USA > Maryland > An historical view of the government of Maryland : from its colonization to the present day > Part 25
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HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
[Ilist. View.
If we turn from these considerations to the list of grievances presented at the session of 1688, which, it may be fairly presumed, would exhibit the feelings and apprehensions of the moment, he Assembly trans- is not there charged with any design hostile to their
actions immedi- ately before its occurrence. religion or their liberties. Some abuses are imputed by the lower house to the attorney general, the receiver of quit- rents, and the secretary of the province : but these were ascribed to them personally, and were expressly disclaimed by the deputy- governors and their council, whose promise of redress gave en- tire satisfaction to the lower house. It is therefore due to this proprietary to say, that whatever might have been the abuses or apprehensions which excited the revolution, there is no just reason for believing that he was treacherous to the welfare of his colony; or forfeited, at that period, his high claims to remembrance, founded upon his liberal and beneficent administration for more than twenty years, as governor or proprietary. Accidental cir- eumstances and the general excitement of the moment, in- volved him in a common fate with the arbitrary monarch.
The dangers to the Protestant religion, which were impending - in England, justly excited both the indignation and sympathies of their Protestant brethren in Maryland. The Catholic inhabitants
Timid policy of of Maryland, who had grown up in harmony with the deputy go- the Protestants, and were familiarised with religious vernors. toleration, could not have looked coldly upon the acts of the crown, however masked, when their result was to be the loss of their own colonial liberties. General discontent towards the English government, which kept pace with the feelings that pervaded England, was the necessary consequence. At the Commencement of the session of 1G88, it had not yet turned upon the proprietary. At the close of that session, a step was taken by the proprietary's governors, which indicated distrust of the people, and was, for that reason, well calculated to direct the ex- citement towards themselves. The proprietary had left his govern- ment in commission, to be administered by nine deputy gover- nors ; at the head of whom, as president, was Mr. Joseph. If we may judge of president Joseph, from some messages of his which are yet preserved, he was a man who had neither the sagacity nor the temper which were necessary to direct the government in safety, through the excitements of the moment :
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Chap. III.]
and (4) the transactions to which we allude, indicate that his associates possessed little more. The members of the lower house were summoned to the upper, and required to take the oath of fidelity to the proprietary. Indignant at this, the lower house resolved that they were the representatives of the freemen of the province, and acted in that capacity only with the upper house ; and that to impose such an oath, cither upon their house in its collective capacity, or the members of it during its session, was a breach of privilege. At the same time, they professed their willingness to take the required oath, if any act of Assembly could be shown to sanction its requisition. The upper house refused to proceed in the transaction of business, until the oath was taken ; and the Assembly was prorogued. Immediately after the proro- gation, their privilege having ceased, the oath of fidelity was again tendered to the members of the lower house, and was then taken by them. Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. To manifest apprehension always begets danger; and those towards
* (4) He was as great a stickler for the jus divinum of his own powers, as king James himself for those of the English crown. His address to the Assembly of 1688, contains as regular a deduction of his "jure divino" title, as if he were preparing to try it in an action of ejectment. It cannot be, (says he,) or at least I hope it is not unknown to the members of this honorable Assembly, that the unquestionable duty of every one of us, and of us all in general,. is, that we first render thanks to the Almighty, for that it hath pleased the Dirinc goodness thus to bless us in this, (I hope) so good and happy a meeting. Nor ought we to be strangers to the end and duty for which the divine Providence hath order! us thus to meet. I say, Providence hath ordered us, for that there is no protection but of God : and the power by which we are assembled here, is undoubtedly derived from God to the king, and from the king to his excellency, the lord proprietary, and from his said lordship to us, the power therefore whereof I speak, bring as said. Firstly, in God and from God; secondly, in the king and from the king; thirdly, in his lord- ship; fourthly, i .. us, to the end and duty of and for which this . Issembly is now called and met, and is that from these four heads, to wit : of God ; the king ; our lord ; and selves.
