
 more's colony came into Maryland they had the mis- 
 fortune to find that Kent Island, lying along the eastern 
 shore of the bay, was already occupied by a number of 
 persons — ^how many it is not known — who had settled 
 there for convenience of trading with the Indians, with 
 whom they were in frequent intercourse. This little com- 
 munity had come out from Virginia and held themselves 
 to be of that colony. At the head of them was William 
 Claiborne, a man of enterprise, intelligence and great 
 pertinacity of character, who, deeming that his rights had 
 been invaded by the Maryland charter, and that Kent 
 Island belonged to Virginia, of which he was a councillor, 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 69 
 
 refused in every way to acknowledge the jurisdiction of 
 Lord Baltimore. This was the beginning of a strife that 
 lasted for twenty years. 
 
 First of all, there was some reason for believing that he 
 had tampered with the Indians, because instead of con- 
 tinuing in their former friendly mind, they held aloof, 
 refused to bring in provisions, and in other ways acted so 
 suspiciously that the people stood in dread and felt com- 
 pelled, for the sake of security, to build a block-house. 
 Next, in the year 1635, matters came to an open rupture, 
 and a naval batde was fought in the Pocomoke river, in 
 which the small vessel belonging to Claiborne and manned 
 with thirty men, which was out on a pirating expedi- 
 tion, was taken. A litde while later another conflict took 
 place, in which again Claiborne's force met with disaster. 
 In the year 1644, however, he was more successful; for, 
 having allied himself with Richard Ingle, who had form- 
 erly given some trouble in the province, he had the 
 ability to drive Governor Calvert to take refuge in Vir- 
 ginia, and to hold the province for two years. This time 
 he claimed to have the king's commission for his acts, but 
 later, in 1652, when the royal power in England had been 
 entirely overthrown, he received a commission from Par- 
 liament, under which he was able to reduce Maryland and 
 deprive the proprietary of all control. These troubles, 
 gratifying the spirit of revenge which he so strongly 
 fostered, lasted still for several years, after which Clai- 
 borne disappeared from view. 
 
 It was during these troubles that the batde of the 
 Severn w^as fought, in the year 1655. The occasion of 
 the batde was this: When the parliamentary commis- 
 sioners had reduced the colony to obedience, they retained 
 
70 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 the then governor, Stone, he promising to conform, in his 
 administration, to the new order of things. When, how- 
 ever, Lord Baltimore rebuked him for betraying the trust 
 committed to him, and stimulated him to reassume author- 
 ity in his name, Stone was moved to attempt it, and, 
 gathering a force in that part of the colony that had 
 always been loyal to Lord Baltimore, St. Mary's County, 
 he led them up along the bay to the Severn, where a few 
 years before a settlement of Puritans from Virginia had 
 been made. The force was divided, some passing by land 
 and some by water, the vessels keeping near enough to 
 the shore to assist the land forces, when needful, in cross- 
 ing the creeks and rivers. These Puritans, in the present 
 troubles, had of course resisted the authority of the pro- 
 prietary, because they were in sympathy with the parlia- 
 mentary cause, and because for religion's sake they 
 objected to being under the jurisdiction of Lord Balti- 
 more, who was of the faith which they abhorred. They 
 also objected to the powers and title which he held, as 
 being absolute lord, to whom the oath of allegiance and 
 obedience was to be taken. 
 
 When Stone reached the Severn, whatever may have 
 been his expectations, he found himself face to face with 
 a force, partly military and partly naval, which soon, in 
 the encounter which ensued, put his whole army to rout 
 and took him and many others prisoners. Under what 
 plea, it is not said, but in spite of the promise of quarter, 
 when the surrender was made, some of the soldiers were 
 put to death by court-martial, and Stone himself was only 
 saved by the appeal of the Puritan soldiers themselves 
 and some of the women of the place. The battle was 
 fought about where Annapolis now stands. These Puri- 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. /I 
 
 tans had sought refuge in Maryland, having been com- 
 pelled by Governor Berkeley to leave Virginia on 
 account of their religion. They had, also, been induced 
 by Governor Stone to choose Maryland as their place of 
 refuge, under the promise of indulgence for their religious 
 views and methods. It is not clear why, when they had 
 the opportunity, they should have indulged such malig- 
 nant feelings toward him. 
 
 After this episode the proprietary jurisdiction lapsed, 
 and continued so till Cromwell ordered its restitution; 
 and even then it was not finally secured to him; for the 
 governor of his own choice and appointment, Fendall, 
 again surrendered it into the hands of the malcontents. 
 By 1659, however, all was finally adjusted, to remain so, as 
 it proved, only till 1689, when, upon the Revolution having 
 taken place in England, by which James the Second was 
 dethroned and William and Mary advanced to power, the 
 people of Mar)'land overturned the government of Lord 
 Baltimore and asked to be taken under the royal juris- 
 diction. The reason for such a course was that they were 
 in sympathy with parliamentary ideas as opposed to royal 
 absolutism, and had also grown to feel great dissatisfac- 
 tion with the proprietary administration, under which the 
 best interests of the province, moral, educational and reli- 
 gious, had been neglected. 
 
 From this time on till 171 5, about twenty-six years, the 
 Baltimore family was stripped of all civil power and 
 authority, though not of their private right in the soil. 
 They were allowed to draw revenue from their whole 
 landed interest in Maryland, the same as any other pro- 
 prietor. In 1 71 5, however, authority and jurisdiction 
 were restored, and continued to be exercised till the 
 
72 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 people assumed jurisdiction, in the times preceding the 
 American Revolution. 
 
 Now, why was it that Lord Baltimore had so much 
 trouble through all this period, four insurrections in the 
 course of the first fifty-five years — 1644, 1652, 1659, 1689? 
 Evidence is abundant and satisfactory that Cecilius Lord 
 Baltimore was a man of eminent wisdom, and one in the 
 very slightest degree willing to offend his people. Also it 
 is in evidence that during his long life, dying as he did in 
 1675, he had the confidence of the people. He was a just, 
 honorable, upright ruler. The same also may be said of 
 his son and successor, who was so many years resident in 
 the province. Why then, it may well be asked, was he so 
 unfortunate as to have the colony so frequently disturbed 
 and the people so suspicious as to be ever ready for 
 rebellion? 
 
 The probable answer is not far to seek. In one great 
 and cardinal matter Lord Baltimore was not in sympathy 
 with his people, namely, the all-important matter of reli- 
 gion; in that day more important than in this, because 
 religion entered so much more into the civil administra- 
 tion. In these days we should put under the ban any 
 man that would refuse to vote for another on the ground 
 simply that he differed from him in religion. It is true it 
 is often done, but not avowedly because of the man's reli- 
 gious profession, but rather because of some qualities in 
 his own character, as that he would use his official posi- 
 tion to promote either the advantage of his own church 
 or the interests of the members of his church. But in the 
 days of Cecilius Calvert it was not so. For then religious 
 antagfonisms were as strong and as violently expressed as 
 feelings or opinions are now concerning tariff issues or 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 73 
 
 questions involving the right of the general government 
 to interfere with the rights of the separate States. The 
 feeling about religion was deep and often malignant. 
 Even Charles the First, though he was the donor to the 
 Lords Baltimore of the handsome property and preroga- 
 tives bestowed, was in his heart strongly antagonistic to 
 their faith, and if he, how much more the people not only 
 of England but of the colony also ; for from the beginning 
 the great body of the people abhorred Lord Baltimore's 
 creed, and as time went on the preponderance of this 
 sentiment increased. 
 
 This question of religion entered into everything. 
 Take the oath of allegiance, for instance. One would 
 suppose that it would be sufificient for that simply to 
 embody the promise to uphold the powers that be, and to 
 maintain the laws. But it went much farther than that 
 and decried the right and pretensions of the Roman pontiff 
 to excommunicate kings and thereby depose them. And 
 the oath of supremacy went farther than this, in that it 
 declared the king to be the only supreme governor in his 
 realm and dominions in all spiritual and ecclesiastical 
 things and causes. The question of religion was the 
 burning question of that day. It entered into everything. 
 It excited passion, created suspicion, separated men from 
 men, justified the most hideous and exhausting wars. It 
 was not, however, because it was religion, but rather 
 because there were associated with religion the most 
 unwarrantable and extensive claims, to depose monarchs, 
 to relieve the people of the duty and obligation of obe- 
 dience. And these claims had sometimes taken the most 
 substantial and terrible form; nations being hurled into 
 the vortex of civil war, and the land ruined, according as 
 
74 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 men would recognize the validity of these claims or would 
 maintain the rights of their civil rulers. 
 
 This great, wide-spread principle was at the bottom of 
 the disaffection of the people for Cecilius Lord Baltimore 
 and his son. Whatever may have been their wisdom and 
 uprightness, yet their church and religious connections 
 they feared; as was evidenced by the fact that as long as 
 these two held the government, that is, till the Protestant 
 Revolution in 1689, fault was found and apprehension 
 expressed. No man, probably, ever did less to deserve 
 the apprehension, yet the sensitiveness of the people kept 
 them always on the alert. Probably it was never so much 
 what they did as what they left undone, the want of sym- 
 pathy and interest in the people in matters of the highest 
 concern, religion and education, which in that day was 
 always connected with religion. The colony was assailed 
 even before it was out of English waters, and brought 
 back and made to take the oath of allegiance, containing, 
 as we have seen, a clause denying the Pope's right to 
 temporal power as it was then understood. This was the 
 power to depose the English monarch, a clause inserted 
 in the oath against the adherents of the Roman church, 
 because such a power was claimed and had before been 
 exercised in England itself; it had been claimed, though 
 it could not be exercised, as late as the days of Queen 
 Elizabeth. When the first Lord Baltimore visited Vir- 
 ginia, in 1629, he was approached with the demand to 
 take these oaths of allegiance and supremacy. 
 
 The first proprietary knew of this feeling among the 
 people and recognized it from the first, knew that he was 
 not in harmony with the people. This is strongly indi- 
 cated in the "Instructions" given November, 1633, when 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 75 
 
 the colony was about to sail, the first of which was " that 
 the governor and commissioners be very careful that they 
 suffer no scandal nor offense to be given to any of the 
 Protestants, whereby any just complaint may hereafter 
 be made by them in Virginia or in England, and that for 
 that end they cause all acts of the Roman Catholic reli- 
 gion to be done as privately as may be, and that they 
 instruct all the Roman Catholics to be silent vipon all 
 occasions of discourse concerning matters of religion, and 
 that the said governor and commissioners treat. the Pro- 
 testants with as much mildness and favor as justice will 
 permit." 
 
 In the fourth "Instruction" we read that by the first 
 opportunity after their arrival in Maryland they cause 
 a messenger to be dispatched away to Jamestown, " such 
 a one as is conformable to the Church of England." In 
 the fifth we again read that a messenger was to be sent to 
 Captain Claiborne, "one likewise conformable to the 
 Church of England." Evidently, among the "gentle- 
 men " of his first colony there were some Protestants to 
 perform these offices. 
 
 These " Instructions " show his recognition of the 
 difficulties of his situation. He knew he did not have 
 the confidence'^ of the people, that they were keenly 
 anxious concerning the whole matter of his faith, and 
 therefore he was watchful not to give offense. The same 
 policy was exhibited when it came to the administration 
 of the settlement, for when on one occasion a Protestant 
 chapel was violated, and when, on another, abusive lang- 
 uage was indulged in against some that were reading a 
 Protestant book, the offense was instantly rebuked and 
 punished. 
 
^^ HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 It was this question that gave Lord Baltimore his hands 
 full of trouble and vexation from the start. His own 
 church and the religious order that he had for some 
 reason sent over, who were not then known as they came 
 afterwards to be known, and to be reprobated both by 
 popes and kings, — the Jesuits, harassed him by their 
 assumptions in a matter of the highest moment; for they 
 assumed, by an old ecclesiastical pretension, which had 
 excited the antagonism of the crown and people of Eng- 
 land in early days, — the right to acquire lands for them- 
 selves irrespective of the civil power altogether. In Eng- 
 land, at one time, of course, such lands might be received 
 by gift, devise or purchase, and being received were held 
 forever. To prevent this the statute of mortmain was 
 passed, which prevented the conveyance of landed prop- 
 erty to the church, lest the church should, in the course 
 of ages, swallow up the whole kingdom. The Jesuits in 
 Maryland attempted to ignore this entirely, and though, 
 under the charter, all of the territory of Maryland belonged 
 to the proprietor, they attempted to override his right by 
 acquiring land directly from the Indians, and to hold it 
 independently of him and without his consent. 
 
 He fought them diligently on this question, though in 
 doing so he excited doubts in the minds of the Jesuit 
 fathers whether he was a true "CathoHc"; while his 
 secretary, Lewger, was vilified as if the leaven of his old 
 Protestantism still pervaded his whole spirit. On the 
 other hand Lord Baltimore could use severe language, 
 and he exercised his capacity for epithets entirely without 
 stint Through the influence of the provincial of the order, 
 however, he was able at last to reduce them to his will. 
 He even ordered their withdrawal from the province; but 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 7/ 
 
 when they at last submitted, he proceeded no further. 
 Doubtless the sole question with him was not their pre- 
 rogative as churchmen to hold the land in such ^ a way, 
 though that would have excited his rebuke, but for 
 example's sake; for had they been allowed to acquire 
 lands in an English province, in violation of a law of 
 the kingdom of England, and that one of the most 
 important laws that an anxious people ever passed for 
 their protection, and for which they had been compelled 
 to strive through many years, and to counteract many 
 devious and indirect attempts to circumvent the law, the 
 fact would have struck a death-blow at his tenure of his 
 territory. For a Roman Catholic to enjoy religious liberty 
 in an English dependency, was in that day strange enough, 
 but for a Roman Catholic order to have the power of 
 acquiring property to an untold extent, would have ex- 
 cited the bitterest denunciation. Out of this struggle 
 came the Maryland law requiring the consent of the 
 legislature for any church organization to hold land 
 beyond a small lot for church or house purposes. 
 
 Before the colony left England the difficulty of the 
 situation was fully and clearly understood, as is evidenced 
 by a paper drawn up by the provincial of the Jesuits, 
 within the year preceding their departure, for the guidance 
 of the proprietary and the society. For that paper was 
 prepared for arming Lord Baltimore and the members of 
 the Roman Catholic church against certain objections 
 that would probably be made against the church, in view 
 of various English laws as well as for other causes ; and its 
 purpose was to provide answers to such objections. The 
 whole thing seemed to be wonderful at that time, that a 
 body of men who were, however unjustly, looked upon 
 
yS HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 with SO much suspicion as being mahgnant against their 
 native land, should be allowed to leave it endowed with 
 so many privileges and prerogatives, and to establish a 
 province within the English dominions with such exten- 
 sive jurisdiction. There is no wonder, therefore, that 
 from the start so much objection should have been made. 
 
 This explains the insurrections and disturbances within 
 the colony. The majority of the people were always 
 opposed to Lord Baltimore in this matter of religion, and 
 with the opposition they were afraid of him. For beside 
 the insurrections which were always conducted by those 
 of the Protestant faith, there were complaints heard from 
 time to time, as that he had put all the offices in the hands 
 of Roman Catholics, that the Roman Catholics were pre- 
 paring a rising against the Protestants, that the oath of 
 allegiance which they were required to take was to one of 
 the Roman faith, that ministers and churches of the 
 Roman faith were provided for, while all Protestants were 
 neglected. Also when the province was in the hands of 
 the Puritans, during the troubles between 1652 and 1659, 
 their animus was strongly expressed against the Roman 
 Catholics, though they included members of the Church 
 of England as well — papists and prelatists. For it is to be 
 remembered that in 1676 Charles, the third Lord Balti- 
 more, who had just returned to England, after a long resi- 
 dence in Maryland as governor under his father, said that 
 the nonconformists in the colony outnumbered the mem- 
 bers of the Church of England and the Roman Catholics 
 together, about three to one. 
 
 The position of Lord Baltimore was therefore most 
 difficult. The colonists from time to time expressed con- 
 fidence, made provision for revenue, and apparently were 
 
THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS. 79 
 
 well content to live and thrive under his jurisdiction, who- 
 ever might be the absolute lord at the time. But they 
 never loved him, never admired, never had faith in him; 
 and let occasion arise, they were immediately ready to 
 throw off his authority. Their fears were always ready 
 to be called into play; they seemed to be incapable of 
 understanding that one of his faith was or could be reli- 
 able, a state of feeling that all through this period, down 
 to the time of the Protestant revolution, was fostered by 
 the condition of things in England and on the Continent. 
 For while the whole Continent was agitated by the ques- 
 tion of religion, England was passing through that series 
 of civil and military disturbances that, beginning with the 
 accession of Charles the First, did not end till his son 
 James was finally driven from the throne and England, 
 because of his arbitrary pretensions in what he esteemed 
 the cause of religion. 
 
FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 The Legislation of the Province. ' 
 
 A feature of the province from the beginning, which, 
 though not legislative, had the force of law, was the 
 "Conditions of Plantation," or the conditions published 
 as an inducement to persons to transplant themselves to 
 Maryland. These were always generous, and in the 
 beginning particularly so, because the territory was abund- 
 ant, and useless unless occupied. As immigrants became 
 more numerous the terms became less generous, but were 
 always sufficiently so to keep up a constant stream of 
 people into the province. In 1633, when the colony was 
 setting out for Maryland, the offers of the proprietary 
 were, that to every one who brought in five men between 
 sixteen and fifty years of age, two thousand acres should 
 be given, the proprietary exacting for himself an annual 
 quit-rent of four hundred pounds of wheat. To every 
 one that brought in less than five men one hundred acres 
 were given for himself, one hundred for his wife, for 
 every servant one hundred, and for every child under 
 sixteen years fifty acres, a child over sixteen being 
 regarded as an adult. In this case the quit-rent was ten 
 pounds of wheat for every fifty acres. In 1634 and 1635, 
 when the colony had been started, two thousand acres 
 were allowed for ten men, with a yearly rent of six 
 hundred pounds of wheat, while to those who brought 
 in less than ten the same gifts were made for each, only 
 with the annual quit-rent of seventy pounds for every 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 8 1 
 
 fifty acres. In 1641 a further reduction was made in 
 the amount of land given, — two thousand acres for 
 twenty men, with fifty acres for each adult and twenty- 
 five for each child, with a further increase in the amount 
 of quit-rent. 
 
 Sometimes persons, either at once or at various times, 
 brought in more than the number given, so that exten- 
 sive estates were held by individuals. Thomas Com- 
 waleys, one of the most important and enterprising of 
 the first settlers, introduced fifty-one persons in all, so 
 that his estates, which were held in different parts of the 
 colony, were very extensive. One thousand acres or 
 more, were a manor, of which the early intention was 
 not only that such should be the name, but also that it 
 should carry with it certain territorial authority, such 
 as the holding of manorial courts and the prosecution of 
 cfifenders both in civil and criminal cases. 
 
 Evidently in the charter the intention had been to 
 make the lords of the manor a colonial aristocracy, hav- 
 ing peculiar class rights and privileges. Permission was 
 given to Lord Baltimore to create such an aristocracy, 
 and this was a move in that direction. For in his laws 
 submitted in 1637 there was one providing for the trial 
 of a lord of a manor, as if he were of a superior class of 
 citizens, and by it he was to be treated as in England a 
 member of the House of Lords was treated, — tried by his 
 peers, if a sufficient number could be found, in any 
 accusation against him; and if condemned to capital pun- 
 ishment, it was to be, not by hanging, as all the rest of 
 the people, but by decapitation. As the method by which 
 manors were obtainable was the ability to bear the 
 expense of bringing a given number of servants to the 
 
82 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 colony, neither respectability nor intelligence necessarily 
 accompanying such ability, one feels that Lord Baltimore 
 did not exhibit his good sense in proposing such a law. 
 It was, however, so offensive to the Assembly that it 
 never passed to a third reading, and consequently Mary- 
 land never had a landed aristocracy, no class that ever 
 enjoyed exclusive privileges. The manorial right of 
 exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction, of apprehending 
 and trying offenders, and keeping the peace, was exer- 
 cised, but only for a limited period. It was soon entirely 
 superseded everywhere by the usual magisterial and 
 county courts, the latter consisting of the magistrates 
 of the county sitting as a bench. How strange it is 
 that though other colonies, as New England, New York 
 and Virginia, have bestowed a kind of prescriptive honor 
 upon the families of their founders, Maryland has done 
 nothing of the kind, so that even the names of the 
 greater part of the first founders are unknown. I do 
 not speak of what the archives may show, but of the fact 
 as it is in common life. One may guess at the reason 
 of this, but cannot be certain. There are various old 
 names in Maryland, but they do not date from the begin- 
 ning, and where they do exist, do not claim, and do not 
 receive, any special consideration on that account. 
 
 Now in attempting to understand the legislation of the 
 colony we must try to understand the population, for 
 there was no quackery in Maryland in law-making, but 
 definite, practical work all the time. By quackery I 
 mean such attempt as was made in North Carolina, 
 where the philosopher Locke got out for the proprie- 
 taries a whole body of laws, which, however perfect in 
 themselves, were not fitted for the work they were 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 83 
 
 intended to do. Laws grow out of the needs of the 
 people, and out of the minds of the people, an expres- 
 sion of their voice; and whenever they are not that, or 
 have ceased to be that as society has advanced, they are 
 inoperative or obsolete. That is the reason there are so 
 many dead laws on the statute-books, laws in some 
 instances that have always been dead. They have been 
 begotten of enthusiasm, or they have been run through 
 the legislature in some emergency, and, meeting no need, 
 they hav^e ceased to be. Lord Baltimore attempted to 
 prescribe such laws for the regulation of the people, 
 while living in England, and utterly ignorant of the 
 thousand peculiarities that were found in the little local 
 company in the wilderness; but the people feeling the 
 Englishman's right, and knowing how fully that right 
 was ignored in England at this time, — the period of 
 eight or nine years after Charles had dissolved his last 
 parliament, — they rejected Lord Baltimore's pretensions, 
 and presented and passed their own laws. They were 
 passed subject to his approval; nor did they deny his 
 right to suggest, but only his exclusive right. It is true 
 he was acting according to his charter right, as that 
 charter was drawn up by himself or his father and 
 approved by the king. Free-bom Englishmen, however, 
 had a prescriptive right, which was founded upon a 
 greater charter, the Magna Charta, which Englishmen 
 had wrung from a previous king. 
 
 Now, what about the population? It was greatly 
 mixed from the start, and mixed in various ways. First 
 as to social condition and distinction; for while many of 
 the servants were of good birth and breeding, as Corn- 
 waleys says in regard to some that he had brought over. 
 
84 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Others were doubtless of the ignorant and laboring class. 
 But all were willing emigrants, having left their home 
 because they desired to better their fortunes, the very 
 best material out of which new states could be made. 
 Afterwards there came in another class composed of 
 those who were sent from England for various crimes, 
 sometimes felons, sometimes those charged with smaller 
 offenses, sometimes state prisoners who had been taken 
 in arms. But in the beginning it was the better elements 
 of society that made up the body of the people. In fact, 
 it was only such that would brave the deep and the 
 dangers of the wilderness as they were thought to be; 
 and on one occasion, when it was propounded as an 
 alternative to a felon under sentence of death that he 
 should pass over to the colonies or go to the gallows, he 
 chose the gallows as the shorter road to the end of the 
 miseries of life. 
 
 The term of service for which indented servants were 
 bound, was generally five years, after which they became 
 freemen. And as universal suffrage was the law of the 
 colony at first, being limited to freeholders only after 
 1 68 1, and every man could enjoy the privilege of a seat 
 and voice in the Assembly, a man that was a servant 
 to-day might be a lawmaker to-morrow. 
 
 Another class of people was found in the colony at 
 the start, that is, emigrants from Virginia who had settled 
 a few years before on Kent Island in the Chesapeake. 
 These were Englishmen, of course, but because the Vir- 
 ginians had objected to the grant to Lord Baltimore 
 of the territory which up to this time had belonged to 
 them, these colonists were from the start hostile to Lord 
 Baltimore and gave him what trouble they could. This 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 8$ 
 
 is the settlement that had been made by Claiborne, and 
 for whose privileges, as independent of Maryland, he 
 waged such warfare. 
 
 Then again there was another class that came into the 
 province from the year 1644 onwards. They were Puri- 
 tans that had been expelled from Virginia because of 
 their religious faith, for Virginia always differed radically 
 from Maryland in the matter of tolerating dissent. In 
 fact, the governor. Sir Wm. Berkeley, was severe in every 
 way, and tolerated in no degree any dissent from the 
 legal and established order. The Puritans came into 
 Maryland because they were assured of liberty in religion 
 and of all the privileges of citizenship; but being here, 
 and firmly secured in their possessions, their conscience 
 troubled them about submission to one who, as they 
 thought, was of the false church and faith. They were 
 the most troublesome of all those who went to make up 
 the early colony, for they were irrepressible, and until the 
 year 1659 gave constant trouble and offered frequent 
 violence. As long as either Parliament or Protector was 
 controlling affairs in England they created disturbance 
 in the colony. When Cromwell was dead they settled 
 down into peaceful ways, and seem after a few years to 
 have abandoned their early propensity to contention. 
 Naturalization of foreigners was provided for in the 
 Assembly of 1659-60, and soon after various nationalities 
 came to be represented in the province. Later down the 
 Germans especially settled in the western parts of the 
 State, giving to society and enterprise there a very strong 
 expression of their national characteristics. 
 
 A troublesome body of men, however, was found 
 where Lord Baltimore might well have had no cause for 
 
S6 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 anxiety. I speak of the members of the Society of Jesus, 
 whom he had himself sent over to the colony in the 
 beginning, and whom he had chosen for the work, not 
 only of ministering to the people, but also to preach to 
 the Indians, a work which they faithfully performed, at 
 any rate at first. It is to be said of them, however, that 
 with all tlieir devotion to their work, and all the occasion 
 they had to show consideration for the proprietary, the 
 members of the society that came into Maryland were, by 
 their training, disqualified to be members of a free com- 
 monwealth; for their training as ecclesiastics had given 
 them the notion that as churchmen, that is, ministers of the 
 church, they were not under the civil law at all, but were 
 subject to the canon law and pontifical prescripts only; 
 so that in whatever way they might offend the laws of the 
 colony they could not be tried by the laws of the colony, 
 but must be tried by the ecclesiastical or canon law, and 
 that not by laymen, but by their own tribunal and by 
 church officers of their own degree. Such a plea had 
 been made and established during the supremacy of the 
 church in earlier ages, and had been the occasion of 
 many abuses. That it should have been attempted now 
 again in an English dependency, near the middle of the 
 seventeenth century, can only excite astonishment. 
 
 But the claims of these Jesuit fathers not only covered 
 the persons of the clergy, but also property and pre- 
 rogative. They claimed jurisdiction in all testamentary 
 cases and the administration of all estates. They claimed 
 jurisdiction in the matter of matrimony also, pronounc- 
 ing who should marry and the conditions under which 
 persons should marry. In the same way they claimed 
 the prerogative to act outside the common and statute 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 8/ 
 
 law, and to acquire for the church any property that 
 might in any way lie open to them. In other words, in 
 view of the canon or ecclesiastical law in this case 
 named, the clergy were a different state or community, 
 not hnperiiim in imperio so much as an independent state 
 and government, having its own laws and law officers, its 
 own privileges and prerogatives, which, whenever and 
 wherever there was conflict, was always to have prece- 
 dence. 
 
 The claims of the Jesuits were in part formulated by 
 the priest Thomas Copley in 1638, of which the follow- 
 ing are the points made by him: 
 
 1st. That the church and our houses may be sanctuary 
 (that is, might afford refuge to persons pursued by officers 
 of the civil law). 
 
 2d. That ourselves and our domestic servants and at 
 least one-half of our planting servants may be free from 
 public taxes and services. Though the rest of our ser- 
 vants be ostensibly taxed, yet that privately the custom 
 of the other Catholic countries be observed. 
 
 3d. That though causes of priests be tried by public 
 magistrates, yet that in private they know they do it as 
 arbitrators and defenders of the church, because ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction is not yet here settled. 
 
 4th 
 
 5th. That though we relinquish the use of many eccle- 
 siastical privileges which we judge it convenient to do 
 for satisfaction of the state at home, yet that it be left to 
 our discretion to determine when this is requisite. 
 
 This was an extreme and dangerous state of things, 
 and Lord Baltimore immediately perceived it to be so. 
 He had a great talent for expletives, and he launched 
 
88 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 them against the fathers without stint. The claims of 
 the fathers invaded in an eminent degree, his own charter 
 right to the property in the territory of the colony. They 
 invaded also his own charter right to jurisdiction, and 
 they exposed him to the severest animadversion of the 
 Protestant people of the colony and at home. And so 
 in 1 641 he pubHshed conditions of plantation covering 
 the whole ground of controversy. The matter had by 
 that time advanced to a point where the temper on both 
 sides was severely tried. By the church all these claims 
 were regarded as founded upon the gift of Christ to His 
 church and as being the inalienable right of the so- 
 called head of the church here on earth, resistance to 
 which was deemed a gross sin. By Lord Baltimore the 
 whole claim was denied and the canon law was declared 
 not to reach to Maryland. 
 
 According to the church's claim the canon law reached 
 the citizen in all his duties as a member of the common- 
 wealth, and in ai^ything that touched what the church 
 might claim as belonging to her jurisdiction, which 
 extended to almost all things that concerned either life 
 or death, the citizen was supposed to have committed 
 sin if he assisted in the denial to the church of her rights. 
 All the claims of the church had been fully formulated 
 in the Bulla in coena Domini, issued in 1536 when the 
 Reformation was making its rapid strides. This had, to 
 the members of the Roman church, the force of law, and 
 in it supremacy is asserted for the church over all per- 
 sons and powers, temporal and ecclesiastical. During the 
 controversy reference to this was frequently made, and 
 Lord Baltimore, as well as his local officers in the colony, 
 were regarded as guilty of sin in their resistance. 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 89 
 
 Fortunately for Lord Baltimore he had a man as 
 secretary who was of his own mind in this matter, a 
 member of his own church and a convert from the min- 
 istry of the Church of England, who, being a married 
 man, had not entered the ministry of the Church of 
 Rome. He was an educated man and fully informed as 
 to this whole question; for it was an old question in 
 England, one that had been fought over during cen- 
 turies, with the result that the liberty of the land was 
 finally rescued and secured. He was enough of an 
 Englishman to abhor the pretension, though he was 
 exposed to all possible taunts and accusations. By the 
 church it was supposed to be of the very first importance, 
 so that Father White, of the Jesuits, says, " The fathers 
 of the society warmly resisted this foul attempt, profess- 
 ing themselves ready to shed their blood in defense of 
 the faith and the liberty of the church, which firmness 
 greatly enraged the secretary." What made them par- 
 ticularly angry was that Secretary Lewger " summoned a 
 parliament in Maryland, composed, with few exceptions, of 
 heretics, and presided over by himself in the name of the 
 Lord Baltimore," and attempted to pass laws covering 
 the points at issue; the indignation being at the fact that 
 heretics were called on to decide concerning the preroga- 
 tives of the church. 
 
 Lord Baltimore, however, persisted, notwithstanding 
 the pressure brought to bear upon him: the statute of 
 mortmain was declared to hold in the colony, the pro- 
 vincial of the Jesuits at last sustained the Conditions of 
 Plantation, which distinctly presented the proprietary's 
 claims, the local members of the society receded from 
 their position, and peace was restored. At one time, in 
 
90 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 1 64 1, the Jesuits were ordered to remove from the prov- 
 ince, and authority was passed to another to take charge 
 of Maryland. However, after the end sought for had 
 been attained, the order for removal was rescinded and 
 the priests continued their labors. 
 
 Lord Baltimore, however, felt their conduct most 
 keenly and bitterly. Writing to his brother, the gov- 
 ernor of the colony, in 1642, he describes the Jesuit 
 priests as ^^ full of shifts and devices," and says, "If all 
 things that clergymen shall do upon these pretences 
 should be accounted just and to proceed from God, lay- 
 men were the basest slaves and most wretched creatures 
 upon earth." 
 
 Among all these diverse interests we can readily see 
 that the position of Lord Baltimore was difficult. From 
 the start the heretics, as the fathers called them, out- 
 numbered the adherents of his own church, exciting in 
 the latter, as we have seen in the case of the Jesuits, 
 irritation and anxiety, for these had anticipated a freedom 
 in this English dependency which they had found no- 
 where else in the English dominions, and now they 
 found themselves as jealously watched and restrained in 
 the matter of ecclesiastical independence as they were in 
 England itself. They possessed all the rights and privi- 
 leges of worship, they were allowed to make converts 
 from among the people of the province, as well as from 
 among the Indians, they had every prerogative which 
 we of this day think belongs to any body of Christians; 
 but in the mighty claims which the Roman Church put 
 forth, and which they thought a good Catholic, as Lord 
 Baltimore and his secretary Lewger claimed to be, ought 
 to recognize and allow as essentials of the faith, they 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 9 1 
 
 found themselves shut off and put under the ban and 
 required to leave the province. It was a heavy blow 
 where none was expected. 
 
