F 184 
 .S31 
 Copy 1 
 
 AN HISTORICAL A '^ 
 
 UQi. 
 
 D^I^lVERED AT THK 
 
 UWVEILIMI^ of the MOWUk 
 
 KRECTED BY THE vSTATE OF MARYLA. 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 Leonard Calvert, 
 
 THE FIRST GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND, 
 
 St. Mary's City, St. Mary's County, Md. 
 
 JUNE 3, 1891, 
 
 J. THOMAS SCHARF, A. M., LL D. 
 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
 .-J 
 
25-805 
 
HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Mi\ Chairman , Reverend Clergy, 
 
 Ladies and Geyitlemen : 
 
 I fear I shall neither meet your expectations 
 nor do justice to myself, as circumstances 
 beyond my control have rendered it impossible 
 for me to devote as much of my time to pre- 
 paration as is indispensable to a creditable 
 performance of the duty assigned me. 
 
 When* we reflect on the influence which has 
 flowed, and is still flowing in ever fresh and 
 ceaseless streams from this soil, which two 
 hundred and fifty-seven years ago was trod 
 for the first time by the foot of civilized Chris- 
 tian man ; when we reflect how mightily that 
 influence prevailed and how widely it has per- 
 vaded the world — inspiring and aiding the 
 settlement of Maryland, and, through Mary- 
 land, our whole wide-spread country, and thus, 
 through the example of our country and its 
 institutions, extending the principles of civil 
 and religious freedom to the remotest regions 
 of the earth, leaving no corner of Christendom, 
 or even of Heathendom, unvisited or unrt'- 
 
freshed— we should be dead, indeed, to every 
 emotion of gratitude to God or man were we 
 not to hail this celebration as one of the 
 grandest in the calendar of the ages. 
 
 We are here, my friends, to celebrate the 
 unveihng of a monument, erected by a grate- 
 ful State to the memory of Leonard Calvert, 
 the first Governor of a colony which estab- 
 lished a government where the persecuted and 
 oppressed of every creed and every clime 
 might repose in peace and security, adore 
 their common God, and enjoy the l^riceless 
 blessings of civil and religious liberty. Other 
 States and countries have their "Pilgrim 
 Landings/' which have left a proud and shin- 
 ing mark on the historic page, but no other 
 landing, temporary or permanent, upon our 
 own or upon any other shore, can ever super- 
 sede or weaken the hold the Maryland Pil- 
 grims have upon the world's remembrance 
 and regard. Here the child, Independence- 
 was born, and here was laid the groundwork 
 for that comi)lete superstructure which was 
 afterwards reared by the hands of Jefferson 
 and his illustrious co-laborers in the cause of 
 truth. • 
 
Turn back with me to that epoch of spring 
 solstice, over two centuries and a half ago, 
 and let us spend a portion of our time in 
 attempting to recall the precise incidents which 
 then occurred on this sacred spot on which we 
 are assembled, with some of their immediate 
 antecedents and consequences. It is an old 
 story, it is true ; but there are some old stories 
 which are almost forgotten into newness, and 
 there are some old stories which are actually 
 new to every rising generation. 
 
 The origin and settlement of Maryland may 
 be traced to ecclesiastical tyranny. At the 
 close of the sixteenth and begining of the 
 seventeenth centuries, a severe and cruel per- 
 secution began in England. Kingly preroga- 
 tive, and popular tumult cursed the land. 
 Religion was fashioned into a cloak for 
 villains, and revolution became an apology for 
 tyrants. The mass of men could comprehend 
 no perfect right beyond their own immediate 
 association in politics or religion. The flames 
 of persecution were lighted all around the 
 land, and during a period of only twenty-nine 
 years it is said sixty thousand persons suffered 
 for dissent, and seven thousand perished in 
 
prison. The sufferings of the Catholics were 
 especially severe. Perjury or apostasy were 
 conditions precedent to their enjoyment of 
 civil privileges, and their priests were con- 
 demned to a traitor's fate. 
 
 There was at this mournful time a noble- 
 man at the Court of King James, who had 
 recently embrac^ed the much-detested Catholic 
 faith. George Calvert, the father of the 
 province of Maryland, who had risen in 1619^ 
 to be Secretary of State, yielded his ambition 
 in 1624, to a new-born sense of duty, and 
 avowed his conversion. Influenced by the 
 sufferings of those of his creed, and prompted 
 ))y that enlarged charity which marks the 
 true Christian, George Calvert turned his eyes 
 to the new world in search of a home for those 
 who were forced to feel themselves strangers 
 in the land of their nativity. Animated by 
 these views, in 1623, he obtained from James 
 I. the charter of Avalon, for a settlement in 
 Newfoundland. He made two voyages to 
 that country, but the rigor of the climate 
 forced him to abandon the enterprise. 
 
 The charter of Virginia having been annulled 
 upon a quo tuarranto by the Court of King's 
 
Bench in 1623, and the King having been 
 revested in all his rights, and could grant 
 territorial jurisdiction and the possession of 
 the soil not under private ownership to whom 
 he pleased, Calvert, in company with three 
 Jesuit priests in 1629, visited that country to 
 fix upon a site for his new colony. The Vir- 
 ginians having suspected his designs, and 
 knowing his religious faith, forced him away 
 by tendering the oath of supremacy, which, as 
 a conscientious Catholic, he could not take. 
 After exploring the territory bordering on 
 the Chesapeake, he returned to England and 
 applied to Charles for a patent. The high 
 estimation in which he was held by the King, 
 and the recollection of the many eminent ser- 
 vices which he had rendered during his official 
 career, secured for him a favorable hearing, 
 notwithstanding his religious sentiments. 
 
 Lord Baltimore's health had long been de- 
 clining, and on April 15th, 1632, before his 
 patent for Maryland had passed the great 
 seal, he died. The grant of Maryland — so 
 named in honor of the queen, Henrietta 
 ^laria — was made out and confirmed June 
 20th, 1632, in the name of Cecilius Calvert, 
 
8 
 
 George Calvert's eldest son, and heir to the 
 title of Baron Baltimore. 
 
 -The charter made Maryland a little kingdom 
 in itself, owing no obedience to Parliament and 
 no service to the king. It empowered the 
 Lord Proprietary to make peace or war, to 
 suppress insurrection or sedition ; to call out, 
 arm and command the militia, and to declare 
 martial law; to levy rents, taxes, dues and 
 tolls; to confer titles and dignities,* to erect 
 tow^ns, boroughs and cities ; to erect and found 
 churches and cause them to be consecrated ; 
 to make law^s, public or private, with the 
 advice and consent of the freeman, and neces- 
 sary ordinances, not affecting life, limb or pro- 
 perty, without that consent ; to establish courts 
 of justice and appoint judges, magistrates and 
 other civil officers, and to execute the laws, 
 even to the extent of taking life. Writs ran 
 in his name; there was no appeal from his 
 courts, nor did the laws enacted in his assem- 
 bly require any confirmation from king or 
 Parliament. The proprietary lacked no single 
 royal powder ; his title ran " Cecihus, Absolute 
 Lord of Maryland and Avalon," and the only 
 difference between him and an independent 
 
^sovereign was the acknowledgment of fealty 
 typified by the tender of " two Indian arrows " 
 in every year on Tuesday in Easter week, and 
 the reservation of the fifths of gold and silver. 
 
 As soon as the Charter passed the great seal, 
 Cecilius Calvert began his operations to colo- 
 nize the new territory. He at first proposed to 
 accompany the colony, but abandoned this 
 intention and sent his younger brother 
 Leonard, whom he appointed Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor, or General. At this time civil and relig- 
 ious liberty in England ceased to exist Puri- 
 tan and Catholic were under the law of pre- 
 scription, and multitudes of the former sought 
 a refuge in New England. But for the latter, 
 suffering under still more cruel oppression, 
 there was no such asylum ; and this Baltimore 
 proposed to provide, with the assistance of 
 Father Richard Blount, Provincial of the 
 Society of Jesus, and the great families of 
 high rank and influence of the Catholic Peer- 
 age in England. 
 
