USA > Maryland > Maryland : the history of a palatinate > Part 2
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CHAPTER II.
CHARTER AND SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.
WE now revert to Lord Baltimore. Before the King's letter advising him to return to Eng- land had been written, he was already on his way to Virginia with his wife and family and some forty of his colonists, and arrived at James- town, October 1, 1629. Some intimation of his designs had preceded him, and the Virginians gave him a reception by no means cordial. On his landing he was met by Governor Pott and his Council, - among the rest, William Clai- borne, of whom we shall hear more, - who tendered him the oaths of supremacy and alle- giance. This was rather a cool proposition to one who had so recently held high office under the King, and been a member of the Provisional Council for the government of Virginia after the revocation of the charter; but they cared less for courtesy than for forcing Calvert away. The oath of allegiance he might have taken, but the oath of supremacy, requiring the party to swear thaj he believed the King to be "the only supreme governor in his realm and do- minions, in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things
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or causes," was an invention of Elizabeth's time, intended as a safeguard of the sovereign against such persons as were suspected of trea- sonable designs, and was to be administered only by officers specially designated. Of course Baltimore, believing the Pope to be the spirit- ual head of the Church, neither could nor would take this oath. He might very well have chal- enged their right to offer it, since while it is true that the President and Council of the Virginia Company had been empowered to ad- minister this oath, no such power was given to. Pott, or any authority in the province after the company's dissolution, and in offering it they incurred the penalties of a high contempt.
Calvert, however, unwilling to provoke ani- mosity, offered to take a modified form of the oath, but this they would not accept. He was even insulted and threatened with personal violence by some of the baser sort, and it was evident that he must seck n site for his colony elsewhere, if it was to have a peaceful begin- ning. After somno examination of the coast, he returned to England, and asked the King for a grant of territory south of the James River. The charter was made out, when he again mot with opposition from Virginia; Claiborne, and others, having gone to England to obstruct the grant. To avoid all difficulty, Baltimore again
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changed his plans, and asked for a part of the unsettled region north of the Potomac. This was granted him, and a charter, modelled on that of Avalon, was drawn, the new colony receiving the name of Maryland, or Terra Mariac, ut the King's request, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria, though Calvert, it is said, had intended to call it Crescentia, pos- sibly in honor of the bold consul who, in the tenth century, threw off the Saxon yoke, and set Rome free; but more probably as a name of good omen for its growth and prosperity.
Before the charter had passed the Great Seal, Baltimore, whose health, long weak, seems to have been quite broken by the rigors of the Newfoundland climate, died, on April 15, 1632. He had risen from obscurity to places of high honor and trust, and to hereditary rank ; he had enjoyed, without abusing, the confidence and friendship of kings; he had adhered to his political and altered his religious opinions, when his constancy and his change were alike fatal to his advancement, and he died lenving a name without reproach from friend or enemy, and which, if evil' tongues of a later day have at- tempted in vain to sully, it is because de- traction, no less than death, loves a shining mark.
The grant of Maryland was now made out to
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Calvert's eldest son, Cecilius, named in honor of his early patron and friend, and bore the dute of June 20, 1632.
The boundaries of Maryland, unlike those of the other colonies, were precisely defined. Its limits were : on the north, the fortieth parallel of north latitude ; on the west and southwest, a line running south from this parallel to the farthest source of the Potomac, and thence by the farther or western bank of that river to Chesapeake Bay; on the south by a line run- ning across the bay and peninsula to the At- lantic; and on the east by the ocean and the. Delaware Bay and River. It included, there- fore, all the present State of Delaware, a large tract of land now forming part of Pennsyl- vania, and another now occupied and claimed by West Virginia.
The charter of Maryland contained the most ample rights and privileges ever conferred by a sovereign of England. It erected Maryland into a palatinate, equivalent to a principality, reserving only the feudal supremacy of the crown. The Proprietary was made absolute lord of the land and water within his bound- aries, could erect towns, cities, and ports, make war or peace, call the whole fighting popula- tion to arms, and declare martial law, levy tolls and duties, establish courts of justice, ap!
