USA > Maryland > Maryland : the history of a palatinate > Part 4
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which news of an attack could be passed swiftly from plantation to plantation ; officers were appointed to command the militia; the most defensible house in each hundred was designated as the spot to which the women and children were to be conveyed, in case of an alarm; and the Governor wrote to Governor Berkeley of Virginia, proposing a joint expe- dition into the Indian country. It was prob- ably on account of the preparations for this ex- pedition that, at the session of the Assembly, in August, the freemen were summoned to attend in person, instead of electing representatives. The Virginia Council refused to cooperate, and the expedition seems to have been dropped.
The loss of the records leaves us much in the dark as to the events of these years, but it was evidently an anxious and threatening time for the colony. We catch glimpses of various outrages and murders, and of at least one seri- ous disaster to the English. One thing is ovi- dent, that the savages, froin some cause or other, were in a threatening and dangerous mood, and were suspected of intriguing with the Pascataways and other friendly tribes to combine in a general attack.
Matters of the gravest character, involving no less than the fundamental constitution of the Province, now pressed themselves upon the
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Proprietary for a solution. Various Indian chiefs, in their gratitude to the missionaries, had bestowed upon them considerable tracts of land, which of course became the property of the Jesuit order. The priests, moreover, dwell- ing in the wilderness, freed from the statute law, and no longer under the shadow of praemunire, were disposed to claim the immunities and ex- emptions of the bull In Coena Domini, and to hold themselves free of the common law, and answerable to the canon law only, and to eccle- siastical tribunals. Baltimore was a Romanist in faith, but he was an Englishman, with all ' the instincts of his race. He at once planted himself on the ground that all his colonists, cleric or lay, were under the common law, and that there should be no land held in mortmain in the Province.
Foreseeing that this was likely to bring him into conflict with the Jesuit order, he promptly took a decisive step. He applied to Rome to have the Jesuits removed from the missions, and a prefect and secular priests appointed in their stead ; and an order to this effect was issued by the Propaganda.
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In 1841 he issued new Conditions of Planta- tions, containing six sections, four of which are upon the record. The fifth and sixth 1 provide
1 Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, IV. Cited in Johnson's Four in alle the be rich's hopeso
Forany hinpassage Stringentd
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The acquisition a.
corporations without the Ethru consent of the - Growerslife 2 and, lands by trusts societies
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that no lands shall be granted to, or held by, any corporation or society, ecclesiastical or temporal, without special license from the Proprietary. The code had already reserved to the civil power all authority in matters testamentary, and placed all the colonists under the common law.
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The Proprietary's prompt and decisive action seems to have taken the Jesuit fathers by sur- prise. A conference was held between them, the Governor, and Secretary Lewger, and the points raised, involving the whole attitude of the Roman Church in Maryland toward the Proprietary government, were submitted to the Provincial of England. At the same time a memorial was sent to the Propaganda, protest- ing against the hardship of removing those who had borne all the burden and heat of the ' day, just as they were beginning to reap some fruit of their labors. The Provincial, Father More, decided that the Conditions of Planta- tion were not in conflict with the bull In Coera, and executed a release of all the lands acquired by the society from the Indians. The order for their removal was then rescinded, Baltimore having carried his point. The whole matter was thus settled; lands henceforth could not Mation of Maryland, Md. Hist. Soc. Pub., No. 18, where the subject is discussed at length.
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be held in mortmain, and all, cleric and lay, were henceforth to be under the common law.
This settlement has left permanent imprints on Maryland legislation. In her alone, of all the States, no lands can be sold, given, or de- vised to a religious body, or for a religious use, without consent of the legislature; no priest, clergyman, or preacher of the gospel can sit in the Assembly, nor has any sat from the founda- tion of the colony.1
In England, civil war between the King and Parliament had broken out in 1642, and its disturbing effects were soon felt across the Atlantic. Baltimore was bound to the King by ties of gratitude as well as fidelity, but we have no evidence that he favored those measures which were most distasteful to the people, or that he approved a policy so unlike lais own ; and, so far as we can see, he took no prominent part in public matters.