Having thus divided his subject into these four most comprehensive themes, he expatiates upon things in general, in a style exceedingly quaint and amusing ; and savouring every where of a hypercritical sanctity, which may for that very reason be suspected of being hypocritical. How natural it is for rulers when their power is tottering from the true basis of the will and affection of the subject, to attempt to prop it by the " jure divino." In the history of "legitimates," the resort to this has always been found a fatal symptom.
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HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
[Ilist. View.
whom distrust is seriously exhibited, seldom fail to give cause for it, however groundless it may at first be.
Such was the experience of the deputies, in all their after trans- actions. Every act of defence, was represented as one of con- templated aggression. Every ordinary exercise of their powers, Results of that was tortured into arbitrary and mischievous preroga- policy . tive. In January, 1689, they received the intelli- gence of the expected invasion of England, by the Dutch, under the command of William of Orange. The mighty events which were to flow from this enterprise, and even the ultimate ยท purposes intended by it, were yet hidden in the womb of time ; and the deputies, without appearing to have had any designs against the Protestants of the province, or any fixed views as to their course amidst the distractions of England, began to prepare the province for defence. The public arms were ordered to be collected ; and some measures were adopted to check the pro- gress of rumors calculated to create disaffection towards the pro- prietary government. It was the very course to give rumor wings, and she now spread them over the whole colony; diffusing amongst the people, the cry of a popish plot for the destruction of the Protestants, conceived and promoted by the deputies, and to be accomplished by the assistance of the savages. Circum- stances soon occurred, to render this imputation of a popish plot, at least as plausible as that of Oates; which, in a period of less excitement, had shaken all England to its centre. A treaty, which had existed for some time with certain tribes of Indians in the province, was now renewed. The proprietary had received command to proclaim William and Mary, which it appears he readily obeyed ; but his instructions to his deputies, did not reach them in due season; and hence, whilst the cause of the revolu- tion was completely dominant in England, and the new sovereigns were acknowledged in the surrounding colonies, the deputies waiting the proprietary's will, had not yet formally proclaimed their adhesion. (5) Had the proprietary been personally present in the province, his energy and sagacity, added to the general respect for his character, would casily have surmounted the difficulties of the crisis. His timid deputies lost him his government, by shrinking in
(5) Chalmers, 373.
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Chap. III.]
GOVERNMENT OF MARYLAND.
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a moment of emergency above the ordinary restrictions of law, from the exercise of powers not nominated in their commission.
In April, 1689, an association was formed, styling itself, " An association in arms for the defence of the Protestant religion, and Origin and ut. for asserting the right of king William and queen
umph of the
Protestant asso-
Mary to the province of Maryland, and all the Eng-
ciatiou. lish dominions." (6) The deputies were driven to the garrison at Mattapany ; and at length, by the surrender of that garrison on the first of August, 1689, the associators were in undisputed possession of the province. (7) Of the character and motives of most of the prominent individuals in the respec- tive parties to this struggle, the records of the times do not in- form us. The names of some of the leaders are preserved in the articles for the surrender of Mattapany; which are signed, on behalf of the associators, by John Coode, Henry Jowles, John Campbell, Kenelm Cheseldine, Ninian Beale, Humphrey War- ring, Nehemiah Blackiston, John Turlinge, and Richard Clouds; . and, on behalf of the deputies, by William Joseph, Henry Darn- all, Nicholas Sewall, Edward Pye, and Clement Hill. (S)
John Coode, who was the leader of the whole association and whose name is identified with the revolution which it accom-
(6) Chalmers, page 373.
(7) This garrison was located at a place, now called Mattapany Sewell's, which is situate on the south side of Patuxent river, about two miles above its mouth. The proprietary, at this period, had a fort there, and a favorite residence, from which many of his orders and proclamations were dated, dur- ing his residence in the province. I have been informed that there are now no remains of either.