 The Provincial of Jesuits knowing that the 
 principle of religious toleration was to be 
 adopted as one of the fundamental institu- 
 tions of the new Province, entered heartily 
 
10 
 
 into the enterprise, and planned to make 
 Maryland a refuge for their persecuted fellow- 
 believers. Two vessels were to bear the infant 
 colony to their future home — the larger a 
 strong ship of about four hundred tons was 
 appropriately and beautifully called the "Ark,'' 
 while its lighter companion, a pinnace of forty 
 tons, was with equal taste named the "Dove," 
 — the one bore religious freedom, the other the 
 olive branch of peace to the new world. The 
 expedition consisted of Leonard Calvert, as 
 Governor, George Calvert, his brother, Jerome 
 Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys, as assist- 
 ants, with twenty gentlemen of good fashion, 
 and three hundred laboring men. The gentle- 
 men were all Catholics. Among them were 
 Fathers Andrew White, John Altham and 
 Thomas Copley, priests of the Society of Jesus, 
 who were sent out to officiate among the 
 Catholic colonists and labor as missionaries 
 among the Indians. Of the three hundred 
 others, after a critical examination of the docu- 
 ments bearing on the subject, I am convinced 
 a majority were Catholics Having taken on 
 board a part of their passengers, the vessels 
 sailed from Gravesend, but the British Secre- 
 
11 
 
 tary of State having received information that 
 the passengers had gone without taking the 
 oath of ahegiance required of all British sub- 
 jects leaving the kingdom, a hurried order was 
 dispatched to Admiral Pennington, then lying 
 in the Downs, to give chase and bring them 
 back. This was done. The "Ark" and "Dove" 
 were brought back to Gravesend, where Wat- 
 kins, the London "searcher," went on board 
 and administered the oath to all he found, 
 amounting to one hundred and twenty-eight 
 persons. It is evident that the answer of the 
 ship's master, that there were only a few 
 others, and these abandoned the voyage, was 
 deceptive, although -the oath of allegiance 
 could have been taken by any conscientious 
 Catholic. The formality of taking the oath 
 being over, the vessels were allowed to depart 
 in peace, and they dropped down to the Isle of 
 Wight, where the three Jesuit priests, the 
 twenty Catholic gentlemen, and the remaining 
 one hundred and sixty laboring men, who did 
 not take the oath of allegiance, and who it is 
 believed were Catholics, came on board. 
 
 While the ships were still lying in Cowes har- 
 bor. Lord Baltimore sent down to his brother 
 
12 
 
 Leonard, a body of instructions for the govern- 
 ment of the expedition during the voyage and 
 upon their arrival at their destination. In 
 this interesting document, which time and 
 space compels me to omit, we see the principles 
 of Baltimore's principles, and the germs of 
 the polity of Maryland. Religious toleration, 
 "unity and peace," between members of differ- 
 ent faiths, began on the Ark and Dove. He 
 requires the Governor and Commissioners, "in 
 their voyage to Maryland, they be very careful 
 to preserve unity and peace amongst the pas- 
 sengers on shipboard, and that they suffer no 
 scandal nor offense to be given to any of the 
 Protestants," and instructs "all the Roman 
 Catholics to be silent upon all occasions of 
 discourse concerning matters of religion," and 
 '•treat the Protestants with as much mildness 
 and favor as justice will permit." Whether 
 we attribute it to wise policy, to the cogency 
 of circumstances, or to a liberal and tolerant 
 spirit, in advance of his age, on the part of the 
 proprietary, the fact remains the same that 
 equal justice and Christian charity to both 
 Catholic and Protestant was the key-note of his 
 rule. When his government was temporarily 
 
13 
 
 overthrown, intoierance and persecution began^ 
 but ceased as soon as he was reinstated in his 
 authority. 
 
 Bidding adieu to all familiar objects and 
 wanted comforts and enjoyments, and break- 
 ing the sweet ties of many beautiful affections, 
 our wanderers in the Ark and Dove, on the 
 22d of November, 1633 — being St. Caecilia's 
 Day, as we are told by the narrative of Father 
 White — set sail from Cowes for the New 
 World. Never has a more precious freight 
 surmounted the waters of the Atlantic than 
 that borne in the vessels of this little fleet. 
 Never have the breezes of the ocean wafted to 
 our shores ships more richly laden. Never, 
 since the earliest days of Christianity, has the 
 world beheld a more interesting spectacle than 
 that exhibited by these intrepid voyagers. 
 Some of them had moved in the highest circles 
 in their own land; many of them accustomed 
 to the luxuries, and all of them to the conve- 
 niences of cultivated life, had abandoned all of 
 these, and were seeking, beyond the great sea, 
 a far-off home in the wilderness. They knew 
 that dangers were everywhere before them 
 and around them, that disease in unknown 
 
14 
 
 forms might invade them, t-hat death might 
 soon strike them down and send them to 
 premature graves in a strange land. To their 
 enthusiastic vision all the comforts of life and 
 all the pleasures of society were light and 
 worthless in comparison with the liberty they 
 sought. The tempestuous sea was less dreadful 
 than the troubled waves of civil discord; the 
 quicksands, the unknown shoals and unex- 
 plored shores of a savage coast less fearful 
 than the metaphysical abysses and perpetually 
 shifting whirlpools of despotic ambition and 
 ecclesiastical policy and intrigue ; the bow and 
 the tomahawk of the transatlantic barbarian 
 less terrible than the flame and fagot of the 
 civilized European. With the Bible in their 
 hands, the Spirit of God in their hearts, and 
 His blessing on their heads, they were not 
 turned aside from their onward course. "We 
 placed our ship,'' says the good Father White 
 in his narrative, "under the protection of God, 
 of His Most Holy Mother, of St. Ignatius, and 
 all the guardian angels of Maryland.'' Escaped 
 from dangers in the port and channel, they 
 gain the open sea, and for a few bright hours 
 the deceitful element presents a smiling aspect. 
 
15 
 
 But the shades of evening are deepened by a 
 rising storm — it increases — their pinnace dis- 
 plays the preconcerted signal of distress, and 
 is suddenly lost to view! They mourn their 
 companions with that peculiar grief felt by 
 those who find themselves alone on the waste 
 of waters. But a closer calamity soon engrosses 
 their attention — their own stout ship is nearly 
 engulfed. The solitary sail she spreads is rent 
 by the fury of the blast, and no longer obedient 
 to the helm, she rolls at the mercy of the 
 waves ! The strongest hearts are shaken ! The 
 mariners avow their danger and their fears! 
 A sei:ious consultation is held about putting- 
 back, the exiles betake themselves to prayer, 
 and prepare as for their last confessions ! At 
 this awful crisis Father White bows down 
 before his God, as he artlessly remarks, "with 
 less than his usual timidity." He represents 
 "to Christ the Lord, to the Blessed Virgin, St. 
 Ignatius, and the angels of Maryland" the 
 object of his expedition— to honor his Saviour's 
 blood in the salvation of barbarians ; and as 
 the angel of the Lord stood at night by the 
 ship-wrecked Paul, "bidding hiiii be of good 
 cheer, so the interior light of present consola- 
 
16 
 
 tion, and assurance against future danger on 
 the voyage, is poured on the soul of this 
 humble herald of the cross. He rises from his 
 knees, and the storm is already abating. 
 