Though Maryland, exempt at once from the legislation of Parliament and the demands of the King, had no immediate interest in Eng- land's great quarrel, yet, as was natural, each side had its sympathizers in the Province, and, as was still more natural, since Baltimore was known to be a royalist, nil disaffections against
1 The solitary apparent oxcoption to this was in the case of the apostate Coode, who had renounced bis clerical office.
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his government were ready to take the side of Parliament, and all partisans of Parliament in. clined toward the disaffected. Circumstances were not wanting to kindle antagonisms ; and, as has ever been the case in Maryland history, internal traitors were quick to seek help from external foes, though at cost of the ruin of the community.
In April, 1643, Governor Calvert sailed for England, to confer with his brother about the state of affairs in the Province, and probably to see with his own eyes how matters were go- ing in the mother-country, leaving Giles Brent, as deputy, in his stead. Brent appointed that stout soldier, Thomas Cornwaleys, captain-gen- eral of the forces in the Province, and he con- cluded a peace with the Nanticokes, and led an expedition against the Susquehannoughs.
In the following January, things being still in this uneasy state, it chanced that one Richard Ingle, commander of the merchant ship Refor- mation, was taking in cargo at St. Mary's, and information was laid before the authorities of certain treasonable speeches of his : that the King was no king, that if he had Prince Ru- pert on board he would flog bim at the capstan, emphasized with flourishes of his cutlass, and threats of cutting off the heads of gainsayers. He was arrested to answer a charge of high
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treason, and a guard put on board his ship. But hardly had this been done, when Corn- waleys, Councilor Neale, and one or two oth- ers, caused the sheriff to take his prisoner on board his ship, contrary to express orders, and made the guard lay down their arms, where- upon Ingle, taking command, sniled away, with- ont his clearance, and without paying his debts. For this affair Cornwaleys was impeached and fined, and Neale was dismissed from the Coun- cil, but soon after reinstated.
The next we hear of Ingle, he and his ship are back in St. George's River, and there are other warrants out against him for assaults. Ile promises to deposit a barrel of powder and four hundred pounds of shot, as security that he will appear to answer all charges the next February, and again slips off, not only without leaving the powder and shot, but without pay- ing his port-dues or getting his clearance, and taking with him, as a passenger, his friend Corn waleys.
There is something by no means clear about these proceedings. It is plain that Ingle could not be suffered to go vaporing about, making his bear-garden flourish, and talking blatant treason, unchecked. Yet in the critical posi- tion in which the Province then was, with enemies, both savage and civilized, bestirring
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themselves without, and an unknown amount of disaffection at home, the trial and punish- ment of Ingle might have kindled civil war. It is quite likely that the public stock of nul- munition was low, and to get a good supply of powder and shot, and be rid of Ingle, both at once, may have seemed to the Governor and Council a good stroke of policy, though in this they were out-manœuvred.
In September, 1644, Governor Calvert came back, and found the Province full of disquiet. Claiborne was making secret visits to Kent Island, und trying to form a party there. He had received increase of houors, and presum- ably of emolument, from the King, being made treasurer of Virginia for life ; but the battle of Marston Moor was an argument that carried inore weight. But the islanders were a simple and rather peaceful folk; and now that their holdings had been confirmed to them, they could no longer be aroused by the cry that they were to be turned out of their lands. They were, moreover, inconveniently loyal to the King ; so Claiborne, fertile in resource, had to try another expedient. He assured them that he was neting by order of the King, and, producing a parchment, averred that it was the King's commission to him, William Claiborne.
While these things were going on at the.