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point judges, magistrates, and other civil offi- cera, execute the laws, and pardon offenders. He could erect manors with courts-baron and courts-leet, and confer titles and dignities, 80 that they differed from those of England. He could make laws with the assent of the freemen of the province, and, in cases of emergency, or- dinances not impairing life, limb, or property, without their assent. He could found churches and chapels, have them consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England, and ap- point the incumbents. All this territory, with these royal rights, "jura regalia," was to bo held of the crown in froe socage,1 by the de- livery of two Indian arrows yearly at the pal- aco of Windsor, and the fifth of all gold or silver mined.
The colonists and their descendants were to remain English subjects, free to visit or leave England without hindrance or tax, to hold, ac- quiro, or transfer landed or other property in
1 The teuure of free soenge differed from a tenure by knight's service, in that military service was not a condition of the grant, nud from a tenure in capite, that a fixed pay- ment was substituted for services of uncertain amount. In Baltimore's case, the payment of the two arrows was all that was required. Ilis tenants in Maryland held their lands of him an mesne lord, also in freo socage, being discharged of all sorvicon by a yearly payment, thence called n quit-reut, and this rent, allegiance to the King as lord paramount and fealty to the Proprietary, were the only conditions imposed.
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England, and to trade freely to England or other foreign ports. They could have, of course, no representation in Parliament, since Parlia- ment had no power to make laws for them ; but they could accept or reject the laws pro- posed by the Proprietary, which laws were to be agreeable to the laws and statutes of Eng- land, "as far as conveniently might be." The King furthermore bound himself and his suc- cessors to lay no taxes, customs, subsidies, or contributions whatever upon the people of the province, and in case of any such demand being made, the charter expressly declared that this clause might be pleaded as a discharge in full.
This charter, by which Maryland was virtu- ally an independent and self-governed commu- nity, placed the destinies of the colonists in their own hands. The powers granted the Pro- prietary might have been oppressive in the hands of a man less wiso, just, and humane than Cecilius Calvert, who knew when to yield and when to stand firm. Though ofton at- tacked, and at times held in abeyance, the charter was never revoked, and was only cast off when the arbitrary power of England had violated its pledges, and the people of Mary- land, living outgrown their minority, were ready to take the sovereignty into their own hands.
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This charter was, of course, bitterly resented by the Virginians. Part of the members of the old company, who still hoped to regain their lost franchise, protested against it on the grounds that it was an invasion of their char- tered rights, and that Maryland might prove a dangerous neighbor. As their chartered rights had now no existence, and as it was scarcely to bo expected that the crown would be willing to fonco off cach colony by a neutral unsettled zone, it is probable that the protest was merely formal. So tho Privy Council seems to have considered it, for aftor summoning the parties before them, and hearing them fully on both sides they decided that Baltimore must be left to his patont, and any wrongs done any of thom could bo redressed by ordinary process of law.
Calvert in the mean time steadily pressed forward his proparations. He fitted ont two vessels, the Ark, of three hundred and fifty tons, which had already carried his father's first colonists to Avalon, and the Dove, of about fifty tons, and loaded them with sup- plies and implements, - bearing himself most of the cost, about £40,000, of the first emigra- tion. The company colonists consisted of about twenty gentlemen and between two and three hundred laboring men and handicraftsmen in
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their employment. Considerable ingenuity has been spent in.attempts to determine the pro- portions of Roman Catholics and Protestants among them, which are nowhere recorded, and it seems probable that most of the "gentlemen adventurers," as they were called, were Catho- lics, and most of the laborers and servants Prot- estants.1 Baltimore did not go out himself with his colonists, his presence in England being necessary for the defense of his charter, which was attacked both openly and covertly ; but he placed the expedition under the command of his brother Leonard, his younger brother, George, also going out in the company.
