Charles I. The patent was duly prepared, but before it could receive the king's name and seal, Lord Baltimore died, and it was then issued to his oldest son, who by the English law of inheritance received the title as well as the estate of his father (1632).1 Commence nent of 14. "Lord Baltimore was unwilling to take upon himself the sole risk of colonizing his province. Others joined with him in the adventure; and, all difficulties being overcome, his two brothers, of whom Leonard Calvert was appointed his lieutenant, embarked themselves for colonization. the voyage in the good ship Ark, and a pinnace called the Dove. It was not till the last week of February (1634) that they arrived at Point Comfort, in Virginia; where, in obedience to the express letters of King Charles, they were welcomed with courtesy and humanity by Governor Harvey. The governor offered them what Virginia had obtained so slowly, and at so much cost, from England: cattle, and hogs, and poultry; two or three hundred stocks already grafted with apples and pears, peaches and cherries. Clayborne, who had begun a trade in furs with the Indians under a license from the king, also appeared, predicting tho hostility of the natives. 15. After a week's kind entertainment, the adventurers bent their course to the north, and entered the Potomac. Under an island, which can now hardly be recognized with certainty, the Ark came to an anchor; while Calvert, with the Dove, ascended the stream. At about forty-seven leagues above the mouth of the river, he came upon the village of Pis-cat'-a-qua, an Indian settlement nearly opposite Mount Vernon, where he found an Englishman, who had lived many 1 It was intended, it is said, that the country granted by this charter should have been called Crescentia; but when it was presented to the king (Charles I., of England) for his signature, in conformity to his majesty's wishes the name of the province was changed to that of Maryland, in honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria, a daughter of the great king Henry IV. of Francé."-Bozman's Hist. of Maryland. 1634 Commencement of Colonization. 89 years among the Indians as a trader and spoke their language well. With him for an interpreter, a parley was held with them. To the request for leave for the new comers to sit down in his country, the chieftain of the tribe would neither bid them go nor stay. They might use their own discre tion.' 16. Taking with him the trader, Calvert went down the river, examining the creeks and estuaries nearer the Chesapeake. He entered the branch which is now called St. Mary's; and, about four leagues from its junction with the Potomac, anchored at an Indian town. The native inhabitants, having suffered from the superior power of the Susquehannas, who occupied the district between that river and Delaware bay, had already resolved to move into places of more security; and many of them had already begun to migrate. It was easy, by presents of cloth and axes, of hoes and knives, to gain their good-will, and to purchase their rights to the soil which they were preparing to abandon. 17. On the twenty-fifth, the day of the Annunciation, in the island under which their great ship, the Ark, lay moored, a Jesuit priest, who was of the party, offered the sacrifice of the mass, which, in that region of the world, had never been celebrated before. This being ended, he and his assistants took upon their shoulders the great cross which they had hewn from a tree. Going in procession to the place that had been designated, the governor (Calvert) and other Catholics, and some Protestants as well participating in the ceremony, they erected the cross as a trophy to Christ the Saviour, while the litany of the holy cross was chanted humbly on their bended knees.1 18. The Indian women taught the wives of the new comers to make bread of maize. The warriors of the tribe instructed the huntsmen how rich the forests of America were in game, 1 The town purchased of the Indians was called by the settlers St. Mary's. It was anticipated that it would become a great city. None of the houses then built now remain, nor 13 there even a village there. and joined them in the chase. As the planters had come into possession of ground already subdued, they at once planted cornfields and gardens. No sufferings were endured. No fears of want arose. The foundation of the colony of Maryland was peacefully and happily laid; and in six months it advanced more than Virginia in as many years. 19. Toleration grew up in the province silently, as a custom of the land. Through the benignity of the administrasion, no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ was permitted to be molested on account of religion. Roman Catholics, who were oppressed by the laws of England, were sure to find a peaceful asylum on the north bank of the Potomac; and there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestant intolerance. From the first, men of foreign birth were encouraged to plant, and enjoyed equal advantages with those of the English and Irish nations. Such were the beautiful auspices under which Maryland started into being." 