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north, Ingle came back with an armed ship, apparently with some sort of authority from Parliament, and certainly with two hundred pounds' worth of goods entrusted to him by his friend Cornwaloys, with which he had run away. He said that he lind letters of marque, and it is not at all unlikely. So, fifty years Inter, had Captain Kidd, a gentleman who held views as to the rights of property very similar to Ingle's. Hle landed at St. Mary's. The loss of the records prevents our seeing distinctly wlint was done; nor can it be positively said that there was a plot between the two; but, at all events, Inglo with his letters from Parlin- mont, and Claiborne with his " king's commis- sion," were drawn together by an affinity that my stronger than wither. The invasion was completely successful ; St. Mary's was seized, and Governor Calvert went over to Virginia for help. For two years the Province remained in the hands of the insurgents. We catch glimpses of Ingle and his men marauding about, imprisoning men, pillaging plantations, seizing corn, tobacco, and cattle, stripping mills of their machinery, and even houses of their locks and hinges, shipping their plunder to England, and comporting themselves gener- ully like mere brigands; but of any attempts ut goverment, on their part, we find no trace.
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Among the rest, the house and plantations of Cornwaleys were plundered. On Ingle's return to England, anticipating that Corn- waloys would hold him to account, he laid charges against his former friend and rescuer as being an enemy to government, and had lim arrested on false charges of debt, amount- ing to fifteen thousand pounds sterling. But Cornwaleys' friends took him out of prison, und he prosecuted Ingle for his robberies. Ingle, apparently as a last resource, sent in a petition to Parliament, which is a curiosity. He avers that all he did was for conscience' sake; that he only, plundered "papists and malignants," for the sake of relieving the dis- tressed Protestants, and points out how dis- couraging it will be to the well-affected if papists and malignants are allowed to bring actions at law against them.
In these garboils the missionary stations were broken up, and the venerable Father White was sent in irons to Englund, where he was tried on a charge of treason, but acquitted. On ac- count of his age und infirmity he was not per- mitted by his superiors to return to Maryland, and died in England in 1656.1
In March, 1645, Hill, a Virginian, was elected governor by the remnant of the Council, though 1 Rec. of Eng. Prov. serios VIL
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they had no power to elect any one not a resi- dent of the Province, and he appears to have exercised some show of irregular authority, but to what extent wo cannot see.
The Propriotary, on learning these things, seems to have considered his Province lost, and sent out instructions to his brother to secure whatever of his private property could be saved from the general ruin. Leonard, however, snw that matters wore by no means desperate. The proceedings of Ingle and Claiborne were not likely to strengthen their hold on Maryland, and Virginia, with that staunch royalist, Sir William Berkeley, at ity head, was still faith- ful to the King.
Towards the end of 1646, Governor Calvert, seeing his time, raised a small force of Virgin- ians and fugitive Marylanders, pledging his own and his brother's estates to pay them, and with these he entered St. Mary's unresisted, and the whole Western Shore at once acknowl- edged his authority. Kent Island hold out for a while, but soon submitted, and a general par- don was prochimed to all who would take the onth of fidelity, Ingle and his associate Durford alono being excepted.
The Province was now at peace ; but Leon- und Calvert did not long live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. He died on the 9th of June,
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1647, having appointed Thomas Greene his successor, and leaving his kinswoman, Mistress Margaret Brent, his executrix, with the brief instructions, " Take all and pay all." After thirteen years of faithful service in the highest office in the Province, this wise, just, and lu- mane Governor left a personal estate amounting to only one hundred and ten pounds sterling.
In view of subsequent occurrences one is tempted to think that if he had reversed his testamentary dispositions and made Greene his executor and Mistress Brent governor, it would have been, on the whole, a better arrangement.
This Mistress Margaret Brent deserves to be remembered as the only woman whose figure stands out clear in our colonial history. She had come to the Province in 1638 with her sis -. ter Mary, bringing over nine colonists, five men and four women. They took up manors, im- ported more settlers, and managed their affairs with masculine ability. One of the two courts- baron, of which the records have been discov- ered, was held on St. Gabriel's Manor, the estate of Mury Brent.
On the strength of her appointment as ex- ocutrix (" administrator " the record calls her), Margaret Brent claimed and was allowed the right of acting as the Proprietary's attorney, a right which she exercised with energy. On
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Janmry 21, 1647-48, "came Mrs. Margarett Brent and requested to Imve vote in the howse for her selfe and voyce allso, for that att the hust Conrt 3ª Jan. it was ordered that the said Mrs. Brent was to be lookd appon and received as his Lps. Attorney. The Govr. denyed that the sd. Mrs. Brent should have any vote in the howse. And the sd. Mrs. Brent protosted against all proceedings in this present Assom- bly unlesse shee may be present and have voto as nforoad."