The Ark had already left Gravesend, on the 18th of October, when some vigilant person re- ported to the Star Chamber that the crew had not yet taken the oath of allegiance. As all sorts of alarming rumors had already been buzzed about touching the purpose of the voy- age, and among the rest that it was to carry nuns and soldiers to Spain, the Lords seem to have thought it a case for prompt action, and
1 Watkins, the London "searcher," reports that he went on board the Ark and Dove, lying off Tilbury, and adminis- torod the onth of allegiance to one hundred and twenty-eight emigrante. If these were all the Protestants, and the rest who ombarked at the Isle of Wight were all Catholics, it would make the Catholics the more numerous, but the lufer- enco is very uncertain.
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Secretary Coke hurried off an order to Admiral Pennington, then guarding the Straits, to stay the ships. The original dispatch is indorsed with the word " haste " ten times repeated, with the additions of " post-haste " and "all speed," and is noted on the back as having reached Bishopsgate at twelve, Dartford at four P. M., Rochester at six at night, and Sand- wich at three in the morning, being forwarded, apparently, by relays of couriers.
After further delays the vessels were allowed to proceed, and on their outward passage they stopped at the Isle of Wight, where they took on board two Jesuit fathers, Andrew White and John Althamn, and a number of other col- onists. They finally sailed for America on No- vember 20, 1633. An interesting narrative of the voyage, in Father White's quaint ecclesi- astical Latin, is still preserved.
After a violent storm at starting, the ships reached Barbadoes on January 3d, and after touching at several of the islands, arrived at Point Comfort, in Virginia, on February 27th. Here they restod for eight or nine days, when they again sniled northward and reached the l'otoinac.
On an island which they named St. Clement's, near the mouth of the Potomac, - of which to-day but a sand-bank remains, - the pilgrims
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celebrated their first mass in the New World, on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1634, which was also New Year's Day, accord- ing to the reckoning then in use, and planted a · cross, in sign that this was to be henceforth a Christian land.
It was, in truth, a goodly land that they had come to, a land of broad streams, of fertile plains, of gentle hills, and green woodlands ; and the eyes of the colonists were charmed with the strange and beautiful trees, the vines loaded with grapes, the flocks of wild turkeys, the countless multitudes of water-fowl, the bright new birds, - the blue jay, the tanager glancing like a scarlet flame, and the oriole, dressed in the Maryland colors of gold and black, and henceforth dear to Maryland eyes.
The Indians whom they met were a friendly and peaceful race, inferior in size, strength, and ferocity to the warlike Susquehannonghs and Iroquois tribes to the north, and they received the strangers most amicably. They had several chiefs, but all acknowledged the sovereignty of the "Emperor of Pascataway," who was then a minor, his uncle Archihu being his guard- ian, and ruling the tribe. Governor Leonard Calvert and his suite paid this forest prince a visit, who welcomed them to his dominions, and gave them permission to settle where they
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THE HISTORY OF A PALATINATE.
would. Friendly intercourse was soon estab- lished, and the natives crowded to gaze at the ships, which they took to be gigantic canoes, and were loud in their wonder where such big trees could have grown.
Guided by Henry Fleete, n Virginian, who lind lived much among the Indians, and knew the country, the English sailed up the Potomac till they found, at the mouth of a small affluent, a suitable site, with a good harbor, where they proposed to fix their future habitation. The land here belonged to the king or chief of the Ynocomicos, from whom they bought a tract for axes, hoes, and cloth, and laid out the plan of a city, which they called St. Mary's. It so happened that the natives had been for some time past so cruelly harried by the Susquehan- noughs that they had resolved, in desperation, to abandon their lands and seek a safer home elsewhere; so they readily gave up to the Eng- lish not only the land, but also part of their village, reserving part for themselves until they should have gathered their growing crops. To Father White and his associates was assigned a chief's cabin or hut of poles, which he con- secratod na n church, and calls " primum Mary- landiae sacellum " - the first chapel of Mary- land. He notes with pleasure the kindly and cheerful disposition of the natives, their temper-
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ance in eating, "living chiefly upon preparations of Indian corn, - quem pone et omini appel- lant," - still familiar words to Maryland cars ; the modesty of both men and women, and their gratitude for any act of kindness. "Surely," he adds, in the benevolence of his heart, " God hath some great benefit in store for this people; " a prophecy which one knows not whether to consider fulfilled or falsified. They vanished, one knows not how, by painless extinction, we trust, and were spared the experience of Indian reservations and Bureaus.