 But if the proprietary had difficulty from this source, 
 not less had he from another class, the Puritans, who 
 began to come into the province only four or five years 
 after this other question had been settled; for they antag- 
 onized him from the time they began to acquire power. 
 Whether Church of England people gave him trouble 
 we do not know, nor whether any of the other bodies 
 of Christians that may have been represented; for we 
 are not acquainted with the religious convictions of the 
 people in the earlier days of the colony. Much more is 
 known of the matter later when the colony had increased 
 in population. But take it all in all, masters and ser- 
 vants, Puritans and Jesuits and nonconformists of various 
 names, along with Churchmen — who under the charter 
 itself had a certain recognition, as the ecclesiastical laws 
 of England in the matter of consecrating churches were 
 alone recognized as allowable — his lordship had abundant 
 opportunity for showing his talent as a good pilot to 
 guide his bark through troubled waters. At one time, 
 just before the close of the first rebellion in 1644, he did 
 feel that all was hopeless, and was about to abandon the 
 effort to build up his colony. It was after the long con- 
 tention with the Jesuits and when the Puritans had 
 begun to come in and the province had been for two 
 years in the hands of his enemies, who had done their 
 utmost to rum it, and when his brother had been long 
 a refugee in Virginia, — enough we would think to make 
 a man turn away in disgust. His brother, however, 
 came to the rescue, and not believing all was lost, by a 
 manful effort restored peace and order once more. 
 
92 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 It will be wise for us to get a clue to the policy on 
 which Lord Baltimore acted in the legislation of the 
 province. Nor is that difhcult to find. He ^acted as 
 every other practical man is found to act in his relations 
 and dealings with his fellow-men, — ^by adaptation of 
 means to ends as the occasions may arise. Theorists 
 endeavor to force matters and to implant a new idea on 
 an old system. But new ideas are possible only in a new 
 system, and a new system is gotten only by agitation, 
 or the training up of the common mind into readiness 
 to receive it. New ideas are grafts that can be inserted 
 only when there is vitality enough in the growing tree 
 to lay hold on them and make them part of itself. 
 
 And so of Lord Baltimore's policy. There is no evi- 
 dence for believing that he was ever an agitator. He 
 undertook a difficult work, the building up of a pro- 
 vince, the first attempt of the kind within the English 
 empire; and by the necessities of the case, as well as of 
 his own desire, it was to be different from anything at 
 that time in the world. A new principle was to be 
 recognized in it which, with the one noble exception of 
 Holland, had never been a part of any commonwealth, 
 namely, that among inherent human rights is that of 
 worshiping God in one's own way, without restraint 
 from any source. But the acceptance of this principle 
 as the corner-stone of the province, was not of his choice, 
 but of necessity. His own faith, his own position, 
 required the principle. It was either that or ruin. And 
 this policy of adaptation he pursued with great skill. 
 
 His first colonists were, doubtless, in harmony with 
 him, however much they and he might differ in opinion 
 in some matters. The twenty gentleman adventurers 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 93 
 
 that left England were probably, most of them, of his 
 own selection, men with whom he had been brought in 
 close contact, and men of as good birth and education 
 as himself. For that reason there was no conflict 
 between them and him in the earlier efforts of the colony 
 to secure a definite form of government. They dififered 
 and expressed their dififerences, and he acquiesced. They 
 passed a body of laws and he rejected them. He pro- 
 posed a body of laws and they refused to receive them 
 at his hand. They then considered them as of their 
 own motion, passed such as they approved, and he con- 
 firmed them. It was a way of discussing nnd estab- 
 lishing a certain fundamental constitutional question by 
 two parties living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The 
 men at the head of afifairs in the colony knew of the 
 rights of Englishmen, and quietly asserted them, notwith- 
 standing any charter privileges King Charles might 
 attempt to bestow on a proprietary of his own creation. 
 
 Of the two hundred laborers or servants that went to 
 make up the first company, the noticeable thing is that 
 the great majority of them were not of the proprietary's 
 views in religion. This is vouched for by the provincial 
 of the Jesuits, writing in 1642, who says of this first com- 
 pany that "by far the greater part were heretics," — that 
 is, of the whole number, for most of the twenty gentle- 
 men, from all the evidence available, seem to have been 
 Roman Catholics. And these laborers also appear to 
 have been in harmony with Lord Baltimore, from the 
 fact that the troubles that disturbed his colony were 
 fomented by persons who did not belong to it. 
 
 As legislating with these — for the laborers, having 
 served out their time, became freemen and sat in the 
 
94 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Assembly — there seems to have been essential agreement 
 between his lordship and them, and the laws that they 
 made were in an eminent degree well fitted for all the 
 needs of the infant commonwealth, for such Maryland 
 was from the first. It was a body politic, with all the 
 laws and processes essential for good order, and not 
 merely a body of men controlled and directed by a 
 power existing over themselves, over whose will and 
 actions they might have no control. This had been the 
 case in the earlier Virginia settlements. The proprietary 
 did not readily acquiesce in the pretensions of the col- 
 onists, so that the laws sent back by them in 1638 were 
 not approved, though in the same year he sent word to 
 his brother, the governor, authorizing him to assent and 
 give immediate force to any laws that should be passed 
 by the people, subject to his veto. 
 
 It was at this time that a full organization of the 
 province took place, for one of the laws passed provided 
 for the 'calling of assemblies. Such assemblies were pro- 
 vided for in the charter, the requirement being that all 
 laws should be assented to by the people. This law pro- 
 vided for the composition of the Assembly, and deter- 
 mined that it should be composed of two classes, — those 
 who should be chosen as burgesses, and those who 
 should be summoned by his lordship's special writ. At 
 first all freemen were expected to sit in the house and 
 pass upon all laws, though any one unable to be present 
 might delegate some one else to act as his proxy. After- 
 wards we find some confusion, some persons being 
 elected as delegates, and having as such but one vote, 
 while others claimed the right to sit and vote in their 
 own name, a man so holding his seat and representing 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 95 
 
 only himself having as influential a voice as another man 
 who might represent many. 
 
 This was found, of course, not to work well. Also 
 when the body was composed in part of those who rep- 
 resented a number of voters and in part of those sum- 
 moned by special writ, it was found not to be equitable, 
 because those so summoned might very well defeat the 
 will of the people, preventing even the expression of 
 their voice; for no limit was placed upon the number 
 that might be summoned. The inequality of this 
 arrangement soon began to show itself, so that as early 
 as 1642 the question of dividing the Assembly began to 
 be considered, a change that was completed in 1650, 
 when the two houses were created. In 1658 the right 
 of appearing by proxy or in person finally ceased, and 
 the two houses, as they existed till the downfall of the 
 colonial system, came finally into existence. The upper 
 house, however, differed very materially from the present 
 State senate, where the members are elected in the same 
 way as the members of the lower house; for according to 
 the colonial plan the upper house was entirely the crea- 
 tion of the proprietary, being composed of the governor 
 and other colonial officers appointed by him. It repre- 
 sented and protected his interests. It had the veto 
 power over the action of the lower house, and could at 
 any rate greatly retard any effort of that house looking 
 to larger political freedom. Many were the contentions 
 and the bitter words between the two bodies. It is to be 
 said, however, that the lower house, having advanced a 
 proposition or passed a law looking to the preservation 
 or the extension of civil rights, never receded from it, but 
 held on to it till success crowned their effort. 
 
9^ HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 In a session of 1639 the Assembly passed a series of 
 laws of the highest importance, which gave a permanent 
 color to the province and indicated the character of the 
 people. The first law passed declared that Holy Church 
 should have all her rights and liberties. Many claims 
 have been set up on this law, as if it bestowed upon the 
 church of the proprietary a certain peculiar eminence and 
 assured it of many gifts. The law, however, meant 
 nothing of the kind, but was only intended to be a rec- 
 ognition of the Christian Church as in England estab- 
 lished, the Church of England, and declared that as such 
 she should possess whatever, as of her right, belonged to 
 her. The phrase was copied exactly from the Magna 
 Charta, which, as will be remembered, became the con- 
 stitutional principle in England at a time when the 
 Church of England, in the person of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and the State of England, by the barons 
 assembled at Runnymede, were vindicating English 
 liberties against the poltroon who would sacrifice them to 
 the claims of the papal throne, an act for which the 
 Archbishop received the severe condemnation of the 
 Pope. The church has rights and always has had rights 
 in glebes and endowments, rights to perform spiritual 
 functions, rights to do her own work without being 
 meddled with. This phrase, instead of being any assur- 
 ance of special privileges to the church of Lord Balti- 
 more, as has been claimed, was rather the assertion of 
 the liberty of the church against any claims or preten- 
 sions that he might set up ; in the same way as in Stephen 
 Langton's day it was an assertion in Magna Charta 
 against tyrannous claims that King John might make 
 either to oppress the church or to betrav it. It was a 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 97 
 
 common phrase in the earlier codes of laws, like some of 
 the protestations found in the charters, where God's glory 
 and the good of the heathen are assigned as the causes 
 for enterprises beyond the seas, and Maryland lawmakers 
 adopted it probably as belonging to the proprieties of a 
 newly promulgated code. 
 
 The great contest with the Jesuits was about breaking 
 out, and we see what were esteemed by them the rights 
 and liberties of the church. So far was this from being 
 a submission to them, that within a short time they were 
 ordered out of the colony. Also by the seventh section 
 of this code we have the very rights for which the 
 Jesuit fathers were ready "to shed their blood" dis- 
 tinctly alienated to and claimed for the civil jurisdiction, 
 — power, for instance, in matters testamentary, the proving 
 of wills and granting letters of administration. The act, 
 if it meant anything special at all, as applying to Mary- 
 land, meant that men should be allowed to serve God 
 in any way acceptable to themselves without let or hin- 
 drance from the civil authority, a liberty that has 
 existed up to this time. When the Jesuits attempted to 
 extend their claims to a degree that could never be 
 allowed to any body of Christians, they found themselves 
 condemned by all but their own order. 
 
 The first sections of the code were declarations of the 
 rights of the church, the king, the proprietary and the 
 people, assuring to each whatever in the common law 
 of England belonged to them. It was English legis- 
 lation in behalf of those who were liege subjects of the 
 king of England. A notable thing is that at this time, 
 when England had had no parliament for about ten 
 years, Charles the First having determined to rule without 
 
98 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 one, the Assembly of Maryland passed, and Lord Balti- 
 more approved, as he had before suggested, a law pro- 
 viding for triennial sessions. 
 
 Other matters of cardinal moment provided for by 
 this code were the trial by jury, the right of all men to 
 the common law of England, and that the inhabitants 
 shall have all their rights and liberties according to the 
 great charter of England. No exception was made of 
 any, no privileges were granted to any, no ecclesiastical 
 courts were set up for the trial of ecclesiastical persons 
 or persons whose crimes were against the church or her 
 laws. All persons, ecclesiastics, lords of manors, freemen, 
 of whatever degree or calling, as well as all servants, 
 were equal before the law, — the same laws for each and 
 all. These great institutes are regarded as being for 
 Maryland a constitution, in conformity with which all 
 subsequent laws have had to be made. 
 
SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 Continuation: Legislation of the Province 
 previous to 1689. 
 
 I have said in the previous lecture that Lord Bahi- 
 more's method of administration was on the principle of 
 adaptation, which means that, recognizing that he had 
 intelligent men to deal with who could not be intimidated 
 by a great name, who knew they had rights and dared 
 maintain them, who felt that in the eye of English law they 
 were equal with the best blood of the land, — that recogniz- 
 ing this, he accommodated himself to the pressure of cir- 
 cumstances, and proposed such laws and approved such 
 laws as he felt the will of the people and their needs 
 required. And he showed his wisdom in this. The will of 
 men is very much like the law of gravitation; it is going to 
 have its way all the time. It may be modified, instructed, 
 improved, but it cannot be ignored or annihilated. It may 
 be made to operate along unfortunate lines, through the 
 deficiency of instruction; it may be chained down by the 
 dread or the exercise of tyrannical power; but it is there 
 all the time, biding its opportunity, and when it attains it, 
 exercises itself with a power commensurate with the pre- 
 vious restraint. Lord Baltimore had the wisdom to recog- 
 nize this fact, and accommodated himself to his circum- 
 stances from the start, or as soon as, in his first conflict 
 with the colonists, he learned that they had a will. He was 
 but a young man then, but he had already the skill of a 
 famous French statesman who was able to pass through 
 
100 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 many crises of fortune, and who said, in response to some 
 one's astonishment at his good fortune, " I bend like the 
 sapUng and do not break as the unyielding tree." 
 
 To-day we come, in the consideration of the legislation 
 of the colony, to the law which, probably, of all passed in 
 all the colonies, during whatever period of their history, 
 has been most talked of. I refer to the "Act Concerning 
 Religion," passed in the year 1649; ^o^ i^ has been talked 
 of and written about by statesmen, historians, orators, 
 bishops, cardinals, priests, on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 It has been the theme of college students, school anni- 
 versaries, and has been represented as glorifying a great 
 Christian body, as if it were the choicest gem that could 
 adorn the brow; and for many years almost all men con- 
 ceded any claims that were made to the honor which it 
 was supposed to bestow. 
 
 Now, accepting the proposition 4hat Lord Baltimore 
 suggested and submitted the law, it is difificult to see how 
 the law could, in the light of its true circumstances, 
 bestow such honor upon him ; or again, granting that he 
 is to be so honored, it is difficult, impossible, to discern 
 how the personal honor that may be supposed to belong 
 to him, is in any way reflected upon or adorns a whole 
 body of Christians, that have not another like instance to 
 show in all the legislation of any time and place which 
 members of their church could or did control. The thirst 
 for honor and the conscious necessity for it, must, indeed, 
 be very great to bring one such instance into such great 
 demand. 
 
 As to religious toleration, or the right to the exercise 
 of religious worship according to one's own craving or 
 desire, more properly religious liberty, — that is a question 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 10 1 
 
 that arises late in the history of any people. While all 
 men have conscience, yet conscience toward God comes 
 in late in the development of man. Religion itself in the 
 beginning is a superstition, a dread of something in 
 nature behind the mere natural phenomena; and the acts 
 of worship, not worthy of being called so, are efforts at 
 placating this something, or diverting its malevolent 
 power from one's self. Even later in life, in all nations 
 except one, which was taught by the Almighty a definite 
 notion of sin, I mean the Jews, religion did not enter 
 into the province of the conscience. Men had a regard 
 for one another's rights. There were definite laws regu- 
 lating mutual conduct, and these laws were fortified by, 
 if they were not the outcome of, the sense of justice in the 
 relations of man with man. But conscience toward God 
 was an unknown quality; it was too high an idea, too 
 difficult a conception. Religion was made up of cere- 
 monies, sacrifices, sometimes attractive for beauty, some- 
 times hideous and brutal. St. Paul, in writing to the 
 Romans, touches upon this question, and referring to 
 things done in the name of God, speaks of them as done 
 in secret, of which it is a shame even to speak. That was 
 in Rome and in Greece, centers of western education and 
 refinement; but it was even worse, infinitely worse, in the 
 great center of eastern refinement, Babylon. Even to this 
 day, in some lands where ignorance abounds, in the very 
 midst of a Christian priesthood, religion is very often only 
 a matter of forms and ceremonies, an observance of rules, 
 an obedience to institutions, and conscience is unheard of. 
 As men are cultivated, however, as religion becomes a 
 personal matter and not merely a social institution, con- 
 science develops; and when it does, it becomes stronger 
 
102 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 than any other power, even than the will itself. Though 
 such a distinction is hardly legitimate, in that with an 
 aroused conscience the will is always in alliance. But it 
 is this mighty force, conscience toward God, calling forth 
 all the rectitude and all the loyalty and all the devotion 
 of the human heart; and the heart means human energy. 
 
 And whenever it has arisen into being it has wrought 
 commotion and discord in the world. It has struggled 
 against the bonds with which men have endeavored to 
 bind it, and it has never rested till it has broken the bonds 
 and felt itself free. This w^as at the bottom of all the 
 turmoil and confusion that, beginning with the Reforma- 
 tion, continued in England till the reign of William and 
 Mary, nor even then was the principle fully established. 
 It was at the bottom, also, of the commotions that dis- 
 turbed Europe through the same period, whether the 
 Huguenots of France were the occasion, or the Wal- 
 densians of Savoy, or the Bohemians and others of the 
 Austrian dominion and of the German empire. Con- 
 science would not, could not yield, and battles were 
 fought and provinces desolated, in the futile attempt to 
 break down her spirit; and in the end all that was done 
 was to spill the blood of countless multitudes of men and 
 women and children, fill the land with cries and tears, and 
 at last acknowledge the freedom of conscience. Con- 
 science is the highest expression of the human mind and 
 character, 
 
 A curious feature of the whole matter is that good and 
 conscientious men, who would themselves have died for 
 their conscience, have in innumerable instances been those 
 who would deny this high prerogative of freedom to 
 others. For it is not the ungodly, but the godly who have 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. IO3 
 
 most frequently, in our Christian period, persecuted others 
 for reUgion's sake. Torquemada, who estabhshed the 
 Spanish Inquisition that wrought in his day, and for cen- 
 turies afterwards, such horrid butchery, was a rigorously 
 upright and devoted man. The men of the days of the 
 Commonwealth, and before, in England, who put popery 
 and prelacy equally under the ban, were very righteous 
 men The men who in the reign of Elizabeth consented 
 to the death of those who dissented from the established 
 faith, were sincere in their belief and practice. The mis- 
 fortune has been that such men felt themselves endowed 
 by God with authority over another's faith, and because 
 such would not surrender the prerogative of believing 
 and worshiping according as their own consciences might 
 prescribe, they were condemned to the stake or the 
 
 scaffold. ., 
 
 Often, also, the party that had called loudest for reli- 
 gious freedom and the right to serve God in their own 
 way were the first, when power came into their own 
 hands, to push to extremity those who differed from them 
 in belief or practice. That was the case in England m the 
 days of the Civil War. When the Independents were suc- 
 cessful in the field, Cromwell very plainly intimated to 
 the Presbvterian Parliament, that such men should be 
 allowed to worship God according to the light which 
 they possessed; and yet when they came into power, no 
 man ever looked with more wrathful scorn upon those 
 who would follow the old ways in religion. So m Mas- 
 sachusetts. The Plymouth Brethren fled to Holland be- 
 cause they were denied religious freedom in England, but 
 no sooner were they firmly fixed in their own colony than 
 popery, prelacy, and every form of dissent were rigidly 
 
I04 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 suppressed as far as in their power. In Maryland it was 
 the same. Puritans sought asylum in Maryland, coming 
 from Virginia because they were no longer tolerated there; 
 and yet, as soon as they were here, they began a protest 
 which became more and more violent against the Church 
 of the proprietary, as well as against the Church of Eng- 
 land, which in Virginia had repressed them. 
 
 Such was the experience the world over. He who cries 
 out most lustily when he is down, will be the most deaf to 
 cries when he gets on top. Freedom of conscience, the 
 ability to act consistently upon the principle, that while 
 religion is to bless by its association the civil institutions 
 of the state, it is to be regarded as independent of, a differ- 
 ent order, organization, autonomy from the state, is, may 
 be, the last thing to be achieved in the progress of man- 
 kind, — the recognition that, while the state exists to secure 
 the welfare and the peace of the community, and to enable 
 men to work "out here the highest destiny that is con- 
 sistent with the good of their fellows, — for all the higher 
 functions of their nature, as regards their soul and spirit, 
 as regards their eternal welfare, and their relations with 
 that higher community which has Christ as its head — 
 with this the state has nothing whatever to do. This has 
 nowhere been entirely achieved yet, and in some places, 
 as concerns this matter, darkness broods vv^ith pestilential 
 wing. When it shall be universally recognized, then, and 
 not till then, will Christ's kingdom be established on earth. 
 
 When the Act of 1649, concerning religion, was passed, 
 very little had come to be known concerning this funda- 
 mental principle in the true economy of the race. As we 
 have seen, when the Independents were soldiers, and had 
 not yet come to be directors of the affairs of England, 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. IO5 
 
 they claimed the appHcation of the principle to them- 
 selves. Like as it is with men generally, when pursuing 
 their own ends, all that they asked was " to be let alone."' 
 It was very different when the positions were reversed. 
 Some few men, as Sir Thomas More, had advanced the 
 truth, but it was rather the adumbration of the philosopher 
 than the principle of the lawmaker. He was one of the 
 most conscientious men of his age, and possibly of any 
 age. 
 
 The man, however, who stands out gloriously before 
 the world as the practical representative of this great truth, 
 is not Lord Baltimore by any means, but a man who lived 
 many years before he was born, a man who made 
 his land to be the refuge of the persecuted, and who 
 insisted that all should enjoy the equal privilege of com- 
 ing before God, each in his own way. I speak of Wil- 
 liam the Silent of Holland. Like Cecilius Calvert, he 
 was a convert, only it was out of the Church of Rome to 
 the Calvinistic faith. Also, he lived in a day when per- 
 secution was rife against the church and faith of his adop- 
 tion; for in his time the awful Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew took place, the anticipation of which the French 
 king had communicated to him, for he only became a 
 Calvinist in 1573. Holland also in his day suffered the 
 last extremities of torture, both at the hand of Philip of 
 Spain and his minister, the Duke of Alva, and of the 
 Inquisition. Again he had the power in his hand to exer- 
 cise reciprocal vengeance, and a word from him would 
 have drawn the sword against the Roman communion. 
 
 But instead, whether on the one side against the Roman 
 Catholics, or on the other against the Anabaptists, whom 
 all men then spoke against, his word was one of peace. 
 
I06 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Let them alone, was at one time his command when an 
 attempt had been made upon the Roman CathoUc. " We 
 declare to you," he said in 1578, "that you have no right 
 to trouble yourselves with any man's conscience, so long 
 as nothing is done to cause private or public scandal. We 
 therefore expressly ordain that you desist from molesting 
 these Baptists." As early as 1576, the States General, 
 through his influence, granted not merely freedom of con- 
 science, but freedom of worship to all denominations, a 
 privilege and a right that meant all that it claimed to be. 
 Here, therefore, if any man is to be glorified, is the one. 
 Rising supremely over all circumstances, early education, 
 the sense of great personal and national outrage, and all 
 the prejudices and accepted rules of his own day, he 
 declared and illustrated the great principle with all clear- 
 ness and fulness. At the same time he was bold, fearless, 
 chivalrous, and distinguished among the great soldiers of 
 the day. Religious freedom at his hand meant that he 
 had grasped definitely the cardinal principle of human 
 freedom. His conversion also testifies the man; for it 
 was the surrender of great opportunities, for exposure, 
 danger, and at last assassination; for, as is well known, a 
 price was set upon his head, and he fell by the assassin's 
 hand in 1584. 
 
 Let us now look at the circumstances under which the 
 law in Maryland was passed. And first of all we must 
 remember what we have seen, that the years preceding 
 1649 were years of trouble and confusion in the province. 
 Lord Baltimore's government had been entirely over- 
 thrown, and his brother, the governor, driven to Virginia, 
 where he had been compelled to remain about two years. 
 The condition of things had become so desperate that 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 10/ 
 
 Lord Baltimore felt that further effort to preserve his 
 colony was useless, or that it was not worth the struggle 
 that had to be bestowed upon it. His. brother, however, 
 who knew all the circumstances, thought differently, and 
 made, as we have seen, a successful attempt to recover it. 
 But what was at the bottom of this difficulty, and why 
 were Claiborne and Ingle able so easily to overturn the 
 government and retain so long possession of the pro- 
 vince? It was, doubtless, because they reached some 
 point in the people's minds in which they were antagon- 
 istic to the ruling powers, and that point was in the matter 
 of religion. Even of the first company that came over in 
 the Ark and the Dove, the pronounced majority was of 
 the Protestant faith. Even among the "gentleman adven- 
 turers " there were some of this faith, as is indicated by 
 the "Instructions" sent out with the colony; for by these 
 Lord Baltimore provided for the sending of deputies to 
 the Governor of Virginia as well as to Claiborne, to placate 
 them, and he also provided that such deputies should be 
 of the Church of England. As none but a "gentleman " 
 was fitted for that office, there must have been some of 
 the Protestant faith even among the chosen few. Thomas 
 Cornwaleys, the most influential and capable man 
 of the province, has been said by some to have been a 
 Protestant, and certainly he was of good Church of 
 England stock, and his descendants were of that faith. 
 But of himself not enough is known to lift the question 
 out of the realm of doubt. 
 
 We are not, however, left in doubt as to the religious 
 views of the first colonists. The majority of them from 
 the start were not of his lordship's faith, as we learn 
 from the Jesuit fathers themselves, who commanded all 
 
I08 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 the information; for the provincial of the order in Eng- 
 land, writing to Rome in 1642, declared that the affair 
 was surrounded with many and great difficulties, for in 
 leading the colony to Maryland by far the greater part 
 were heretics. Father White, it is true, wrote, soon after 
 coming into the colony, that they had been able to make 
 various converts; but in 1641 he again wrote that "three, 
 parts of the people in four at least are heretics." It is 
 in the same communication quoted above, from the Eng- 
 lish provincial to Rome, that we find Secretary Lewger 
 is said to have summoned a parliament " composed, with 
 few exceptions, of heretics." This was probably the 
 Assembly of 1640, as he is referring to the troubles 
 Lord Baltimore was having with the Jesuit fathers. As 
 the Secretary was compelled to summon all the freemen, 
 it indicates that the Protestants greatly preponderated. 
 
 And as it was then, so it continued all the way along. 
 The ratio in favor of the Protestant majority always con- 
 tinued increasing. This abundance of evidence shows. 
 In 1676 Charles, the third Lord Baltimore, who had just 
 returned from Maryland, declared that the nonconformists 
 outnumbered the Churchmen and Roman Catholics three 
 to one, and that the Churchmen were more numerous 
 than the Roman Catholics. This would make the num- 
 ber of these last relatively very small, a tenth or twelfth 
 of the whole body of the people, a ratio that was declared 
 to be true a few years after this time. It is a notable 
 thing that the Roman Catholics, for whose relief the 
 colony has been said by some to have been created, and 
 who had, under the charter, the liberty of leaving Eng- 
 land for the colony, do not seem to have come. They 
 were denied the privileges of citizenship at home, the 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. IO9 
 
 full exercise of their mode of worship was a felony, they 
 were suspected, they had every inducement held out to 
 make the province of Maryland a retreat and to enjoy all 
 the blessings of liberty, but they did not come. The 
 few that did, were soon lost in the preponderating num- 
 bers of another faith. An inexact manifestation of the 
 two great classes, Protestant and Roman Catholic, is 
 given by a return made under a levy of 1667; for while 
 the Roman Catholic counties, St. Mary's and Charles, 
 where, however, there w^ere many Protestants, returned 
 together one hundred and twenty-one men, the other 
 counties of the province, where the inhabitants were 
 almost exclusively Protestants, gave two hundred and 
 eighty-eight. In fact, almost the whole Roman Catholic 
 immigration was in the beginning of the colony, and 
 their settlements were confined to the region first 
 occupied. 
 
 And Lord Baltimore recognized this state of things. 
 Whether he was chagrined or not at the fewness of those 
 coming over, we do not know. It was anticipated, evi- 
 dently, from the Jesuit papers, that a Roman Catholic 
 settlement was to be made, and provision was made for 
 inevitable objections that would be raised, about their 
 sympathy with the Spaniards, about the danger to the 
 Puritan colonies in the North and to the Church of Eng- 
 land colony in the South, from the contiguity of their 
 Roman Catholic settlement. Also the bringing out of 
 Jesuit fathers only, while so many of the people were 
 Protestants, helps to show the animus. But the Roman 
 Catholics, oppressed and disfranchised in England, did 
 not come. Why, it would be hard to say. The colony 
 became Protestant from the start, with a Roman Catholic 
 
no HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 over-lord and a Roman Catholic governor and council. 
 This taking of the officers of the colony from among a 
 small minority of the citizens, was a piece of bad policy 
 on the part of the proprietary. 
 
 But in 1648 Lord Baltimore recognized the true state 
 of things and changed h^'s policy. He took the local 
 administration out of the hands of the Roman Catholics 
 and put it in the hands of Protestants, choosing as the 
 governor and the majority of the cormcil persons of that 
 faith. He did not do this because he loved to do it, 
 for he had been pursuing the contrary policy for fourteen 
 years, in spite of the murmurs and contentions that it 
 had excited, the government having been restored on its 
 old basis after its re-establishment in 1646. He did it 
 because, evidently, it was now a necessity. Even his 
 faithful and liberal-minded secretary, Lewger, who had 
 acted such good part for him in the difficulties he had 
 had with the Jesuit fathers, and who was a man after his 
 own heart, was displaced, and his, along with other offices, 
 turned over to the heretics. He was wise in so doing, 
 and he was consistent, on the ground that his purpose 
 had been to establish an English colony, not as a refuge 
 for the Roman Catholics, but where religious freedom 
 was to be observed and enjoyed by all. He had never 
 asserted anything else, only he had been inconsistent in 
 drawing a religious line in the matter of administration. 
 
 But now he changed all this, and Stone as governor, 
 and Hatton as secretary, and Price as muster-general, 
 and Vaughan as commander of Kent, were given com- 
 missions. The oath which he required, gives us light 
 upon his motive. He saw it was in the power, and it 
 might be in the pleasure, of the Protestant majority to 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. Ill 
 
 restrain and persecute the members of his church, for 
 whom up to this time he had been able to secure immu- 
 nity by the character of the men whom he had appointed 
 in the province. But now he must create for them 
 another defense, and while he would appoint men who 
 had no religious sympathy for his own people, he would 
 secure for them a sufficient protection. 
 
 That is the meaning of the oath which he exacted of 
 the governor and council : " I do further swear that I 
 will not by myself nor any person, directly nor indirectly, 
 trouble, molest or discountenance any person whatsoever, 
 in the said province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, 
 and in particular no Roman Catholic, for or in respect of 
 his or her religion, nor his or her free exercise thereof, 
 within the said province." Of the governor it was also 
 required that in bestowing the offices of the colony no 
 distinction should be made for religion's sake, and also 
 that he would forbid any persecution for the sake of 
 religion; and that if without his consent and privity any 
 person professing to believe in Jesus Christ were perse- 
 cuted merely for or in respect of his or her religion, that 
 he would relieve and protect such person, and punish the 
 ofifender. 
 
 This indicates a revolution, and it was not made with- 
 out cause; it had become a great necessity. Lord Balti- 
 more was not a very strict Roman Catholic as the Jesuit 
 fathers counted strictness; that is, he would not have the 
 spiritual fathers trespass in their spiritual claims upon 
 his civil rights and prerogatives, but would confine papal 
 rights, as was said by Lewger, in foro conscientice. At 
 the same time he would do his utmost to preserve the 
 peace of the colony, and to secure to the Roman Catholics, 
 
112 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 what Up to this time he had been able, almost from the 
 beginning, to command for them. Power to this end 
 was slipping out of his hand, and he secured all that was 
 possible for their relief and protection. This was in 
 August, 1648, and during the winter that succeeded, the 
 draft of the "Act Concerning Religion" was brought 
 over, and was submitted to the Assembly the beginning 
 of the following April. 
 
 It will be remembered also that at this time the royal 
 cause was utterly prostrated in England, that the king 
 who had bestowed the charter, with all its extensive 
 franchises, upon Lord Baltimore, was now in the hands 
 of his enemies, who were giving no uncertain indications 
 that their purpose was the utter overthrow of the mon- 
 archy. Besides, as regards the colony, a condition of 
 Governor Stone's appointment had been that he would 
 bring into the province five hundred colonists; who did 
 come, and whom Lord Baltimore doubtless expected to 
 come, out of Virginia, a colony of Puritan noncon- 
 formists, who both would increase the Protestant majority, 
 and probably infuse into it a spirit of vindictiveness 
 which seemed to belong to their form of faith, and which 
 had been fostered by their treatment in Virginia. 
 
 These are the circumstances, therefore, that led up to 
 the Act of 1649; and while the Act was good, and the 
 principles embodied in it those which the world now 
 delights to honor (only the world goes a good deal 
 farther now than that act went), yet the circumstances do 
 not justify the admirers of Lord Baltimore in offering 
 him as a great and singular hero. He was a wise states- 
 man, he was under definite prejudices, as every man will 
 be, but he sought, and saw the best means of attaining, 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. II 3 
 
 peace for his province. In the revolution that had 
 become necessary in the administration, he secured a 
 perpetuation of the peace poHcy that had governed him 
 in the past, doing this not only by means of the officers 
 appointed, but also by the law that was to control the 
 administration. 
 