 The remainder of the passage was prosperous 
 and tranquil. In the West Indies the voyagers 
 were blessed by the re-appearance of their 
 pinnace. The course of the pilgrims, it seems, 
 was by the way of the Antilles, Strait of Gib- 
 raltar, the Madeiras, Fortunate Isles, Bona 
 Vista Island near Angola, Barbadoes, Island 
 of St. Lucia, Matalina, and from thence to 
 point "Comfort'' on the coast of Virginia, which 
 they reached on the 27th of February. .Some 
 eight or nine days spent in the enjoyment of 
 the kindness of Governer Harvey, they set sail, 
 and on the 3d of March, reached the Chesa- 
 peake. Sailing up the bay they entered the 
 Potomac and named Smith's Point, St.Gregory, 
 and Point Lookout, St Michael's, in honor of 
 all the angels. The shores of the Potomac 
 were lined with armed warriors. Signal fires 
 ])laze on every point, and their portentous 
 arrival is announced throughout the region, 
 with all the exaggerations of savage wonder. 
 They anchor near an island which they name 
 
17 
 
 St. Clement's. For having entered "the land 
 of Mary," their first sohcitude was to celebrate 
 in a becoming manner "our blessed Ladle's 
 day," the twenty-fifth of March, and to mark 
 by a significant act of religion their solemn 
 entry into the province. The doctrines and 
 usages of the Catholic Church regulated the 
 exi^ression of their feelings and furnished the 
 appropriate ceremonial. "On the day of the 
 Annunciation," says Father White, "we first 
 offered the sacrifice of the mass, never before 
 done in this region of the world ; after which, 
 having raised on our shoulders an immense 
 cross, which we had fashioned from a tree, and 
 going in procession to the designated spot, 
 assisted by the Governor and his associates 
 and other Catholics, we erected the trophy of 
 Christ, the Saviour, and on our bended knees 
 humbly recited the Litanies of the Holy Cross.' 
 Catholic and Protestant, they adored God, and 
 returned thanks for the beautiful land He had 
 given them — for this w^as Maryland. The 
 memory of that day must make the heart of 
 every Marylander beat with pride and pleas- 
 ure I All united in fraternal exultation round 
 the emblem of sacrifice for all. Beneath the 
 
18 
 
 sacred shadow of that cross all dissension was 
 forgotten, and it was upon the shores of a new 
 continent, amid the solitude of a wilderness 
 and the silence of majestic nature, that the 
 principle of Toleration in all its purity was 
 given to the world. They had come hither to 
 save from profanation the sacred fire of their 
 desolated altars, and like the illumining pillar 
 of captive Israel, it had cheered them in dark- 
 ness, and led them on to the land of promise. 
 They had put their trust in God ; and he 
 seemed to have moulded the savage nature 
 into mildness and courtesy for their coming. 
 They, who were retreating from the persecu- 
 tion of their Christian brethren, came to he 
 welcomed by the confidence and affection of 
 the savage. 
 
 And now their temporal necessities demand 
 their care ; but mindful of the claims of jus- 
 tice, they seek the rulers of the country to 
 conciliate their friendship and acquire equi- 
 table title to the lands. A change had come 
 over the spirit of the people. They who so late 
 were arrayed with hostile bearing now greet 
 them with the tokens of amity and the words of 
 peace. The arrow had dropped from the bow- 
 
19 
 
 string; they threw aside the tomahawk and 
 spear. " Come back," exclaims the Regent of 
 Potomeack to Father Altham, who had shed 
 on his wilhng mind a gleam of the light of 
 revelation, "we will eat at one table; my fol- 
 lowers shall hunt for you, we will have all 
 things in common." 
 
 Understanding that the " Emperor of Pas- 
 catoway" had a sort of suzerainty over the 
 neighboring tribes, Governor Calvert set out 
 to pay a visit to that potentate, who lived at 
 Pascatoway, some seventy miles up the Poto- 
 mac. Sailing up the river he went to " Potow 
 meek Town," where a werowance, or king, 
 lived, who bid them welcome. Leaving these 
 hospitable savages, Calvert kept up the river 
 to Pascatoway, where he found many Indians 
 assembled, and among them an Englishman, 
 Henry Fleete, who knew their language and 
 acted as interpreter. With ample license from 
 the sovereign of Pascatoway, whose sway was 
 acknowledged by the surrounding tribes, 
 the voyagers, accompanied by Captain Fleete, 
 who knew well the country, retire to the beau- 
 tiful sheet (3f water that spreads its calm 
 mirror before us, which they named the St. 
 
20 
 
 Oeorge's river, but which is known at this day 
 by the name of St. Mary's river. Here they 
 found an Indian town, the residence of a chief 
 or king named Yoacomico, who received Cal- 
 vert very kindly, entertained him over night, 
 giving him his own bed to sleep upon, and 
 spent the next day in showing him the coun- 
 try. The fertile shores of the St. Mary's 
 pleased Calvert ; it was tenanted by a gentle 
 race, whose peaceful habits were fostered by 
 the abundance they "drew from the water and 
 the land. The fierce and warlike Susquehan- 
 noughs had marked them for their prey, and 
 unable to repel their incursions, they had 
 already resolved on a removal, which had par- 
 tially begun. Hence they readily shared their 
 dwellings and growing crops with the strang- 
 ers, and agreed to abandon them entirely, 
 with their cultivated lands, at the close of the 
 following season. Father White remarks : 
 "One of these cabins has fallen to me and my 
 associates, in which we are accommodated 
 well enough for the time, until larger dwell- 
 ings are provided. You might call this the 
 first chapel of Maryland." Does not these 
 transactions remind you, my friends, of the 
 
21 
 
 dealings of the Most High with His chosen^ 
 people ? " I sent before you hornets, and I 
 drove them out from their places ; not with 
 thy sword or with thy bow ; and I gave you a 
 land in which you had not labored, and cities 
 to dwell in which you built not ; vineyards 
 and olive-yards which you planted not." In 
 the intercourse of the Cal verts with the red 
 men was also realized the prophetic exclama- 
 tion of the psalmist : " Mercy and Truth are 
 met together ; Justice and Peace have kissed.'' 
 Guided by the spirit of their religion, the 
 colonists conciliated the friendship of the na- 
 tive Indians, and, in all their dealings with 
 them, were governed by the strictest rules of 
 equity and the purest sentiments of humanity. 
 They did not usurp possession of the soil. They 
 purchased thirty miles of their district for good 
 consideration. Not with the trinkets and 
 finery with which the credulous savage might 
 find himself, on returning reflection, a splendid 
 beggar; not with the maddening draught 
 that would steep his senses in blissful delirium 
 for an hour, and leave him unnerved as des- 
 pairing to the waking sense of his beastly 
 degradation ; not with the envied implements- 
 
22 
 
 of European warfare, which, through the accel- 
 erated extiri)ation of the red race by kindred 
 hands, should clear the forest for the steady 
 encroachment of the stranger. No ! my fellowr 
 citizens, the Pilgrims of Maryland regarded 
 the Indians as part of the human family, and 
 as such, entitled to its rights. In their inter- 
 course with them, they acted upon the golden 
 rule proclaimed by the Saviour himself, "As 
 you would men should do to you, do ye also to 
 them likewise," and thus won their love and 
 affection by depriving them of all cause of 
 complaint. They bargained for the Indian's 
 land, but they multiplied what remained to 
 him, by gifts of the axe and hoe, and rakes and 
 knives. They narrowed his hunting grounds, 
 but they clothed him with the fabrics of the 
 loom, and dispensed with his garment of skins. 
 In the discharge of mutual offices of kindness 
 and hospitality, side by side journeyed through 
 life's pilgrimage, the wandering savage and 
 the humble Christian. So favorably had these 
 children of the forest been impressed with a 
 proper sense of the just principles of action of 
 the pilgrims, that we find the King of the 
 Patuxent declaring in savage eloquence that 
 
23 
 
 ^' I love the English so well, that if they should 
 go about to kill me, if I had so much breath 
 to speak, I would command the people not to 
 revenge my death, for I know that they would 
 not do such a thing except it were through my 
 own fault." And their subsequent intercourse 
 with the aborigines justified his confidence. 
 While the laws prohibited pre-emption by indi- 
 viduals of tlieir rights of occupancy, and thus 
 averted a most copious source of injury to that 
 simple race, our early records abundantly attest 
 that the Indian title was always extinguished 
 by liberal purchase. The trade with the sav- 
 ages was subjected to legislative regulation, 
 for the prevention of abuses, and the nefarious 
 traffic in arms forbidden by a policy as humane 
 as it was prudent. 
 