20. There ought to have been peace in the colony, but there was not. From the first, Clayborne, who had established a trading post on the largest island in Chesapeake bay, refused Clayborne's to acknowledge the authority of Governor Cal claim. vert, and defended his claim by force of arms; but he was defeated and obliged to flee. Afterward, however, he returned, and made himself master of the province, compelling the governor, in his turn, to flee into Virginia for safety. Calvert the next year appeared at the head of a military force and regained possession of his government. 21. While Cromwell and his Puritan associates were a power in England, the Protestant party obtained control of affairs n Maryland, and, by an act of the Assembly, Catholics were declared not entitled to the protection of the laws Civil war. of the colony. This measure caused a civil war between the Catholics and the Protestants. After Cromwell's death, the rights of Lord Baltimore were restored, and the colony enjoyed a long repose. Like Virginia, it was a colony of planters. Its staple was tobacco. A state house was built at a cost of forty thousand pounds of tobacco." 66 William Penn. Further history. 91 22. During the revolution in England that placed William, Prince of Orange, and his wife Mary, on the throne, the peace of Maryland was again disturbed. An armed association gained possession of the government in the names of William and Mary, and Maryland, by the act of the king, was made a royal province. Lord Baltimore and his heirs were thus deprived of their rights till 1715, when the fourth Lord Baltimore, then a very young child, had his claim as the proprietor of the colony acknowledged by George I.1 Pennsylvania and Delaware. 23. We have already spoken of William Penn (see p. 86). Although brought up in wealth and luxury, he soon learned "to despise all vanities and William Penn. all avarice," and join- 66 'They are a people whom I cannot win with gifts, honors, offices, or places." By becoming a Quaker, Penn incurred the displeasure of his father; and he suffered much ill-treatment, even to imprisonment, from agents of the government. The death of his father, who had distinguished WILLIAM PENN. 1 The northern boundary of Maryland is known as Mason and Dixon's Line. The line separates Pennsylvania from the former slave states, Maryland and Virginia. "It was run, with the exception of about twenty-two miles, by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, two English mathematicians and surveyors, between November 15th, 1763, and December 26th, 1767. During the excited debate in Congress in 1820, or the question of excluding slavery from Missouri, the eccentric John Randolph, of Roanoke, Va., made great use of the phrase, Mason and Dixon's Line, which was caught up and re-echoed by every newspaper m the land, and thus gained a proverbial celebrity which it still retains. himself in the history of England by the conquest of Jamaica, and had been admiral of the British navy, left him a claim against the government for sixteen thousand pounds. 24. Desiring to found a colony where civil and religious liberty might dwell together in peace, Penn applied for a grant of land west of the Delaware river. "To the prodigal Charles II., always embarrassed for money, the grant of the province seemed the easiest way" of cancelling the claim which Penn had inherited. A charter was accordingly obtained. It was Penn's design at first to call the territory New Wales, but afterward he suggested the word Sylvania, as suitable for a land covered with forests. The king, however, would not consent to this, but at last prefixed the word Penn, in honor, as he said, of his late friend, the admiral. This, instead of pleasing Penn, made him think that people would accuse him of being vain; and he offered twenty guineas to the king's secretary to have the name changed. 25. Previous to this--more than forty years before—Gustavus Adolphus, the brave king of Sweden, proposed to found in America " a free state, where the laborer should reap the fruit of his toil, where the rights of conscience Swedes in should be inviolate, and which should be open Delaware. to the whole Protestant world." A Hollander presented himself to the king, and laid before him a pre position for a trading company, to be established in Sweden, it operations to extend to Asia, Africa, and America. Full power was accordingly given to carry out this project, but before the necessary arrangements could be inade, the German war and the king's death occurred, which caused the work to be laid aside, "and the whole project seemed about to die with the king. But just as it appeared to be at its end, it received new life. The 26. Another Hollander, by the name of Peter Minuit,1 made his appearance in Sweden. He had been in the service ' Other writers speak of Minuit as a native of Germany (see p. 83). |