 The advisability of the law is seen in the fact that 
 afterwards, when the Puritan sentiment, in the Claiborne- 
 Bennett rebellion, attained for a time the control, this 
 law was annulled, and another, though called by the 
 same title, was passed in its stead, but which put both 
 the religion of Lord Baltimore and that of the Church of 
 England under the ban. The original act, however, was 
 afterwards restored and continued in force till the Prot- 
 estant revolution, when the Roman Catholic faith was 
 again put under interdict. 
 
 Let us now look at the law itself. And first, of the 
 intention, as announced by Lord Baltimore in the com- 
 mission that accompanied the body of laws submitted, of 
 which this was the first. The laws were proposed to him 
 for "the good and quiet settlement of the colony and 
 people." It was, in other words, a peace-preserving 
 measure in its intention as well as in its terms, a pro- 
 vision against the oncoming times of turbulence which 
 Lord Baltimore apprehended, and which did come within 
 the next three years. Also it will be observed that it 
 was the joint act of the proprietary and the people, so 
 that neither party could claim exclusively what merit 
 belonged to the passage of the law. The law, he says, 
 "was proposed to him," by whom we are not told, and 
 hei approved the suggestion as wise and discreet, and well 
 suited to give a good and quiet settlement of the colony 
 and people. 
 
114 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 The Assembly was then, and had been for ten years, 
 composed of a large majority of Protestants, and the 
 merit was more theirs, as preserving protection and 
 religious freedom for a small minority, than it was his, 
 who felt himself protector of that minority; though it 
 is true, neither could do anything without the other. 
 Besides, Lord Baltimore was not a stalwart Roman 
 Catholic, however great his prejudices might be, but of 
 that English type of mind that, while he could worship 
 only in a Roman Catholic sanctuary, and accept the 
 dogmas of the Roman creed, could trample under foot 
 even the great papal bull In coena Domini, when this 
 bull proposed doctrines that were inconsistent with his 
 prerogatives, — a kind of provincial Henry VIII. in the 
 assertion of his temporal supremacy; for all his legis- 
 lation, as well as his private utterances, spurned the pre- 
 tensions of the Roman Catholic fathers to the peculiar 
 privileges of their order; which in other times they had 
 claimed in England, and which in other less-favored 
 lands they were exercising at this time. 
 
 Whether the English Catholic Lord Baltimore, swelling 
 with indignation, and reviling the persons of the pre- 
 sumptuous priests, is to be taken as the representative of 
 the Roman Church, or those priests themselves who 
 vilified the representative and agent of Lord Baltimore, 
 who for him resisted their attempts to establish an eccle- 
 siastical oligarchy in Maryland, is a question that is very 
 easily answered. We may bestow praise upon Lord Bal- 
 timore as a wise and plastic statesman, whose judgment 
 could be swayed by the necessity of the times; but we 
 shall have to leave the church in the hands of the Jesuit 
 fathers, as they far better present its tone and spirit. 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. Ilg 
 
 The first section of the Act is Draconic in its severity, 
 and indicates that however much the men that framed 
 and passed it, may have been disposed to grant toleration 
 in the matter of reUgion, they were not disposed to grant 
 any whatsoever in the matter of irreUgion. The whole 
 idea of religious freedom was still in swaddling bands; 
 for religious freedom takes the whole question out of the 
 realm of civil administration, and means that a man 
 shall believe as much and as little as he pleases. But in 
 that day the majority, simply by toleration, graciously 
 extended to all persons the privilege of believing, pro- 
 vided they believed aright according to the judgment of 
 the majority. And so by this first section, if any one 
 denied the Saviour to be the Son of God, or denied the 
 Holy Trinity, or the Godhead of any of the three Persons 
 of the Trinity, or the Unity of the Godhead, he should be 
 "punished with death, and confiscation or forfeiture of 
 all his or her land or goods to the lord proprietary and 
 his heirs." 
 
 The second section is also restrictive, in that it pro- 
 vides that if any persons "shall use or utter any reproach- 
 ful words or speeches concerning the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary, the Mother of our Saviour, or the Holy Apostles 
 or Evangelists, or any of them," shall be fined, and if he 
 cannot pay the fine or will not, then he shall be whipped 
 and imprisoned. For a second ofifense the fine was 
 doubled, with whipping and imprisonment as an alter- 
 native; and for a third ofifense the punishment was for- 
 feiture of lands and goods and perpetual banishment from 
 the colony. 
 
 The third section was also restrictive, in that it forbade 
 persons to call one another names, as heretic, schismatic, 
 
Il6 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 idolater, Puritan, Presbyterian, Independent, Popish 
 priest, Jesuit, Jesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Ana- 
 baptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Roundhead, 
 Separatist, or any other name or term in a reproachful 
 manner, and the penalty was in this case fine. There was 
 nothing very heinous in some of these names. They are 
 good old honest names, and exactly describe what they 
 were meant to indicate. The enactment of such a law 
 shows how sensitive was the public feeling and how 
 keenly anxious Lord Baltimore was to avoid every occa- 
 sion of offense, and also it shows that the Act was a peace- 
 preserving measure, and not the lofty and disinterested 
 act of some one who had grasped, before his time, the 
 great principle and postulate of human freedom in the 
 realm of conscience. 
 
 The fourth section provides against Sabbath-breaking, 
 and forbids uncivil and disorderly recreation, also work- 
 ing on Sunday when "absolute necessity doth not re- 
 quire," and the punishment was to be fine or whipping. 
 
 The next, or fifth section, is the one that has called 
 forth so much comment and so great commendation in 
 America and in England, in the church and also in the 
 state. It begins with the proposition : that " Whereas the 
 inforcing of the conscience in the matters of religion 
 hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous conse- 
 quence in those commonwealths where it hath been 
 practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable govern- 
 ment of this province and the better to preserve mutual 
 love and unity among the inhabitants here." As regards 
 the first declaration about dangerous consequences, that 
 was exemplified on all hands. Archbishop Laud had 
 attempted it in England, the Roman Catholic princes had 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. 11/ 
 
 attempted it on the Continent, Charles the Ninth had 
 attempted it in France, the Presbyterians were now 
 attempting it in England, the awful Inquisition was at 
 this time attempting it everywhere, wherever the Roman 
 Church could force it upon the civil government, and the 
 Thirty Years' War, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 and the rack and the stake, and universal gloom had been 
 the consequences; surely dangerous enough. 
 
 But the whole animus of the law, legitimate but not 
 exalted, is expressed in the words next following, " for 
 the more quiet and peaceable government of this prov- 
 ince and the better to preserve nmtual love and unity 
 amongst the inhabitants here." The whole is a matter 
 of policy, good poHcy, it is true, but poUcy: the more 
 quiet and peaceable government. No recognition of a 
 man's inherent and inalienable right to worship God 
 according to the dictates of a man's own conscience. He 
 must profess to believe in Jesus Christ; so far must he be 
 orthodox. A Jew might be placed under the ban; a 
 Unitarian was liable to be punished with death and con- 
 fiscation of his goods, and his family left in poverty, the 
 goods to go to the proprietary. There was no pro- 
 tection for such. By the first clause of the Act they 
 were liable to punishment, and by this clause they might 
 be molested, disturbed at pleasure. 
 
 And this is all there is of this much-vaunted law. 
 Surely it must be because of a general poverty of claims 
 that so much is made of this one instance. There was 
 no religion in it whatever, no recognition of inherent 
 human rights, only a wise adaptation to an emergency 
 by a shrewd and observant man, who felt that the whole 
 drift of the times and the power of numbers were against 
 
1X8 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 him and the general policy of his administration. He on 
 the one side and the colonists on the other, each of free 
 will considered the other, and united to establish by 
 statute what had been from the beginning the common 
 practice of the province, a practice always rendered neces- 
 sary by imperative circumstances. 
 
 It was a useful law, too, for it provided a sufficient 
 answer in after-days to the charges made against the 
 succeeding Lord Baltimore, that the Roman Catholics 
 were unduly favored. He could point to this law as 
 establishing the administration of the colony. The Puri- 
 tans did not like it, so that when afterwards in 1654 they 
 had gotten control of the colony they annulled it, passing 
 a new law, in which both papists and prelatists, all persons 
 but themselves, were denied its benefits. The law, how- 
 ever, was renewed when the provincial government was 
 restored to Lord Baltimore. 
 
 Maryland has always occupied an honorable position 
 among the commonwealths, not only of America, but of 
 the world. We shall see hereafter the treatment the 
 Roman Catholics received after the Protestant revolution, 
 treatment wholly unjustifiable and wholly unnecessary 
 from any point of view, and so far Maryland's record is 
 blameworthy. But remembering the treatment of the 
 Puritans in Virginia, and of the papists, prelatists, witches 
 and Quakers in New England, and then observing what 
 her conduct was, we can but be astonished at the measure 
 of liberty she attained; for notwithstanding the universal 
 belief in witchcraft and the tortures to which suspected 
 persons were subjected in England as well as in America, 
 it is surprising how free her record is. And as concerns 
 Quakers, she was among the very first to accommodate 
 
THE LEGISLATION OF THE PROVINCE. II9 
 
 her laws to their pecuHar idiosyncrasies, and to so frame 
 her rules of procedure that they might live within her 
 borders in peace and enjoy the privileges of citizenship. 
 Her record is honorable, not, however, because she was 
 faultless according to the standard of this day; for in 
 those earlier days she had much to learn and much to 
 unlearn; but honorable because in all the great social 
 questions, no State or Territory has occupied higher 
 ground than she, and because, also, in the great develop- 
 ment that took place in both church and state matters 
 through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, her 
 position was always at the front. 
 
SEVENTH LECTURE. 
 
 The Protestant Revolution. 
 
 We have seen that after the year 1659 the troubles of 
 Maryland ceased, that is, those caused by the Protestant 
 faction that had been showing its spirit from time to time 
 since the year 1644. Its motives, it is true, were not 
 always avowedly religious, yet the probability is that that 
 was the string on which they played to arouse the ani- 
 mosities of the people. After 1659, however, when 
 Cromwell recognized the claims of Lord Baltimore and 
 required that his province be restored, comparative peace 
 reigned, hardly disturbed at all by the agitation and com- 
 plaints that were heard from the lower house of the 
 Assembly, presenting what they esteemed grievances. 
 And this lasted till the year 1689. Then, however, it was 
 broken, with very lamentable results for the proprietary. 
 
 Between these dates the first of those navigation acts 
 was passed, by which it was sought more and more 
 to bind the colonies to the mother country by unjust 
 exactions, restraining the freedom of commerce, shutting 
 up the ports of the world to colonial enterprise, forbid- 
 ding foreign vessels to frequent colonial ports, preventing 
 the building of ships. England, that at first neglected 
 her colonies, doing nothing for their planting, but leav- 
 ing everything to private enterprise, and allowing them 
 to languish, and probably astonished at last that they 
 continued to exist at all; afterwards, when the colonies 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 121 
 
 had grown by private thrift, intelligence and energy, 
 sought in every way to make them minister to her pros- 
 perity and aggrandisement. And so she pursued the 
 policy indicated. Fortunately for her, she began the 
 policy when the colonies were still comparatively weak 
 and the loss from the navigation act but little felt. Had 
 she waited till the colonial commerce had expanded to 
 large proportions the rebellion against her colonial sys- 
 tem would have been sharp and dangerous. As it was, 
 Massachusetts, that never had any love for the house of 
 Stuart, and always fostered a republican love of having 
 her own way, was forever irritating Charles the Second 
 by her evasions of the law and by her shrewd justifica- 
 tion of her conduct. 
 
 The year 1689, however, was big with results for Mary- 
 land. It will be remembered that in 1688 James the 
 Second had been compelled by his fears, which were only 
 too well founded, to flee from England and find his 
 refuge with the king of France. And this he had to do 
 because he had violated the constitution of England, and 
 introduced principles into the executive administration, 
 and practices into religion, that were dreaded and hated 
 by the English people; for he had attempted to nullify 
 the laws of England by his own proclamation founded 
 upon what he supposed his royal prerogative, and by 
 this means he had sought to introduce persons and 
 practices into the Church of England which the people 
 had cast oflf one hundred and fifty years before. 
 
 France had such a royal government at this time as 
 James desired, for when in the early days of Louis XIV. 
 the Council had attempted to consider one of his commu- 
 nications, he quickly informed them that his edicts were 
 
122 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 submitted not for consideration but to be registered. 
 James desired such regal independence as that. Louis 
 succeeded, and the results of his absolute tyranny were 
 found in the French Revolution one hundred and fifty 
 years later. The people, not having courage to resist 
 him then, had to rise in their power and crush out entirely 
 his system and his successors afterwards. The English 
 people, however, did their crushing at once, with the 
 result that James and the abominable principles he 
 attempted to establish, were forever ruled out of England. 
 Now this agitation in the English world of course 
 extended to the colonies. The strong feelings that were 
 excited at home were excited also here, while the frequency 
 of communication kept the colonies posted as to the 
 progress of events. The ferment of feeling was known 
 and sympathized with, while the hope of relief in the 
 coming over of William the Stadtholder, from Holland, 
 was soon known in the colonies. Maryland was pecu- 
 liarly circumstanced in the matter, for she was the only 
 one of all the colonies whose proprietary or other chief 
 administrator was of the same church with James. This 
 fact had immense influence in exciting the interest of the 
 people of Maryland in the progress of afifairs; for though 
 Charles Lord Baltimore was known to be wise and con- 
 siderate, and the people had from time to time declared 
 their appreciation of him and of the method he had pur- 
 sued in the government of the province, yet because he 
 was of the same faith and practice with his royal master 
 he now became the subject of suspicion, and they were 
 ready to believe anything that the wildest imagination 
 could invent. Outrages were reported, tyrannical con- 
 duct was charged, and deadly intentions were said to be 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 1 23 
 
 meditated, if not by Lord Baltimore, at least by those 
 who were of the same faith with him in the colony. 
 Commendations by a people of their rulers, however, are 
 not always to be taken at their face value; heavy dis- 
 counts have often to be allowed. While the people were 
 commending Lord Baltimore they were also approach- 
 ing James with fulsome eulogy, congratulating him upon 
 the birth of his son, wishing long life and peace; yet as 
 soon as might be they rejoiced in the downfall of James, 
 and did their utmost to overthrow their own proprietary. 
 
 Unfortunately for Lord Baltimore in this emergency, 
 when William and Mary were established on the throne, 
 and their title had been officially proclaimed, and they 
 stood forth before England and the world as the defenders 
 of the Protestant faith. Lord Baltimore, through no 
 fault of his own, but through the untoward death of his 
 messenger, was very slow in proclaiming them. The 
 result of all these things was The Protestant Revolution. 
 
 What was this? The records of the province are at 
 fault here, for there is a gap reaching down to the year 
 1692. But from what is known we learn that, like as in 
 all such periods of transition, when men are excited by 
 any cause, the citizens of the province bound themselves 
 in an association to break up the government of Lord 
 Baltimore, and to bring about the establishment of Mary- 
 land as a royal colony, with the king occupying the 
 relation to the colony that up to this time the proprietary 
 had held. The object of the association was to agitate, 
 and this they did, preying without doubt upon the people's 
 fears, denouncing to Marylanders the same condition 
 which James had attempted to bring about in Endand. 
 They did this by reporting among the thinly settled dis- 
 
124 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 tricts of one part of the province outrages as committed 
 by the reHgious friends of the proprietary in another part; 
 for owing to the difficulty of communication and the 
 small degree of intercourse, it was easy to start an alarm 
 which it would take a long while to allay. Indian out- 
 rages also were reported, and the association of the 
 papists with the Indians in conspiracy. All such fears 
 were the more readily excited by the horrible atrocities 
 which in 1685 had followed upon the Revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, when four hundred thousand French 
 Protestants, solely for their religion, were driven forth in 
 the name of religion — the Roman — from house and 
 home and country, dragooned to death, or stripped 
 of all property and sent forth penniless. 
 
 All such things were esteemed possible in that day, 
 the times were rife with them, and if they were not done 
 by Lord Baltimore, his abstention from them was, to tlie 
 minds of the people of the province, an accident of his 
 disposition or of his circumstances. The spirit was 
 believed to be of the essence of his church and liable to 
 show itself in every member. We may see differently 
 now, but there were many circumstances then to justify 
 apprehension. For Lord Baltimore as a man the people 
 might have great respect; but for Lord Baltimore's 
 church, and for him as a member of it, the people not 
 only had no respect, but great fears and anxieties. This 
 probably suggests the leading cause of the Protestant 
 Revolution., 
 
 The revolution consisted in getting the government 
 of the colony out of Lord Baltimore's hands into 
 those of the king and queen; and the reason why the 
 people sought to make the change was that they had 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 12$ 
 
 faith in the one and they had not faith in the other. 
 When the matter was brought before the king he con- 
 sented to the desire of the people, and the government 
 passed over to his hands. All Lord Baltimore's private 
 rights, however, in the property of the province, were fully 
 respected. The soil was his, the quit-rents or ground- 
 rents were his, manors held for himself and vacant lands 
 were his. The port dues were his also, and one-half of 
 the tobacco dues, or duties on tobacco exported. When 
 the revolution took place, the people claimed that these 
 exactions went with the govemmetit, and were not to be 
 accorded to the proprietary as a private right. They had 
 been granted by acts of Assembly, and were no part of 
 the proprietary's charter prerogatives. The king, how- 
 ever, after a hearing of the case, decided in favor of 
 Lord Baltimore. Private rights were in this way gen- 
 erously respected, the king acting as Lord Baltimore's 
 friend and restraining the impetuosity of the people. 
 
 But all the functions of government passed out of his 
 hands. The governor was appointed by the king, and all 
 the officers of the colony. All laws had to be submitted 
 to the king for his approval. The courts ran in his 
 name; the assemblies were called under his writ. All 
 the functions of government were performed by him. 
 It was a great change, it is true, but whether it was such 
 that the people who lived quietly on their several farms 
 could observe it, is a question. It gave them, however, 
 a sense of greater security, for now they could have 
 faith in the officials of the province, which they seem not 
 to have had before. Beside that we can feel that a 
 province of the English kingdom should be under the 
 king of England. There was a fitness in it. And doubt- 
 
126 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 less they had some such feeUng in that day. Certainly 
 by the charter allegiance to the king was saved, and all 
 the residents of the province were declared to be liege 
 subjects of the king. But yet the proprietary was " abso- 
 lute lord," and fealty was pledged to him, and the king 
 in all current administration, was not known. 
 
 We of this day have exceedingly little respect for 
 kingly government ; but for feudal government and subor- 
 dination, as of hereditary right to a fellow-subject, we 
 have far less respect. It would be an anachronism now, 
 and it was becoming rapidly so at that time. The be- 
 heading of Charles the First and the abolishment of the 
 House of Lords, the voluntary recall of Charles the 
 Second, and the practical expulsion of James the Second, 
 were successively fatal blows to feudalism; and the people 
 of Maryland doubtless felt a relief when the feudal over- 
 lordship was done away with. It is true, it was in some 
 degree restored again after 171 5, but it never became 
 what it had been before. Royal and parliamentary inter- 
 vention in the aflfairs of Maryland, as well as of the other 
 colonies, was far more frequent and direct after the 
 restoration of the proprietary government than it had 
 been before. 
 
 The thing most frequently spoken of in connection 
 with the royal government of the colony is the change 
 that took place in church matters, the whole institution 
 as regards religion having been changed at that time. 
 Before 1689 religion had been neglected. Doubtless 
 many good Christians were found in the colony, but the 
 population was so thinly scattered, and the various 
 denominations so numerous, that the support of a min- 
 istrv and the keeping open of places of worship, were 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 12/ 
 
 exceedingly difficult. There were a few churches and 
 chapels of various denominations of Protestants in widely 
 distant places, and the Jesuit fathers had their chapels 
 in different parts of the colony. But religion was neces- 
 sarily neglected, as the ministers, except the Roman 
 Catholic priests, had to depend upon their private 
 estates for their living, lands which they had probably 
 taken up under the conditions of plantation. Lord Bal- 
 timore stated that in his testimony before the Lords of 
 Plantations concerning the Church of England clergy in 
 1676; nor is there any reason to believe that it was not 
 true of all other Protestant ministers, what few there 
 were within the colony. The Jesuits had their extensive 
 landed property in different parts of the colony, and they 
 had also their lay coadjutors to attend to their affairs 
 of business. 
 
 As far as is known, and as was declared at the time, 
 Lord Baltimore did nothing for religion, except for his 
 own church. One of the charges against him in 1690 
 was that of erecting and founding chapels for the popish 
 superstition, to the encouragement of popery and the 
 subversion of the Protestant religion. And another was 
 that he took advantage of escheats of lands bequeathed 
 and devised to the use of the Protestant ministry. There 
 is no evidence whatever that any sums out of the 
 revenues of the province, were bestowed in that way. 
 As a loyal member of his church, he could not consist- 
 ently help along the heretical faith, and as is evidenced 
 by the long list of names in the "Act Concerning Re- 
 ligion," the denominations were numerous; for that list 
 probably indicates the composition of the population. 
 In 1676 Lord Baltimore testified that the nonconformists 
 
128 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 in the colony outnumbered both the Church of England 
 people and the Roman Catholics together by three to 
 one. As he had been resident in the colony for a number 
 of years just previous to this time, his testimony bore the 
 full weight of authority. As is known also, he returned 
 to the colony in 1680, and remained there about four 
 years, so that he was personally responsible for any 
 neglect on the part of the government of the province 
 in matters of religion. And the same is true of the 
 matter of education. 
 
 For religion and education were both very little cared 
 for, and the result was a great prevalence of immorality ; 
 for though irreligious men, unbelievers or non-believers, 
 sceptics or agnostics, may scorn the claims of the chiu*ch, 
 yet all men know, who are at all in the tide of life, that 
 the ministrations of the church, and the influence of the 
 Gospel through those ministrations, have a powerful 
 effect upon every community for peace and good order. 
 Nor are we called on merely to suppose that immorality 
 abounded. The evidence is sufficient of its prevalence 
 and of its gross character. It might be inferred from the 
 general experience, for in all new communities, before 
 order has settled down into a definite habit, vice flour- 
 ishes. First adventurers that break away from the 
 restraints of settled society to brave new things in a wil- 
 derness do not, as a rule, represent the religious part of 
 a community. Religion only comes to be considered 
 when the first rush has subsided, and a sense of a fixed 
 establishment has been reached; because religion belongs 
 to the more thoughtful and meditative elements of the 
 human mind and heart, however much it may and must 
 show itself in the active relations of the humian life. 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. I2Q 
 
 But over and beyond this anticipation, we know Mary- 
 land at this time to have been a very immoral commu- 
 nity.^ The Rev. Mr. Yeo, who wrote at the time Lord 
 Baltimore went to England in 1676, and whose letter 
 called out the testimony of Lord Baltimore, as given 
 above, reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the 
 colony was a Sodom of uncleanness and a pesthouse of 
 iniquity, and he ascribes as the cause, that the ministry 
 were not provided with a support, and so could not live 
 in the colony. An immense deal has been made of his 
 call for an established support for the ministry, as if it 
 were the voice of narrow ecclesiastical bigotry; and even 
 McMahon holds Mr. Yeo up to reprobation, and points 
 out the example of the Master who came down from 
 heaven on His mission of mercy without providing for 
 himself an' established support. We need only say that 
 such an argument from such a precedent, hardly proves 
 an abundance either of learning or of logic in Divine 
 matters. That something should have been appropriated 
 out of the increasing revenues of the province, either by 
 the proprietary or by the Assembly, for the support of 
 religion was surely no unreasonable or extravagant 
 demand; and if not for God's sake and man's eternal 
 good, at any rate as a matter of good policy, and as a 
 police measure for securing the welfare of the colony 
 It would have been well for Lord Baltimore had he made 
 the provision. As reported by Mr. Yeo, there were about 
 twenty thousand persons living in the colony at that time. 
 Nor does the testimony of Mr. Yeo stand alone; for 
 m the year preceding the Protestant Revolution we find 
 the president of the Assembly drawing a picture of the 
 vice of the colony in the matter of drunkenness, adultery, 
 
130 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Sabbath-breaking and swearing, which being independent 
 evidence, and that of a layman speaking in his official 
 character, and following a dozen years after Mr. Yeo's, 
 confirms all that he had said. The state of the province 
 was wretched in the extreme. Further evidence, also, of 
 a confirmatory character, is given in the act of 1692 
 providing for an established support of the church; for 
 among the functions of the vestry, as then ordered, was 
 one providing for the suppression of adultery within 
 the several parishes, a function that was performed ; while 
 the several parishes show on their records how great the 
 evil was. For in one parish, and that in some respects 
 exceptionally well placed for moral living, there were 
 ten separate cases of gross immorality passed upon in 
 one month in the year 1698. 
 
 Lord Baltimore's administration had evidently done 
 nothing for the moral welfare of the colony. In this 
 respect his government was a failure. The ministers of 
 his own church ministered to an insignificant minority, — 
 one to thirty, the ratio was reported to be in 1681, — ^while 
 tlie great body of the people were deprived of ministerial 
 oversight and care. He may have thought them fools 
 and blind for rejecting the ministrations that satisfied 
 him, but nevertheless they did. And it proved bad 
 policy on his part, though it may have satisfied his con- 
 science, to have consented to this neglect. An estab- 
 lished support, something out of the revenues for the 
 maintenance of religion, would have promoted the welfare 
 of the colony, and, as it proved, his own. His absolute 
 indifference to this matter, with the consequent results, 
 was doubtless one cause why the people were willing to 
 see his government overthrown and the administration 
 pass into the hands of the king. 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. I3I 
 
 For in considering the law of 1692 and its subse- 
 quent amendments till 1702, we must always remember 
 that it was the act of the people and the people only; and 
 not only so, but that what was done was not that which 
 the majority of the people would have desired, but what 
 they felt was the best their circumstances permitted them 
 to do. For the Church of England which they estab- 
 lished, was the church of but a part of one-fourth of the 
 people; the three-fourths being made up of noncon- 
 formists of diverse names and principles, who had during 
 the last forty years done what they could, more than 
 once, to put down, not only popery, but prelacy as well. 
 The act was passed at a time when all the freeholders of 
 the colony had the right of franchise; so that the As- 
 sembly was not a packed one, but represented all the 
 most intelHgent classes of the people. 
 
 Their act, therefore, must have been contrary to their 
 preferences, and could they have avoided it they would. 
 They did not love the Church of England, nor did that 
 Church love them. They had been subjected for many 
 years in England, and especially since the Restoration, 
 to many and grievous penalties. But something had to 
 be done, and established maintenance had to be pro- 
 vided that they might have ministerial supervision at all. 
 They were broken up themselves into many names. 
 Maryland was now a royal colony, and the establishment 
 of any one of their different denominations, was an entire 
 impossibility; and yet the need was crying and imperative. 
 They met their difficulty, therefore, in the only possible 
 way; they provided a maintenance for the clergy of the 
 Church of England. 
 
1^2 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 For that was all that was done. It was not a state 
 church they set up. No church functionary, clerical or 
 lay, had any part in the administration of the colony, 
 saving in the matter of suppressing immorality. No right 
 to a seat in the Assembly was granted, no possession 
 of influence or direction in testamentary matters, no 
 voice in the matter of marriages, no independent courts 
 in which to try their own causes, not even the power of 
 disciplining the clergy themselves. No spiritual court 
 of any kind whatever, nothing analogous to the efiforts 
 of the Roman Church fifty years before, nothing com- 
 mensurate with the influence and power exercised by the 
 nonconformist churches in the northern colonies. It was 
 in no degree a state church. The state provided main- 
 tenance, and in return exercised jurisdiction so far as to 
 say who should be settled in the parishes, and to super- 
 vise accounts, so as to know whether the money appro- 
 priated was properly spent. It even attempted at one time, 
 in violation of the fundamental principles of the ministry^ 
 to exercise the power of spiritual discipline; but this the 
 clergy resisted, and all discipline was held in abeyance. 
 All attempts also to set a Bishop over the church, were 
 steadily resisted and defeated. The state exacted a 
 heavy compensation for the maintenance it bestowed. 
 Every man, also, in the province, from the Governor 
 down, enjoyed the privilege of indulging in charges and 
 complaints against the clergy, a luxury of which very 
 many constantly availed themselves. 
 
 Doubtless the men of that day knew what they were 
 doing, and they exercised the good judgment that their 
 knowledge of affairs and the exigencies of the times 
 
 called for; and it is absurd for us at this day to question 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 1 33 
 
 or fault them in the Hght of our present surroundings. 
 For what might be wisdom now, in the midst of our 
 dense and well-ordered society, would have been fool- 
 ishness then. The establishment of the church was a 
 police measure, and a very good police measure it was; 
 for it did what could not otherwise be done. It planted 
 in thirty-one different centers in the colony a house 
 wherein high moral truths were taught — had to be taught 
 — both from the pulpit and from the reading-desk, and in 
 this way it created a standard of good living. It also 
 selected a council for morality in all these places, and 
 bound the members to see to the morals of the people; 
 and while the minister, or chief vestryman, as he was called, 
 was to reprove, rebuke, exhort, the members of this 
 council, or vestry, were to have the ability to enforce the 
 colonial laws of right living. Observe, I do not speak 
 of the high and holy functions of the church, but only 
 of its establishment in the colony and what it wrought in 
 the minds of the people. 
 
 The system certainly had its defects, as all systems 
 have; and society also afterwards outgrew it, so that it 
 became an anachronism and was removed; but in its 
 earlier day, and through very much of the colonial period, 
 it was an unspeakable blessing and accomplished high 
 purposes. It is notable, too, that though at any time, 
 down to the Revolution, it could have been abrogated, or 
 could have been rendered inoperative by the rescinding 
 of the provision for the annual tax, yet it was not only 
 continued to the Revolution, but was shown very marked 
 favor when the necessity arose for its repeal. 
 
 Let us now consider the features of the law itself. 
 And first of the assessment laid upon the whole body 
 
134 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 of the people for the support of the church. This was a 
 poll-tax of forty pounds of tobacco, which was the cur- 
 rency of the colony, laid upon the whole labor-producing 
 part of the population, white male citizens, slaves, both 
 male and female, except those too old or too young 
 to work, and a man's sons of age to endure labor. This 
 was the taxable portion of the community. Ministers 
 holding benefices were exempted, and also paupers. 
 This forty pounds tax has excited a great deal of com- 
 ment, and was through all the colonial period looked 
 upon by certain classes, especially the Roman Catholics 
 and the Quakers, as a grievance. It was, however, the 
 main feature of the law, the very essence of the enact- 
 ment, and if the law was at all necessary this tax 
 was necessary. It appeared to bear heavily, and was one 
 of those evident things that anybody could see. The 
 value of the church, however, upon the welfare of the 
 colony was not so palpable, and as a consequence people 
 did not see the advisability of this demand. Only the 
 two classes named above, however, made any very stren- 
 uous opposition ; the first of which believed that no min- 
 istry was entitled to the name but their own, all the 
 rest being heretics, while the second did not believe in a 
 paid ministry at all. Forty pounds was the amount in 
 the beginning while the population was small. After- 
 wards, when it had increased very greatly, the amount 
 was reduced to thirty pounds. It may be of some com- 
 fort to some persons to know that, with scarcely an 
 exception, no one could live in luxury on the income of 
 his parish. 
 
 Churches, also, were built by a tax laid, but in this 
 case by a special levy. Though this was not under the 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 1 35 
 
 law, but by act of the Assembly in each particular case. 
 Current expenses, also, were in this way provided for. 
 The voluntary system was hardly known. Gifts were 
 sometimes made by individuals, and sometimes very 
 handsome ones. Most of the glebes came by gift, and 
 many ornaments for the church building. But the 
 great reliance was upon the state and the revenue that 
 came by the tax ; a good system as far as it went, but not 
 adapted to lift the people to any degree of fervor in the 
 cause of religion. 
 