 While their brethren of New England went 
 armed to the corn-field, or were startled from 
 their slumbers by the midnight blaze of their 
 dwellings ; while their Sunday hymns were 
 echoed by the war-whoop, and the widowed 
 matron escaped from her slaughtered captors, 
 came back with their scalps, to clasp the man- 
 gled remains of her children with hands yet 
 reeking with the blood and brains of their 
 
24 
 
 murderers — the Pilgrim of Maryland and the 
 Indian were kneeling in peace together at the 
 feet of Jesus. 
 
 Having obtained a right to a portion of the soil , 
 Calvert and his associates landed on the 27th of 
 March, 1G34, near what is now called Chancellor 
 Point, and going about a mile, laid out a con- 
 venient site for a city, which they named 
 St. Mary's, in honor of the blessed Virgin. The 
 first thing the colonists did was to erect a 
 guardhouse for their defence, and a storehouse 
 for the storage of their supplies. The blessings 
 of Heaven prospered all their labors. The little 
 colony immediately took root, and thrived and 
 iiourished beyond all former examples. The 
 Indians, who were preparing at the time of 
 their arrival to leave that part of the country, 
 gave up to them their cultivated grounds. It 
 was the proper season to begin the labors of 
 husbandry. The soil was rich ; the streams 
 abounded with fish ; the magnificent forests 
 were alive with game. Intermingling as 
 brothers and sisters, with the children of na- 
 ture around them, the wives and daughters of 
 the colonists learned from the squaws the 
 various modes of preparing Indian corn, and 
 
25 
 
 their young men were accompanied by tawny 
 warriors to the chase. 
 
 For several years nothing occurred to dis- 
 turb the harmony or check the growth of the 
 colony, except the ineffectual efforts of Clai- 
 borne and a few other restless spirits from 
 Virginia, to dispute the authority of its gov- 
 ernment and rouse the Indians to hostility. 
 Father White and his companions labored at 
 first among the tribes which dwelt on the 
 banks of the Patuxent. Soon after they estab- 
 lished a mission on the Isle of Kent, and car- 
 ried the Gospel to the southern boundary of 
 the present District of Columbia. In 1639 
 they had the happiness of converting Chilo- 
 macon, the Tayac or powerful king of the 
 Pascataways, and of administering the sacra- 
 ment of l)aptism to him, his wife and child, 
 and his principal counsellor, Mosorcoques, in 
 the presence of Governor Calvert and a retinue 
 of honor, in a chapel erected for the occasion 
 by these pious proselytes at an Indian town 
 about fifteen miles south of the present city of 
 Washington. Several members of the ruling 
 families at Patuxent, and also at Potopaco, 
 with others in that vicinity to the number of 
 
26 
 
 one hundred and thirty, were added to the 
 Church before the year 1642. The chief and 
 principal inhabitants of the town of Potomac, 
 and four neighboring chiefs, with some mem- 
 bers of their respective tribes, were in Uke 
 manner brought into the Christian fold about 
 this period. We cannot accurately estimate 
 the entire number of converts ; but hope and 
 gratitude now swelled the missionary's heart, 
 for the prospect of ultimate success was un- 
 clouded. Several fathers had arrived succes- 
 sively from Europe to aid the venerable White 
 and take the place of Father Altham, who had 
 gone from the scene of his earthly toils to 
 intercede in Heaven for those in whose behalf 
 he had labored on earth. Some of them, 
 particularly Father White, had become familiar 
 with the language of the Indians. He also 
 composed for the instruction of the natives a 
 Catholic catechism in several dialects. The 
 printing press he imported from England, and 
 it is believed that he used it for the printing 
 of his catechism for circulation among his 
 aboriginal flock. A copy of this catechism, 
 printed on the first printing press ever intro- 
 duced into an English colony, was found by 
 
27 
 
 Father McSherry among the archives of the 
 Society at Rome. Father White continued to 
 prosecute his studies of the native dialects, 
 and prepared also an Indian grammar and a 
 dictionary. Our brief history of the first 
 printing press would be incomplete if we did 
 not remind our Puritan friends that when the 
 Puritans in Maryland attacked the mission- 
 aries and destroyed their property in 1655, 
 this previous instrument of early Christian 
 enlightenment and education disappeared. 
 
 For the first five years no considerable 
 settlements were made beyond the precinct 
 of the town of St. Mary's. The lands within 
 the town were divided among the first colonists 
 in a hberal and equitable manner. In his 
 letter of instructions, Governor Calvert was to 
 pass in freehold, to each of the first adven- 
 turers, ten acres of land within the town of 
 St. Mary's, for any person the said adventurers 
 transported to Maryland; and five acres to 
 every other adventurer which he transported 
 since the time of the first plantation. About 
 this time the settlement at St. Mary's was 
 created into a county. In 1638-9 Kent Hun- 
 dred on the Eastern Shore was made a hun- 
 dred "within the county of St. Mary's." 
 
28 
 
 ~^The first assembly held in Maryland seems 
 to have consisted of all the freemen in the 
 province. It convened at St. Mary's on the 
 26th of February, 1635, but the records of its 
 proceedings haij^fi^erished. The assembly of 
 1637-8 was composed altogether of members 
 of the Catholic faith. Indeed the Jesuits, in 
 their journals, say that nearly all the Protest- 
 ants who first came over had been converted 
 to the Catholic faith. Three of the burgesses 
 summoned to the assembly were the Jesuits, 
 Fathers White and Altham, and Thomas 
 Copley, but they excused themselves from 
 attending. The three chief officers of the 
 colony, Leonard Calvert, Jerome Hawley and 
 Thomas Cornwalys, were also Catholics. At 
 this time and for many years after everything 
 about St. Mary's bore the stamp of a strong 
 Catholic flavor. Besides giving a Catholic 
 name to the province, they also did the same 
 in regard to ihe towns, hundreds, manors, 
 tracts, ci^eeks, rivers, promontories, and when 
 they decided to erect a State House, they built 
 it in the shape of a cross. Sixty tracts and 
 manors, most of them taken up at a very early 
 period, bear the prefix of Saint. The creeks 
 
29 
 
 and villages, to this day, attest the wide- 
 spread prevalence of the same taste, senti- 
 ments and sympathies. At a very early period 
 the enemies of the new province took every 
 occasion to speak of Maryland as a popish 
 colony, dangerous to England and to the 
 Protestant English in America, and one of the 
 tirst acts passed by the Assembly of 1638-9 
 was one declaring " that Holy Church within 
 this province shall have all her rights and lib- 
 erties/^ This act provided in a general phrase 
 for the rights of the Catholic Church, and at 
 the same time placed the whole population., 
 cleric as well as lay, under the civil law. As 
 we have state(J, the Proprietary, in his original 
 proclamation inviting adventurers, had prom- 
 ised freedom of religion to all Christian men. 
 In another proclamation after the first set- 
 tlement, he had prohibited "all unseasonable 
 disputations in point of religion tending to the 
 disturbance of the public peace and quiet of 
 the colony, and to the opening of faction in 
 religion." In July, 1638, William Lewis, a 
 Catholic, had been fined 500 pounds of tobacco 
 for interfering, by opprobrious reproaches, with 
 two Protestants, Francis Gray, a freeman, and 
 
30 
 
 Robert Sedgrave, a servant, for reading a Book 
 of Protestant Sermons." Again, on March 22, 
 1642, a petition was presented by the "Prot- 
 estant Cathohcs," complaining against Mr. 
 Thomas Gerard, for taking awsij the books out 
 of the chapel. Upon which charge, after due 
 examination, the Assembly found Mr. Gerard 
 '^Guilty," and sentenced him "to return the 
 Books and to relinquish all title to them, or to 
 the house, and pay a fine of 500 lbs. of Tobacco 
 towards the maintenance of the first minister 
 as should arrive'' At this time the population 
 of St. Mary's was estimated at about 600 per- 
 sons, and there was no Protestant minister in 
 the county until 1650, when Re^. William Wil- 
 kinson, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 came into it. He appears to have settled in 
 St. George's Hundred, at St. George's Church, 
 but now known as Poplar Hill Church. He 
 was unquestionably the first permanent Church 
 of England clergyman in Lord Baltimore's 
 colony, and was then forty-eight years of age. 
 After a ministry of thirteen years, he died 
 in 1663. 
 