Once we find her acting with decision at n critical timo. Governor Culvort, in securing the services of the soldiers by whose aid he had recovered the Province, had pledged, us was said, his own and his brother's estates for their pay. His death prevented his making good his pledge, and the soldiers were clamor- ous for their pay, and soemed ripe for mutiny, which, with the weak Greene at the head of affairs, would have been most disastrous. Mis- treas Bront saw the danger, and met it with promptness. Sho quieted down the soldiers, who, na the Assembly testify, treated her with a respect that they would have shown to none other, and she took from the Proprietary's cat- tle onongh to pay their arrears. Baltimore was disposed to find fault with her conduct ; but the Assembly, in a letter to him, tell him
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plainly that but for his kinswoman's timely ac- tion all would have gone to ruin. One regrets that so few particulars of her life are left to us, and that we have no portrait of this stately old English gentlewoman.
In 1648, Baltimore, probably to remove a source of discontent in the Province, and, in part, to stop the mouths of his enemies who never wearied of representing Maryland as a stronghold of popery, in which Protestants were subject to persecution and oppression, ro- moved Greene and appointed William Stone, a Protestant, governor, at the same time recon- structing the Council, so as to give the Protest- ants a majority. The governor's oath of office was so worded as to bind him not to molest or discountenance any person of any form of Christian faith, for, or in respect of, religion, an additional clause extending this protection more particularly to the Roman Catholics, as at that time they were most likely to be the objects of persecution.
The great seal of the Province having been lost or stolen during the rebellion, - being of silver it could hardly have escaped Ingle's clutches, - Baltimore sent out a new one. It bore the Calvert and Crossland arms, quar- tered,1 surmounted with a Palatine's cap or 1
1 The Calvert bearings are : Paly of six, or and sable, a .
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coronet, symbolizing the Proprietary's palati- nate jurisdiction, and over all the Calvert crest. A ploughman and a fisherman were the sup- porters, and beneath was a scroll bearing the Calvert motto, Fatti Maschij Parole Femine.1 Behind all was a mantle of Palatine purple, surrounded with the inscription, Scuto Bonae Voluntatis Tuae Coronasti Nos.
This beautiful historic device, perpetuating at once the nature of her foundation and the lineage of hier founder, still remains the seal and symbol of Maryland.
In 1649 was passed the famous Act of Toler- ation, or, as it is entitled, " An Act concerning Religion." After forbidding, under penalty of death, blasphemy against any Person of the
bond doxtor counterchanged; the Crossland, Quarterly, ar- gont and gules, a cross flory (or botony) connterchanged. Creat, a ducal crown surmounted by two half bannerets.
' The popular rendering of this motto is: "Manly deeds, womanly words." This is certainly pretty, but its correct- Down may bo questioned. Femine (femmine) is not an adjec- tiro, but a substantivo, and the exact version is, " Deeds [are] malos, words females." In fact it is an old proverb, which is elted and explained in the Dictionary of the Accademia della Crusca : " I fatti son maschi c le parole son femmine : proverb. o ralo che 'Dove bisognano i fatti, le parole non bastano.'" It should be remembered, however, that mottoes were often no world as to boar more than one interpretation.
The Latin Inscription in from Panlu v. 12 (Vulgate). The Authorized Version ronder it, " With favour wilt thou com- prass him an with a shield."
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Holy Trinity, and making reproachful speeches against the Virgin Mary, Apostles, and Evan- gelists punishable by fine, it lays penalties upon all who shall call others by reviling names on account of religious differences, such as heretic, Puritan, Jesnit, papist, and the like ; "and whereas the enforcing of the conscience in mat- ters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence," "and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the in- habitants of the Province," no person professing belief in Jesus Christ shall be "in any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof," under heavy penalties for all so offending. Profanation of the "Sabbath or Lord's day, called Sunday," by swearing, drunk- enness, unnecessary work, or disorderly recrea- tion is also forbidden.