 The law had its drawbacks, as all compromise measures 
 have, and this law was in a pronounced degree a com- 
 promise measure. Probably not one person in five was 
 pleased with it. Its chief drawback was the attempt under 
 the law, as at first passed, to restrict the liberty of wor- 
 ship, which did not of necessity belong to the measure. 
 Rather it was a kind of pungent spice thrown in by the 
 spirit of the times. It had to be abandoned, however, 
 as the discussion proceeded; for, as we have seen, it 
 required ten years to bring the law into such shape that 
 it could meet with the king's approval. The king had 
 more liberality than most men in his day, owing to his 
 Dutch training as well as his natural endowments. Eng- 
 lish thought also wonderfully developed at this time, at 
 any rate among statesmen, as the Toleration Act indi- 
 cates. There was no necessity for any restriction upon 
 any form of worship, and the right was finally conceded 
 in all cases save that of the Roman Catholics, who, how- 
 ever unreasonably, were dreaded all through this time. 
 The privilege of private worship was accorded them in 
 their various chapels, which were found probably on all 
 estates. But open church doors and invitations to enter, 
 
136 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 were forbidden. And this feeling continued down till 
 near the close of the colonial period, and until the great 
 thought of the province was fully engaged in other mat- 
 ters connected with the approaching separation of the 
 colony from the mother country. Proselyting was 
 dreaded. Protestant children were withdrawn from the 
 influence of the Roman Catholic Church, as when a 
 Protestant father dying, the mother was of the Roman 
 faith. The importation of servants of the Roman faith 
 was restricted; the privilege of exercising the franchise 
 was denied, not directly, but by the imposition of test 
 oaths which no faithful Roman Cath^Dlic could take. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, in regard to all the oaths 
 imposed, that such imposition was not the act of the 
 Church of England as at this time established. That 
 church was in a small minority. It was not established 
 by the act of its own members. All the stringent 
 measures, like the act of establishment, the forty pounds 
 per poll under it, the restraints put upon the Roman 
 Church, the imposition of oaths, were the act of the 
 people irrespective of church connection. The oaths 
 were imposed on vestrymen because they had certain civil 
 duties to perform, and were, as vestrymen, State officials. 
 The vestrymen need not be members of the Church of 
 England, as was officially determined in one interpreta- 
 tion of the law, and sometimes they were not of that 
 church. The same oaths were also imposed on all 
 officers, and that not only in the colony, but in England 
 as well, being only of English enactment, and extended 
 to the. colonies in the agitation and anxiety of the day. 
 
 Some one speaks of Anglican toleration, and contrasts 
 it with the toleration of the proprietaries, but the term is 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 1 3/ 
 
 radically deceptive. The church was only made use of 
 because it alone was available for the purposes of the 
 people. This, however, is to be said, that having become 
 established, it gradually drew into it a very large part 
 of the colonial population, at any rate of the influential 
 section; though to its shame and ultimate misfortune it 
 neglected the great body of the people, failing to grasp 
 a splendid opportunity. 
 
 The oaths spoken of above were these: First, I do 
 sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and 
 bear true allegiance to his majesty King William. 
 
 Secondly, I do swear that I do from my heart abhor, 
 detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, the damnable 
 doctrine and position that princes excommunicated and 
 deprived by the Pope or any authority of the See of 
 Rome, may be deposed or murthered by their subjects or 
 any other whatsoever. 
 
 Thirdly, And I do declare that no foreign prince, 
 person, prelate or potentate, hath or ought to have any 
 jurisdiction, power, superiority, primacy or authority, 
 ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm of England 
 or the dominions thereto belonging. 
 
 Fourthly, The following test also was required of every 
 church officer: We, the subscribers, do declare that we 
 do not believe that there is any Transubstantiation in ye 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of 
 bread and wine, at or after consecration thereof by any 
 person or persons whatsoever. 
 
 The third and fourth of these were intended to be test 
 oaths, and they were only English acts extended to the 
 colony. The first and second were certainly legitimate, 
 and what every state is justified in requiring, — the oath 
 
138 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 of allegiance to the reigning king, and the declaration 
 that no man, citizen or foreigner, has any right what- 
 soever, derived in any way, to murder him. Whether 
 such oaths were required, the men of that day ought to 
 have known better than we of this. Certainly their 
 apprehensions called them out. They were, however, 
 no part of "Anglican toleration," for the Anglican 
 Church had nothing whatever to do with them. They 
 were political measures. 
 
 In another respect, also, the time of the Protestant 
 Revolution is notable: that then first education came to 
 be considered as a popular necessity. There is no evi- 
 dence that during the whole of the period down to this 
 time any consideration was given to the subject. Some 
 few of the wealthier citizens, probably, sent their sons 
 abroad for training, as they did later in the colony; and 
 of course educated parents saw that their children ac- 
 quired at least the rudiments of common learning. But 
 we can only suppose this. Education was not a subject 
 in which the authorities showed any interest. As we 
 have seen, even that influence which is exerted by a 
 weekly hearing of a man of intelligence preach, was 
 in a great measure denied them through the want of 
 provision for the support of such teachers. It requires 
 but a slight effort to conceive of the wretched condition 
 of the colony, the rudeness, ignorance and depravity that 
 must have been widespread everywhere within its borders. 
 
 But with the setting up of the royal authority in place 
 of the proprietary's, a change took place. The admin- 
 istration was exercised not for private revenue, but for 
 public advantage. Governor Nicholson, who was a 
 man of a great deal of force and energy, no sooner 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. 1 39 
 
 came into the province than he began to agitate for the 
 establishment of schools, and so far succeeded, that in 
 1696 King William's School at Annapolis, out of which 
 St. John's College has since grown, was founded, and 
 provision was made for the support of this and other 
 schools throughout the province. By a later law, passed 
 in 1723, one school was to be opened as near as possible 
 in the center of each county. Beside that, Dr. Bray, 
 who was the first commissary of the colony, that is, 
 presiding officer in church affairs, strove to establish 
 libraries in every parish, and though they were under 
 the control and for the especial use of the rector, doubt- 
 less did much good. 
 
 The change, therefore, that took place in 1689, by 
 which the government of the proprietary was overthrown 
 and that of the king set up in its place, notwithstanding 
 all the animadversion that has been heaped upon it, 
 accomplished large benefits for the colony. One-man 
 power has never been advisable, and one-man power, 
 when the power is exercised to produce the largest 
 revenues for the man, has always crippled the energies 
 and narrowed the minds of those who have been sub- 
 jected to it. Say what we please in eulogy of Charles 
 Lord Baltimore and his predecessors, Maryland was their 
 private property. All ofiicers were appointed and re- 
 moved by them, all laws were vetoed that did not meet 
 with their approval. The province had been established 
 for revenue and it had been administered for revenue; 
 and granting all integrity, no man whose mind is fixed 
 on revenue, is capable of taking exalted views of men 
 or measures. The commercial standpoint is not a good 
 one from which to look at anything. Self must always 
 
140 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 be dissociated if high purposes are to be apprehended or 
 achieved. In the case of the Lords Baltimore, for the 
 most part it was revenue drawn from the province to be 
 spent in Europe, — absenteeism of the most pronounced 
 kind. 
 
 Possibly the great body of the colonists did not know 
 what the ailment was with which the province was 
 afflicted. But the spirit of liberty and of larger things 
 was abroad in the English world. Not only had a tyrant 
 been overthrown in England, but a new principle had, in 
 his overthrow, been definitely established. The corner- 
 stone of a republic had been laid, so that though a life 
 tenure was granted to his majesty, and the privilege of 
 hereditary succession recognized, yet he ruled by act of 
 Parliament, and he knew that that was his right and no 
 longer the old myth of a right divine. 
 
 And that was the spirit that influenced Maryland at this 
 time. No longer were they satisfied with an ^-absolute 
 lord" that exercised dominion by virtue of a charter 
 granted by an expelled family; but they wanted to enter 
 the current of English life. And therefore, though they 
 had nothing of a tyrannical character that could be 
 charged against Lord Baltimore, and the charges that 
 were made were in some respects exaggerations, yet 
 what they did was legitimate, — it was human nature 
 breaking loose from old shackles, sloughing off its old 
 skin, and seeking association in a larger world. And 
 church establishment for the correction of evils, educa- 
 tion for the greater elevation of the mind, test acts 
 against those who were dreaded, however unjustly, as 
 ministers and upholders of ancient tyranny, oath of 
 abhorrency as denouncing a principle that had been 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. I4I 
 
 avowed in other days, — all these were but incidental to 
 the new Hfe upon which the colony was now entering. 
 It is true that in 171 5, some twenty-six years after this 
 time, the proprietary government was re-established, 
 but every one that is familiar with the two periods knows 
 that the tone, spirit, character of the people in the later 
 differed widely from what they had been in the 
 earlier. Maryland, instead of being merely the province 
 and private estate of Lord Baltimore, with the feudal 
 right of over-lordship, became in all the great questions 
 that agitated the English world, part of the great British 
 empire. 
 
EIGHTH LECTURE. 
 
 From the Restoration of the Proprietary Govern- 
 ment TILL THE Close of the Colonial Period. 
 
 We have now come to the time in the history of the 
 province when another great change was made in its 
 government. The royal administration does not seem to 
 have been marked by any unusual degree of prosperity 
 or of growth, though during the period matters generally 
 moved smoothly. Any contentions that may have been 
 in the colony, however much they may have disturbed 
 society then, were not of a character to outlast their day 
 or leave permanent marks behind them. But in 171 5 
 great changes occurred, being nothing less important 
 than the restoration of the old feudal form of govern- 
 ment to the family of the Calverts, in whose hands it 
 was to continue till the American Revolution; though it 
 is true the last proprietary, Henry Harford, did not bear 
 the name or title of the family. 
 
 What brought about this change was that the family 
 of Lord Baltimore had in the meanwhile reverted to the 
 first faith of the family and become members of the 
 Church of England. For this change they have been 
 very severely dealt with by some historians, though why 
 one hardly knows. The first Lord Baltimore, George, 
 changed his faith, and it was said by Archbishop Abbot 
 that he did the same three several times before he 
 became finally settled, and certainly he was not called 
 on to suffer martyrdom for so doing. Rather time and 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. I43 
 
 circumstance proved very auspicious; whether by his 
 selection or not is not known. The second Lord Balti- 
 more seems to have been a voluntary convert also, 
 though but little is known, if anything, as to his age when 
 he left the church of his fathers, or what circumstances 
 influenced him. Certainly, however, he was not called 
 on to suffer martyrdom. 
 
 But when Benedict Leonard renounced his father^s 
 faith and became a Protestant, interested and pecuniary 
 motives were imputed to him. He made the change 
 during his father's lifetime, receiving from his father 
 a very severe rebuke, together with the cutting off of 
 the allowance which up to this time he had received. 
 He remained faithful, however, and as a compensation 
 for his father's severity received from the Queen a pension 
 during his father's life, and also five hundred pounds 
 sterling from Governor Hart out of the emokmients of 
 his office in Maryland. His children also were brought 
 up in the faith of the Church of England. That un- 
 worthy motives influenced him we have no right to say, 
 for we know nothing whatever about it. The days of 
 Queen Anne were days of great religious controversy, 
 and some of the best works in the English language on 
 the subject of religion were written at that time. There 
 is no reason whatever to believe that the son of Charles 
 Calvert was not rationally convinced -by the arguments 
 that convinced so many others. 
 
 His father died in the year 1715, having enjoyed 
 ample revenues from the province as well as from his 
 other estates. Immediately his son solicited King George 
 to restore to him the province, with all the extensive 
 franchises of the proprietary. This the king granted, 
 
144 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 but Lord Baltimore had hardly received these when he 
 also passed away, leaving the family title and all its 
 honors and wealth to a minor child, Charles. This, I 
 say, was in the year 171 5, and from this tim.e on till the 
 American Revolution Maryland continued under the 
 proprietary government. Becoming Protestants, they 
 were no longer feared. Maryland, however, was a dif- 
 ferent Maryland from what it had been twenty-six years 
 before. It had grown into vigorous youth; it had 
 become conscious of new rights; it felt itself a part of the 
 great British empire; it claimed the rights of British 
 subjects; it felt itself, as a province, superior to a pro- 
 prietor who was himself, like all its citizens, subjects of 
 the head of that empire. That explains why it had so 
 many and such long contentions v/ith the proprietaries 
 till the close of the colonial days. It was conscious of 
 rights and it strove to maintain them, though it had to 
 do so often in defiance of ridicule and opposition from 
 those who, as officials, represented the proprietary. It 
 was a constant series of contentions which, begun with 
 a definite purpose, never ceased till that purpose was 
 achieved. For this was the characteristic of Maryland 
 legislation, that what the people once set their minds on 
 achieving was sure at last to be obtained. 
 
 The character of the colonial Assembly of Maryland 
 must here be considered. The lower house w^as com- 
 posed of those elected by the people as their represen- 
 tatives. At this time the suffrage was not universal; for 
 beside the law of 1681, by which the franchise was 
 limited to freeholders, the test oath, which could be 
 required of any one offering to exercise any of the privi- 
 leges of the franchise, shut out all consistent and faith- 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. I45 
 
 ful Roman Catholics. They could not be faithful to 
 their church and at the same time deny its great leading 
 doctrine and the supremacy which the head of their 
 church claimed as of right to possess. Often, doubtless, 
 too, the members of the Assembly were untrained men; 
 for the standard of education was never high in the 
 colony. But they were evidently men with definite 
 ideas and strong will, and they pursued their ends with 
 a persistency that always secured success. 
 
 For this purpose a proprietary government was more 
 propitious than a royal one would have been. For the 
 difference was immense between contending for certain 
 rights which an English baron would deny, and con- 
 tending with the sovereign of the British empire. It is 
 true they came at last to contend not only with the 
 British sovereign and the British parliament, but with 
 the whole power of Great Britain. But that came after- 
 wards when they had for years been contending for their 
 rights as Englishmen, with their immediate over-lord. 
 Besides, they had a fight of their own to make, whereas 
 had it been a royal government that was immediately 
 over them they would have been only one among many 
 colonies. A proprietary government, therefore, afforded 
 them excellent exercise. It was not too much for them 
 in their earlier days. It hardened their civil muscles, 
 expanded their patriotic chest, and in time they became 
 athletes, ready and able to meet any foe. 
 
 This of the lower house. The upper house was a veiy 
 different body. It was not elective, but appointed by 
 Lord Baltimore. It was composed of various colonial 
 officers, whose salaries were dependent upon the fees of 
 their offices. Their interests, therefore, were just the 
 
146 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Opposite of those of the people. Dependent upon Lord 
 Baltimore for their places, they became custodians of his 
 claims and interests; and enjoying advantages according 
 to the liberality of the monetary policy pursued, they 
 were ever ready to resist the attempts of the lower house 
 to limit fees, to control taxes, to scan appropriations. 
 
 And this position was recognized all the time. Through 
 many years in every way they restricted and suppressed, 
 as far as possible, every attempt of the lower house to 
 extend its functions. Beside that, they bore themselves 
 quite loftily, not merely antagonizing, but scorning and 
 ridiculing the lower house. They stood for Lord Balti- 
 more and they stood for themselves. They were gen- 
 erally men of education and men of position, sometimes 
 men of exalted merits; and doubtless the difficulties they 
 put in the way of the lower house had the effect of rec- 
 tifying their projects, so that what was finally done was 
 generally much better done than if there had been no 
 objection. For while our ends may in the main be 
 right, yet they are seldom so entirely so that criticism 
 may not find some rational ground of objection. As it 
 happened, also, the claims of the lower house often 
 trenched upon the emoluments of the members of the 
 upper house, and their criticisms were the more pungent 
 on that account. The lower house, too, made a broad 
 sweep in their claims, insisting that they occupied in 
 Maryland the position of the House of Commons in 
 England, and that the whole financial policy of the colony 
 was in their hands, in that all money bills must originate 
 in their house. And they carried this claim, so far that 
 during the French War, after the first year, 1754, nothing 
 was done by Maryland, because the colony would only 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. I47 
 
 grant a requisition on its own terms, which terms the 
 governor and the upper house would not approve. 
 
 Before going into specifications in this matter, let us 
 look at the men who ruled over the province as lords 
 proprietary through this time. We have seen that the 
 aged Charles died in 171 5, having remained true to his 
 religious convictions through the twenty-six years since 
 he had been deprived of the administration. All that 
 can be said of him is that he was evidently a very re- 
 spectable man, and so bore himself towards the people of 
 the colony, whether among them or in England, that he 
 won their regard. This they testified publicly. Beyond 
 this, however, they did not go, and as soon as trouble 
 arose it became evident he had not constrained their 
 loyalty; for they cast off their allegiance and were more 
 severe toward him than even the Protestant king of Eng- 
 land was, wishing to take from him not only the govern- 
 ment, but also some of his private resources from the 
 colony. 
 
 His son, Benedict Leonard, was proprietor so short a 
 time that the colonists knew scarcely anything of him, 
 nor did he leave sufficient memorials to enable us to 
 form a definite opinion of him. Certainly he did not 
 distinguish himself by any marked excellence either of 
 mind or heart. 
 
 His son again, Charles, the fifth Lord Baltimore, and 
 fourth proprietary, is better known, having been promi- 
 nent in the social circles of England as a follower of 
 Frederick the Prince of Wales, who, it will be remem- 
 bered, set up a rival court to that of his father, George 
 the Second. Not that his prominence bestows any honor 
 upon him, for the prince used him in some of his dis- 
 
148 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 reputable conduct as a go-between, and afterwards, when 
 his conduct caused great social scandal, he disavowed 
 Lord Baltimore, leaving to Baltimore the further dis- 
 reputable part of attempting to screen himself and the 
 prince by disavowing all that had been done. He was 
 something of a traveler also. He made a trip to Russia, 
 which was a distant point in those days, and on his way 
 back stopped witn the Crown Prince of Prussia, after- 
 wards Frederick the Great, upon whom he made a very 
 agreeable impression. He made also some pretensions 
 to learning, and withal seems to have been a good- 
 natured, agreeable kind of a man in society. 
 
 He did not command any respect, however, either for 
 his abilities, acquirements or character. Walpole once 
 described him as "the best and honestest man in the 
 world, with a good deal of jumbled knowledge"; and 
 again on another occasion, as "poor Lord Baltimore, a 
 very good-natured, weak, honest man." The king also 
 once described him in conversation: "There is my Lord 
 Baltimore, who thinks he understands everything and 
 understands nothing, who wants to be well with both 
 courts and is well with neither, and, entre nous, is a little 
 mad." 
 
 This is the man, then, that was " absolute lord of Mary- 
 land" from 1715 to 1751, a period of thirty-six years, a 
 man who could veto her laws, nullify the will of the 
 people, appoint all her officers, consume taxes laid upon 
 her produce, squander her port dues, absorb the fines 
 that might have gone to reduce the burdens of the state. 
 And all because nearly a hundred years before a king of 
 England had given to his ancestor, for two arrow-heads, 
 the princely domain included within her borders. He 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. I49 
 
 could excite no respect, for he was worthy of none. He 
 was not a patron to the province, for it needed none; 
 while in virtue of his family connection he drew immense 
 sums every year from the colony to consume in osten- 
 tatious and absurd display. 
 
 No wonder, therefore, that the people sought, by 
 claiming the privileges of English citizens, though born 
 in the colony, to acquire for themselves, as their birth- 
 right, the English statutes where they applied, as well as 
 the common law of England. Over these there could be 
 no veto. It was as in the days of Charles the First, when 
 the people, passing over precedents that had accumulated 
 during two hundred years and more, went back to the 
 days of the earlier Edwards for the rights and principles 
 of the English people. The charter bestowed certain 
 functions on the proprietary, but it was presupposed that 
 all would be like the first, men of judgment and men of 
 character. When such ceased to be the case, and when 
 also the province had outgrown the days of its infant 
 numbers and of its narrow intercourse, the people, as of 
 necessity, fell back upon the great inalienable rights of 
 their imperial connection. They were Englishmen, and 
 claimed all the franchises of Englishmen, and did not 
 recognize the right of any sovereign to bestow, by 
 charter or otherwise, any of their inherent rights upon 
 any one. 
 
 When we turn, however, to Charles's son, the next 
 proprietary, Frederick, we find all that has been said of 
 the father applicable, only drawn in stronger colors. Like 
 his father, he was a traveler. He had desire also to pose 
 as an author, and distinguished himself chiefly by show- 
 ing how much paper and ink he could waste on the 
 
ISO HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 display of vanity and self-conceit. The description given 
 of him by one of his own day is this, that he imagined 
 "that he had too much genius, and that his Creator 
 would have shown much more benevolence had He given 
 him less intelligence and more bodily strength. He 
 was one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, 
 who had lost all moral and physical taste. He knows 
 not what to do with himself, finds nothing to his taste. 
 With an income of thirty thousand pounds sterling, he 
 knows not how to enjoy it. He became so intolerable 
 that at last I frankly told him my opinion." In addition 
 to this, he was a man of very bad habits. In 1768 he 
 was tried for a most infamous crime, an assault upon a 
 female, and though acquitted, the universal feeling was 
 that he was guilty. As is well known, his private life 
 was bad. He died in 1771, worn out by a Hfe of dissi- 
 pation. 
 
 The province of Maryland was left by will to Henry 
 Harford, the natural son of Frederick, with all the private 
 and executive rights which the father had possessed. He 
 was a minor at the time of his accession, and the province 
 had to be administered by guardians in his name. By 
 this time, however, Maryland, along with the other 
 colonies, was so excited by the great questions springing 
 to the front in connection with the policy of the home 
 country,— though Maryland, also, herself had certain 
 great colonial causes to agitate her, — that it would have 
 made very little difference who was proprietary. Besides, 
 Governor Eden, who was then in the colony, was not a 
 man of a very vigorous, though very amiable, character, 
 and proprietary rights were not brought offensively for- 
 ward. What may be said is, that with such a series of 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. I5I 
 
 absolute lords, claiming great powers under the charter, 
 it is no wonder tliat Maryland was what it was, — a body 
 pclitic claiming and struggling for the largest possible 
 independence, resisting assumptions by the proprietary, 
 and by the governor and council that spoke for him, 
 and asserting rights that practically annulled prerogatives 
 that had been enjoyed from the beginning. A series of 
 exalted men, of large and liberal minds, who, knowing 
 the people, would have fostered what was good, would 
 have been able to keep the province in peace. As it was, 
 there was nothing to retard that natural growth of a free 
 spirit, that, passing on from claim to claim, did not rest 
 till a free and entire republic was established. 
 
 Between 171 5 and 1776 there were three great notable 
 periods of agitation, in which the subjects were of a local 
 character and not connected with that other agitation in 
 which Maryland took part with all the other colonies. 
 The first of these periods reached from 1722 to 1732, 
 years of efifort on the part of the lower house, with 
 steady antagonism on the part of the upper. The great 
 question was, By what law shall the province be gov- 
 erned? Lord Baltimore said, By the laws that I approve; 
 the colonists said, By the laws of Great Britain as far 
 as those laws are applicable in the colony. Not here a 
 law and there a law as the proprietary shall think advisable, 
 but whatever laws are found within the English code and 
 are suitable to the circumstances of the colony, shall be 
 appealed to and applied in the administration of the colony. 
 It was not a new question by any means. For many 
 years the principle had been recognized and acted on 
 in particular instances, yet such limited application had 
 never been satisfactory to the people, for it had always 
 
152 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 been a question for the courts to decide whether a 
 law applied, and the judges, being of Lord Baltimore's 
 appointment, could never be looked upon as impartial 
 between him and the people, or in any case in which 
 he in his own name or in that of his friends or adherents 
 might be interested. For beside many other ways in 
 which his lordship might be a party in matters of 
 litigation, it will be remembered that the family had 
 retained extensive tracts of land in dififerent parts of the 
 colony, as manors. So that he was as liable as another 
 freeholder of the colony to meet with the difficulties 
 incident to property. 
 
 It was true, as the court party, as the adherents of 
 his lordship were called, said that a law of England did 
 not necessarily operate in the colony; for various laws 
 of a most important character, as the Habeas Corpus 
 act, and the Toleration act, were not in force in Mary- 
 land until they had been adopted here. The whole was 
 one of those cases so common in the legislative or 
 judicial history of a people, where occasional incidents 
 gradually go to establish a principle, until at last what 
 was only sporadic becomes the consistent and lawful 
 process. 
 
 Lord Baltimore claimed that such a principle would 
 neutralize his right under the charter to assent to laws, 
 and therefore he opposed it year by year. Particular 
 laws might be recognized and applied, but to take up 
 the whole body of English laws "in a lump," as he 
 expressed it, did away with all the veto power of his 
 provincial jurisdiction. It is true it was a rule that 
 might work both ways, for while it might save the people 
 from the arbitraiy government of the proprietan,', it 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 1 53 
 
 might also introduce laws that might seriously impair 
 their own peculiar liberties; for there were many laws 
 on the statute-book of England that would not have 
 suited the feelings of the people of Maryland. 
 
 They pursued the matter, however, to an issue, which, 
 though appearing to be a compromise, with the balance 
 in favor of the proprietary, in its substantial results and 
 further consequences was altogether with the people. 
 The contest lasted nearly ten years. The terms finally 
 reached were apparently ambiguous, but the practice of 
 the courts of the colony henceforth was to accept such 
 laws of England as were plainly applicable to the case 
 before them. 
 
 The next great period was that reaching from 1754 to 
 1763. There had been trouble in the colony, beginning 
 with the year 1739, on the question of the revenue which 
 Charles Lord Baltimore was receiving. The people 
 claimed that he received more than he was entitled to, 
 that money that came to his hand ought to go into the 
 treasury of the colony, and so the people be eased in 
 their burdens. This controversy lasted till all such dis- 
 sensions were lost in the revolutionary struggle. The 
 controversy of the period between 1754 and 1763 was, 
 however, of a different character. It was the period of 
 the French War, which terminated in the last-named year; 
 only the peculiarity is that the French and English pro- 
 vinces were in arms before the parent states had formally 
 declared war. 
 
 In the pressure of the first-named year the colony 
 responded to a requisition to the amount of six thousand 
 pounds, and then provided for a sinking fund with which 
 to liquidate the loan at maturity. This was done by 
 
154 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 various taxes imposed on the people on various kinds of 
 property. Among these we find a tax of a peculiar kind, 
 different from any that we know of at this day. Mary- 
 land, through all the colonial period, had a poll tax, the 
 most of her revenue being raised in that way. We have 
 already seen the features of the law providing for such 
 an imposition. This tax seems to have been levied to 
 such an extent and in such an offensive way during the 
 colonial period, that ever since then the people have 
 utterly repudiated the system. 
 
 This sinking fund, however, was not provided for by a 
 poll tax, though in one of its items persons were intro- 
 duced with a discriminating odiousness that must have 
 been offensive to the parties concerned. It was an 
 income tax levied upon bachelors because they w^ere 
 bachelors, the amount being rated according to their 
 incomes. Why they should have been so treated the 
 law did not say. Proba1)ly the implied meaning of the 
 law was that if not married they ought to have been, and 
 that they could be if they would. Neither unmarried 
 ladies were taxed, however large their incomes, nor 
 widowers, even though they might not have children — 
 only bachelors. It was evidently intended to be a penalty. 
 This notion receives confirmation in the fact that bachelors 
 are named along with luxuries, such as wines and billiard 
 tables. The vestries throughout the province were re- 
 quired to return the names and rated incomes of all the 
 bachelors within their parochial limits, and in many of the 
 old parish records we find such lists. 
 
 After 1754 Maryland's course was different, and though 
 the governor and council were anxious to heed the royal 
 requisition for carrying on the war, yet Maryland did 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 155 
 
 little or nothing; for her first principle was that when 
 the danger did not threaten her own borders the matter 
 was no concern of hers; and so, however strong the 
 demand might be, either from England or from the 
 sister-colonies, she would do nothing. This was a selfish 
 policy and might have proven a short-sighted one. Shut 
 in as she was by Pennsylvania and Virginia, she was not 
 to the same extent exposed; but the nature of the war, as 
 carried on by the French and Indians together, might 
 have brought on an inroad at any time. It was selfish, 
 also, as showing an unwillingness to help those in their 
 extremity with whom she was bound by so many ties, not 
 only of blood, but also of interest. For though the colo- 
 nies had not come yet to understand it, they not long 
 afterwards learned that their interests were one, and that 
 they must all stand or fall together. This came to be 
 fully understood when the great emergency arose. 
 
 A second reason why Maryland did so little during the 
 war was the jealousy of the Assembly against Lord Bal- 
 timore on account of the revenues he was receiving from 
 the colony, the amount at this time being from eight to 
 ten thousand pounds sterling. Part of this they were 
 convinced he was not entitled to; and certainly the 
 province was nearly a sinecure to him, with a revenue 
 out of all proportion to any outlay or attention that his 
 ancestors had expended upon it. The people were there- 
 fore jealous, and when the time came to provide for the 
 requisition made by the English ministry for prosecuting 
 the French war, Maryland insisted that the lands and 
 revenues of the proprietary should bear their share of the 
 necessary tax. This was, of course, bitterly opposed by 
 the governor and the upper house. We can see no 
 
156 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 reason why the Assembly was not right. We cannot see 
 why extensive manors, and vacant lands in the market 
 for sale, which were equally with all the other lands in 
 the province to be protected against foreign encroach- 
 ments, should not bear their equal share of the burdens 
 of the province. We cannot understand why fines, which 
 were penalties for the violation of the laws of the province, 
 should not go to the support of the commonwealth. Nor 
 can we see why licenses for carrying on business in the 
 colony should go without drawback to the proprietary 
 when the business itself was to be protected by means of 
 the tax. 
 
 The whole order of things was radically different from 
 our notions of what is right. The colony existed for 
 Lord Baltimore, according to his view. It was not a 
 commonwealth, but his private property. It was his 
 peace that was broken, for which fines were imposed; of 
 his grace that business was carried on, for which his 
 license was given. All its administration was of his 
 right and all its emoluments for his advantage. It was a 
 strange condition of things. It had not the redeeming 
 feature of royalty to tone down its severe expression, in 
 which antiquity and long usage mitigate the hereditary 
 idea. 
 
 Beside that, as we have seen, the present proprietary, 
 Frederick, was not one on whom the people could look 
 with any respect. We have already seen his character, — 
 vain, foolish, depraved. Born in 1731, he was now in 
 full career, and had exhibited the leading traits of his dis- 
 position. His father, also, who had died in 1 751, was in 
 no way qualified to win respect. These things made the 
 people the more jealous. They believed that they were 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 15/ 
 
 being defrauded in various ways by the proprietary, and 
 that the governor and upper house were, in his behalf, 
 enemies of the rights and interests of the people. In the 
 matter of licenses, and in the matter of port and tobacco 
 duties, they believed they were being robbed every day, 
 and so the position they assumed. The whole adminis- 
 trative power being in the hands of those appointed by 
 Lord Baltimore, they had no redress. Now, however, an 
 opportunity was presented of asserting the rights of the 
 people, and it was done. One feature of their proposed 
 ordinance was unfortunate. As the war was with a 
 Roman Catholic power, and as they could not disabuse 
 their minds of fear and jealousy of all Roman Catholics, 
 they attempted to double the rate of the imposition of 
 taxes upon such of the colony as were of that faith. The 
 reasoning certainly was not logical and the conclusion 
 was not just. 
 
 The consequence, however, of all these features of the 
 law was that the colony did nothing for the prosecution 
 of the war. The lower house would not depart from the 
 position it had taken, and the governor and council would 
 not approve the relief bill as passed. The other colonies 
 complained bitteriy of Maryland's inactivity, the British 
 ministry was highly indignant and indulged in threats of 
 coercion, but the Assembly stood fast. They laid the 
 blame on the governor and council, and the governor 
 laid the blame on the Assembly. The result, however, 
 was the same. The people as represented — for the lower 
 house was unanimous — had reached the point, as against 
 the proprietary, when they would preserve their rights, 
 and while they would help the general cause on their 
 own terms, they would net help on any other. It shows 
 
158 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 the spirit and resolution of the time. The dissension was 
 continued through nine sessions of the Assembly, with 
 the only result that the people of the colony got further 
 training in the principles that were afterward to be 
 accepted as the groundwork of their political existence. 
 
 The next period reaches from 1770 to 1773, and was a 
 time of as much agitation and political ferment in the 
 colony as any, may be, it ever passed through. To under- 
 stand it we must bear in mind that the rule of the 
 Assembly of Maryland, in the matter of money bills, 
 had been to pass them only for a limited period, so that 
 they had to be renewed from time to time. The advan- 
 tage of this was that, holding the purse-strings, they 
 could control so far the administration. It was a rule 
 growing out of the resolution to preserve their rights; 
 for, as we have seen, while no law could become such 
 without the assent of the proprietary, so also no law 
 could be repealed without his consent. To limit the period 
 of the operation of a law, therefore, was their only safe- 
 guard. This principle is adopted in all free states. 
 