 I must not detain you with the details of the 
 early settlement of St. Mary's, but it is, perhaps, 
 
31 
 
 proper that I should give you a brief sketch of 
 the old State House. The lot upon which it was 
 built was surveyed in 1639, and a "towne 
 house" was authorized to be built thereon, 
 which was j)atented to Governor Leonard Cal- 
 vert in 1641. Upon his death at St. Mary's, 
 June 9th, 1647, it was sold by Margaret Brent, 
 his Executrix, to Hugh Lee', in 1650. In 1662 
 it was purchased by the Province, and was 
 used as the Governor's residence until 1674. 
 In that year an act was passed for building a 
 State House in St. Mary's. In May, the Gov- 
 ernor and Council proposed that it should be 
 built of brick. It was erected with a jail, and 
 cost 330,000 pounds of tobacco. The bricks were 
 made in the city, as all the bricks have been 
 which have been used in the erection of build- 
 ings, from the foundation of the province to 
 the present time. In 1688 an act was passed 
 for repairing it, and in 1695 the Lower House 
 passed an act directing that it should l)e used 
 for a Court House and Church. In 1708, it 
 appears that a town had been erected at 
 Sheppard's old fields near the head of Britton 
 Bay, on the land of Phihp Lynes, and that 
 a Court House was to be built there. At the 
 
32 
 
 same time the public buildings and lands at 
 St. Mary's were ordered to be sold. In 1710 
 it was called Seymour Town, but in 1728, 
 Leonard Town. The public buildings at 
 St. Mary's, however, were not sold. In 1720, 
 an act was passed vesting the old State House 
 in the Rector and Vestry of William and Mary 
 Parish, and their successors in fee simple for 
 the use of the .parish forever. The old State 
 House was in the form of a cross fifty feet by 
 forty ; the longest lay East and West. 
 
 
 20 feet. 
 
 1 
 
 (M 
 
 
 16 feet. 
 
 00 
 
 • 
 
 14 feet. 
 
 CO 
 
 
 cq n> 
 
 
 OLTLINE OF OLD STATE HOUSE. 
 
 The vestry meetings of William and Mary 
 Parish at this time were held at Poplar Hill 
 Church, St. George's, and on May 23, 1720, the 
 vestry agreed with John Doyne and Francis 
 
33 
 
 Hopewell to repair the State House. On March 
 -5th a door was ordered to be placed in the 
 middle of the back buildings, as one of the 
 wings were called, and to place the communion 
 table in the place where the door then was, the 
 vacancies being built up with brick In the 
 place of the two large windows in the porch 
 where the communion table was to stand, there 
 was to be placed two windows 8 feet high and 
 22 inches wide, and the two large windows 
 were to be placed on each side of the back 
 buildings and were to be the entrance or porch 
 of the building The walls of the two ends 
 were to be raised to the height of the main 
 building, and to be ceiled square with the top 
 of the arch after the model of the old church 
 at St. Mary's. The building would accommo- 
 date four hundred persons. It is said that about 
 the year 1700, there was so much opposition by 
 the Catholics to holding Protestant worship in 
 the old State House, that the Protestants ap- 
 plied to a British man-of-war for assistance, 
 and the commander sent three cannon to the 
 aid of the Protestants. They remained in 
 the church-yard until about 1823, when they . 
 were removed to Washington. In 1829, the 
 
34 
 
 vestry of William and Mary Parish tore 
 down the old State House, and used the 
 bricks to build the present church. In 1839, 
 the State purchased the eastern half of the lot^ 
 and erected on it the St. Mary's Female Sem- 
 inary. In IS-iO, the Court House was burned 
 and all the records were destroyed. 
 
 It is time this protracted discourse should 
 draw to a close, but I cannot end without 
 alluding to the total overthrow of Catholic in- 
 fluence and civil and religious liberty in the 
 province. During Claiborne's and Ingle's re- 
 bellion Father White and two other mission- 
 aries were seized, put in irons, and sent to 
 England to be tried as priests and Jesuits. 
 The others concealed themselves chiefly in 
 Virginia. The Indian flocks were dispersed, 
 as sheep without a shepherd. The good fathers 
 returned to them, and again were chased away ; 
 nor were they ever after allowed to continue 
 their missionary labors without molestation. 
 The tribes which seemed destined to become 
 Christians and civilized have disappeared for- 
 ever. But the poor Indians were not the only 
 •sufferers. The hydra of revolt derived a sort 
 of immortality from anti-Catholic rancour; 
 
35 
 
 and though at first struck down, it ever rose 
 with redoubled vigor and showed its gratitude 
 for the mercy, which had failed to scar its 
 mutilated trunk, by a new and more ruthless 
 onset. Claiborne, "the evil genius of the 
 colony," and others like him, were always 
 ready to head the insurrection, and the banks 
 of the Severn, where the Puritans lately 
 banished from Virginia had been allowed to 
 settle, became the hot-bed of sedition. "To root 
 out the abomination of Popery and prelacy," to 
 foster a " thorough godly reformation," and to 
 vindicate their rights and liberties, brought 
 into awful danger by the Jesuits and the Pope, 
 were the ever-ready pretexts of each reason- 
 able outbreak, and especially of that successful 
 conspiracy, which, on the accession of William 
 and Mary, took the name of " The Protestant 
 Association," and completely revolutionized 
 the Government of Maryland. We have seen 
 that from the moment of the institution of the 
 Government of Maryland it "tolerated all 
 Christian churches and established none." The 
 Governor was required to take an oath, which 
 was prescribed by Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, in 
 1636, two years after the landing of the fii\st 
 
36 
 
 colony, which must forever make memorable 
 its noble framer, — "that he would not by him- 
 self, or by another, directly or indirectly, 
 trouble or molest, or discountenance any per- 
 son professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or 
 in respect of religion ; that he would make no 
 difference of persons in conferring offices, 
 favors, or rewards, for or in respect of religion, 
 but merely as they should be found faithful 
 and well-deserving, and endowed with moral 
 virtues and abilities ; that his aim should be 
 public unity ; and that if any person or officer 
 should molest any person, he would protect 
 the person molested, and punish the offender." 
 A Catholic legislature, in 1649, apprehensive 
 that the persecutions they had escaped would 
 cross the broad Atlantic in search of them, to 
 teach, as it were, by example, the true spirit of 
 the Christian church, hastened to enact into 
 form the principles of religion, upon which 
 they had acted ever since the foundation of 
 the settlement. " And whereas," so ran the 
 sul)lime language of the preamble of the 
 statute, "the enforcing of the conscience in 
 matters of religion hath frequentlj^ fallen out 
 to be of dangerous consequence in those com- 
 
37 
 
 nionwealtlis where it has been practiced, and 
 the more quiet and peaceable government of 
 this province, and better to preserve the mutual 
 love and amity among the inhabitants, no per- 
 son professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall 
 be any ways troubled, molested or discounte- 
 nanced for his or her rehgion, or in the free 
 exercise thereof, within this province or the 
 islands thereunto belonging, nor any way 
 (compelled to the belief or exercise of any other 
 religion against his or her consent." 
 