Certain it is that the relations with the southern Indians were. always friendly ; and though the Susquehannoughs to the north gave trouble at times, so justly and firmly were they dealt withal that they joined with the colonists in treaties of mutual assistance and defence against the inroads of " foreign Indians," espo- cially the Senecas, Cayugas, and other Iroquois tribes, and were formally declared, in the pre- amble of an Act for giving them armed assist- anco, "a Bullwarke and security of the north- ern parts of this l'rovince."
CHAPTER III.
CLAIBORNE AND KENT ISLAND.
WHILE Maryland was spared the chief causes of disaster to the other colonies, - Indian lios- tilities and maladministration, - serious and well-nigh fatal dangers arose in a quarter whence she might have looked for friendship and help. The animosity of the Virginians soomed to increase as the new colony gave promise of prosperous growth. Their causes of irritation were three, - two sentimental and one commercial. They were exasperated that the Maryland charter covered land that had once been included in their own, though they had neglected it; they looked with distrust as well as dislike on the neighborhood of what they called a popish settlement; and they were aggrieved that the Marylanders had the privi- lego of trade in foreign markets, which was denied to them.
Complaints on these scores, they plainly saw, would avail them nothing at the time ; but if a flaw could be found in the charter, something, they thought, might be done. They had at- tacked the charter already, as we have seen,
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before the Privy Council, and without success, but they did not altogether lose heart. Now the Maryland patent describes the land granted, in the usual phrase of such charters, as hactenus inculta, - hitherto uncultivated ; and though these words were merely a description of the land, and not a condition of the grant, they thought that by adroit pleading a case might be made out of Claiborne's claim to Kent Island. As this whole business of Claiborne's is even now but imperfectly understood, and as it seriously affected more than twenty years of Maryland's history, it is as well to give, once for all, the essential facts somewhat in detail. Baseless as the original ground of quarrel was, it was the misfortune of both colonies that Vir- ginia had a man to urge it of extraordinary tenacity of purpose and of unhesitating re- source ; who devoted the best years of his life to hostility to Maryland, and twice nearly brought it to destruction. The trivial ques- tion whether a small and unprofitable trading- post should be held mediately or immediately under the King, served as the rallying-point for all the animosities of a generation ; and the territorial quarrel of Virginia and Maryland, the religious quarrel of Puritan and Catholic, and the political quarrel of Royalist and Round- head, all gathered around the claim of Clai. borne.
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THE HISTORY OF A PALATINATE.
William Claiborne was a younger son of an ancient Westinoreland family. Like many other younger sons, he thought his fortunes stood a better chance of advancement in the New World than in the Old, so he applied for and obtained the office of surveyor of the Virginia Colony, to which he sailed in 1621. His career was prosperous ; he acquired a considerable landed estate, became a member of the Council after the revocation of the charter, and was ap- pointed by Charles I. "Secretary of State for the Kingdom of Virginia."
Hle also embarked in commercial enterprises. One or two trading expeditions of his to the Indians met with such success that he induced n firm of London merchants, Cloberry and Company, who were at that time making many ledventures to the colonies, to engage him as their agent, or special partner, to carry on a triude for furs with the Indians to the north of Virginia.
To legalize this traffic he obtained, in 1631, from Sir William Alexander, Secretary of State for Scotland, a royal license to trade with New England and Nova Scotia, and " to make dis- coveries for the increase of trade in those parts ; " nnd in the following year he procured from Governor Harvey a license to trade with the Dutch settlement nt Manhattan.
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A trading-post or station, more convenient than James City to the south, was now needed ; and Claiborne, by a friendly agreement with tho Susquehannough Indians, established such a station on an island in the Chesapeake Bay, to which he gave the name of Kent Island, in- stead of Winston's Island, as it had been called by the discoverer, Captain Smith. Here he erected necessary buildings, Cloberry and Com- pany furnishing the capital. But he either neg- lected or failed to obtain any grant of land north of the Potomac.