 Among the laws so passed was that of 1763, regulating 
 the fees of ofiBce in the various executive departments, 
 a law that was limited to seven years, and consequently 
 expired in 1770. When this time came the lower house, 
 reviewing the matter, discovered that certain officers 
 were receiving most extravagant sums, — the secretary 
 four thousand three hundred and seventy-six dollars, the 
 judges of the land office three thousand four hundred and 
 thirty-eight dollars, and the commissary-general three 
 thousand nine htmdred and twenty-three dollars, — salaries 
 which, however moderate as compared with some at this 
 day, were very large for that time. 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 1 59 
 
 The people, therefore, refused to renew the old law 
 and insisted on certain reductions; but as the act of the 
 lower house had to be approved by the upper, and these 
 officers named were four members of the upper, their 
 attempt came to nothing. The contention was prolonged 
 and very angry, with the result that the Assembly was 
 prorogued, with no law to regulate this very important 
 matter. In this position of affairs Governor Eden at- 
 tempted a solution, and raised a storm that agitated the 
 colony deeply. He attempted by his own individual act 
 to re-establish the law of 1763, with the fees therein pro- 
 vided, until the Assembly should pass a new act— a thing 
 unnecessary if the governor could accomplish the same 
 by proclamation. 
 
 With this the war began, hot and prolonged, in which 
 all the ablest men of the province became interested. 
 For to rule by proclamation, to assume the power to lay 
 taxes, which the fees were declared to be, without the 
 consent of the people, was always in the English world 
 regarded as the grossest stretch of tyrannical power. 
 Able lawyers contended, on the other side, that a fee was 
 not a tax, and, appealing to precedent, tried to justify the 
 governor's act. The response was that the duties of 
 these various officers were essential for the people's wel- 
 fare, that they were not a matter of choice, but of neces- 
 sity, and that, therefore, they were a tax whose imposition 
 belonged alone to the people; and they objected not 
 only to the extravagance of the charges in this case, but 
 absolutely to the principle involved. 
 
 It was in this controversy that Charles Carroll first 
 came prominently before the people, and it was in this 
 controversy that Daniel Dulany, one of the ablest men in 
 
l60 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Maryland annals, wounded his reputation irretrievably. 
 He had defended Maryland and the other colonies in the 
 Stamp Act agitation, using his pen with great power, and 
 exercising an influence in England as well as in America. 
 But now, as provincial secretary, and the beneficiary of 
 large emoluments from his office, he came forward to 
 defend a principle on the denial of which the very exist- 
 ence of a free people depends. For when a ruler can 
 tax a people by proclamation without law the whole 
 power of the state is in his hands. 
 
 Of course there could be but one issue to such a con- 
 test at any time, and particularly now when the public 
 mind was so much aroused on great civil questions. 
 For this discussion began only five years after that of 
 the Stamp Act, which had excited all America. By the 
 elections of 1773 the will of the people was definitely 
 proclaimed and government by proclamation received 
 its quietus. 
 
 Associated with this controversy there was another 
 that derived factitious interest because of its association, 
 though it was also a matter of very great moment: the 
 question of the salaries of the clergy under the act of 
 establishment. By the law of 1763 these had been re- 
 duced from the original sum of forty pounds of tobacco 
 per poll to thirty pounds, and when this law ceased by 
 limitation, the question was, what were the clergy to 
 receive? In this case the resort was not had to procla- 
 mation, as in the other, but the earlier tax of forty 
 pounds was revived. For the law of 1702 was not 
 repealed in whole or in part, but only thirty pounds 
 appointed instead of the forty by the law of 1763. The 
 whole process seems to have been peculiar, for this sub- 
 
THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. l6l 
 
 stitution of one rate for another without any repeal or 
 amendment of the law which set the rate was something 
 out of course. The agitation was wide-spread and very 
 keen, though the principal use of it seems to have been 
 to give the excited brains of the day another subject on 
 which to show their skill and acrimony. Another ques- 
 tion arose during the controversy, whether the act of 
 establishment had been valid from the beginning, the 
 ground being that though the Assembly that passed the 
 law had been summoned by writs running in King Wil- 
 liam's name, yet that he had died before the law was 
 passed, his death not being known of in the colony, 
 and that consequently the act was null and void. This 
 question the people of the day did not attempt to settle, 
 passing it over to a more convenient season. The other 
 question of the amount of the tax was determined in 
 1773, thirty pounds being again appointed. All other 
 questions were soon lost sight of in the great agitation 
 leading to the revolutionary struggle. 
 
 And now for the conclusion of the proprietary gov- 
 ernment. Henry Harford succeeded his father Frederick, 
 not as of hereditary right, for his birth precluded that; 
 but by his father's will all the property of Lord Baltimore 
 and all the high privileges of " absolute lord " descended 
 to him. It is not Hkely, however, that people paid much 
 attention to the fact, though to many of them it must 
 have appeared as the last point of their anomalous posi- 
 tion, that all the extensive prerogatives of government 
 and all the extensive revenues that arose in the admin- 
 istration of government, fines, licenses, duties, should 
 pass over by will to another, an illegitimate child, a 
 minor, one who knew nothing of the colony, and had no 
 
1 62 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 interest whatever in its welfare beyond his own revenues. 
 But the mind of the colony was now fixed on other 
 things. All attention was absorbed in great questions. 
 Principles, not men, occupied their attention. Robert 
 Eden, the governor at the time in the colony, was per- 
 sonally a popular man, however unpopular his course in 
 regard to the proclamation. He had, however, but little 
 influence. The people, by the Assembly, as well as by 
 their meetings held everywhere, were asserting master- 
 ship, and the time between his accession and the Revolu- 
 tion was too short for any new question to arise about 
 the rights of government. 
 
 In 1775, July 26, the Convention of Maryland took the 
 government into its own hands and proprietary control 
 ceased. The private rights of the proprietary were recog- 
 nized till 1780, when the people having become irritated 
 by the course of the Tory party in the colony, and by 
 the refusal of the English trustees to honor the drafts 
 of the State upon the public funds in the Bank of Eng- 
 land, all the property of British subjects in the State was 
 confiscated, amongst which property was that of Henry 
 Harford. The State afterwards paid him ten thousand 
 pounds sterling in compromise of all claims. In this 
 way ended a connection which, however rational accord- 
 ing to the ideas of the year 1634, had become in 1776 
 an anachronism and a monstrosity, so great had been 
 the progress which the human mind had undergone within 
 one hundred and fifty years. 
 
NINTH LECTURE. 
 
 Maryland and the American Revolution. 
 
 We have endeavored to trace through the preceding 
 lectures the development of a sense of liberty and the 
 spirit of independence in the people of Maryland during 
 the colonial period. That spirit we have seen manifested 
 even in the beginning, when Lord Baltimore attempted 
 to restrict the privilege of the people in the matter of pro- 
 posing laws for their government. From that time on 
 there never was a day in which that same spirit was not 
 manifested. Sometimes it was toward the proprietary, 
 sometimes the governor or council, sometimes it was 
 tow^ards the king and British ministry. It was always 
 there, ready to be called forth upon ever}^ occasion. 
 
 What was all this but a steady course of education and 
 training for the final development into statehood, the 
 maturity of the commonwealth, in which the people of 
 the state were to be their own masters and pursue their 
 own courses, untrammeled by any over-lord of any name? 
 The jealousy of Maryland in this was remarkable, as was 
 evidenced by the fact that though she fought resolutely 
 from the beginning of the war to the end of it, and took 
 such deep interest in the period of agitation that preceded 
 the breaking out of hostilities, yet she did not enter the 
 Confederacy till 1781. Her position in the matter was 
 rather that of an ally than of a confederate, in which, while 
 she did her whole part and received encomiums both for 
 her civil policy and the martial zeal and ability of her sons, 
 
164 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 yet at the same time she insisted that a broad spirit of 
 equity should be observed by all. Her whole life was in 
 the cause, but her independence was preserved amongst 
 her equals in the contest. 
 
 The purpose of this lecture is to review the course of 
 Maryland during the whole period of the conflict. As 
 we have seen, during tlie French War the wrath of the 
 British ministry nad no terrors for her. Her legislature 
 had definite ideas of what was right to herself, and they 
 pursued those ideas irrespective of threats from any source. 
 The great English minister who afterwards espoused the 
 cause of the colonies, William Pitt, was irritated to the 
 highest degree. Governor Sharpe, though in a very 
 eminent degree he commanded the respect of the people, 
 urged in his irritation that, as the colony could not be 
 reached by the direct method, a stamped paper be imposed 
 on the colonies, to be used in all legal transactions; the 
 same law that was afterwards attempted by the English 
 Parliament with such signal failure. He even went so 
 far as to send the draft of such a law to the Ministry. 
 Maryland had never learned to stand in awe of any power 
 or authority, but from the beginning insisted definitely 
 on her own autonomy, that she was free to regulate her 
 own internal afifairs without dictation from any source. 
 
 Not that she was factious or rebellious in temperament. 
 The contrary was the case. She gave the proprietaries, 
 when there was cause for it, strong and substantial proofs 
 of her more than loyalty to them. Also she evinced every 
 desire not to break ofif her connection with the British 
 empire; and when the British ministry relaxed its efforts 
 to tax the colonies by the repeal of the stamp act, Mary- 
 land cordially rejoiced. Also she bore quietly through 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. l6$ 
 
 many years the onerous and unjust navigation laws, 
 though they were in such conflict with her own prosperity, 
 restricting and confining her trade for the benefit of the 
 English merchants. 
 
 Yet all the time the spirit was there. The charter of 
 the province guaranteed the people of the colony the 
 rights of Englishmen; and those rights they were as for- 
 ward to maintain as the members of the Long Parliament 
 were ; and in fact the lines of batde were the same as they 
 had been in the days of the Long Parliament. The only 
 change had been that Englishmen in the earlier period 
 had been compelled to struggle against the pretensions of 
 the king, while the colonists were compelled to struggle 
 against the Parliament. The rule had only again been 
 shown in operation. In the first case their own interests 
 and rights had made exceeding keen the vision of the 
 English people; but when it was somebody else's rights 
 and interests which were in jeopardy, the same English 
 people could not see the application of great English 
 principles. 
 
 The point at issue was the right of the people to tax 
 themselves, to the exclusion of anybody else's right; taxa- 
 tion with representation, not without. That w^as the prin- 
 ciple at stake, and all the attempts at subterfuge, as the 
 pretense of virtual representation, as if the colonists stood 
 upon the same platform with the great disfranchised classes 
 of England, were ruthlessly pushed aside. Represen- 
 tation, with the Maryland colonists, meant the election by 
 themselves of their own deputies to the British Parlia- 
 ment, as they elected their own deputies to their colonial 
 Assembly. This was necessary for their protection; but 
 this was impossible at the same time, rendered so by the 
 
1 66 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 distance and by all the other circumstances of the 
 colonies. 
 
 Also they brushed aside the claims of the English 
 ministry, that the great English debt had been contracted 
 in the defense of the colonies against French aggression. 
 It was only English and French battles fought in America, 
 a struggle that had been going on since the days of Wil- 
 liam the Third, the outbreak of the old jealousy that had 
 been manifesting its virulence for centuries, since the days 
 when the Edwards and Henrys had claimed the kingdom 
 of France for the English crown. Taxation for revenue 
 is impossible, was their first principle, because representa- 
 tion is impossible ; though they did submit when the impo- 
 sition wore another face, as, for instance, when a law was 
 passed regulating commerce, even though the law did 
 infringe upon the freedom of trade and affected their com- 
 mercial interests. For it was not a question of money 
 with the colonists. They did not rise in indignation when 
 it was a money consideration that was presented. This is 
 seen in the fact that when all other items were stricken out 
 of the law, and only tea was left as the article on which a 
 tax should be levied, and when, in further modification, 
 the East India Company was allowed a drawback to the 
 amount of the proposed duty, which drawback they pro- 
 posed to give the colonists the benefit of, so that the tea 
 should not cost them more than it would without the 
 tax, yet even then the colonists did not let up for one 
 moment. The principle itself must be abrogated, denied 
 by the British authorities themselves. The No-taxation 
 was to be regarded as the definite article of the American 
 Constitution by the English authorities, and no precedent, 
 however little it might cost at first, was to be allowed to 
 establish itself. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1 6/ 
 
 The English authorities did not know what they were 
 doing for America by the ten years of agitation which 
 they fomented. For this was the time, from 1765, when 
 the Stamp Act was passed, until the waters reached a 
 head and all barriers were swept away. We are some- 
 times surprised at the vim and enthusiasm of America in 
 the days of the Revolution; we are surprised at the tone 
 and fervor of the Declaration of Independence, and at the 
 exalted character and intelligence of the men who guided 
 the new^-born state in the days of its infancy. Rather it 
 had no infancy, but sprang equipped, a well-armed war- 
 rior, at once into existence. But the agitation and dis- 
 cussion of ten years had done it. The generation of men 
 that had come to the front, had drunk in a knowledge of 
 those principles of civil and national freedom from the 
 atmosphere. Those principles found a congenial soil; 
 for all the colonies of America had and cultivated thoughts 
 of their own independence in all matters of internal regu- 
 lation. The soil was worthy of the principle. And so, 
 when the day of enfranchisement came, when the question 
 was injustice and humiliation, or a heroic efifort for 
 national life and the security of personal freedom, they 
 were ready for it. And though the result was a long 
 struggle, that tried the sincerity of the convictions of all, 
 yet the issue was a state founded on the most rational 
 ideas of individual rights and responsibility. 
 
 What is the record of Maryland for all this period? 
 It is one of entire harmony with the whole national move- 
 ment, the drift and tendency toward national ideas. 
 Maryland has never been a quiet State. Whenever there 
 has been any agitation in the country, Maryland has been 
 involved in it. She has always been in touch with the 
 
1 68 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 country, and, being a Border State, with a mixed popula- 
 tion, she has been in touch with the whole country. And 
 this was her condition at this time. We have seen her 
 bearing during all the French War, how greatly all sec- 
 tions of the people were aroused on the great question of 
 heeding the royal requisitions for men and money for 
 prosecuting that war. That agitation was on a question of 
 principle and of justice, and out of that she passed into 
 the new agitation that now arose. 
 
 In consequence of the determined position of the 
 Assembly at that time, it had been prorogued, November, 
 1763, and no session was held till September, 1765, 
 when, in consequence of the proportions the Stamp 
 Act agitation had assumed, it was called together. The 
 act itself had been passed in March of that year, and had 
 immediately been received by the other colonies with every 
 mark of indignation. Such was the feeling throughout 
 Maryland, and as soon as the Assembly convened it 
 voiced the public feeling in a most definite way. The 
 only business it would transact at all at this session was 
 concerning the Stamp Act, as if it were a matter of such 
 transcendent importance that everything else was too 
 insignificant to be associated with it. To this end two 
 propositions were before them. One of these was whether 
 they should acquiesce in the proposition of Massachusetts 
 to send delegates to a colonial congress, that by this 
 means the universal sentiment of the colonies might be 
 voiced to the ears of the British ministry. Upon this they 
 immediately resolved, and not the lower house only, but 
 also the upper, and their action received the approval of 
 the governor. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1 69 
 
 This was of course inconsistent on his part, for he had, 
 as we have seen, suggested during the French War 
 troubles, when the colony had refused the requisitions, 
 that this very plan be pursued for raising a revenue, and 
 had even sent to England a draft of a law to this end. 
 Bui at this time a new consideration had entered; for not 
 only the people, but Lord Baltimore himself, as proprie- 
 tary, felt his interests invaded by the attempt of the 
 ministry to lay this tax; and for this reason the governor 
 and members of the council were found side by side with 
 the Assembly. The proposed congress met in October, 
 1765, and its action was heartily approved by the Assem- 
 bly of Maryland when its delegates reported to that body, 
 in November of the same year. 
 
 But the Assembly of Maryland did not stop with this. 
 In the September session they passed unanimously certain 
 resolutions of their own, in which, besides pleading their 
 own right to exemption, under their charter, from Eng- 
 lish taxation, they emphasized the American position, 
 that they would not, as well as could not, submit to the 
 ministerial attempt. They claimed for Maryland certain 
 constitutional principles, certain rights which the British 
 Parliament had no right to take away from them, and 
 which they had enjoyed from time immemorial. 
 
 But beside the action of the Assembly, the bearing of 
 private individuals was equally as definite. One of the 
 most able as well as far-reaching of all the pamphlets 
 written at this time, was by one of Maryland's sons, 
 Daniel Dulany ; far-reaching in that it not only defined the 
 colonial position in this matter, but also went far to giving 
 clear apprehension, even in England, of what America 
 claimed, and swayed to a very perceptible degree public 
 
170 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 sentiment there. It enabled English statesmen to put 
 themselves in America's place. It also went farther 
 than this and urged upon the citizens of America to 
 develop their own internal resources, in manufacturing 
 whatsoever they could for their common necessities; and 
 this for the purpose of making the merchants of England 
 feel the power of America, and to indicate that to attempt 
 to oppress her would certainly react to their own per- 
 manent loss. 
 
 And this advice was followed; for non-importation be- 
 came a cry at this time, and continued so down till the 
 crisis came; non-importation of everything on which the 
 English government attempted to lay the tariff; and, 
 finally, after the Boston Port Bill, non-importation of 
 everything; the feeling being that the nearest way to 
 English prejudices and to the English sense of justice 
 was through the pocket of her merchants. 
 
 But Maryland adopted more vigorous measures still. 
 For so high ran the indignation, that in various places 
 the distributor of the stamped paper was flogged, hanged 
 and burned in effigy, and himself in person treated with 
 great indignity, and the house in which he lived torn 
 down. He had accepted the office while in England and, 
 doubtless, ignorant of how high public sentiment ran in 
 the colony. After he had been so severely treated he 
 fled to New York, where, not more kindly received than 
 he had been in Maryland, he was compelled to relinquish 
 his office and to promise that henceforth he would have 
 nothing to do with the execution of the law. A violent 
 discussion also went on continually in the public press. 
 Associations, called the Sons of Liberty, were formed 
 everywhere, and kept their watchful eye upon everybody 
 and everything that was open to suspicion. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I^I 
 
 The effect of all this was what might very readily be 
 supposed. The stamped paper was never even landed in 
 Maryland, but was kept safe on one of his Majesty's ships 
 in Virginia waters. Governor Sharpe wrote home from 
 Maryland that it would be impossible to execute the law. 
 The county court at Fredericktown took upon itself to 
 say that the law could not be carried out, and that the 
 business of the court must proceed without it. The pro- 
 vincial court also did the same, and so the law became a 
 dead letter. The other colonies pursued the same line of 
 conduct; so that in 1766, on the eighteenth of March, the 
 act itself was repealed by the British Parliament, — having 
 been in existence one year, and having worked incal- 
 culable mischief. 
 
 For though all America rejoiced, and Maryland with 
 it, in the repeal, the agitation had brought the colonies 
 together and taught them the power of protest and resist- 
 ance, as nothing else could. It had taught them that they 
 were a family of states, with common interests and a com- 
 mon destiny, and that their wisest policy was to combine, 
 and that combination meant strength. On other occa- 
 sions attempts had been made to bring the colonies 
 together in congress, but had been ineffectual. But their 
 present distress taught them the necessity, and from this 
 time forth the national idea existed. 
 
 If, however, they fancied they had achieved what they 
 desired, and secured their liberties, their confidence was 
 short-lived. The English government had gone too far 
 to stop. One ministry had been overthrown, and another 
 had taken its place; and under that law, that whom the 
 gods wish to destroy they first make mad, they proceeded 
 in their policy of exacting a revenue from the colonies. 
 
1/2 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Doubtless, the predisposition of the English people was 
 in favor of such a policy; for most persons, if there be 
 any decent pretext for it, are willing to have other people 
 pay their debts. This the English people thought a good 
 thing at this time, when debts were exceedingly heavy. 
 Besides, the new ministry was goaded on by the old, and 
 taunted by the ex-minister with "you dare not tax the 
 colonies." 
 
 The blindness of the English administration was, how- 
 ever, never more manifested than now; for it was thought 
 that an indirect method, such as putting an import duty 
 on articles brought into the country, would disguise the 
 fact of taxation to the American mind. Such a law, it 
 was supposed, would wear the appearance of a regulation 
 concerning commerce, such as the colonies had submitted 
 to in their past history, when shipping laws were passed 
 by the Parliament. Unfortunately, however, the colonies 
 remembered that at the time of repealing the stamp act, 
 that body had passed a declaratory act asserting the right 
 to tax the colonies for revenue. Also during the agita- 
 tion caused by the proposed stamp duty, the people had 
 come to regard the yielding to regulations concerning 
 commerce as unwise, and so to antagonize any new 
 attempt in that direction. The repeal of the stamp act, 
 therefore, settled nothing; it only suspended the agita- 
 tion for the moment. The English had only quailed 
 before the storm which the stamp act had raised. 
 
 The cause of the colonies had been championed by the 
 heroic Pitt, who gloried in their resistance, saying it was 
 better that three millions should resist than that all Eng- 
 lishmen should become slaves. He regarded their action 
 as the assertion of English freedom. Possibly he felt 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 173 
 
 and knew beforehand what was coming. For a century 
 England had not been so near to an absolute monarchy 
 as it became at this time, when George the Third as- 
 sumed, through his tools in the ministry, a personal 
 direction of all the affairs of the English administration. 
 He, the king, spoke of "the fatal compliance of 1766,'' as 
 if England had committed a gross and dangerous mis- 
 take in repealing the stamp act. And so, as if to cover 
 up what was esteemed a shame, to wipe out a disgrace, 
 the act of 1767 was passed, laying a tax on tea, glass, 
 paper and painters' colors. It was at this time, also, that 
 all those irritating causes became prevalent that are 
 enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. For to 
 provide against evasion of the law, not only was the 
 collection of the proposed duties taken out of the hands 
 of colonial authorities, but "writs of assistance" were 
 authorized, providing for a forcible entry into private 
 houses and dwellings by custom-house officers in search- 
 ing for smuggled goods, doing away with the protection 
 of the home that was provided for by the laws of the 
 colonies. 
 
 Both parties were irritated and became more irritated 
 than ever. The colonies had rights and dared maintain 
 them. The English government denied their rights, and 
 with a sense of power to enforce its will, and despising 
 itself for its former weakness as it thought it to be, 
 determined to proceed farther than it had done before. 
 
 The result could, of course, be readily anticipated. 
 America was aroused more than ever. All the colonies, 
 and Mar>'land not less than any, became organized for 
 resistance. An attempt was made to reach English legis- 
 lators again through the pockets of English merchants. 
 
1/4 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 Non-importation became again the rule, and that not 
 only of the things taxed, but of anything but the strictest 
 necessaries of life. Appeal was made to the king, who, 
 as said above, now became all-powerful in the direction 
 of affairs. Again the ministry yielded, but only in part. 
 Everything was relieved of the tax except tea; but the 
 people were not pacified. The tax must be entirely 
 removed. Even when tea was offered at the price at 
 which it could have been sold had no tariff been placed 
 upon it, the people would not touch it. Tax for revenue, 
 ?.s laid by the English parliament, must be resisted. 
 
 This was the clearly announced position, and by it the 
 colonies stood. Face to face with an indignant and 
 powerful country, they stood without fear, not desiring 
 that things should proceed to extremities, but if they 
 must, then willing to abide by the consequences. It was 
 a bold, definite and heroic position consistently main- 
 tained. And Maryland's position was with the foremost. 
 Even when in 1770 the duty on all articles but tea was 
 repealed, and some of the Northern colonies began to 
 withdraw from the non-importation agreement, Maryland 
 uttered her protest. It was a measure that could only 
 stand by common consent, and so the Baltimore and 
 other merchants of the State at last opened their trade 
 to the articles that had been shut out. But the non- 
 importation of tea, as the one thing on which the British 
 king still insisted on placing a tariff, was adhered to most 
 jealously. The British government attempted to quiet 
 the feelings of the people by promising that England 
 would proceed no further in the matter of raising a reve- 
 nue by such a tax. But the people were not to be 
 cajoled. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1/5 
 
 Matters continued in this state until the Boston Port 
 Bill was passed by Parliament, by which, for the punish- 
 ment of the Boston people for the destruction of the 
 tea in Boston harbor, the port of Boston was shut up and 
 the commerce of the town destroyed. This was felt to 
 be a high-handed act, the exertion of imperial power 
 which the colonies would not and could not recognize. 
 All America was immediately excited, and things rapidly 
 proceeded to a culmination. Nothing more unwise 
 could have been done by the ministry, for it was not 
 only felt to be a gross outrage, as, granted that power 
 in the one case, every port in America might, by the 
 stroke of the royal pen, be closed, and America impov- 
 erished, ruined, in an instant; but also it excited the 
 sympathies of the people and called forth their efforts 
 to atone for the loss of commerce and trade by gifts to 
 relieve the wants of the martyr city. 
 
 Eddis, who was living in Annapolis at this time, being 
 the surveyor of customs there, and getting his impres- 
 sions from what he saw around him, wrote home, "All 
 America is in a flame. I hear strange language every 
 day. The colonists are ripe for any measures that will 
 tend to the preser^^ation of what they call their natural 
 liberty. I enclose you the resolves of our citizens. They 
 have caught tlie general contagion. Expresses are flying 
 from province to province. It is the universal opinion 
 here that the mother country cannot support a contention 
 with their settlements if they abide steady to the letter 
 and spirit of their association." 
 
 Maryland also immediately moved forward on definite 
 lines. Something was to be done to indicate the purpose 
 of the people, and so on June the twenty-second, 1774, in 
 
176 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 the midst of all this agitation, the people of the colony 
 assembled by their representatives in convention, and 
 from that time forth the revolution was completed. The 
 governor, whom they practically dispossessed, was not, it 
 is true, the royal governor, nor did they deny the royal 
 authority; but it was the governor who represented the 
 proprietary Harford. They henceforth controlled their 
 own destiny. This convention was composed of the 
 best and ablest men of the colony, and while their delib- 
 erations were without any of the recklessness that might 
 have been feared from a popular assembly convened at 
 such a time, there was in all their actions and resolves 
 clearness and decision of aim. The convention con- 
 tinually extended its functions as the troubles continued, 
 so that at last, though Governor Eden still remained in 
 the colony, it came to be recognized as the expression 
 of the sovereign power and authority of the State. 
 
 The resolutions passed by the convention when it 
 assembled were such as no man could mistake. By the 
 first they accepted the cause of Boston and Massachusetts 
 as their own, and proceeded to devise agreements for an 
 entire cessation of trade with Great Britain, both import 
 and export, an irritating defiance offered the king of Eng- 
 land, as if Great Britain were more dependent upon 
 America than America upon her. They professed sorrow 
 for the British merchants, possibly a satirical fling, but 
 they must insist on maintaining the dignity and indepen- 
 dence of America in the matter in hand. They also 
 refused to send exports to the West Indies, should such 
 a measure be deemed expedient by the General Congress. 
 They provided for the relief of the distressed inhabitants 
 of Boston, now cruelly deprived of the means of procur- 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. IJJ 
 
 ing for themselves subsistence, by starting a subscription 
 among the residents of the colony. They thank William 
 Pitt and such others as had espoused their cause in Eng- 
 land, the patrons and friends of liberty. They appointed 
 deputies to attend a general congress to effect one general 
 plan of conduct operating on the commercial connection 
 of the colonies with the mother country, for the relief of 
 Boston, and the preservation of American liberty. And 
 further they resolved that this province will break off all 
 trade and dealings with that colony, province or town, 
 which shall decline or refuse to come nito the general 
 plan which may be adopted by the colonies. This was 
 the Maryland platform. 
 
 And that the people meant all that was said by their 
 deputies was soon made evident. For within four months 
 of their assembling a like opportunity was given them 
 to what had before been given to Boston, when a vessel 
 arrived in Annapolis harbor having as part of its cargo 
 a small consignment of tea, or, as the people had learned 
 to call it, "the detestable weed." The question imme- 
 diately arose. What shall be done with it? The vessel 
 had been duly entered at the custom-house and the duty 
 paid on the tea, so that to forbid its landing and send it 
 back, as was done with the stamped paper, would have 
 been useless for the purpose of protest. Upon this the 
 people came together and forbade its landing, in the first 
 place, and then adjourned to secure a larger meeting of 
 the citizens of the surrounding country. The citizens of 
 Annapolis, however, would not wait for this; and though 
 the owner of the vessel and the consignees offered to 
 destroy the tea and to make ample apology for their 
 conduct, still the people's wrath was not appeased, nor 
 
178 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 was it till the owner offered to destroy vessel and cargo 
 with his own hands. 
 
 It will be observed that all the parties concerned in the 
 importation knew exactly what they were doing. The 
 agitation of the question had been going on since 1767^ 
 the spirit of the people was fully known, and the act of 
 the owners of the vessel could only be construed to be 
 a defiance to the public will, founded possibly upon the 
 notion that the people were not sincere in their decla- 
 rations. The vessel and cargo were destroyed, burned to- 
 the water's edge, and that not by night, nor by masked 
 men, but at the requirement of the best men of the city^ 
 publicly, in the light of day. 
 
 Public sentiment in Maryland was further exhibited at 
 this time by its course in regard to the resolves of the 
 Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia, Septem- 
 ber the fifth, 1774. The action of that body was without 
 qualification. It represented the American feeling and 
 the American determination. While loth to break with 
 the mother country, yet continuance of union with her 
 could only be on the one basis: England must respect 
 all rights and the dignity of America. The troubles 
 about this question of taxation had now been going on 
 since the year 1765, and apparently the mother country 
 was as determined to have her own way as ever in spite 
 of all appeals and protests. In fact, misunderstanding 
 the unwillingness of the colonies to proceed to extrem- 
 ities, she had become more and more ruthless in her 
 bearing and conduct. Her assertions of imperial domain 
 had become the more extravagant, and the rights of 
 home government in the colonies had been more and 
 more ignored. New York had felt the royal wrath in 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 179 
 
 having its assembly suspended because it refused to pro- 
 vide quarters for the EngHsh troops. But that was a 
 small matter to what Massachusetts was now called on 
 to endure. Liberties it had enjoyed ever since the land- 
 ing of the Pilgrims were now canceled, and an old law 
 from the days of the tyranny of Henry the Eighth was 
 brought into force, in empowering the governor to send 
 any persons engaged in the destruction of the tea to 
 England for trial. Troops also were sent to America, 
 and General Gage, the commander-in-chief of the troops, 
 was made governor of Massachusetts. It was imperial- 
 ism that recognized no rights in the provinces, and we 
 cannot wonder at the position assumed by the Conti- 
 nental Congress. 
 
 That position was one in which courage was mixed 
 with conviction. There was no desire to rebel against 
 the mother country, but there was a determination not to 
 yield as slaves. Appeals were made to the king and 
 people of Great Britain, and until those appeals were 
 heeded and responded to, in a gracious and honorable 
 spirit, intercourse must cease. They could even still 
 endure the manifestations of tyranny, but not be a party 
 to it. And so their resolutions of non-importation of 
 everything from Great Britain and Ireland, directly and 
 indirectly. British goods were to be excluded as such, 
 and could not be brought into the colonies from any 
 place whatever. East India teas, also, were forbidden, 
 from whatever quarter of the world they might seek to 
 enter the colonial ports, because they were in the hands 
 of an English monopoly. The congress also resolved 
 against the export of American products, though sus- 
 pending the operation of this resolution for one year, 
 
l80 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 after which, if the troubles were not settled, the export 
 of every article from America to Great Britain, Ireland 
 and the West Indies was to cease. 
 
 These were radical measures, amounting to absolute 
 and entire non-intercourse. Some thought they might 
 prove a relief and cause an adjustment of differences; 
 but if they failed in that, any one could see that they 
 meant an attempt at coercion on the part of England, 
 and with that a war of desolation, out of which the 
 colonies must come free and independent states, or else 
 a broken-spirited and enslaved mass without a future. 
 
 And what did Maryland think of the position assumed? 
 By her convention that assembled the following No- 
 vember she heartily approved all that was done. Her 
 own delegates had contributed to the resolutions of the 
 congress, and they were recognized as voicing the sen- 
 timent of the people of the State. Committees also were 
 formed to carry out the recommendations of the con- 
 gress. Correspondence was kept up between the dif- 
 ferent portions of the province. Information was diffused 
 as widely as possible and the people kept instructed in 
 regard to every new cause of suspicion or anxiety. 
 Correspondence also was established between this colony 
 and the others, and all matters of general moment in one 
 part of the country were immediately made known in 
 every other part. The British ministry had dreaded 
 this association of the colonies in a congress, and well 
 it might, for the effect at once was to unite the whole 
 country in one common purpose and one common sen- 
 timent, and to give it confidence in its ability to with- 
 stand the whole power of the British empire. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. l8l 
 
 Things also now moved forward rapidly in Maryland. 
 Expression of the people's will was not to be confined to 
 words. In December, 1774, it was resolved by the Con- 
 vention that if the act of Parliament in regard to Massa- 
 chusetts Bay was attempted to be carried out by force, 
 or if the act to tax the colonies was attempted to be 
 executed by force, in Maryland or in any other colony, 
 then Maryland would use her whole power by force to 
 resist such attempt. Farmers, also, were urged to cul- 
 tivate such things as would be needed in case of war, 
 and the citizens of the colony, between fifteen and sixty 
 years of age, were urged to form themselves into com- 
 panies, to equip themselves with arms, and to engage in 
 military exercises. The counties, also, were called upon 
 to raise money for the purchase of arms and ammunition. 
 And all this was done. Any one that was indifferent, or 
 supposed to be antagonistic to the common cause, was 
 put under the ban and kept under constant surveillance 
 of the suspicious eyes of the patriots. 
 