 About the time of the enacting of this 
 statute, the authorities of Virginia, in pursu- 
 ance of a resolve of the legislature of that 
 province, passed some nine years previously, 
 and directed against dissenting ministers, com- 
 manded all such as would not conform to the 
 discipline of the Church of England to depart 
 by a certain day. In the beautiful spirit which 
 prompted the adoption of the statute of free 
 dom already quoted, the fugitives from Vir- 
 ginia intolerance were invited to take up their 
 abode in Maryland, where all agree they were 
 most kindly received and protected. These 
 people exemplified the snake in the fable, and 
 afterwards stung the bosom that sheltered 
 
38 
 
 them, when persecuted and homeless, they 
 were wanderers upon the face of the earth. 
 Nor did these only find an asylum here— every 
 clime sent its emigrants, and in the benign 
 spirit of legislation, the sympathies of the 
 colony were extended to them all, without 
 regard to the sect to which they belonged, or 
 the nation from whence they came. Of these 
 facts, no information was sought ; all that was 
 known was, that the emigrants were children 
 of misfortune, and as such, they were kindly 
 received and nobly cherished. The Huguenots 
 from France, and the afflicted from Holland, 
 from Germany, from Finland, from Sweden, 
 from Piedmont, and even from Bohemia, the 
 country of Jerome and of Huss, came those 
 seeking protection under the tolerant sway of 
 the founders of Maryland, and at once, with 
 equal franchises, were made citizens. At this 
 time, beyond the boundaries of Maryland, there 
 was not in all the Anglo-American colonies one 
 spot on which the Catholic might hope in peace 
 and safety to practice his religion. In no])le 
 contrast to the action of Virginia, as we have 
 seen, was the liberal spirit of the Pilgrim 
 fathers of Maryland. Not less so was it to 
 
39 
 
 that of Pennsylvania, of Massachusetts, and of 
 Ehode Island, notwithstanding the eulogiums 
 which over and over again have been pro- 
 nounced upon the conduct of their founders. 
 Although Roger Williams, with heroic firm- 
 ness, had declared in 1684, when resisting the 
 intolerant spirit surrounding him, that "the 
 doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience 
 was evidently and lamentably contrary to the 
 doctrine of Jesus Christ,'' and that "the 
 removal of the yoke of soul oppression would 
 prove an act of mercy and righteousness to 
 engage the whole and every interest and con- 
 science to preserve the common liberty and 
 peace," he forgot the truth and justice of the 
 one and the policy of the other, when he came 
 to found a colony after the settlement of Mary- 
 land, by excluding the Catholic from within 
 the circle of his justice and benevolence. To 
 the injury of his fame, he allowed for more 
 than fifty years to exist upon the statute books 
 of his Plantations, notwithstanding his boast 
 that his "colony would have no law whereby 
 to punish any for declaring by words their 
 minds concerning the things-of God,'' an act 
 disfranchising the Catholic. So, too, with Mas- 
 
40 
 
 sachusetts, where the unoffending and peaceful 
 order of Friends were proscribed and their 
 leaders led to death, because to the fancy of 
 fanaticism the preaching of their itinerant 
 members seemed but " extravagances." That 
 Penn was not animated by that enlarged 
 charity which encompasses in its affectionate 
 embrace the whole human family, is fully 
 established by the eager anxiety he evinced in 
 his letters to his magistrates for the annoyance 
 and proscription of the Catholic, and that too 
 at a time when, according to the testimony of 
 George Fox, the great leader of his sect, in Cath- 
 olic Maryland, the believers in his creed wera 
 not only not persecuted for their religious wor- 
 ship, which was held without interruption, but 
 where *' the truth was received with reverence 
 and gladness." 
 
 I am not ignorant that these allusions to the 
 founders of the provinces to which I have re- 
 ferred do not harmonize with the pompous 
 encomiums that have for full a century been 
 bestowed upon them. Truth, however, wounded 
 in the effort to exalt these men, demands that 
 historical facts should be known ; but in giving 
 it utteran(;e, far be it from my purpose to 
 
41 
 
 lessen the large claim they justly earned to the 
 veneration of posterity. In their day and 
 generation they all did much to strike down 
 the fetters which hampered the energies of the 
 soul, and, if they were not entirely superior to 
 all the prejudices of their early education, we 
 should not deem it strange when we find at 
 this advanced and enlightened day in our 
 midst, hundreds behind the liberal spirit of 
 their age, and who, with the keenness of olden 
 times, seek to victimize their fellow men for 
 the sin of beheving a little more or less than 
 themselves. If we reject also the testimony 
 brought against Koger Williams and William 
 Penn, and admitting all that their panegyrists 
 have asserted, we must still say that both of 
 them came into the field but as gleaners of 
 that honor and glory, the full harvest of which 
 had been gathered by the Calverts and the 
 Pilgrims of Maryland. 
 
 The bigots who sicken at Maryland's un- 
 rivalled glory, have, with keen-eyed malignity, 
 sought and fancied that they found another 
 reason for hawking at her in her lofty flight. 
 They say, " the Catholic colonists had not the 
 power to persecute even if they had the will.'' 
 
42 
 
 We know that they had not the will ; and that 
 is sufficient. But is it true that thej'', who had 
 the power to do g-ood and used it so nobly, 
 were so powerless for evil, had they been evil- 
 minded ^ Could they not have hung the 
 inoffensive and unprotected Quakers, had 
 they taken a fancy to that vocation, just as 
 well as the Puritans of Boston 'i Could they 
 not have excluded dissenters from the province, 
 as Virginia did, and would not Charles I have 
 supported them in doing so? Yet it is on 
 record that in the very infancy of the colony, 
 in 1634, Leonard Calvert sent the "Dove'' to 
 Massachusetts Bay with an invitation to the 
 people there to come and settle in Maryland, 
 promising them the free exercise of their 
 religion 'i Can any proposition then be more 
 satisfactorily established than that to the Pil- 
 grims of Maryland belongs the honor of first 
 incorporating into a system of government and 
 practising the doctrine of religious liberty ? 
 
 In 1688 we still see the people of Maryland 
 ' 'dwelling under the Proprietary Government 
 in apparent security and contentment." In a 
 short time we find the old land-marks swept 
 away, and the destinies of Maryland committed 
 
43 
 
 to the keeping of strange hands. The manner 
 of the change is buried in forgetfulness, as 
 the destroyers left no record-evidence of their 
 acts. It is strange but true, according to 
 McMahon, that while the Protestant revolution 
 "was avowedly originated and conducted for 
 the defence and security of the Protestant 
 religion," there is not the first trace of evidence 
 that the free exercise of that religion by its 
 professors was ever, for a moment, endangered 
 or restricted. "The articles of grievances 
 exhibited by the lower house to the upper 
 house, at the session of 1688, do not ascribe a 
 single act of delibera^te oppression, of wanton 
 exercise of power, immediately to the Proprie- 
 tary or his Governors. "They do not,'' con- 
 tinues that able historian, "even insinuate the 
 slightest danger to the Protestant religion, 
 or impute to the Proprietary administration a 
 single act or intention militating against the 
 free enjoyment and exercise of it " Fanatical 
 men had poisoned the public mind ; a ground- 
 less revolution had hurled the Proprietary 
 from his ancient dominion ; and at the express 
 solicitation of the rebellious "Associators,'' 
 Maryland was placed in the humiliating 
 
44 
 
 attitude of a royal province, and liberty of 
 conscience had perished. King William as- 
 sumed the executive power ; and, on the 9th 
 of April, 1692, Sir Lionel Copley, by royal 
 appointment, dissolved the revolutionary con- 
 vention, and undertook the government of the 
 province. The first act of the new assembly 
 was "the act of recognition of William and 
 Mary ;" by the second, "the Church of England 
 was formally established." "Thus," continues 
 McMahon, "was introduced, for the first time 
 in Maryland, a church establishment sustained 
 by law, and fed by general taxation." The 
 Catholic, the Puritan, the Quaker, the Presby- 
 terian, the Baptist, and every other non-con- 
 formist, was taxed to support a form of 
 worship which they repudiated. Under the 
 old system every man had paid his own 
 preacher. 
 