(8) The articles for the surrender of Mattapany, are the only relics of those times, which our records have preserved. Some dispute arose about the terms of the treaty, as late as 1694, when these articles were brought before the council, and recorded amongst its proceedings, at the instance of the late ' president Joseph ; after they had been submitted to the inspection of Jowles, Coode, and other leaders of the association, and pronounced authentic -- they stipulated for the surrender of the garrison, and of all munitions of war within it ; and for the exclusion of the papists, from all offices, civil and military, within the province : and submitting to these, the persons in garri- son were given a safe conduct to their homes, and assured the protection of their persons and property. They are recorded in Council Proceedings, from 1694 to 1698. Liber HI D, part 2d, 63.
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HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
. [Elist. View.
Character and plished, is known to us by subsequent occurrences, DrAlves of John
Coode,its leader. which shed little lustre on himself or any event with which he was prominently connected. It would not be fair to infer, from the illustrations of his motives in this revolution, which his subsequent conduct afforded, that the other parties to it, were also actuated by similar designs, so far removed from a genuine regard for the public interests and the preservation of religion. In times of revolution, men will rise to power, in whose mouths the alleged causes of revolution are but the watchwords to denote a party, or the calls to lure it on; and whose hearts have never joined the service of the lip. But, as naturally as the muddy particles which float upon it denote the perturbed stream, does the elevation of such men indicate the over ex- citement of the moment, and diminish the force of its allega- tions against those, at whom the revolution is aimed. Coode was an avowed revolutionist in the cause of religion ; and in the course of a few years afterwards, under the very Protestant do- minion which he himself had so largely contributed to establish, he was tried for and convicted of the grossest blasphemies against the christian religion, he being at the same time a minister in holy orders. Revolting against the proprietary, (whose clem- ency had before pardoned him for revolt,) in order to the es- fablishment of the Protestant government : that government was scarcely established in the province, before he was engaged in sedition against it. (9)
(9) Coode, although confessedly the leader of the association, appears to have fared worse in the end, than the most of the chiefs. Kenclm Cheseldine and Colonel Jowles appear to have ranked next. Cheseldine was the speaker of the Protestant convention, assembled immediately after the close of the revolution ; and also of the Assembly of May, 1692, the first which was con- veped under the royal government. He received a gift of 100,000 lbs. of to- barco for his services, and was soon afterwards appointed commissary general, from which office he was dismissed in August, 1697, for carelessness and negli- gence in office-" Cl. Proceedings, H D, part 2d, 539. Jowles also received a gift of 20,000 l' -. of tobacco for his services in raising troops at the begin- ning of the revolution. Coode was, in a great measure, overlooked, or at least his rewards bote no proportion to his high rank amongst the associators. When we next hear of him, he was in holy orders : and at the same time lieutenant colonel of the militia of St. Mary's county, and receiver of the du- ties in Potomac river, asserting that religion was a trick, reviling the apos-
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GOVERNMENT OF MARYLAND.
Chap. III.]
The representations made by that association, at that period, against the proprietary administration, might therefore be receiv-
of ed with some scruples of allowance, from the mere
Proceedings knowledge of the excitements of the moment. But, if
throw of the
proprietary go- we look . into their own justification, transmitted to vernment. king William at the time, we shall find still stronger reasons for distrusting statements, which would induce the be- lief, that Charles Calvert, whose name was so long identified
tles, denying the divinity of the christian religion, and alleging that all the morals worth having were contained in Cicero's offices. Ile had been elected to the Assembly about that period, when the doctrine of Horne Tooke's case, " that once a priest, always a priest," was applied to him, and he was declared ineligible ; and as he could not lose the character, he does not seem to have ; been very apprehensive of soiling it. His blasphemous expressions were re- ported to the governor and council ; and he was dismissed from all employ- ments under the government, and presented by the grand jury of St. Mary's county, for atheism and blasphemy. The proofs are recorded at large in Liber HI D, p. 2, 393 to 397. To escape the presentment, he fled to Virginia .- Governor Nicholson, whose morals did not particularly qualify him for a castigator of other persons irregularities, applied to the governor of Virginia to assist in his apprehension. There, although the governor of Virginia issued proclamations and made many ostensible efforts for his apprehension, he con- trived to remain in security, and even ventured back to St. Mary's, in dis- guise, to vent the threat amongst some of his friends, " that as he had pulled down one government, he would pull down another." He contrived to keep Nicholson at bay, throughout the whole of his administration, notwithstand- ing the unceasing efforts of the latter for his apprehension ; and his security in Virginia, notwithstanding the proclamation of its governor, provoked the striking rebuke from Nicholson to that governor. " Your excellency's procla- mation seems to me, to be like one of the watch-houses on the Barbary shore, to give notice when the Christians are coming to take them, that they may fly to it for safety." Nicholson being removed to the government of Virginia, Coode came in and surrendered himself in May, 1699, and was taken into cus- tody. Being convicted, governor Blackiston, at the instance of the judges of the provincial court, and in consideration of the services rendered by him at the revolution, suspended his sentence for six months, in hopes of his re- formation. Of this measure the council approved, and advised the governor to pardon him, if he should conduct himself properly during that period. Age, or affliction, or both, seem to have mended his manners and tamed his insurrectionary spirit; for from this period, he is seen no more in the affairs of the province. Sic transit gloria mundi. Council Proceedings of 1696, Liber II D, part 2d, 393 to 307, 423 to 425, 460. Council Proceedings of 1698 and 1699. Liber X, 51 to 57, 101, 189, and 220 to 225.