 In this way matters passed on toward the consumma- 
 tion. The king, as we have seen, was now and had been 
 for several years, and continued to be for years to come, 
 the director of the affairs of England, the power behind 
 the ministry and parliament greater than either of them. 
 Even the will of the English people in the matter of 
 English affairs was ignored and contemned, as the action 
 of Parliament towards Wilkes shows, who was three 
 several times elected by the electors of Middlesex and 
 as often rejected by the House of Commons. The will 
 of the colonies, therefore, could hardly receive considera- 
 tion at his hands. Their opposition was regarded as 
 rebellion that must be subdued. But contempt was met 
 
1 82 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 with contempt and force was answered with force. Eng- 
 land might send over soldiers to intimidate, but the 
 colonies prepared to meet soldiers with soldiers. We 
 know of the Continental army that was organized after 
 the battle of Lexington. Maryland had also her separate 
 colonial organization. Mr. Eddis, before quoted, writing 
 in July, 1775, said " Government is now almost totally 
 annihilated and power transferred to the multitude. 
 Speeches become dangerous, letters are intercepted, con- 
 fidence betrayed, and every measure evidently tends to 
 the most fatal extremities. The sword is drawn, and 
 without some providential change of measures the blood 
 of thousands will be shed in this unnatural contest. The 
 inhabitants of this province are incorporated under mili- 
 tary regulations, and apply the greater part of their time 
 to the different branches of discipline. In Annapolis 
 there are two complete companies, in Baltimore seven, 
 and in every district of this province the majority of the 
 people are actually under arms." 
 
 In this state matters continued in Maryland. It was 
 armed expectation, and hope of better things. There was 
 no desire for separation. At any time England could 
 have recovered the loyalty of the colony had it receded 
 from its extreme and profitless assumption. It was 
 stubbornly asserting a privilege which brought it no 
 gain and was already costing it and its merchants vast 
 sums of money. The hope, therefore, was that England 
 would recede. So Maryland declared in January, 1776, 
 that it did not want separation, but only to preserve its 
 rights. Entitled to freedom, however great the love of 
 fatherland, they were determined to maintain that free- 
 dom at the hazard of their lives and fortunes. 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1 83 
 
 This hope of escape from a final separation from 
 England controlled the conduct of the Convention for 
 months, after even the people themselves had felt that 
 such an end was now inevitable. The Convention was 
 excessively conservative, and it was only when the people 
 tittered their voice, by public meetings held in various 
 places in the province, that at last the Convention felt 
 justified in taking the final step and authorizing the 
 Declaration of Independence of the colonies, and their 
 erection into free and independent states. But having 
 authorized the delegates to the General Congress to take 
 part in the declaration, Maryland proceeded to make 
 such a declaration herself in her own behalf, calling upon 
 her citizens to join cordially in defense of their common 
 rights and in the maintenance of the freedom of their 
 own and their sister colonies. 
 
 Nor was her conduct less clear and determined 
 throughout the struggle. The whole period of active 
 hostilities was a time that tried men's souls. Disaster 
 sometimes followed disaster, defeat in the open field, 
 anxiety in the council, a diminished army, narrow re- 
 sources for the support of the army, a small and widely 
 scattered population, an immense territory for the carry- 
 ing on of military operations. It was surely a time that 
 tried men's souls. When we remember the civil war of 
 1 86 1, and call to mind the anxiety that was often enter- 
 tained, and that notwithstanding the resources of the 
 country both as regards men and stores; when we also 
 remember the depressing influences of defeat, and how 
 some who were boldest in prosperity became the first to 
 despair, we can get some idea of what must have been 
 the feelings of the period. Only as they were sustained 
 
1 84 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 by high resolves, a consciousness of the issue at stake, 
 and the great rights which were to be forever forfeited 
 by ultimate defeat, could they have endured the long 
 trial. 
 
 But tliey did, and Maryland's record was as bright 
 as that of any of her sister states, and the heroism of her 
 devotion to the cause as definitely sustained. Conserva- 
 tive by nature and by the training of her people, which, 
 as determined by a definite charter, gave certain fixed 
 characteristics to her administration, she was slow in her 
 steps, carried away by no words of the agitation, not 
 whirled along by a sudden and unreasoning enthusiasm. 
 But when the time came to act she was at her post, her 
 sons were ready with their assent to the great Declara- 
 tion; not acting upon their own private wills, but as 
 deputies duly instructed, upon the will of the Maryland 
 people clearly expressed. And it was that spirit she 
 manifested throughout the whole long, anxious period. 
 
 The battle of Lexington, in April, 1775, aroused the 
 country; but the battle of Bunker Hill summoned the 
 levies, and Maryland responded to the summons. And 
 so from that time on Maryland troops were always found 
 in the Continental armies. In the earlier years they 
 distinguished themselves in the North under Washington, 
 as on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania; and 
 in the later years they equally distinguished themselves 
 in the South under Greene, being prominent in every 
 engagement, and often the great resource when danger 
 of defeat was impending. She justified her words by 
 her deeds. Her contributions to the regular army in 
 1778 were thirty-three hundred men, and during the 
 whole war twenty-three thousand, — ^being one-twelfth of 
 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I85 
 
 the whole number sent out by the thirteen colonies. The 
 war expenses of the State were seven millions six hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, being two-thirds the value of all 
 her real estate. Her losses in population, also, were 
 exceedingly heavy, being from all causes, slaves carried 
 of¥, emigration to England and elsewhere, and the casu- 
 alties of the war, sixty-six thousand in seven years. 
 These figures may be small now, but they were immense 
 then, and indicate her devotion to the cause and the 
 burdens she was called on to endure. 
 
 She was blessed indeed in not having the enemy to 
 harry her territory, the operations of the war being 
 carried on either north or south of her; but that only 
 makes her interest and zeal in the cause the more 
 notable. For often a people will rise in their own 
 defense who will be supine when the enemy is at 2. dis- 
 tance and harrying some other territory. The raising 
 of her regiments being her own voluntary act, her ab- 
 sorption in the cause in hand is altogether manifest. 
 
 As an indication of the appreciation in which she was 
 held, we have the following letter from the commander- 
 in-chief to the governor of the State: 
 
 To Thomas Sim Lee, Governor of Maryland. 
 
 Camp near York, Oct., 1781. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Enclosed I have the honor of transmitting to your 
 excellency the terms upon which Lord Cornwallis has 
 surrendered the garrisons of York and Gloucester. 
 
 We have not been able yet to get an account of pris- 
 oners, ordnance or stores in the different departments. 
 
1 86 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 But from the best general report there will be (officers 
 included) upwards of seven thousand men, besides sea- 
 men, more than seventy pieces of brass ordnance and a 
 hundred of iron, with the stores, as also other valuable 
 articles. 
 
 My present engagements will not allow me to add 
 more than my congratulations on this happy event, and 
 to express the high sense I have of the powerful aid 
 which I have derived from the State of Maryland in 
 complying with my every request to the execution of it. 
 The prisoners will be divided between Winchester in 
 Virginia and Fort Frederick in Maryland. 
 
 With every sentiment of the most perfect esteem and 
 regard, 
 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 Your excellency's most obedient and humble servant, 
 
 G. Washington. 
 
TENTH LECTURE. 
 
 Odds and Ends of Maryland Legislation. 
 
 Covering a period of about one hundred and fifty 
 years, it would be only natural to expect that colonial 
 legislation in Maryland, would exhibit many oddities and 
 peculiarities viewed from the standpoint of our present 
 notions of what strictly pertains to government. Be- 
 sides, that was an age of transition from the strong 
 paternal government as administered by Queen Eliza- 
 beth and others of the Tudor line, to the freer constitu- 
 tion of the British empire, as it was after the Revolution 
 in England, and as it has expanded within the present 
 century; and on this account we might expect to find 
 striking incongruities. We do find such, in the Ameri- 
 can colonies as everywhere else. 
 
 But the position of Maryland was peculiar, both as to 
 the nature of her government and the character of her 
 allegiance. These fostered a more independent spirit, 
 so that advanced notions concerning personal and politi- 
 cal freedom found more readily a home within the 
 colony than in the adjoining regions. Such things as 
 the burning of witches, and the hanging or whipping of 
 Quakers, and the expulsion of nonconformists in religion 
 from her borders, were practically unknown. It is true 
 the air was filled with monstrous notions as to the pro- 
 priety of these things, and the archives of Maryland 
 indicate that her people felt in some measure the con- 
 tagion; but practically the Quakers were free from 
 
l88 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 active persecution, the witches pHed their instruments of 
 torture and raised their storms or dashed hither and 
 thither on broomsticks, and no one became aware of the 
 fact. And though recusants might feel the weight of 
 public disapproval in the loss of political franchise, yet 
 their life and property were safe and the private or pub- 
 lic enjoyment of the liberty of worship was secured. 
 
 For meeting-liouses of various names were found 
 everywhere, or else chapels on private estates, where 
 master and servant and family and neighbor might 
 assemble to enjoy unmolested the rites of their peculiar 
 worship. The legislative record of Maryland will com- 
 pare more than favorably with that of any government 
 on earth for the time extending from 1634 to the end of 
 the American Revolution. There was enough to show 
 that her people were of English blood and training, but 
 yet divergence enough also to show a diverse and 
 greatly elevated tone. 
 
 In these latter days when the anxiety of lawmakers 
 seems to be to make the way of the transgressor as little 
 tmcomfortable as possible, when malefactors are housed 
 and warmed and fed with a care that would do honor 
 to an institution where the most estimable of the poor 
 were to be entertained, when science is brought to bear 
 for appliances that shall make the taking off of even the 
 most brutal as painless as possible, we are a little apt to 
 be shocked by what we read of two hundred years ago. 
 For they were not by any means so careful then, and 
 dealt out their inflictions with a liberality and an open- 
 ness of hand that would horrify our fastidiousness, A 
 drawing, hanging and quartering was then one of the 
 sights of the day, for which gentlemen and ladies of 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 1 89 
 
 rank and refinement sought choice positions for obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Possibly they had not so many means of amusement 
 as we have, and possibly they were a httle nearer to 
 nature in the rough. But so it was. And also they had 
 many more opportunities of amusement of this kind, as 
 capital punishment was dealt out with a liberal hand 
 which rather amazes our present minds. Felonies, in 
 which life and limb were the penalty, were far more 
 numerous than our laws create. Our philosophical 
 philanthropists tell us that the prevalence of the death 
 penalty created the criminals, that men can get so used 
 to seeing other people die, — drawn, hanged, quartered, 
 — that they the more readily yield themselves up to the 
 same attractive process. All we can say is, their pro- 
 cesses belonged to their day, ours belong to ours, both 
 probably wise in our generations. 
 
 But not only of capital punishment. There was a 
 certain shamelessness about all penalties. A criminal 
 now finds his refuge in prison, shut out from the gaze 
 of passers-by. But not so then. The pillory and the 
 stocks were very common instruments for the punish- 
 ment of slight misdemeanors, and were set up at con- 
 venient places throughout the colony. Every court- 
 house was to be provided, and sometimes, when the 
 court-house was too far ofif, a position near the church 
 was selected as well. We shall see a little later on for 
 what class of misdemeanants this place was chosen. The 
 ducking-stool also was set up in the most convenient 
 place of each county. This was for the accommodation 
 of scolds, and doubtless even the sight of it had a cool- 
 ing influence upon a hot temper. Certainly after one 
 
190 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 experience the sight or mention would be sufficient 
 For there never was a scold yet, man or woman, that a 
 sudden bath of cold water would not cure. The duck- 
 ing-stool was a most beneficent institution. 
 
 Another instrument ordered at the same time with the 
 above, namely in 1663, was the branding irons, one with 
 the letter R, another with the letter H. One reason 
 given for these instruments was that the colony had not 
 houses — that is, penitentiary and jails — for imprisoning 
 evil-doers, and so such means of punishment had to be 
 pursued. That was a reason for urgency, it is true, and 
 commanders of the several counties were ordered to 
 proceed in providing such instruments, under penalty 
 for delay. But beside that, it suited the temper of the 
 time. 
 
 The laws, however, went a good deal farther than 
 this. For in 1650 it was enacted that if any one gave 
 false witness under oath, or suborned another to per- 
 jury, he should be nailed to the pillory and lose both 
 ears, or put to other corporal shame or correction as the 
 court should judge. And if any one struck an officer or 
 witness or any other person in presence of the court, he 
 was to lose the offending member. That surely was 
 hideous and at the same time exceedingly foolish, as the 
 efifect of the punishment could only be to expose the 
 sufferer to pauperism as well as to perpetual shame. It 
 is evident in all this that Christianity, however much it 
 had leavened the private conduct of men, had not gotten 
 down to the political administration of society. Another 
 instance of the kind was presented in the ordinance by 
 which, when persons were charged with mutinous and 
 seditious speeches or practices, or when attempts, with- 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. IQI 
 
 out force, were used, tending to divert the obedience of 
 the people from the Rt. Hon. Cecilius Calvert, or the 
 governor of the province, and were found guilty, their 
 punishment could be imprisonment during pleasure, not 
 exceeding one whole year, or fine, banishment, boring 
 of the tongue, slitting the nose, cutting off one or both 
 ears, whipping, branding with a red-hot iron m the hand 
 or forehead,— any one or more of these as the pro- 
 vincial court might think fit. 
 
 But we have not got down to the bottom yet. The 
 recklessness with which the death penalty was admin- 
 istered is amazing, and that with very extravagant bru- 
 tality. In 1642 it was made a felony if any mdented 
 servant should run away from his or her master, and for 
 any one also knowingly to accompany such runaway; 
 and the penalty was hanging. The lord proprietor, it is 
 true or his lieutenant-general, had the power to commute 
 such punishment, though in that case the penalty could 
 not be for more than seven years' service; so that a 
 man's life, according to the standard of the time in the 
 province, was valued at seven years' servitude and might 
 be a good deal less. Human life was, therefore, exceed- 
 ingly cheap. 
 
 The temper of those times is strongly brought out 
 by the proposed enactments in the Assembly of 1638-9, 
 which, however, did not become laws, though read a 
 second time and ordered to be engrossed. According to 
 one of these, treason might be against the king, the 
 queen his wife, or against his son and heir, and it might 
 be committed by levying war, adhering to a foreign 
 prince or state, such being a declared enemy of the king, 
 or by counterfeiting the king's great or privy seal or his 
 
192 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 coin. Or, again, it might be against the lord proprietary, 
 or his Heutenant-general within the province, and it might 
 be committed by adliering to the Indians or any foreign 
 prince for making war upon the colony. This was the 
 crime. And the penalty was drawing, hanging, quarter- 
 ing of the man, and tlie drawing and burning of a 
 woman, — not quartered, I suppose, because the stake 
 did not leave any subject for the axe. A man, however, 
 who was wealthy enough to own one thousand acres of 
 land, the lord of a manor, was to have the indulgence 
 of being beheaded. 
 
 We have all heard of the benefit of clergy, which 
 meant that if any one possessed such learning as might 
 reasonably be required of a clergyman, — and the standard 
 was not high, — he was to enjoy certain privileges before 
 the law. We have this recognized at this time by the 
 legislators of Mar}4and; for at this session, after describ- 
 ing certain felonies, the penalty of which was hanging, 
 the proviso was added that if the offender can read 
 clerk-like, in the judgment of the court, then instead of 
 hanging he shall lose his hand or be burned in the hand 
 or forehead with a hot iron, and shall forfeit all his lands, 
 saving to the wife her dower. The benefit of clergy 
 was not therefore immunity. It only saved one from 
 the halter for the first ofifense, but sent him out branded 
 with indelible marks of infamy. A man that was worthy 
 of the "benefit" would prefer probably to do without it. 
 
 The character of the ofifenses, also, took a wide range. 
 Burglary, robbery, and such as belong to all criminal 
 legislation, of course, are recognized, and probably every- 
 thing that is recognized now as a crime was recognized 
 then, with more beside; so that the wisdom of later 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. I93 
 
 legislators has been chiefly manifested in lopping off, 
 pruning down the offenses embraced in the criminal code. 
 Slandering, backbiting, "scandalizing the good name" 
 of any one, was severely punished.. Blasphemy, "idol- 
 atry, the worshiping of a false God," polygamy, sac- 
 rilege, sorcery, sodomy, rape, all are instanced, and the 
 penalty hanging. Blasphemy was always abhorrent to 
 the colonists; and again and again in the course of the 
 provincial history do we find the Assembly doing what it 
 can to repress it. The act concerning religion of 1649 
 is a fair representation of the tone and spirit of the pro- 
 vince on this, as on other matters, and in it hanging 
 and the forfeiture of goods are provided for any that 
 "blaspheme God, that is, curse Him, or deny our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or deny the 
 Holy Trinity." 
 
 As far as legislation went, the doctrine and the prac- 
 tice of the people were abundantly cared for. But the 
 people must have had a strong propensity to wander, 
 seeing so much legislation was necessary. Though in 
 bar to that it must be remembered that in the beginning 
 it was a " general assembly," that is, everybody sat in it, 
 and legislation was only a provision against what might 
 be. If all reports, however, say true, the legislation 
 was not found to presei-ve either the religion or the 
 morals inviolate. 
 
 The colonists evidently soon became jealous of courts, 
 juries and lawyers. They made a good law in 1642 in the 
 matter of debts, providing that if any man who had 
 been accustomed to labor should make a debt which he 
 could not pay, the creditor could require his personal 
 service to the amount of his debt, the creditor mean- 
 
194 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 while being required to provide necessaries for the 
 man's family. It saved the poor debtor from prison. 
 Others, who were above the condition of personal ser- 
 vice, might be imprisoned according to the barbarous 
 usage of that day and for many years after. They also 
 endeavored to prevent a litigious spirit by making the 
 risks heavy, so that whosoever might be cast in a case, 
 plaintiff or defendant, should be subject to a fine. It 
 was a severe law, for it took for granted that the man 
 that lost ought to have known that he had no case; 
 whereas where is the man that goes to law that does not 
 believe that he has a right to recover? While how many, 
 also, do fail of a fair award, not because their cause is not 
 good, but because in their case law, or precedent, or 
 custom, or the stupidity, not to say dishonesty, of the 
 judge or jury may be against them? It was something 
 like that old Greek law that required that every man who 
 would propose an amendment to the code, should do it 
 at his peril with a rope around his neck, to become a 
 halter if his proposition was rejected. 
 
 In the same line was another act passed in 1642, by 
 w^hich, if when a jury rendered a verdict, the judge had 
 reason to believe the jury partial or wilful, he might 
 charge another jury to enquire and try by the same evi- 
 dence, and if they should find contrary to the former 
 jury, all the former panel might be fined at the discretion 
 of the judge. The juryman's office then was not a 
 sinecure, for he had not only to care for the party in- 
 volved, but had the additional care for himself. He was, 
 as it were, a possible party in every case. 
 
 Nor did they have much more faith in attorneys than 
 they had in the parties in a suit or in the jurymen. As 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. I95 
 
 the whole administration of justice was in Lord Bal- 
 timore's hands in virtue of his patent, we are not so sure 
 as to their faith in his judges, for all such were appointed 
 by him. In respect to the attorneys, they expressed 
 themselves freely. In 1669, incident to the impeachment 
 of a lawyer for receiving a fee for furthering the cause 
 of the plaintiff' till he had recovered his property, and 
 then receiving a further fee from the defendant to replevin 
 the same, a joint committee was appointed by a con- 
 ference of the two houses of the Assembly to report on 
 the grievances of the colony, the fourth clause of which 
 was " that the privileged attorneys are one of the grand 
 grievances of the country." 
 
 Nor was this only a spasmodic burst. Five years 
 after an act was passed by the Assembly, in which it was 
 declared that many of the good people of this province 
 are much burthened and their causes much delayed by 
 the abuse of persons practising as attorneys and by the 
 excessive fees exacted; and also by the great number of 
 attorneys, whereby many and unnecessary and trouble- 
 some suits are raised and fomented. The act was 
 entitled an Act to reform attorneys, councillors, etc. And 
 then the act went on to provide that a certain number of 
 honest and able attorneys be admitted, nominated and 
 sworn by his excellency the captain-general to be at- 
 torneys, councillors, etc.; all others being forbidden to 
 practise. 
 
 And the further provision was made for* the highest 
 fees allowable for each and any case in the several 
 courts of the province; that for the court of chancery 
 being eight hundred pounds of tobacco, for the pro- 
 vincial court four hundred pounds, for the county court 
 
196 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 two hundred pounds. Further provision was also made 
 for the heavy punishment of any attorney that should 
 receive fees beyond the amount allowed, the fine being 
 two thousand pounds of tobacco and the disbarring of 
 the offender in the courts of the province. Lawyers, 
 however, have never been a favorite, though maybe a 
 favored class with the people, being a necessary evil 
 in the present disjointed world whom the people cannot 
 do without and do not want to do with; and they the 
 people have consequently avenged themselves by abus- 
 ing them upon every occasion. 
 
 Among the laws of the colony there are frequently 
 found enactments providing for the observance of Sun- 
 day, for temperance, for morality. As regards the first, 
 they never went as far as was done in the Puritan 
 colonies of the North, though the desecration of the 
 day by fishing, gunning, drinking and kindred methods 
 of indulgence was always reprobated. Kissing one's 
 wife was not regarded as a heinous violation, and con- 
 sequently was not visited either with fine or flogging. 
 In this the Maryland code was more liberal. At one 
 time an attempt was made to compel church-going, but 
 that soon came to nothing; for the churches were inac- 
 cessible to the great body of the people, and, besides, 
 there was not enough of them to accommodate even a 
 fourth of the people. 
 
 The temperance laws, however, were of a practical 
 character, and were probably to a large extent enforced; 
 that is, temperance, not total abstinence. For this at the 
 time was an unknown question in the colonies as well as 
 in the mother country. Liquor was used almost univer- 
 sally, and, as we would say, almost excessively in all 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 1 97 
 
 f 
 
 classes of society. In Maryland we find a church vestry 
 adopting a standing order for one quart of rum and 
 lemons and sugar equivalent, for every vestry meeting, to 
 be paid for out of the church funds ; and in England, in the 
 palmiest days of Queen Anne, the best men of the day 
 thought it no disgrace to drink themselves under the 
 table, and that regularly; and long since that time 
 "drunk for a penny and dead drunk for twopence" 
 was the attractive sign over the gin-shops of London. 
 
 Still in Maryland they tried to restrain. And they 
 began with the drinker. Drunkenness was punished, 
 one of the first laws of the province providing that for 
 " drunkenness, which is drinking to excess to the notable 
 perturbation of any organ of sense or motion," the 
 offender shall forfeit to the lord proprietary thirty pounds 
 of tobacco or five shillings sterling, or otherwise shall 
 be whipped or by some other corporal shame or pun- 
 ishment corrected for every such excess at the discretion 
 of the judge. If the man was a servant, and not able to 
 pay the fine, he was to be imprisoned or set in the stocks 
 or bilbos, fasting, for twenty-four hours. Subsequent 
 laws made the punishment even more severe; that of 
 1658 providing that for the first ofifense the punishment 
 should be six hours in the stocks or a fine of one hun- 
 dred pounds of tobacco; for the second, whipping or 
 three hundred pounds; and for the third offense and 
 conviction the offender was to be adjudged a person 
 infamous, and as such incapable of voting or bearing 
 office for the space of three years. That such a law was 
 not a brtitiim fulmen one of his lordship's councillors, 
 Thomas Gerard, discovered; for it being proven that he 
 was intoxicated, he was banished tlie province and all his 
 
198 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 property, real and personal, forfeited. The governor 
 remitted the banishment, but his other losses were 
 allowed to stand. 
 
 Beside treating the drunkard in this way, they tried 
 also to restrain liquor-selling. Ordinaries were opened 
 in various parts of the colony, one being in the State 
 House itself; but care was taken that only persons of 
 good character should be licensed to keep them. This 
 is different from the present rule in Maryland and in 
 most other places; for nothing is easier than for any 
 man to secure a license. If he abuses his opportunity, 
 and his ordinary becomes a nuisance, his license may be 
 taken away. Though this rarely prevents a man from 
 going on, some one being found to take out a license 
 in his own name for the odier's use. Attempt was also 
 made to restrict the number, and limit by name, the 
 places where the ordinaries could be kept. They looked 
 upon liquors as they looked upon lawyers, as above 
 noted, as a necessity, believing that danger existed only 
 in the superabundance, whether of drink or drinking 
 houses, and that it became them to provide against the 
 excess. 
 
 And as of liquors so of morality in general. Lewdness 
 was suppressed as far as possible. There were among 
 the immigrants to the province from the beginning some 
 who were low in. morals as they were in intelligence. 
 Even the marriage of white women with negro men was 
 not unknown, but was looked upon with such horror 
 that any woman so doing became by the marriage a 
 slave during the life of her husband, and the children 
 slaves for life, as their father was. Law, not anarchy, 
 was predominant in Maryland from the start, but it had 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. I99 
 
 a heavy load to carry. It did wonderfully well to main- 
 tain its balance as it did, with the constant incoming tide, 
 often of the offscourings of the old world. But though 
 with difificulty, yet it struggled along, and at last was 
 able to hand over into better times a people taught so to 
 recognize law that for its maintenance they would give 
 up all beside. 
 
 What was the bearing of Maryland toward the 
 Quakers? I ask this question because it is a crucial 
 one in determining the spirit of Maryland in regard to 
 religious liberty and religious prejudice. We know how 
 they were treated in New England, beaten and hanged, 
 imprisoned and compelled to suffer cold and hunger to 
 a degree almost beyond belief; while their persecutors 
 were not the brutal mob who in their ignorance would 
 do anything for excitement's sake or to gratify a savage 
 passion. Those who persecuted the Quakers in New 
 England were the best and most honored in the land. 
 Why did Marylanders not do the same? Did they love 
 religion less? Not by any means. Though the great 
 majority did not enjoy religious privileges as they were 
 possessed in the Northern colonies, yet that was their 
 misfortune, not their fault. The revenues of the province 
 went into the pockets of a man who claimed them as 
 his right, and who by his religious creed and private 
 interests Combined, was constrained wholly to neglect 
 the religious welfare of the people, save of the few of 
 his own faith. The people also were so scattered that 
 combmation was almost impossible, while also even 
 among the majority there was such diversity of religious 
 belief that voluntary association for the support of any 
 one church was impossible. But as soon as opportunity 
 
200 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 was offered on the Protestant Revolution, we see their 
 longing and resolute desire to have all the facilities for 
 religious worship. 
 
 Maryland differed from the New England colonies in 
 her treatment of the Quakers, because a political and not 
 a religious basis was that on which she stood. Ic was 
 with the eyes of statesmanship, and not of narrow religious 
 bigotry that she looked at the question. And her claim 
 to religious toleration rests far more on such a spirit as 
 exhibited in such circumstances, than on the mere i\ct 
 Concerning Religion, that is filled rather with curses than 
 benedictions. She had been, and was, and continued to 
 be, tolerant of all classes and names of Christians, when 
 that law was promulgated. It only expressed what was 
 the political faith of Maryland from the beginning. 
 
 It is true, as was stated in the beginning of this lecture, 
 that Maryland passed her laws, or rather orders, for it was 
 the work of the Council and not of the Assembly, against 
 Quakers ; for it was with them as with the early Christians, 
 a sect that was " everywhere spoken against." It is also to 
 be remembered that in 1658, when the greatest jealousy 
 of the Quakers was manifested, the Puritan influence was 
 predominant in Maryland, and that Governor Fendall, 
 who was the adherent and mouthpiece of that influence, 
 was the executive of the colony during the period when 
 the various orders were passed. It was at this time the 
 extreme violence raged in Massachusetts, three victims 
 having perished in 1659 and 1660, and the last one on 
 March the fourteenth, 1661. It is doubtful, however, 
 whether even such persistent offenders as Thomas Thur- 
 ston and Josias Cole ever felt the lash, against whom 
 chiefly were the orders issued. The chief complaint also 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 201 
 
 against them was not concerning their reUgious belief, 
 but their contempt of court, in that they would not remove 
 their hats, and would not take the oath in legal proceed- 
 ings. Also, they would not, according to the require- 
 ments of the law, make their engagement faithfully to 
 obey the laws of the province, an obligation required to 
 be made by every one coming to reside within it. 
 
 On the other hand, in 1665, we find three Quakers in a 
 board of seven land commissioners of one of the counties, 
 appointed to this office by the governor and council. 
 This was the same year when Massachusetts, under Gov- 
 ernor Bellingham, renewed in a milder way its persecution 
 of the five years previous. In 1676, or about that time, 
 Wenlock Christison, famous for his fortitude and suffer- 
 ings, who had now finally come to Maryland, where he 
 ended his days in peace and prosperity, was elected to the 
 lower house of the Assembly. After him others were 
 found holding the same office, as well as that of justice of 
 the peace in their various counties. Maryland's record, 
 thereafter, in this stands eminent. 
 
 Nor does it stand less so when we look at the subject 
 of witchcraft. However it may be argued, whether Mary- 
 land did not fear the Devil so much, or whether it was less 
 loyal to the Almighty than her New England contempo- 
 raries, cannot be determined. Maryland people believed 
 in witches, as all the world did. It was deeply imbedded 
 in the religious consciousness of the day the world over. 
 Even John Wesley said, long after this time, that he who 
 would £rive up witchcraft must give up the Bible. Even 
 the witches believed in witchcraft, and would confess thev 
 were witches, in spite of all the penalties. Nor is the old 
 belief entirely out of date now, but many, we hope only 
 
202 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 among the ignorant, regard with awe and hatred those 
 whom they regard as the ministers of Satan. But every- 
 body beheved in witches two hundred years ago, and 
 grave and learned divines led in the crusade against these 
 Devil's ministers. 
 
 Now, what is Maryland's record? There is no use or 
 pleasure in reviewing the world's record. It is too awful, 
 too sad. As far as is known, never a witch suffered 
 within the Maryland borders. In the year 1654, during 
 a stormy passage to Maryland, the sailors on board the 
 ship " Charity " (a misnomer in this case) became con- 
 vinced that they must have a witch on board who was the 
 cause of the storm ; and choosing a little old woman, they 
 forthwith proceeded to examine her, and, of course, to 
 find reason for condemning her. For in such cases, as in 
 many others in all the ways of life, examination is con- 
 demnation. Moved either by malignity or fear, we can 
 find what we are looking for. They put her to death and 
 cast her body and all that belonged to her into the sea, 
 and still the storm blew on with undiminished violence. 
 
 There was one case in Maryland itself, when a certain 
 John Connor was convicted of witchcraft. But instead 
 of his being executed, at the strong urgency of the lower 
 house of the Assembly, he was reprieved and his death 
 sentence changed into indefinite service to the governor 
 and council, apparently to do such chores as came to 
 hand, during the pleasure of the governor. 
 
 That ends the whole witchcraft episode, and what a 
 contrast to what was seen everywhere else! Why w^as it? 
 They all believed in witches, and in the charges given 
 from time to time to justices of the peace and other 
 ofificers, was tliis of enquiring about witchcrafts, enchant- 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 203 
 
 ments, sorceries, and magic arts. But, somehow, the faith 
 and the practice did not agree. This was in 1675. It was in 
 1692, it will be remembered, that the Salem tragedy was 
 enacted at which the mind revolts. Why was it that 
 Maryland differed so from the rest of the world? The 
 reason probably is the same as in the case of the treatment 
 of the Quakers. The policy of the colony rested upon a 
 broader basis, statesmanlike politics and not religious 
 bigotry, a policy that was observed in the colony to the 
 end of the colonial period. 
 
 There is one subject it would be pleasant to be able to 
 omit: Maryland's treatment of the Indians. For in this 
 she was not better than the other colonies. Injustice, 
 cruelty, brutality too frequently inspired her legislation 
 and her conduct. She feared the Indians, and her fear 
 blinded the eyes of her administrators to their rights and 
 to the commonest principles of justice and humanity. 
 This policy was pursued until even the small band of 
 peaceful Indians who sought to dwell on good terms 
 within the territory, which had once been all their own, 
 gradually disappeared. Whether God's vengeance has 
 yet overtaken this nation for all its barbarity to the 
 aborigines of the country, is a problem which the coming 
 time will have to solve. 
 