 Upon the new plan, the whole people now 
 paid the ministers of the dominant party. 
 King William had the sagacity to emancipate, 
 in a measure, the great body of Protestant 
 dfssenters in England from the thraldom of 
 the established Church. Not so in Maryland ! 
 All who dissented from th% dominant party — 
 
45 
 
 Protestants as well as Catholics— were pro- 
 scribed and disfranchised. Even the peaceful 
 conventicles of the Quakers were classed 
 amongst "Unlawful Assemblies,'' and afforded 
 material for prosecution. However, in 1702, 
 the English toleration act was extended to all 
 Protestant dissenters in the colony. The Cath- 
 olic was now the only one under the brand of 
 intolerance. And so he remained until the 
 Revolutionary war. "Thus," says McMahon, 
 "in a colony, which was established by Cath- 
 olics, and grew up to power and happiness 
 under the government of a Catholic, the Cath- 
 olic inhabitant tvas the only victim of intolerance y 
 This ungenerous policy not only reached to 
 the complete disfranchisement of its victim, 
 but it pursued him into the retirement of do- 
 mestic life, subjecting him to injury and insult, 
 and lacerating every feeling of his heart. The 
 personal animosity of the Protestants against 
 the Catholics was at one period carried to such 
 an extent that the latter were even excluded 
 from social intercourse with the former, were 
 not permitted to walk in front of the State 
 House, and were actually obliged to wear 
 swords for their personal protection. The act 
 
46 
 
 of 17(U expressly aims at the prevention of the 
 growth of the Cathohc rehgion in the province. 
 By its provisions all priests were prosecuted 
 who were found in the discharge of their duty; 
 a reward of £100 was offered to any one who 
 discovered a priest performing his religious 
 duties; perpetual imprisonment or l)anishment 
 was inflicted on any one professing the Cath- 
 olic religion who kept a school, or educated, or 
 governed, or boarded any youth ; another sec- 
 tion provided that if any Popish youth shall 
 not, within six months after he attains his ma- 
 jority, take certain oaths inconsistent with the 
 faith of Catholics, he should be incapable of 
 taking lands by descent, and his next of kin, 
 being a Protestant, should succeed to them ; 
 and any person professing the Catholic faith 
 was incompetent to purchase land. Another 
 provisit)n provided that any person sending his 
 child abroad to be educated in the Catholic 
 faith should forfeit £100 ; it also provided that 
 the Governor had the power to deprive a father 
 of the earnings of his labor for the sake of edu- 
 cating his child in the Protestant faith. In 
 1704 an impost of 20 shillings per poll was laid 
 on all negroes and Irish Catholics imported 
 
47 
 
 into the province, while Irish Protestants were 
 admitted free. Later on this act was repealed, 
 and a penalty was imposed of £5 in each case 
 for the concealment of the Irish importation ; 
 and afterwards it was enacted that certain ob- 
 noxious test oaths should be tendered to Irish 
 servants on board of any ship arriving. In 
 1715 religious tyranny was still more atrocious. 
 The Assembly enacted that the children of a 
 Protestant father might be taken from a Cath- 
 olic mother and placed where they might be 
 securely educated in the Protestant religion. 
 The act of 1716 excludes Catholics from all 
 offices of trust and profit by requiring from 
 the candidate a denial of transubstantiation. 
 In 1718, Catholics were rendered incapable 
 of giving a vote in any election of delegates 
 without having renounced their faith by taking 
 the test-oath. In the year 1717, the tax upon 
 Irish servants was doubled, and within sixteen 
 years no less than twelye acts were passed 
 levelled against their entering Maryland . But, 
 like the wheat fly, they showed themselves in 
 spite of persecution ; and the legislature in des- 
 pair, at last prevented owners of vessels from 
 shipping them. But while the Irish Catholic 
 
48 
 
 was forbidden our coast, the branded and 
 cropped convict was, to a certain extent, 
 welcomed to the shores of Maryland, and per- 
 mitted to amalgamate with the ordinary popu- 
 lation. These, however, were but a few of 
 the oppressions practiced upon the Catholics of 
 Maryland after the colony was taken from the 
 hands of the Calverts. The Council granted 
 orders to take children from the contact of 
 Catholic parents; Catholic laymen were de- 
 prived of the right of suffrage, and the lands 
 of Catholics were assessed double when the 
 exigencies of the province required additional 
 supplies. 
 
 But this was not all that they suffered under 
 the brand of intolerance. The City of St. Mary's, 
 the venerable mother of our State, she who 
 had given shelter to the Pilgrim fathers, and 
 around her precincts clustered the tenderest 
 affections, she was to pay the penalty of her 
 loyalty to the Catholic faith. She had wit- 
 nessed the early sorrows and stragglings of 
 our early fathers, and the glory of their 
 triumph over rude nature. Her halls had 
 echoed the voice of patriotic men, and her 
 pulpits had sent forth the inspired word to en- 
 
49 
 
 courage the weary settler of every creed, and 
 to reclaim the untutored child of the forest. 
 But now her venerated privileges were to. be 
 torn away, and she was to be left to mourn 
 amid solitudes, and to waste from the recollec- 
 tions of men. 
 
 The old city was incorporated by letters 
 patent from Charles Calvert, November 3d, 
 1668, with all the immunities, rights, benefits 
 and privileges appertaining to a more pros- 
 perous municipality. By its charter, it was 
 not to exceed one square mile in extent, and to 
 be governed by a Mayor, " one person learned 
 in the law by the name of a Recorder," six 
 Aldermen, and ten Common Counsellors. The 
 city was to have a common seal, Philip Calvert 
 to be the first Mayor, John Morecroft to be 
 Recorder, and William Calvert, Jerome White, 
 Daniel S. Jenifer, Garrett Van Sweringen, 
 Mark Cordea and Thomas Cosden to serve as 
 Aldermen, " as long as they shall well behave 
 themselves " The Mayor, Recorder and Alder- 
 men were to elect the ten Common Councilmen 
 on the 3d of November of each year. The 
 Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen and. Common 
 Councilmen, were to elect a Mayor at the same 
 
50 
 
 time from the Aldermen, and also their own 
 successors. The Mayor, Recorder and Alder- 
 men were to appoint all constables and other 
 officers, and to rule, order and govern the city 
 under the laws and ordinances as Justices of 
 ^the Peace. The city officers were given license 
 to hold a market every Saturday night within 
 the precincts of the city, and a fair once a year 
 on the 23d of February, " for the sale and vend- 
 ing of all manner of goods, cattle, merchandise 
 and all other commodities," and to tax all goods 
 sold. They were also authorized to hold court 
 during the fair to determine all quarrels and 
 controversies. 
 
 At this tirne St. Mary's was the largest and 
 most thriving city in the province. It con- 
 tained the State House, and prison, the little 
 Catholic chapel, a fort, a storehouse, Governor s 
 mansion and several dwellings. We have the 
 following word picture of the ancient city 
 from the answer to the queries propounded 
 by the Lords of the Committee on Trade and 
 Plantations in 1677. It said: " St. Mary's could 
 hardly be called a town, it being in length by 
 the water about five miles, and in breadth 
 upwards, toward the land, about a mile, in all 
 
51 
 
 which space, excepting my own home and 
 buildings, wherein the said courts and pubHc 
 offices are kept, there are not above thirty 
 houses, and those at considerable distance from 
 each other." 
 
 As the Puritan settlement on the Severn 
 grew in power and influence, efforts were made 
 to remove the seat of Government from St. 
 Mary's to that place. In 1683, the records, 
 together with the officers and courts of Judi- 
 catures, were removed to Elk Ridge, in Anne 
 Arundel County, and the Assembly met there. 
 The inhabitants, however, feeling themselves 
 unable to bear the burden of so many people 
 which it brought together, and being unable 
 to provide suitable accommodations for them , 
 petitioned the Governor to cause the Assembly 
 to meet at some other place. Accordingly, it 
 next assembled at Battle Creek, in Patuxent 
 river, but being unable to procure necessary 
 accommodations, it broke up abruptly after a 
 session of only three days. After this bitter 
 experience the seat of Government continued 
 at St. Mary's until 1692, when another attempt 
 was made to remove it, but it was carried in 
 the negative by the Assembly. After the 
 
52 
 
 arrival of Governor Francis Nicholson, in 
 July, 1694. he determined to convene the 
 Assembly to meet "at Anne Arundel town,^' 
 afterwards called Annapolis, on the 21st of 
 September. This choice foreshadowed the 
 doom of the cradle of the province, and at that 
 session the removal was decided upon. This 
 decision created the greatest consternation at 
 St, Mary's, and the Mayor, Recorder, Alder- 
 men, Common Councilmen, and -Freemen of 
 the city made a pathetic appeal to Governor 
 Nicholson to reconsider his decision. 
 