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the Associators
after the over-
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HISTORY OF THE ROYAL
[Hist. View.
with the prosperity and happiness of the colony, and who had so long enjoyed the respect and affection of his Protestant sub- jects, had, from the mere bigotry of religion, become the op- pressor of his people, and the persecutor of the Protestant faith. The associators, in reducing the deputies by force, had taken the leap from which there was no return. If the proprietary pow- ers were restored, they could not hope to enjoy any great de- gree of the proprietary confidence. They had now the power in their own hands; and, added to the original reasons for assum- ing it, were the natural unwillingness to resign power exceeding even the desire to obtain it, and the probable diminution of their individual influence and consequence, if the old order of things were restored. They, therefore, immediately called a conven- tion, which was summoned by a warrant, issued in the name of " the several commanders, oficers and gentlemen associated in arms for the defence of the Protestant religion, &c." and was held at St. Mary's on the 23d August, 1689; and they transmitted to the . Ling an expose of their motives and object, in the revolution which they had effected. It was charged to the full, with accu- sation and invective against the proprietary ; and was admirably adapted for the purposes at which it aimed. It addressed Wil- liam, upon the very topics which applied to his own title. Its specifications present to us many charges of malpractices and oppressions, which are heard of only here; and are not even in- sinuated in the list of grievances exhibited by the lower house of Assembly but a few months before ; when, had they existed in the extent ascribed, we cannot but believe, from the temper and determination of that house, as manifested in its proceedings, that they would have been eagerly seized upon as causes of complaint. They allege, that the deputies, and the officers of the province, both civil and military, were under the control of the Jesuits, and the churches all appropriated to the uses of what they term Popish idolatry; and that, under the permission or connivance of the government, murders and outrages of every kind were committed by Papists upon Protestants. Adverting to the sovereignty of the crown, they represent that no allegiance was known in the province, except that to the proprietary ; and that the very acknowledgment of English sovereignty was re- garded as a crime; and in proof of this, they refer to the ill usage
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GOVERNMENT OF MARYLAND.
Chap. III.]