 Another subject also I would be glad to omit, the legis- 
 lation concerning the Roman Catholics after the days of 
 the Protestant Revolution. They were but a small min- 
 ority of the people, dividing with the members of the 
 Church of England one-fourth of the whole population. 
 This was the testimony of Lord Baltimore. Still, how- 
 ever, though so small a fraction, they were feared. Anxiety 
 was from time to time expressed that they would rise and, 
 
204 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 combining with the Indians or with the French, would 
 work havoc in the province. And the consequence was, 
 they were always repressed and the means sought to pre- 
 vent their increase in numbers. 
 
 Thus they were defranchised by the Test Oath, after 
 Maryland became a royal colony, a disavowal of transub- 
 stantiation being requisite for the enjoyment of the political 
 privileges of citizenship. In 1 704, by an act of the Assem- 
 bly, it was sought to prevent the growth of popery by for- 
 bidding the exercise of spiritual functions by the Roman 
 priesthood. Also members of that church were forbidden 
 to engage in teaching the youth of the colony. At the 
 same session, however, this severity was mitigated by per- 
 mission granted for spiritual ministrations in private 
 families and private chapels. In 171 5 a severe law was 
 passed, by which if a Protestant father died, and his widow 
 should be a Roman Catholic, the children should be 
 removed from her custody, " to save them from popery." 
 The expense of their education was to be borne by their 
 father's estate. In 171 6 and 171 8, after the rising in Eng- 
 land in behalf of the Pretender, the sensitiveness and fears 
 of the people of the colony were indicated by a renewal 
 of the restrictive laws, so that if a person was suspected 
 of being a Roman Catholic, the Test Oath could be 
 administered as a qualification for voting. 
 
 Also, early in the century, dread was excited by the 
 introduction of Roman Catholics from abroad, and a tax 
 was imposed by the legislature of 1708, of twenty shillings 
 upon all Irish servants of that faith brought in. Down 
 later in the century, at the beginning of the French War, 
 an attempt was made, in providing for the expenses of the 
 war, to lay a double tax upon the Roman Catholics. The 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 20$ 
 
 Upper house would not consent to this, and so it never 
 became a law. But it shows the animus of the people. 
 The motives for this attempt are said to have been two- 
 fold; first, that the French and the Roman Catholics were 
 associated in the people's minds as equally enemies of the 
 province, because of their common religion; secondly, 
 that certain persons were specially offensive to the lower 
 house, whom it was its desire to reach. 
 
 Such things, however painful, are facts, growing out of 
 the suspicions and bitter feelings of the day. The Revo- 
 lution, both in England and Maryland, had its origin in 
 the dread and abhorrence of Romanism as exhibited in 
 the despotism of James the Second and the persecuting 
 zeal of Louis the Fourteenth in the revocation of the 
 edict of Nantes, and the horrible sufiferings of the Hugue- 
 nots. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at, though it is 
 to be deplored, that the people stood in constant dread 
 and vented their fears in acts of injustice and violence. 
 
 I have referred in a previous lecture to the Act of 
 Establishment of the Church, and to the subsequent acts 
 passed, until the purpose of the people was consummated. 
 For it took the people ten years to frame an act that should 
 be pleasing as well to the king of England as to the 
 inhabitants of the province. As it was something, how- 
 ever, which they were determined to have, they persisted. 
 I only refer here to the matter again to call attention to 
 certain minor features of the law, and to other laws sub- 
 sequently passed bearing upon the same matter. 
 
 The purpose of that law was the moral and religious 
 regeneration of the people, in which points the state of 
 society was said to be extremely bad. Nor can there be 
 a doubt but what it was true, and there was nothing to 
 
206 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 make the condition otherwise. Rehgion and education 
 had both been grossly neglected, and as a consequence 
 all the attempts that the Assembly had been making from 
 the beginning to restrain blasphemy, profane language, 
 drunkenness, and other forms of vice, and to promote a 
 due or any observance of the First Day, had been utterly 
 null and void. Pains and penalties are not qualified for 
 moral or religious ends. 
 
 And the Church was efifective for the end proposed, 
 because the law armed it in every way for this purpose. 
 For, first, the vestry as a body were the custodians of 
 morality and had certain power to rebuke and warn, and 
 then to inform against if the warning were not heeded. 
 The Church was also used to keep the laws bearing upon 
 immorality constantly before the people, for it was made 
 the duty of the rector of the parish, who was chief vestry- 
 man, to read publicly, four times a year, the laws of the 
 province forbidding swearing, drunkenness, and the viola- 
 tion of the Sabbath Day by work, fishing and gunning; 
 and if he failed to do this, he exposed himself to a fine. 
 We can see what a salutary effect this must have had in 
 preserving a knowledge and standard of morality. It 
 compelled the people to remember what was law add duty, 
 and it was a constant warning to all who could not be 
 influenced by a sense of duty, but who might be by a 
 sense of fear. It also made wickedness shameful. We 
 have seen before what was the jurisdiction of the vestry 
 in certain cases of immorality. 
 
 'But the Church, as a political institution for the sup- 
 pression of vice, went farther. Under the law as finally 
 passed in 1702, the vestry and wardens were to meet 
 monthly, and doing so, they could bring together the 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 20/ 
 
 results of their observation since the last meeting, and 
 report any violation of the laws that might have come to 
 their notice. Vestries now have charge of the secular 
 affairs of their churches, and often so little concern is felt 
 for these things, that no one outside their own body 
 knows or can readily find out who compose the body. 
 But not so in those days. The vestry had its own pew in 
 the church ; they were supposed to sit together in a seat of 
 honor and authority, and they were thus kept before the 
 eyes and minds of the people as officers with certain defi- 
 nite duties. 
 
 And their office they carried out with them into the 
 parish daily life, as much as the minister carried his. This 
 was strengthened by the law of 1723, which forbade swear- 
 ing or drunkenness in the presence of a vestryman or 
 churchwarden, under penalty of fine, whipping, or sitting 
 in the stocks. The churchwardens had also the power 
 of preserving the peace in and about the church, even to 
 the point that if any one persisted in violating good order, 
 he might then and there be arrested by the churchwardens 
 and put in the stocks, of which, in some instances, a pair 
 was set up near the church for such emergencies. 
 
 The ideal church establishment then, as the men of 1692 
 presented it, was an excellent one. That the ideal did not 
 become a practical fact, is very true, as human ideals 
 rarely or never do. The purpose, however, was worthy, 
 and the need was imperative, and the success attained was 
 highly beneficent to the moral and religious welfare of 
 the whole community. The method would be strangely 
 anomalous in our day, but the men of that day knew and 
 adhered to what they saw was best for them. 
 
208 HISTORY OF EARLY MARYLAND. 
 
 With this we close the review of the State's earhest his- 
 tory. Much might have been said that has not been, and 
 some things, may be, left out that have been said. The 
 purpose has been to give a series of pictures of the period, 
 the century and a half from the founding of the colony to 
 the time when England acknowledged that she could not 
 longer call the colony her own. It was a growth from 
 infancy to manhood, with the vicissitudes that belong to 
 all transitional life. There were days of passion and 
 violence, days of petulance and irritation. There were 
 many acts of folly, and many of violence and injustice. 
 Many things blur the glory and blot the page that might 
 record them, especially as regards the Indian and the 
 Roman Catholic. Sometimes a cringing spirit was mani- 
 fested, as when in the extravagance of adulation they 
 approached the throne of James the Second, on the birth 
 of his son, and then with as enthusiastic adulation glorified 
 William the Third as the defender of the Protestant faith 
 and the liberties of the empire. 
 
 Still, these things were only incidental, not essential. 
 The people were the victims of their times, while their 
 true, robust character was indicated by their progress 
 through the circumstances of their day always toward a 
 higher and nobler manhood, vindicating their rights 
 against those who, in the front or on either hand, would 
 retard their progress. King, proprietary, local influences 
 in the province itself, all attempted to bar the way, to 
 reduce the people to their will. The struggle also might 
 be long; dissension, disputation, contention might last 
 through years. The issue, however, was always the same. 
 The consistent and courageous maintenance of principle 
 always ensured success. 
 
ODDS AND ENDS OF LEGISLATION. 2O9 
 
 For this reason the sons of the old commonwealth need 
 not fear to scan closely. Their old parent is worthy of 
 all honor. Whether as a lone province with peculiar 
 institutions struggling toward her own broad conceptions 
 of liberty; or whether as one of the galaxy of colonies, 
 maintaining by cohesion with them the rights of free-born 
 men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, irrespec- 
 tive of the dictation of any foreign potentate; or whether 
 as a state making up, by voluntary surrender of all indi- 
 vidual rights that might stand in bar, one great and 
 glorious nation, along with all the other states of the per- 
 fect union, it is the same: Maryland is worthy of the honor 
 of her sons. Let it be the effort of her sons to preserve 
 always inviolate the honor that has been transmitted to 
 them by those that struggled and achieved in other days. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Chronological Table of Events Connected with 
 History of Maryland. 
 
 1617. George Calvert made Knight. 
 
 1 61 9. George Calvert made Secretary of State. 
 
 1620. George Calvert championed royal pretensions in 
 
 Parliament. 
 
 1620. Pension bestowed on George Calvert by King 
 
 James, of 1000 pounds sterling a year. 
 
 1 62 1. The estate in Ireland bestowed on George Calvert 
 
 by the King. 
 
 1623. Charter of Avalon granted George Calvert. 
 
 1624. George Calvert avowed conversion to Roman 
 
 Church. 
 
 1625. George Calvert Member of Privy Council. 
 1625. George Calvert made Baron of Baltimore. 
 1625. James the First died. 
 
 1631. Kent Island settled by Claiborne. 
 
 1632. George, first Lord Baltimore, died. 
 
 1632. Charter for Maryland given, June 20. 
 
 1633. Answers to anticipated objections prepared by 
 
 Provincial of Jesuits. 
 
 1633. Colony sailed for Maryland, Nov. 22d. 
 
 1634. Colony landed in Maryland, March 27th. 
 
 1635. Battle between Kent Islanders and St. Mary's 
 
 people. 
 
 1635. First Assembly of the province. Proceedings dis- 
 allowed by Lord Baltimore. 
 
 1637-8 Session of Provincial Assembly. 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 1638. Leonard Calvert, GoAernor, adjourned Assembly 
 
 of his own prerogative. 
 1638. Kent Islanders reduced to submission. 
 1638. William Lewis fined for forbidding servants to 
 
 read Protestant books. 
 
 1638. Through this period Governor exercised preroga- 
 
 tive of summoning particular persons to the 
 Assembly. 
 
 1639. First act for the restraint of liquors. 
 
 1640. Troubles with Jesuits began. 
 
 1 64 1. Questions propounded to Jesuit priests concern- 
 
 ing claims of the Roman Church. 
 
 1 641. Father White's " Twenty Cases," also " Memorial." 
 
 1 64 1. Permission given to Lord Baltimore by the 
 "Sacred Congregation," etc., to remove the 
 Jesuits, and to grant a prefect and secular 
 priests. 
 
 1 64 1. Rosetti, Archbishop of Tarsus, to have charge of 
 Maryland. 
 
 1641. Conditions of Plantation issued, enforcing statute 
 of mortmain. 
 
 1641. " Points " to which Lord Baltimore required sub- 
 scription. 
 
 1 641. Provincial of Jesuits executed release of all lands 
 held in violation of statute of mortmain. 
 
 1 641. A form of agreement proposed by Jesuits. 
 
 1642. Order dismissing Jesuits revoked. 
 1641-2. Cruel treatment of Indians. 
 1642. Indian War. 
 
 1642. Petition of " Protestant Catholics " against Thom. 
 Gerard. 
 
 1642. Assembly passed resolution: Could not be ad- 
 journed without its own consent. 
 
APPENDIX. 213 
 
 1643. Leonard Calvert sailed for England. 
 
 1644. Leonard Calvert returned to Maryland, Septem- 
 
 ber. 
 1644. Claiborne recovers Kent Island. 
 
 1644. All leading offices in hands of Roman Catholics. 
 
 1645. Claiborne and Ingle's rebellion; continues almost 
 
 two years. 
 
 1645. Father White sent prisoner to England. 
 
 1646. Governor Calveit recovers the province. 
 
 1646. Port and tonnage duties granted by Assembly. 
 
 1647. Leonard Calvert dies, June 9th. 
 
 1648. William Stone, governor. His oath first contains 
 
 pledge not to discriminate on account of re- 
 ligion. 
 1648. Puritans ordered to leave Virginia. 
 
 1648. Governor and majority of Council Protestants. 
 
 1649. Charles II proclaimed by acting Governor Greene. 
 
 1649. "Act Concerning Religion " passed. 
 
 1650. Assembly to sit as two houses. 
 
 1650. Parliament recognizes Lord Baltimore's title. 
 
 1650. Anne Arundel County erected. 
 
 1652. Governor Stone submitted to Commonwealth 
 Commissioners. 
 
 1652. Expedition against Eastern Shore Indians. 
 
 1654. Battle of the Severn. 
 
 1654. Cromwell proclaimed Protector. 
 
 1654. Investigation concerning execution of Mary Lee, 
 witch. 
 
 1654. Maryland in hands of Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 1654. Calvert County erected. 
 
 1657. Quakers began to appear in Maryland. 
 
 1658. Province restored to Lord Baltimore. 
 
214 APPENDIX. 
 
 1658. Fendall, governor. 
 
 1658. Assembly henceforth sits as two houses. 
 
 1658. Voting by proxy or in person ceases. 
 
 1658. Charles County erected. 
 
 1658. Proclamation against Quakers. Order of Council. 
 
 1658. Francis Fitzherbert accused of proselyting to 
 
 Roman Church. 
 
 1659. Fendall's ti'easonable intrigues. 
 
 1659. Baltimore County erected. 
 
 1660. Proprietary government re-established. 
 1660. Population, 12,000. 
 
 1660. Charles II proclaimed, November. 
 
 1660. Philip Calvert, brother of proprietary, governor. 
 
 1661. Talbot County erected. 
 
 1 66 1. Act to create a mint. Shilling to be equal to 
 ninepence sterling. 
 
 1661. Navigation Act passed by Long ParHament, en- 
 
 forced by Charles II. 
 
 1662. Charles Calvert, governor, son of proprietary. 
 1662. Agitation of question of application of English 
 
 statutes. 
 
 1665. Quakers holding minor offices in Maryland. 
 
 1665. Population, 16,000. 
 
 1666. Somerset County erected. 
 1666. Acts of Naturalization. 
 1666. Treaty with Indians. 
 
 1669. Dorchester County erected. 
 
 1671. Population, 20,000. 
 
 1672. George Fox in Maryland. 
 1674. Cecil County erected. 
 
 1674. Restraint upon ordinaries, — taverns. 
 
 1674. John Connor condemned for witchcraft. 
 
APPENDIX. 21$ 
 
 1675. Thos. Truman's brutality to Indians. 
 
 1675. Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, dies. 
 
 1676. Charles, third Lord Baltimore, returns to England. 
 1676. Cecil, infant son, nominally governor. 
 
 1676. Rev. Mr. Yeo's descriptive letter. 
 
 1678. Thos. Notley, governor. 
 
 1680. Charles Lord Baltimore returned to Maryland. 
 
 1 68 1. Charter of Pennsylvania given. 
 
 1 68 1. Qualification of voter, to be a freeholder. 
 
 1682. The Lower House refused to receive members of 
 
 the Upper House wearing swords. 
 
 1683. Conditions of Plantation ceased to be operative. 
 
 Land to be purchased henceforth. 
 
 1684. Lord Baltimore returned to England. 
 
 1684. Benedict Leonard, infant son, nominally governor. 
 1684. Lord Baltimore ordered by king to put all oflBces 
 in the hands of Protestants. 
 
 1687. Quo warranto issued by James II against Lord 
 
 Baltimore. 
 
 1688. Proprietary by proclamation relieved Quakers 
 
 of oath in testamentary cases. 
 
 1688. President of Lower House represented the ex- 
 
 tremely immoral condition of colony. 
 
 1689. Protestant Revolution. 
 
 1689. Declaration of Protestant Association printed on 
 printing press in the colony. 
 
 1692. Maryland became a royal province. 
 
 1692. Sir Lionel Copley, governor. 
 
 1692. "Act for service of Almighty God and the Estab- 
 lishment of the Protestant Religion." 
 
 1692. Quakers allowed to " affirm." 
 
 1693. Sir Edmund Andros, governor. 
 
2l6 APPENDIX. 
 
 1694. Sir Francis Nicholson, governor. 
 1694. Annapolis made seat of government. 
 
 1694. Act for maintaining free schools. 
 1694-5. Epidemic among cattle and hogs. 
 
 1695. Public post established between Potomac and 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 1695. Prince George's County erected. 
 1695. Second act for maintaining free schools. 
 
 1695. Gov. Nicholson proposes a Bishop, with a seat 
 
 in the Upper House. 
 
 1696. King William's School founded, Annapolis. 
 
 1697. King William presented library to Annapolis. 
 
 1699. Nathaniel Blackistone, governor. 
 
 1700. Indian troubles on borders of Maryland. 
 
 1702. Provisions of Toleration Act extended to colony. 
 
 1704. John Seymour, governor. 
 
 1704. Test Oath imposed, abjuration of Pretender's 
 claims. 
 
 1706. Queen Anne's County erected. 
 
 1706. Toleration Act of William and Mary fully intro- 
 duced. 
 
 1709. Lloyd, governor. 
 
 1 710. Population, 30,000. 
 
 1 714. John Hart, governor. 
 
 1 714. Benedict Leonard Calvert, fourth Lord Baltimore. 
 
 1 71 5. Proprietary government re-established. 
 171 5. Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore. 
 
 171 5. Population, 44,000. 
 
 1716. Various test oaths introduced from England. 
 
 The year after the " Rising." 
 
 171 7. Export duty on tobacco to proprietary in place 
 
 of quit-rents, temporary. 
 1720. Charles Calvert, governor. 
 
APPENDIX. 217 
 
 1 72 1. Scotch prisoners come in. 
 
 1722. Question of application of English statutes; lasted 
 
 ten years. 
 
 1723. Act passed for free schools in each county. 
 
 1727. Benedict Leonard Calvert, governor. 
 
 1728. Town of Baltimore created. 
 
 1 73 1. Sam. Ogle, governor. 
 
 1732. Charles Lord Baltimore in colony and acting as 
 
 governor. Governor Ogle succeeds him. 
 
 1733. Fees of office established by proclamation. 
 1735. Decision rendered in matter of boundary between 
 
 Lord Baltimore and Wm. Penn. 
 
 1739. Dissensions about proprietary's revenues; also 
 
 about settling fees by proclamation; also the 
 establishment of new offices with fees. 
 
 1740. Attempt against the Spanish settlements. 
 1742. Thomas Bladen, governor. 
 
 1742. Worcester County erected. 
 
 1745. Maryland Gazette started, Annapolis. 
 
 1748. Frederick County erected. 
 
 1748. Population, whites 94,000, blacks 36,000. 
 
 1 75 1. Frederick Lord Baltimore succeeds his father. 
 
 1753. Horatio Sharpe, governor. 
 
 1754. Commencement of French War. 
 
 1755. Indian ravages. 
 
 1755. Braddock's defeat. 
 
 1756. Population, whites 107,963, blacks 46,225. 
 
 1757. Indian hostilities, western part of Maryland. 
 
 1758. Capture of Fort Duquesne. 
 
 1761. Population, whites 114,332, blacks 49^675. 
 
 1761. Tobacco shipped annually, 28,000 hhds.; value, 
 
 14,000 pounds; other exports, value 80,000 
 
 pounds currency. 
 
2l8 APPENDIX. 
 
 1 761. English imports, 160,000 pounds. 
 
 1 761. Iron manufactured, 2500 tons pig, 600 tons bar. 
 
 1763 Close of French War. 
 
 1765. Proprietary's revenue from Port duty, £1000 
 sterling; Tobacco duty, £1543; Fines and 
 forfeitures, £400. 
 
 1765. The Stamp Act passed, March 226.. September, 
 Maryland seized first possible moment to pro- 
 test against Stamp Act. Stamp distributor 
 burned in effigy in various places. September, 
 Commissioners appointed to general congress 
 at New York. 
 
 1765. October: General congress met. Governor 
 
 Sharpe declares it impossible to execute Act. 
 November: Frederick County Court declares 
 Act unconstitutional. 
 
 1766. Sons of Liberty formed in Baltimore. Legal 
 
 business carried on without stamped paper. 
 March i8th. Stamp Act repealed. 
 
 1767. Attempt to tax by duty on paper, tea, etc. 
 
 1768. June 8th, Maryland Assembly protests. 
 
 1769. Governor Eden succeeds Governor Sharpe. 
 
 1769. June 20th, Non-Importation Association formed. 
 
 1770. Proclamation of fees and clergy dues. 
 
 1770. Duty taken ofif from some articles. 
 
 1 771. Frederick Lord Baltimore dies. Henry Harford 
 
 succeeds. 
 1 771. Value of quit-rents, net, 7500 pounds sterling. 
 1771. Proprietary's income from province 64,000 dollars. 
 
 1773. Harford County erected. 
 "^yyS- Caroline County erected. 
 
 1774. Boston Port Bill passed. 
 
APPENDIX. 219 
 
 1774. The "Peggy Stewart" burnt, Oct. 19th. 
 
 1774. The Continental Congress met, September 5th. 
 
 Non-importation agreement. Restrictions on 
 
 exports. 
 1774. Population of Maryland, 320,000. 
 
 1774. June 22d, convention met at Annapolis; govern- 
 
 ment of province assumed by it. 
 
 1775. April 19th, Battle of Lexington. 
 
 1775- ]^^y> articles of association formed in Maryland; 
 basis of temporary government of province. 
 
 1776. June 28th, delegates to General Congress autho- 
 
 rized to join the other colonies in Declaration 
 of Independence. 
 
 1776. July 6th, Maryland Convention declared the state 
 independent. 
 
 1776. Governor Eden withdrew from province, June 24. 
 
 1776. July 30, new convention provided for. Conven- 
 tion met Aug. 14. 
 
 1776. Declaration of Rights adopted, Nov. 3d. 
 
 1776. Constitution adopted, Nov. 8th. 
 
 1777. First Assembly under State government, Feb. 5th. 
 1777. Thos. Johnson, first governor of State. 
 
 1777. Confederation formed. 
 
 1779 Thos. Sim Lee, second governor. 
 
 1780. Confiscation Bill passed. 
 
 1781. Maryland joins Confederation, the public lands 
 
 having been ceded by New York and Virginia. 
 
220 APPENDIX. 
 
 Battles in which Maryland Troops took part. 
 
 1776. Battle of Long Island. 
 
 1776. Storming of Fort Washington. 
 
 1776. Battle of Trenton. 
 
 1777. Battle of Princeton, 
 1777. Attack on Staten Island. 
 1777. Battle of Brandywine. 
 1777. Battle of German town. 
 
 1777. Fort Mifflin. 
 
 1778. Battle of Monmouth. 
 
 1780. Maryland Line ordered to Southern department. 
 
 1780. Battle of Camden. 
 
 1781. Battle of Cowpens. 
 
 1 78 1. Battle of Guilford Court House. 
 
 1781. Batde of Hobkirk's Hill. 
 
 1 781. Assault on Ninety-Six. 
 
 1 78 1. Batde of Eutaw Springs. 
 
 1 78 1. Siege of Yorktown, Oct. 19th. 
 
appendix. 221 
 
 "The Cases." 
 
 " The cases " submitted by Rev. Andrew White, Jesuit 
 father, for solution to Henry More, provincial in England, 
 by whom they were sent to Rome. These cases will be 
 found to embrace the extravagant claims of the Roman 
 ecclesiastics under the canonical and civil law, by which, 
 although always opposed in England, they were enabled 
 in other countries to wield such extensive powers, and to 
 foster such excessive abuses. The points chiefly notice- 
 able are the exemption of the clergy from the courts and 
 statutes of the realm, the control of testamentary cases, 
 and the interference in the matter of marriage. The Bull 
 In coena Domini, to which reference is made in "the 
 cases" in various places, "Asserts the full supremacy of 
 the Pope over all persons and powers, temporal and eccle- 
 siastical. That decree forbids all persons whatsoever, 
 directly or indirectly, to violate, depress, or restrain the 
 ecclesiastical liberties or rights of the Apostolic See and 
 Church of Rome, howsoever or whensoever obtained, or 
 to be obtained, under pain of excommunication; and all 
 who presume to oppose any of its provisions, are left under 
 the displeasure of Almighty God." 
 
 " The cases " will be found to bring into juxtaposition 
 and contrast these extravagant ecclesiastical claims, and 
 the definite position of the English legislation. The 
 question at issue was whether the principles of English 
 legislation by king, lords and commons should extend to 
 Maryland, or whether Lord Baltimore, the absolute lord, 
 being a Roman Catholic, was bound in conscience to rec- 
 ognize the rights of the clergy as possessed and exercised 
 in Roman Catholic countries. In response to the ques- 
 
222 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion. Lord Baltimore quickly assumed a very decided posi- 
 tion. 
 
 "The Cases. 
 
 " In a country (as this is) newly planted, and depending 
 wholly upon England for its subsistence, where there is 
 not, (nor can not be, until England be reunited to the 
 Church) any ecclesiastical discipline established (by law 
 of the Province or grant of the prynce) nor provinciall 
 synod held, nor spiritual courts erected, nor the canon 
 laws accepted, nor ordinary or other ecclesiastical persons 
 admitted (as such), nor Catholic religion publickly allowed : 
 and whereas three parts of the people, or foure (at least) 
 are (1641) hereticks, I desire to be resolved: 
 
 P Whether a lay Catholic can, with a safe conscience, 
 take charge or government of an office in such a country 
 as this, where he may not nor dare, discharge all the 
 duties and obligations of a Catholic magistrate, nor yeald 
 and mayntaine to the Church all her rights and liberties 
 which Shee hath in other Catholic country es? 
 
 IP Whether the lay Catholics (in such a country as 
 this) are bound to accept or admit of all the canon law 
 and in speciall of the Councill of Trent (extra sidem) or 
 whether the canon law (as such) binds in this country 
 afore it be accepted by some law or custom. 
 
 III<* Whether the exemptions of the clergy for their 
 persons, lands, goods, Tennants, Domestiques, or privilege 
 of sanctuary to theyr houses or churches, etc., are due to 
 them of Divine right, by immediate grant from Christ to 
 his Church, so that princes becoming Christians, were 
 instantly obliged in conscience to allow and confirme 
 those exemptions, or at least to permit and suffer the 
 Church to practice and enjoy them ; or whether they hould 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 223 
 
 them of the free and voluntary guift and devotion of pious 
 princes and states, so that in a countrey newly erected, or 
 becoming Xtian, a grant or charter from the prynce 
 thereof of such libertyes and exemption is necessary before 
 the clergy of such (a) country can clayme them as theyr 
 right and due in point of conscience; and whether before 
 such a grant, admittance or allowance of their priviledges, 
 may the state practice contrary to them without sacri- 
 ledges, or incurring the censures Bullcs coence. 
 
 IVo Whether houlding of Courts with external coer- 
 cive jurisdiction, be a part of the powers of the Keys left 
 by Christ to his Church, or whether it be a part of the 
 sword, put by God into the hands of princes, and from 
 them granted unto spiritual ordinaryes: and where eccle- 
 siastical tribunals are here to be erected, with such power 
 of external coercive jurisdiction, may the prynce erect by 
 his own charter, or must it be done by special commission 
 and delegation of the See Apostolique? 
 
 V^ Whether the conusance of causes testamentary 
 belongs to the spirituall Court out of the Nature of the 
 causes themselves, and of the Church's proper right, so 
 that Xtian prynces had no rightfull power to heare and 
 determine them; or whether princes becoming Christian, 
 did of theyr voluntary election sever theyr causes from 
 theyr crown, and commit them to the spirituall ordinaryes, 
 in consideration of some connexion and dependence 
 which those causes have with some part of Xtian doctrine, 
 which must be sought from the mouth of the priest, or in 
 presumption of theyr faithfulness in discharging of their 
 trusts? 
 
 VP Whether in such a countrey as this, may lay 
 judges, being Catholique, by commission from the Lord. 
 
224 APPENDIX. 
 
 Proprietary, or appointment of the law of the country, 
 prove wills, and committ administrations of the goods of 
 the deceased, intestate, or whether they must have an 
 intention to do it as delegates of the See Apostolique, and 
 are obliged to endeavor with efifect to procure such dele- 
 gation or else incur the censures of the BuUce coencB. 
 
 VIP Whethei in such a country as this, may a Catho- 
 lique refuse to prove and record a will for this reason, 
 because it giveth legacyes for masses to be sayd for the 
 soule of the deceased, and conteynes in it the profession 
 of the testator, to dye a member of the Roman Catholique 
 Church, out of which there is no salvation, with other 
 passages contrary to the religion of England, or whether 
 he is bound to prove it, though the Lord Proprietor may 
 incur danger for such a record? 
 
 VHP Whether Catholiques, being members of the 
 General Assembly in such a country as this, may consent 
 to the making of laws touching causes testamentary, and 
 namely to a law which shall appoint the residue of the 
 estate of the deceased persons, after all debts discharged 
 and legacyes payed, to be employed to public uses of the 
 state, and not to pious uses as it is in the other Catholique 
 Countryes? 
 
 IX<* Whether Catholiques, being members of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly in such a country as this, may consent to a 
 lawe prohibiting the bequeathing or otherwise aliening, 
 of any fee to spiritual persons or religious houses, with- 
 out leave of the prynce, and voiding all guifts and aliena- 
 tions made otherwise? 
 
 X® Whether a Catholique Executor or Adm% in such 
 a country as this, may observe the order of administering 
 the goods of the deceased, used and prescribed in Eng- 
 land (viz. to discharge first the debts due to the prynce, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 225 
 
 then executions, then judgments, etc.); or whether he is 
 bound to observe ordinem restitutiones deUvered by 
 Casuists (as Bonacina and others) viz. to discharge first 
 the debtes due to spirituals, and after lay debtes, in ordi- 
 neris, and whether a Catholique may refuse such an illegal 
 account, and compel the Executor and administrator to 
 satisfy creditors according to the laws of England? 
 
 Xlo Whether may Catholiques, being members of a 
 general Assembly, in such a country as this, consent to 
 lawes touching causes matrimoniall, as to appoint the pub- 
 lishing of banns (for politique considerations) and to pro- 
 hibit marriage without such banns published, or license 
 obtained from the Commissary being lay; or to limit the 
 degrees of consanguinity within which marriage shall not 
 be contracted, or for the tryall and determinings of causes 
 matrimonial, or whether may a Catholique being lay under 
 the prynce, state, grant licenses of marriage, and by com- 
 mission from the prynce try and determine such causes 
 according to the laws of the country, or in defect thereof 
 according to the common law, without incurring the cen- 
 sure B. Ca.? 
 
 XIP Whether may Catholiques being members etc., 
 consent to a lawe prohibiting the marriage of apprentices 
 without the consent of theyr masters or miss'ts, and impos- 
 ing penalties upon the priest solemnizing, etc., and 
 whether such a law be against liberty of marriage? 
 
 XIIP Whether may CathoHques being members (of 
 Assembly) consent to a lawe which for publique custom 
 barrs the female from inheriting, or houlding of lands, 
 unless they marry within a time limited (only leaving them 
 a liberty to sell or dispose thereof to theyr best advantage) 
 and is such a law against conscience? 
 
226 APPENDIX. 
 
 XIV<^ Whether land granted by the Lord Proprietor 
 to religious persons by the ordinary and common condi- 
 tions of plantations, doth EG ipso (because granted to reli- 
 gious) become spiritual fee, and exempt from laica onera ? 
 
 XV"^ If a trespass be pretended to be committed upon 
 the lands held by Religious persons, whether may the 
 Religious, without trying the trespasse in some court 
 (spiritual or temporal) proceed against the pretended tres- 
 passer by putting in force against him the censures Bullae 
 Ccenae ? And whether by such declarations the party 
 be really and to all spiritual effects involved in the 
 censures, afore to be adjudged a tresspasser upon theyre 
 land in some court? 
 
 XVI^ When grants of lands, made by the prynce to 
 several persons lay and Religious, are found prejudiciall to 
 the publique, and fit to be reformed, whether may Cath'ls, 
 being members (of Assembly) consent to a law reforming 
 all such grants? And whether may such a general lawe 
 include the grants made to the Religious; and whether 
 may the prynce, by virtue of such a law, resume or reform 
 such grants made to them afore, or with a voluntary sur- 
 render of them by the Religious? 
 