By his arrangements with the London mer- chants, they were to send out men, both in- dented servants and hired freemen,1 and wares suitable for trading with the Indians for beaver and for corn for support of the station, where none seems to have been grown ; and the berd- ver bought was to be shipped to London and sold.
Disagreements soon arose : the mercharits thought the shipments of peltries too small ; while Claiborne complained that they did not. send wares enough, nor of suitable quality for trade. At one time the London supplies were
) How many freomon wore on the island we do not know ; but they had a burgers at one time in the Virginla Assembly. Claiborne did not himself reside on the island, but at Ko- coughtan in Virginia, being a member of the Council.
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stopped for more than a year, and the station came very near starving, having nothing where- with to buy corn from the Indians except some "great kettles" which they would not take. A fire broke out and melted their stock of beads into an unmerchuntable lump. The company were so few and weak that they could not de- fend the post ; so that for three or four years they were in constant dread of being cut off by the Indians. The massacre of the Dutch at Zwannendal was a terrible warning to them; and at one time they were attacked, and sev- eral killed and wounded, so that they found it necessary to build a fort. .
Things on the island were in this unsatisfac- tory condition when the Maryland colonists established themselves at St. Mary's. In due time notice was given to Claiborne that Kent Island was within the limits of the Maryland patent ; and he rose in his place in the Virginia Council and asked what he should do in the matter. The news of the Privy Council's de- cision could not then have reached Virginia, for they answered that they saw no reason why they should render up the Isle of Kent more than any other place formerly in their patent ; that Baltimore's grant was yet undetermined in England; but that they would "keep a good correspondency " with the Marylanders.
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This good correspondency was not to Inst long. The Marylanders suddenly perceived a change in the Indians, who held aloof from them, ceased to bring them provisions, and be- haved in all ways so suspiciously, that the set- tlers built a fort or block-house for their de- fence, at the same time trying to find out through their interpreter, Henry Flecte, what the matter was. Fleete reported that Clai- borne had told the Indians that the new-com- ers at Yaocomico were not English, but " Wa- spaines," or Spaniards, enemies of the English. Little scrupulous as Claiborne was, one hesi- tates to believe that he could have plotted to give up his countrymen to an Indian massacre ; and in justice it must be recorded that the In- dians, when questioned in his presence, denied the charge, and said that it was a lie of Fleete's. The matter was, of course, reported to Balti- more, who sent out word that if Claiborne still refused to acknowledge his jurisdiction, and continued his hostilities, he was to be held as a prisoner, and possession taken of the island un- til further instructions. The King at the same time wrote to Governor Harvey, ordering him to protect the Marylanders from the Indians, to allow free trade with Virginia, and assist them in all ways. He had, some time before, commanded Baltimore not to molest Claiborne
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and his people on Kent Island; but the Com- missioners for Plantations explain this action by the fact that the King was erroneously in- formed that the island was not within the Maryland patent.
Harvey was willing enough to befriend the Marylanders, but the power to do so was fast failing him. A strong party, or faction as he calls it, had been formed with the Puritan Math- ows as its head, and Claiborne as one of its leading spirits, who thwarted his purposes, do- fied his authority, and were bent on driving him from Virginia. This Maryland business played into their hands. So bitter were the feelings aroused, that when Harvey spoke of selling provisions to Calvert's colony, the Vir- ginians vowed that they would rather knock their cattle on the head than sell them to Mary- Innd.
Matters soon came to a crisis. A pinnace belonging to the Kent Island station was cap- turod by the Marylanders for trading in Mary- land waters withont a license. In reprisal, Claiborne armed a shallop, the Cockatrice, and . manned it with about thirty men under the com- mand of Lieutenant Ratcliffe Warren, whom he commissioned to seize any vessels belonging to the government at St. Mary's. Calvert, learn- ing this, sent ont two pinnaces, the St. Helen
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and St. Margaret, duly armed and equipped, un- der the command of Captain Thomas Cornwa- leys. The two expeditions met, on April 28, 1635, in the Pocomoke River. Warren's party fired upon the Marylanders, killing one man and wounding several. Cornwaleys returned the fire with such effect that Warren and two others were killed, and the Cockatrice surrendered.
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