offered to some of the king's officers of the customs, at the very period when the proprietary stood by the side of his province to protect it, as far as possible, against the commercial tyranny of England. They charge upon the proprietary, the continual ex- ercise of the power of declaring laws void by proclamation ; and they dwell upon the delay of the deputies in acknowledging king William, and their alleged plots with the French and Indians. " But above all, (say they in conclusion,) we consider ourselves, during this general jubilee, discharged from all manner of fidelity to the chief magistrates here; because they have departed from their allegiance, upon which alone fidelity depended, by endca- vouring to deprive us of our lives, properties, and liberties, which they were bound to protect." (10)
William wanted no very urgent reasons to induce him to sus- tain the associators. ' His interests and inclinations both prompt- Royal govern- ed him to place the powers of government, through- ment established
in Maryland. out his dominions, in the exclusive possession of the Protestants. It gave security to him on his throne, which he prized quite as highly as security to the Protestant religion. The revolution was sanctioned; and the province remained un- der the dominion of the convention, until April, 1692. During that period, when the ultimate destination of the province was not yet fixed, the convention was again assembled in Sept. 1690; but both at this session and that of August, 1689, they do not appear to have made any attempts at a permanent organization of their government. . They had thrown themselves upon the pleasure of the king, whom they besought to take the province under his im- mediate protection and government ; and in gratification of their wishes as well as his own, in June, 1691, he established a royal go- vernment for it, at the head of which he placed, as governor, sir Lionel Copley. Sir Lionel arrived in the province in 1692; and on the 9th April, 1692, he dissolved the convention. Thus was the province placed under the direct administration of the crown ;
(10) This expose of the association is preserv edin Chalmers, 382, and ter- minates his researches into the colonial history of Maryland.
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and from this, the period of its full establishment, the royal go- vernment endured until 1715. (11)
An Assembly was immediately convened, and then began the work of adapting the government to its new basis. The First Assembly opening message of governor Copley, after com- under the new government. menting upon the gracious intentions of the king in sending them a Protestant governor, agrecably to their ad- dress, and his own zeal for their interests, in hastening, un- daunted, through all difficulties and dangers, to accomplish their wishes, recommended to them a course of moderation. "The making of wholesome laws, and laying aside all heats and animosities that have happened amongst you of late, (says
(11) We cannot find a better exposition of the injustice of this measure, than that furnished by the very proceedings of the crown, in divesting the proprietary of his government. These show conclusively that there was no sufficient reason for vacating the charter ; and that the government was re- futa,ed by the crown upon the plea of " political necessity," which has always been deemed the "tyrant's argument." 1
The charges against Lord Baltimore, were investigated before the privy council, by which an order was passed, on the 21st August, 1690, directing the attorney general to proceed forthwith by scire facias against the charter. The proceeding advised was too dilatory ; and under the new order of things, it required some proofs of abuse of power to sustain it. The crown took a shorter road to its political purposes. It resolved upon the assumption of the powers of government, without waiting for judicial sanction. The pro- prietary remonstrated, but without effect. He was heard by counsel, in op- position to the measure ; but the king found no difficulty in procuring " a le- gal opnion" to cloak the arbitrary character of the procseding. We almost blush to name Lord Holt as the high authority behind which the crown en- treached itself. Even his high character as an impartial and inflexible judge, cannot shield him from the suspicion of having yielded his judgment to the royal will, in the expression of that opinion. We give the opinion, that the reader may judge for himself, and learn how necessary to all is the petition, " Icad us not into temptation."
"J think it had been better, (says he, addressing the President of the privy council) if an inquisition had been taken ; and the forfeiture committed by the Lord Baltimore had been therein found, before any grant be made to a new governor : yet since there is none, and it being a case of necessity, I think the king may, by his commission, constitute a governor, whose authority will be legal, although he must be responsible to Lord Baltimore for the profits. If an agreement can be made with Lord Baltimore, it will be convenient and casy for the governor that the king shall appoint. An inquisition may at any time be taken, if the forfeiture be not pardoned, of which there is some doubt." Ist. Chalmers' Opinions, 20.
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Chap. lil.] GOVERNMENT OF MARYLAND. 213
he,) will go far towards laying the foundation of lasting peace and happiness to yourselves and your posterity; and this, I know, will be very acceptable to their majesties, who are emi- nent examples of Christian and peaceable tempers." (12) How the Assembly understood this, will appear in the sequel. In their loyal address to the crown, of 18th May, 1692, they offer- ed their most hearty acknowledgments for their majesties' con- descension, in taking the government into their own hands, and in redeeming thera "from the arbitrary will and pleasure of a tyrannical Popish government, under which they had so long groaned;" and to work they went, to strengthen the foundations of the new government, and to illustrate their notions of religious liberty, by giving exclusive establishment to their own church, and taxing all the inhabitants for its support.
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