 XVI P Whether in such a country as this may the 
 prynce or secular Judge, being a Catholique, summon 
 ecclesiastical persons to the General Assembly, or draw 
 them into secular courts where they are defendants in 
 actions of debt, trespass, etc., and may he give sentence 
 therein, as lawful Judge, and execute it upon theyr per- 
 sons, lands, etc., without incurring the censures of Bullae 
 Coenae? 
 
 XVIIP Whether may the secular Judge, being a 
 Catholique, proceed 1 o the trial of clerks being in orders, 
 
APPENDIX. 227 
 
 for any offence against the peace etc. of the Lord Pro- 
 prietor, or for capital cryme extending to the loss of life 
 or members, without incurring, etc. 
 
 XI X« Whether may Catholiques, being (members of 
 Assembly) consent to lawes imposing general contribu- 
 tions toward public charges, for the necessary support of 
 the prynce, or defence of the country, and whether are 
 spiritual persons, their lands, etc., included (for want of 
 exemption)? And whether may the secular Judge, being 
 Catholique, proceed against such spiritual persons, etc. or 
 religious houses, (without special and expresse license 
 from the see Apost.)? Or may he accept such imposition 
 from such spiritual persons voluntarily without incurring 
 etc.? 
 
 XX^' Whether the representative body mett in Gen- 
 eral Assembly, may make lawes to dispose of the interests 
 of particular persons, or of clergymen, not being present, 
 nor having proxies in sueh Assembly (though lawfully 
 summoned thereto), nor otherwise holding Synods pro- 
 vinciall, wherein theyr consents to such laws might be 
 expected, and whether are such laws against conscience?" 
 
 [Stonyhurst MSS., Anglia, Vol. IV, No. 108 k, quoted by B. T. 
 Johnson verbatim, in The Fotaidation of Maryland.'] 
 
 It was a contest between the older civilization and the 
 new, between the freer constitution which was rapidly 
 growing up in England, wherein all estates in the realm 
 were coming to recognize and to occupy their true position 
 under the civil government, and that former condition 
 when every estate, and most notably the Church, was 
 struggling for the mastery. 
 
228 APPENDIX. 
 
 It was the last effort of the Church, and thus made 
 Maryland historic soil. Other contests had to be entered 
 into against royal despotism in England, and the attempted 
 aristocratical sway by Parliament over America, before the 
 victory of civilization in the dominion of the people was 
 complete. This struggle and defeat of the ecclesiastical 
 minority in Maryland was the beginning of a rapidly 
 approaching end. 
 
 Memorial sent to Rome with the " Twenty Cases," by 
 the Provincial, Father More, and laid before the Sacred 
 Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith: 
 
 "The provincial of the Society of Jesus, in England, 
 humbly represents to your Eminence that in the month of 
 June, 1632, the King of England granted to the noble 
 baron of Baltimore, a Catholic, in propriety, a certain 
 province on the sea coast of North America, inhabited by 
 infidels, which is this day called the Land of Mary, or 
 Maryland, after the reigning Queen of England. The 
 said baron immediately treated with Father Richard 
 Blount, at that time provincial, at the same time writing 
 Father General, earnestly begging that he would select 
 certain fathers as well for confirming the Catholics in the 
 faith, and converting the heretics, who were designed to 
 colonize that country, as w^ell for propagating the faith 
 among the infidels and savages. The affair was sur- 
 rounded with many and heavy difficulties, /<?r in leading 
 the colony to Maryland, by far the greater part were 
 heretics, also the country itself, a meridie Virginics ab 
 Aquilone, is esteemed to be a New England, that is, two 
 provinces full of English Calvinists and Puritans; so that 
 not less, nay, perhaps, greater dangers threaten our fathers 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 229 
 
 in a foreign than in their native land of England. Nor is 
 the baron himself able to find support for the fathers, nor 
 can they expect sustenance from heretics hostile to 
 the faith, nor from the Catholics, for the most part poor, 
 nor from the savages, who live after the manner of wild 
 beasts. 
 
 " The zeal of the said Father Provincial conquered these 
 and other dif^culties, and at first two fathers were sent 
 out, as it were, to explore and ascertain if there might 
 be any hope of the gain of souls, when the country should 
 appear 'white to the harvest.' Some years ago, a geo- 
 graphical description of this country was presented to his 
 Eminence, Cardinal Barberini, protector, with an humble 
 petition that he would deign to receive the Fathers sent out 
 there, under the patronage of his kind protection, equally 
 with the rest in England, so that the matter might be 
 transacted in the most secret way and without offence to 
 the state of England. After this the fathers indeed in- 
 creased both in numbers and in courage, in hunger and in 
 want, in frequent diseases, which were fatal to some, and, 
 lastly, through various dangers, applied themselves with 
 constancy to the salvation of souls, learnt the Savage 
 language, which is composed of various dialects, com- 
 posed a dictionary, a grammar, and a Catechism for the 
 use of the infidels, and the Divine goodness was pleased, 
 so to favor these attempts that, beside others, a certain 
 Emperor, having many tributary kings under him, with 
 his wife and family and some of his ministers, were 
 brought to the faith, and unless hindered, 'a domestices 
 fidei,' 2. great door was laid open to the gospel. These 
 impediments, and severe ones, did indeed arise, and from 
 those from whom they were the least due. 
 
230 APPENDIX. 
 
 " For since the said baron was unable to govern Mary- 
 land in person, he appointed as his substitute a certain 
 Mr. Lewger his secretary, who was formerly a minister 
 and preacher, and being converted to the faith, retained 
 yet much of the leaven of heresy; for he still maintained 
 those dogmas so justly offensive to Catholic ears, — that 
 no external jurisdiction was given by God to the Supreme 
 Pontiff, but merely an internal one in foro conscientm, 
 that no immunity of goods or persons was due to him, or 
 any other ecclesiastics, except as such lay princes and 
 seculars chose to confer upon him or them; that it would 
 be a great offence, to be mulct by punishment, to e>»ercise 
 any jurisdiction whatsoever, even of absolving from sins, 
 without special license from the baron, from whom all 
 lawful jurisdiction was derivable. That a virgin, making 
 a vow of virginity, and not marrying after the twenty- 
 fifth year of her age, could not hold lands by heirship, 
 coming from her parents, but that they must be sold, and 
 if the party refused to do (so), then by compulsory sale. 
 That the General Assembly or Parliament possesses so 
 great an authority over the property of all, that it could 
 dispossess every one it chose of their all, even to the under- 
 garment, for the use of the Republic, and other such like 
 propositions of the said Mr. Lewger are comprehended 
 in 20 questions which are laid before this Sacred Congre- 
 gation by the hands of the Secretary. 
 
 "Therefore this Secretary, having summoned the Par- 
 liament in Maryland, composed with few exceptions of 
 heretics and presided over by himself in the name of the 
 Lord Baltimore himself (probably in 1640) he attempted 
 to pass the following laws repugnant to the Catholic 
 faith and ecclesiastical immunities: That no virgin can 
 
APPENDIX. 231 
 
 inherit, unless she marries before 29 years of age; that no 
 ecclesiastic shall be summoned in any cause, civil or crim- 
 inal, before any other than a secular judge; that no eccle- 
 siastic shall enjoy any privilege, except such as he is able 
 to show ex scriptura, nor to gain anything for the Church, 
 except by the gift of the prince, nor to accept any site for 
 a church or cemetery, nor any foundation from a convert 
 Indian King, nor shall any one depart from the province 
 even to preach the Gospel to the infidels by authority of 
 the See Apostolic, without a license from the lay magis- 
 trate; nor shall any one exercise jurisdiction within the 
 province which is not derived from the baron, and such 
 like. 
 
 '' The fathers of the Society warmly resisted this foul 
 attempt, professing themselves ready to shed their blood 
 in defence of the faith, and the liberty of the Church,— 
 which firmness greatly enraged the Secretary, who imme- 
 diately reported to the Baron Baltimore that his jurisdic- 
 tion was interrupted by the fathers of the Society, whose 
 doctrine was inconsistent with the government of the 
 province. Hence, the said baron, being offended, became 
 alienated in his mind from the fathers of the Society of 
 Jesus, and at first ipso facto seized all their lands, and let 
 them to others, as though he were the lord and proprietor 
 of them, although King Patuen had given them the same 
 lands, when he was a catechumen, upon the express con- 
 dition for supporting priests who had brought his subjects 
 to the true knowledge, faith and worship of God. The 
 said baron, with others favorable to his opinions, began 
 to turn his attention to the expulsion of the fathers and 
 the introducing others in their stead, who would be more 
 pliable to his Secretary. Therefore he procured last year. 
 
232 APPENDIX. 
 
 to petition the sacred congregation of the propagation of 
 tlie faith, in the name of the CathoHcs of Maryland, to 
 grant a prefect and priests of the secular clergy, faculties 
 for the same mission, making no mention in the mean- 
 time, of the labours of the fathers undertaj<:en in that 
 harvest, nor expressing the motives which induced him 
 to substitute new priests. And in order that he might 
 have some new grounds to urge for calling away the 
 fathers of the Society from thence, he proposed certain 
 points, similar to those laid before the Sacred Congregation, 
 to be presented to the provincial by the hands of the 
 Secretary, that he might subscribe them in the name of 
 himself and of the fathers in Maryland. 
 
 " But the Sacred Congregation, being entirely ignorant 
 of these matters, granted the petition, and in the month 
 of August, 1 64 1, faculties were expedited from the 
 Sacred Congregation, and were transmitted to Dom 
 Rosetti, now Archbishop of Tarsus. But since, perhaps, 
 either the prefect is not as yet appointed, or the faculties 
 delivered, but are as yet it is hoped, in the hands of Father 
 Phillips, the Confessor of the Queen of England, the said 
 provincial humbly begs of your Eminence to deign to 
 direct that the said faculties be superseded if the matter 
 is yet entire, or if by chance the faculties are delivered, 
 that the departure of new priests may be retarded for so 
 long as to allow the Holy See to decide upon what is best 
 to be done for the good of souls. 
 
 "The fathers do not refuse to make way for other 
 labourers, but they humbly submit for consideration 
 whether it is expedient to remove those who first entered 
 into that vineyard at their own expense, who for seven 
 years have endured want and sufferings, etc.; who have 
 
APPENDIX. 233 
 
 lest four of their own confreres, labouring faithfully unto 
 death; who have defended sound doctrine and the liberty 
 of the Church, with odium and temporal loss to them- 
 selves; who are learned in the language of the Savages, 
 of which the priests to be substituted by the Baron Balti- 
 more are entirely ignorant, and which priests either allow 
 or defend that doctrine from which it must needs be that 
 contentions and scandals should arise, and the spark of 
 faith be extinguished, which begins to be kindled in the 
 breast of the infidels. 
 
 " Nevertheless the fathers profess themselves ready with 
 all submission either to return to England, from Alary- 
 land, or to remain there and to labor, even to death, for 
 the faith and the dignity of the Holy See, as may seem fit 
 to the prudence, the goodness and charity of your Emi- 
 nence." 
 
 [Quoted by B. T. Johnson, in The Foundation of Maryland, from 
 Stonyhurst MSS., Anglia, Vol. IV, 108 k, verbatim.] 
 
INDEX 
 
 146 
 
 Adventurers, Engrlish, the causes 
 
 that animated them, 11 
 
 Alexander VI, Pope, grant of 
 
 1493, 16 
 
 American Revolution, 33, 163 
 
 Arrow-heads, the consideration 
 in the Maryland charter, 37, 58 
 
 Avalon, charter for, 33 
 
 advowson of churches to 
 
 grantee, 36 
 
 a failure as a province, 45 
 
 Amount spent by Cal verts in 
 founding- Avalon and Maryland, 46 
 
 American wilderness little es- 
 teemed by the king, 54 
 
 Absolute lord, title of Lord Bal- 
 timore, 54 
 
 Assemblies provided for by 
 Maryland and Avalon charters 63 
 
 law of 1638 provided for 
 
 composition of, 94 
 
 proxies allowed, 94 
 
 divided into two houses, 95 
 
 lower house claimed func- 
 tions and power of House of 
 Commons, 
 
 lower house, conduct of 
 
 during French War, 154 
 
 Authority and jurisdiction re- 
 stored to Lord Baltimore, 71 
 
 Allegiance, oath of, 73 
 
 "Act concei-ning religion" of 
 1649, 100, 107 
 
 joint act of proprietary and 
 
 people, 113 
 
 reviewed by sections, 115 
 
 use of it made by Lord Bal- 
 timore, 
 
 of 1654, 
 
 Anabaptists in Holland granted 
 religious freedom. 
 
 Ark and the Dove, 
 
 Act of establishment of religion, 
 review of features, 
 
 Abbot, Archbishop, and Cal- 
 vert's change of faith, 143 
 
 Agitation, of extension of Eng- 
 lish statutes to colony, 151 
 
 Agitation of requisitions for 
 French War, 153 
 
 Agitation of proclamation ques- 
 tion, 158 
 
 118 
 113 
 
 105 
 
 107 
 
 133 
 
 Arbitrary government in reign 
 of George III, 173 
 
 Attorneys privileged, "one of 
 grand griev^ances," 195 
 
 act to reform, 195 
 
 certain number to be ad- 
 mitted, 195 
 
 fees fixed by law, 195 
 
 Brazil discovered 1499, 17 
 
 Baltimore,Cecilius, Lord, taught 
 by father's experience, 35 
 
 sole grantee, 35 
 
 despair of colony in 1644, 91 
 
 principle in administration, 93 
 
 authorizes Governor to as- 
 sent to laws, 94 
 Baltimore, Benedict, Lord, 
 change of faith, 143 
 
 pensioned by Queen Anne, 143 
 
 Brownists from Holland, 36 
 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 48 
 
 Boundaries of Maryland, 63 
 
 contention settled 1760, 63 
 
 Blockhouse built, 69 
 
 Berkeley drove out Puritans 
 
 from Virginia. 71, 85 
 
 Bulla in cmna Domini, 88, 114 
 
 Burgesses as composing assem- 
 bly, 9^ 
 Bartholomew, massacre of, 105, 117 
 Bray, Dr., commissary, 139 
 Bachelors taxed, 154 
 Branding irons, 190, 191 
 Benefit of clergy, 193 
 
 Cabots. the, sent out by Henry 
 
 ^^^' • • . 1? 
 
 commission to, i-o 
 
 Commission to determine a N. 
 andS. line between posses- 
 sions of Spain and Portugal, 16 
 Canada, French possession ot, 17 
 Charles I. 30, 50 
 Charles II bestowed Dutch pos- 
 sessions on his brother, 19 
 jealous of New England col- 
 onies, . ^ 27 
 and Habeas Corpus Act, 39 
 
236 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Charles II and charter to Wm. 
 Penn, 
 
 Conquest, right obtained by, 
 
 territory so obtained be- 
 longed to king, 
 
 Civil war in England, how 
 brought on, 33 
 
 Charter, a law bestowing privi- 
 leges, 
 
 to New England 1630, 
 
 Governor to exercise mar- 
 tial law, 
 
 to Duke of York, 
 
 of Maryland, description of, 
 
 gifts of hereditary, 
 
 titles, honors, &c., to be 
 
 granted under, 
 
 Charters by royal grant, 
 
 comparison of, 
 
 radical ditference between. 
 
 Cost of settlement of Maryland, 
 
 Councils for Virginia, 
 
 Colony, royal, laws submitted 
 to king. 
 
 Consideration in charter of Ava- 
 lon, 
 
 of Maryland, 
 
 of Carolina, 
 
 of Georgia, 
 
 Conflict in colonies between two 
 great principles. 
 
 Colonial charter, no law in force 
 without people's consent. 
 
 Churches, as provided for in the 
 Maryland charter, 
 
 in charter of Carolina, 
 
 Calvert, George, description of, 
 
 oflices held by, and enter- 
 prises of, 
 
 Carolana, 
 
 a great speculator, 
 
 change of religious faith, 47, 
 
 Calvert, Cecilius, description 
 of, 49, 
 
 age at succession to name 
 
 and estates, 
 
 Calvert, Leonard, Governor 
 
 took refuge in Virginia, 
 
 Court Leet and Court Baron, 
 
 Coming of the colonists, 
 
 Chalmers quoted, 
 
 Criminals sent to America, 
 
 Claiborne and Kent Island, 
 
 and Ingle, 
 
 and Bennett, 
 
 Church and State, alliance of, 
 
 Cause of the frequent uprisings 
 in Maryland, 
 
 Complaints against Lord Balti- 
 more's administration, 
 
 Charles, the third Lord Balti- 
 more, 
 
 testimony as to religious 
 
 bodies in Maryland, 78, 
 
 character of, 123 
 
 charges against, 133 
 
 private rights preserved in 
 
 Protestant revolution, 135 
 
 died in 1714, 143 
 
 Conditions of plantation, terms 
 and amount of land given, 80 
 
 of 1641, 88 
 
 Corn waleys, Thomas, number of 
 servants brought over, 81 
 
 Canon Law and the Jesuits' 
 claims, 86 
 
 Common Law, the right of all 
 the inhabitants of Maryland 
 to, 98, 149 
 
 Code of 1639, the Maryland con- 
 stitution, 98 
 
 Commonwealth, English, and 
 religious f I'eedom, 103 
 
 Conscience and the contentions 
 it has wrought, 103 
 
 Church matters before Protest- 
 ant revolution and afterwards, 136 
 
 Church of England in great mi- 
 nority in 1693, 131 
 
 why chosen for established 
 
 maintenance. 131 
 
 Churches built by tax, how 
 levied, 134 
 
 Current expenses, how raised, 135 
 
 Charles, fifth Lord Baltimore, 
 description of, 147 
 
 and Frederick Prince of 
 
 Wales, 148 
 
 died in 1751, 148 
 
 Contribution to French War, 
 1754, 154 
 
 Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, 160 
 
 Clergy tax and the proclama- 
 tion, 160 
 
 statement of the question, 161 
 
 Confederation of the States and 
 Maryland, 163 
 
 Commissioner for stamped pa- 
 per, how treated, 170 
 
 Convention, Maryland, June, 
 1774, 175 
 
 Continental Congress of 1774, 178 
 
 Cole, Josias, Quaker, in Mary- 
 land, 200 
 
 Christison, Wenlock, " 201 
 
 Connor, John, witchcraft, 303 
 
 Description of Maryland histo- 
 rians, \'1 
 
 Division of the East and West 
 between Spain and Portugal, 15 
 
 Dutch settlements on the Hud- 
 son and Delaware, 19 
 
 Dutch, English at war with, 19 
 
 Dutch and Swedes occupy 
 shores of the Delaware, 64 
 
INDEX. 
 
 237 
 
 Development of civil and relig- 
 ious liberty, 34 
 Delaware, Penn's desire for, 64 
 Delaware territory, how lost to 
 
 Lord Baltimore, 64 
 Dulany, Daniel, 160 
 his statement of colonial po- 
 sition during- stamp act agita- 
 tion, 169 
 
 and home manufactures, 170 
 
 Declaration of Independence by 
 Maryland, 183 
 
 by United States. 184 
 
 Ducking-stool, 189 
 
 " Drawing '' "hanging," "quar- 
 tering," ''burning," 193 
 Debts, law concerning, 193 
 Drunkenness punished, 197 
 
 E 
 
 English people apathetic in dis- 
 covery during 16th century, 9 
 subjects, i-ights of in colo- 
 nies usurped by king, 21 
 freemen, rights of, when as- 
 serted, 49 
 
 thought, condition of in 1635, 50 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 18, 30, 31 
 
 Elector Palatine, son-in-law to 
 
 James 1, 49 
 
 Emoluments of the proprietary, 
 
 58,59 
 Emigrants recalled to take oaths, 74 
 Establishment of the church de- 
 scribed, 131, 133 
 
 a police measure, 133 
 
 a compromise measure, 135 
 
 Education, condition of in 1689, 138 
 promoted by Protestant re- 
 volution, 138 
 Eden, Governor, 150, 163 
 Eddis, testimony concerning con- 
 dition of Maryland, 175, 183 
 Expense to Maryland of the Re- 
 volution, 185 
 Ears, cropping of, 191 
 
 France and Germany, attempts 
 
 of to colonize, 10 
 
 French War, 17, 155 
 
 French marriage, proposed, of 
 
 Prince of Wales, 48 
 
 French Revolution, cause of, 133 
 Feudalism waning, 17, 136 
 
 Florida, French settlement in, 18 
 Founders of States, memory of 
 
 cultivated, 43 
 
 Founders of Maryland not noted, 43 
 Fendall, Governor, 71 
 
 Felons sent to Maryland, 84 
 
 First colony, constituents of, 93 
 Freemen, all sat in first assem- 
 blies, 94 
 Frederick, sixth Lord Balti- 
 more, description of, 149 
 
 died, 149 
 
 Fees of colonial offices, 158 
 
 Forty pounds poll and Gover- 
 nor's proclamation, 160 
 
 Guinea bestowed by Pope on 
 the Portuguese 1454, 15 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphi'ey, 18 
 
 Gates, Sir Thomas, 18 
 
 Grantees of charters to be at 
 their own charges, 34 
 
 Georgia, consideration in chai'- 
 ter, 37 
 
 charter and imposition of 
 
 of taxes, 60 
 
 Gold and silver reserved by 
 king, 38 
 
 Great Rebellion, causes of, 30 
 
 Germans settled in western 
 parts of colony, 85 
 
 Governor enjoined to make no 
 religious distinctions in be- 
 stowing offices. 111 
 
 Government assumed by the 
 people in 1775, 163 
 
 Gerard, Thomas, councillor, 
 punished for intoxication, 197 
 
 Harvey, Governor, 1638, 33 
 
 Habeas Corpus extended to col- 
 onies, 33, 153 
 Henry VII and absolute power, 30 
 Hampden. 33 
 Heretics in majority from the 
 
 start, 90, 108 
 
 Holland the great exponent of 
 
 religious liberty, 93 
 
 religious pei-secution in, 105 
 
 the States General of, and 
 
 religious freedom, 106 
 
 House, upper, who composed, 95 
 
 lower, who composed, 95 
 
 Holy Church to have all her 
 
 rights, &c., 96 
 Hutton, Secretary, 110 
 Harford, Henry, 143, 150 
 succeeded to property in 
 
 colony, 161, 163 
 
 Hand, loss of, for striking in 
 
 court, 190 
 
 Initiative in legislation, 32, 56, 57 
 Ireland, Calvert's possessions in, 46. 
 
238 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Immigrants, first company to 
 
 Maryland, 65 
 
 Indians, charges that Claiborne 
 
 tampered with, 69 
 
 - — converted by Jesuits, 86 
 
 treatment of in Maryland, 203 
 
 "Instructions" sent with col- 
 ony, 74 
 Inquisition in Holland, 105, 117 
 Immorality, prevalence of in 
 colony, 138, 139, 130 
 
 James I, King, 18, 33, 38 
 
 James II jealous of New Eng- 
 land colonies, 27 
 
 flight from England, 131 
 
 Jurisdiction of Lord Baltimore 
 overthrown, 71 
 
 Jesuits' work among the In- 
 dians, 86 
 
 disqualified by training to 
 
 be members of a free com- 
 monwealth, 86 
 
 Lord Baltimore's descrip- 
 tion of, 90 
 
 Jurymen, law concerning, and 
 their liabilities, 194 
 
 K 
 
 Kent Island, Claiborne's settle- 
 ment there, 68, 84 
 
 Laws of nations," decent respect 
 
 for," 17 
 of Maryland to be conso- 
 nant to reason and not repug- 
 nant to laws and customs of 
 England, 57 
 
 series of 1639, 96 
 
 Liberty, spirit of, prostrated by 
 
 Wars of Roses, 30 
 
 Legislation, powers of the 
 
 people, 33 
 
 London, Bishop of, to be peti- 
 tioned by people of Pennsyl- 
 vania for ministers, 38 
 LcAvger, Secretary, vilifled by 
 Jesuits, 76 
 
 " summoned a Parliament," 
 
 89, 108 
 
 deprived of office, 110 
 
 Locke and legislation for North 
 
 Carolina, 83 
 
 Langton, Stephen, Archbishop, 96 
 Laud, Archbishop, 116 
 
 Louis XIV and his edicts, 131 
 
 Lexington, battle of, 184 
 
 Legislation, odds and ends, 187 
 
 M 
 
 Marco Polo, 12 
 
 Marks, twenty, consideration in 
 
 Carolina charter, 37 
 
 Magna Charta, 39, 83, 96, 98 
 
 Monopoly, English, of colonial 
 
 trade, 33 
 
 Ministers, how provided for in 
 
 Penn's charter, 38 
 Manors and manorial rights un- 
 der charter, 56, 83 
 Manors, proposed privileges of, 81 
 Maryland first province of Eng- 
 lish empire, 61 
 charter provided for assem- 
 blies, 34 
 
 and religious freedom, 104 
 
 position in regard to Eng- , 
 
 lish Revolution, 133 
 
 development during royal 
 
 government, 154 
 
 and the English debt, 166 
 
 in harmony with the na- 
 tional movement, 167 
 — and the colonial congress of 
 1765, 169 
 
 soldiers, whei-e they fought, 184 
 
 Mortmain, statute of, 76 
 
 Matrimony, claims of Jesuits in 
 
 mattei-s of, 86 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, and relig- 
 ious liberty, 105 
 Meeting-houses and chapels, 188 
 Morality, laws to punish viola- 
 tions of, 198 
 Marriage of white and negro, 198 
 
 N 
 
 Nicholas, Pope, bestows Guinea 
 on Portugal, 15 
 
 Newfoundland, attempted set- 
 tlement in 1583, 18, 45 
 
 New Jersey, alienation of juris- 
 diction, 19 
 
 New Plymouth, Brownists set- 
 tled at, 36 
 
 New England colonies, 27, 29 
 
 North Carolina and aristocratic 
 titles, 56 
 
 Negroes in Maryland from be- 
 ginning, 65 
 
 Nonconformists, relative num- 
 ber of in 1676, 78 
 
 Naturalization of foreigners, 85 
 
 Navigation acts, 130 
 
 Nicholson, Governor, and edu- 
 cation, 138 
 
 Non-importation, 170, 174 
 
 Nose, slitting of, 191 
 
 O 
 
 Oaths of allegiance and suprem- 
 acy, 73 
 
INDEX. 
 
 239 
 
 *' Objections answered touching 
 Maryland," paper of Provin- 
 cial of the Jf suits, 77, 109 
 
 Officers appointed in 1648, 110 
 
 Oath required of Governor and 
 Council 1648, 111 
 
 Oaths at time of Protestant 
 Revolution, 136 
 
 "Offences" in colonial legisla- 
 tion, 193 
 
 Ordinaries regulated, 198 
 
 14 
 
 31 
 
 Portuguese, energy in discovery. 
 Pope, claims to bestow coun- 
 tries. 
 Papacy, assumptions of, 
 Prerogative, notions of James I 
 
 and Charles I, 
 Parliament silent in colonial 
 matters, 
 
 in earlier times only assisted 
 
 king to govern, 33 
 
 Parliament, the Long, 50 
 
 Proprietary colonies, descrip- 
 tion of, 27 
 
 lands must be taxed, 155 
 
 government restored, 142 
 
 government, contention 
 
 with fitted for subsequent 
 struggles, 145 
 
 Pennsylvania, condition in char- 
 ter in respect of submitting 
 laws, 29 
 
 cost to Wm. Penn, 58 
 
 Provision in charters for emer- 
 gencies, 29 
 Penn, Wm., prerogatives lim.ited 
 
 in charter, 29 
 
 Productions of colonies, how 
 
 reached other countries, 32 
 
 Promoting religion as a motive 
 
 for sending out colonies, 34 
 
 Population of colony, how 
 
 made up, 52, 83 
 
 People always liege subjects of 
 
 King of England, 58 
 
 Province, description of, 61 
 
 Philadelphia,built within Mary- 
 land territory, 63 
 Pocomoke river, naval battle of, 69 
 Puritan settlement on the 
 Severn, 70 
 
 antagonism to Papists and 
 
 Prelatists, 78 
 
 promises made them before 
 
 coming to Maryland, 85 
 
 Protestant Re volution, 74, 120, 123, 124 
 
 chapel violated, 75 
 
 Priests, Jesuit, claimed to be 
 
 tried by arbitrators, 87 
 
 Policy, bad, of taking all officers 
 from small minority, 110 
 
 changed in 1648, 110 
 
 Private rights of Lord Balti- 
 more preserved, 125 
 Parish libraries, 139 
 Proclamation concerning fees, 158 
 Pitt, William, 42, 164, 172 
 Port Bill of Boston, 175 
 Point at issue in stamp and sub- 
 sequent acts, 165 
 Peggy Stewart, the, and the tea 
 
 in Annapolis harbor, 177 
 
 Persons to be sent to England 
 for trial, 179 
 
 Queen Anne, 29 
 
 Quackery, hone in Maryland 
 law-making, 82 
 
 Quakers, their objection to es- 
 tablishment of church, 134 
 
 Maryland's treatment of, 199 
 
 Rights of aboi'iffines recognized, 12 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 18 
 
 Roanoke Island and attempted 
 
 settlement of, 18 
 
 Removal of persons, pri\ilege 
 granted by charter, 30 
 
 of goods, privilege granted 
 
 by charter, 32 
 Religion, regulations concern- 
 ing in charters, 36 
 in heathen world not in- 
 volving conscience, 101 
 neglect of by Lord Balti- 
 more, 127 
 Religious liberty, progress of 
 suggested by charters, 38 
 
 right of arises late, . 100 
 
 Royal pi-ovince, Maryland made, 125 
 
 advantages to the people, 125 
 
 Roman Catholic worship, and 
 the " Instructions," 75 
 
 silence to be observed in 
 
 matters of religion, 75 
 
 unwilling to come to colony, 108 
 
 why repressed 39, 136 
 
 unjust attempt to double 
 
 tax, 157 
 
 Royal taxes, customs, &c., never 
 
 to be imposed, 59 
 
 Resolutions of convention of 
 1774, 176 
 
 S 
 
 Spaniards exterminate French 
 colony in Florida, 18 
 
 Spanish colonies, gold and sil- 
 ver ore reserved, 28 
 
240 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Shipping goods from colonies, 33 
 Stamped paper and the Mary- 
 land charter, 60 
 Servants, meaning of the term, 65 
 Severn river, battle at mouth of, 69 
 Stone, Gov., and the troubles of 
 
 1653, 70, 110 
 
 State prisoners sent to Mary- 
 land, 84 
 Suffrage, universal, 84 
 
 freehold, 84, 144 
 
 limited by Test Oath, 144 
 
 Sanctuary, claims of Jesuits for 
 
 church and houses, 87 
 
 St. John's College, 139 
 
 Statute laws of England as ap- 
 plying to the colony, 149 
 Sharpe, Governor, and his prop- 
 ositions about stamped paper, 164 
 " Sons of Liberty," 170 
 Sunday laws, 196 
 
 Taxes and custom dues under 
 the charter, 35 
 
 none levied without people's 
 
 consent, 36 
 
 Thirty Years' War, 49, 117 
 
 Testamentary cases, claims of 
 Jesuits to, 86 
 
 Taxes, claims of Jesuits to be 
 exempted from, 87 
 
 Trial by jury, 98 
 
 Tolerant spirit, development 
 by close of 17th century, 135 
 
 Toleration Act extended to col- 
 ony, 153 
 
 Tea, tax on it and other articles 
 1767, 173 
 
 Treason, what constituted, and 
 against whom, 193 
 
 the penalty, 193 
 
 Temperance laws, 196 
 
 Thurston, Thomas, in Maryland, 200 
 
 Upper House of Assembly, 
 how composed, 145 
 
 bearing towards Lower 
 
 House, 146 
 
 Unsuccessful party in a suit, 
 law concerning, 194 
 
 Virginia, gift to, 18 
 
 edict of 1618, 31 
 
 and persons who brought 
 
 home evil report, 31 
 
 Vaughan, Commander of Kent, 110 
 Vestries a returning board for 
 
 taxables, 154 
 
 W 
 
 White horse and the Avalon 
 charter, 37 
 
 White, Father, Jesuit mission- 
 ary, 35, 8& 
 
 and converts made, 108 
 
 Writ, special, to summon to As- 
 sembly, 94 
 
 " Writs of Assistance," and 
 other oppressive measures, 173 
 
 William the Silent the exem- 
 plar of religious liberty, 105 
 
 his conversion, 106 
 
 William and Mary, Lord Balti- 
 more's failure to proclaim, 133 
 
 William's, King, School, 139 
 
 Washington, letter to Governor 
 of Maryland, 185 
 
 Witchcraft in Maryland, 301 
 
 York, Duke of, 19 
 
 Yeo, Rev. Mr., testimony of 
 condition of Maryland, 139 
 
ruT.7°^^°^ 
 
 ° 014 366 645 1