 After giving a long and humble account of 
 their grievances, the officials and citizens of 
 St. Mary's offer the following "sugar plum" 
 to the Governor if he should decide to permit 
 the seat of government to remain at St. Mary's. 
 They say : "To remove some scruple and objec- 
 tion, and as we humbly conceive, the main one 
 that hath been made against the conveniency 
 of the place, that the gentlemen, the members 
 of the house, have been forced to their great 
 trouble oftentimes to travel on foot from Pa- 
 tuxent to Saint Mary's, and so back again. It 
 is humbly proposed, and we do offer to obligate 
 ourselves forthwith, and so soon as possibly 
 
5S 
 
 workmen and materials can be provided for 
 the great ease and convenience of all persons 
 at such times, as also at all other times, to pro- 
 vide and procure a coach, or caravan, or both, 
 to go in all times of public meetings of assem- 
 blies and provincial courts, &c., every day daily 
 between St. Mary's and Patuxent river, and at 
 all other times once a week, and also to keep 
 constantly half-a-dozen horses at least, with 
 suitable furniture for any person or persons 
 having occasion to ride post or otherwise, with 
 or without a guide, to any part of the province 
 on the Western Shore.'' This petition was 
 signed by Philip Lynes, mayor ; Kenelm Ches- 
 eldyn, recorder ; Henry Duton, John Lewellen, 
 Jo. Watson, Thos. Beal, Philip Clark, Edward 
 Greenhalgh, aldermen ; Thos. Waughop, Wm. 
 Aisquith, Thos. Price, Richard Benton, Robert 
 Mason, W. Taylard, Samuel Watkins, common 
 councilmen ; J. Bouye, clerk; Samuel Wheeler, 
 constable, and fifty- three freemen. 
 
 The pathos and humility of the officials and 
 inhabitants of the Catholic settlement at St. 
 Mary's were thrown away on the Assembly, 
 which repudiated the appeal with coarse and 
 almost brutal scorn. They showed the acri- 
 
64 
 
 mony of the dominant party in their reply 
 when they said: "Saint Mary's only served 
 hitherto to cast a blemish upon all the rest of 
 the province." 
 
 Remonstrance and appeal were all in vain, 
 Annapolis rose upon the downfall of old St. 
 Mary's, and in 1694 became the capital of 
 Maryland. The ancient city was stripped of 
 her privileges, of everything that gave her life, 
 and she was left to waste and perish from the 
 earth. Her population departed, her houses 
 fell to ruins, and nothing is now left of her 
 but a name and a memory. In 1708 Annap- 
 olis was erected into a city, under a charter 
 from Governor Seymour, and obtained the 
 privilege of sending two delegates to the 
 Assembly ; while the venerable town of St. 
 Mary's, which had been dechning from the 
 time she ceased to be the capital of the prov. 
 ince, was deprived of her two representatives, 
 which seems to have been the last blow to her 
 falling fortunes. 
 
 The ground, however, on which we stand, 
 my fellow-citizens, is holy ground, the foot- 
 prints of the good are on its sands, and its soil 
 is enriched with the ashes from the sanctified 
 
55 
 
 thurible. The hue that sweeps round this 
 hmited horizon includes a space whence history 
 draws her most attractive record, and presents 
 scenes where indeed the purity of the nation 
 and the beneficence of the act seems to invest 
 the genius of history with the spirit of inspira- 
 tion, and enables us to find beneath the sim- 
 plicity of secular narration the means of 
 spiritual instruction. 
 
 It is time this protracted discourse should 
 draw to a close. Mine is not a history, but a 
 tribute to the virtues of the founders of Mary- 
 land. Neither is it my more grateful task to 
 follow your ancient State through her bright 
 career of civil and military fame ; the wisdom 
 of her legislation — the ardent spirit of liberty 
 that has ever characterized her people ; her 
 prompt and determined stand in resistance to 
 British oppression ; her soil unpolluted by the 
 stamps ; the deliberate, open, undisguised burn- 
 ing of the tea at Annapolis ; her early call for 
 a government based on the popular will, when 
 the ties of affection to the parent State had 
 been broken by unkindness ; the firmness 
 of her sons, marshalled by a Smallwood, a 
 Williams, a Gist, a Howard, or a Smith, under 
 
56 
 
 every aspect of danger, and every form of 
 privation, from the frozen plains of Valley 
 Forge to the sweltry high hills of Santee ; 
 while their bones were whitening every field 
 of revolutionary glory, or her dashing Barney 
 was guiding them to victory on the ocean ! 
 The talents, the learning, the patriotisim of 
 her Chases, her Martins, her Dulanys, her 
 Car rolls, her Pinkneys, and her Taney s, or the 
 Wirts and Harpers, whom adoption has made 
 her own ; these, and the thousand incidents 
 that illustrate them, must be told in better 
 terms than mine. 
 
 We all know how the sons and daughters of 
 Maryland, besides founding and building up 
 noble institutions within her own limits, have 
 sought homes in other parts of the country, 
 near and remote, and how powerfully their 
 influence and enterprise have everywhere been 
 felt. It may be safely said that there is hardly 
 a State or county or city on the Continent, 
 in which Maryland men and women are not 
 turning their face towards this ancient city 
 to-day with sorriething of the affectionate 
 yearning of children towards an ancestral, or 
 even a parental home. We all know what 
 
67 
 
 contributions they have made to the cause of 
 Education, of Learning, of Literature, of 
 Science, and of Art. We all know what they 
 have done for commerce on the ocean, and for 
 Industry on the land, vexing eyery sea with 
 their keels, and startling every waterfall with 
 their looms and their hammers. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have done. But before I 
 turn from you, let me say there is no lesson 
 more important to the happiness of men than 
 that which is taught by the earliest history of 
 our State. It is the lesson of charity ; it is the 
 precept of our divine Redeemer, that we should 
 love one another and do good to all men, 
 even those who hate and persecute us. Your 
 pilgrim fathers never paused to ask : Will our 
 generosity be requited well or ill ? They did 
 their duty. They acted their part faithfully, 
 nobly in the history of the world They set a 
 rising nation the example of universal benev- 
 olence. In God they trusted for their recom- 
 pense, and they have received it. The world 
 is now resounding their praise. Looking down 
 from a higher sphere of charity, they behold 
 the principles which they professed and acted 
 on triumphant throughout our vast republic. 
 
58 
 
 and destined yet to triumph throughout the 
 entire world. Mary landers emulate the glory 
 of your fathers. Men of every State, of every 
 Country and every Creed, learn that true 
 religion, as angels sung when they announced 
 our Saviour's birth, gives glory to God in the 
 highest, and brings Peace and Good Will to 
 Men. 
 
 Let it be our high privilege, my friends, 
 whilst we cherish with the fondest emotions 
 of gratitude and love the recollection of the 
 deeds of our fathers, to exclaim with one of 
 the noblest an d truest of America's poets : 
 
 " Peace to their memory — let it grow, 
 
 Greener. with years, and blossom through the flight 
 Of ages; let the mimic canvass show 
 
 Their calm benevolent features ; let the light 
 Stream on their deeds of love, that shunn'd the sight 
 
 Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame 
 The glorious record of their virtues write, 
 
 And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
 A palm like theirs, and catch from them the hal- 
 lowed flame." 
 
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