In the wording of this act we see evident marks of a compromise between the differing sentiments in the Assembly. It is not such an act as a body of zealous Catholics or of zealous Protestants would have passed, nor, in all prob- ability, did it come up to Baltimore's idea of toleration. But it was as good a compromise as could be made at the time, and an immense advance upon the principles and practice of the age. In reality, it simply formulated in a
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statute what had been Baltimore's policy from the first. The charter neither enforced nor forbade toleration, but left the Proprietary's hands free. It provided, according to the usual phrase of charters, that the Christian religion should sustain no detriment; and it permitted him to have churches consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England; but it neither compelled him to do this, nor forbade him to have them consecrated according to othor rituals, if he were so minded .?
Baltimore was no indifferentist in matters of religion. That he was a sincero Catholic is shown by the fact that all the attacks upon his rights wore nimod at his faith, as the most vul- norable point. That he was a papist, and Maryland n papist colony, a nursery of Jesuits and plottors against Protestantism, was the end- low burden of his enemies' charges. Ho had only to declare himself a Protestant to be placed in an unassailublo position ; yet that step ho never took, even when ruin seemed certain. But he was singularly free from bigotry, and ho land had bitter knowledge of the fruits of re- ligions dissension ; and he meant from the first, no far as in him lay, to secure his colonists from them. His brother Leonard, and those who
I We have already men that one of the first acts of the missionaries was to conmerate a Catholic chapel.
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were associated with him in the government, shared his spirit, and from the foundation of the colony no man was molested under Balti- more's rule on account of religion. Whenever the Proprietary's power was overthrown, relig- ious persecution began, and was checked so soon as he was reinstated.
Before Claiborne's rebellion we scarcely hear of religious differences: the records bear no trace of them. Two small exceptions that are recorded only confirm the fact. One Lewis, a Catholic, rebuked two servants for reading a Protestant book, and spoke offensively of Prot- estant ministers. He .was tried before the Gov- ernor and two assessors, fined for offensive "speeches and unseasonable disputations on points of religion contrary to the public procla- mation prohibiting all such disputes," and bound over to behave better in future. Thus in 1638, eleven years before the Act concerning Religion was passed, the principle of toleration was enforced and placed on record ; and at a still carlier date, even contentions about religion had been authoritatively forbidden. The other case wns in 1642, when a Mr. Gerrard, a mem- ber of the Assembly, and a zealous Catholic, took nwny certain books and a key from the chapel at St. Mary's, apparently on the ground of some claim to the property. The Protest-
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ants, who seem to have used the chapel, peti- tioned against this proceeding, and Gerrard was fined, the fine to be appropriated "toward the maintenance of the first minister that should arrivo; " by which it would seem that down to this time there was no Protestant clergyman in the Province.
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CHAPTER V.
MARYLAND UNDER THE PROTECTORATE
THE execution of Charles was a death-blow to the hopes of the royalists. That Baltimore was a king's friend, there is no doubt; but from the first he had taken no part in English politics, and it may be that he foresaw the downfall of the royalist cause long before it came. One singular, and perhaps apocryphal incident, slightly connecting him with that great tragedy, has been preserved. Shortly before the execution of the King, the " Close Committee " of Parliament held a secret meet- ing, at which Baltimore and two or three other Catholics were present, and sent a message to Charles in prison that if he would recede from his firm stand, and own himself to have been in some measure in the wrong, they would save his life, and, if possible, his crown. The asso- ciation of Baltimore and other moderate royal- ists (of course not members of Parliament) with themselves was probably meant as a guaranty of their sincerity; but the attempt was fruit- less.1 Baltimore's attitude toward the Parlia- 1 Surtees Soc. Pubns. Ixii. 347.
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ment was wisely taken. That body certainly represented for the time the will of the major- ity, and we cannot say that it may not, in some respects, have had his sympathy. Be this as it may, to assume an attitude of defiance toward it would not only have been insensato quixotism, but would probably have kindled civil war in the Province. He acquiesced in the new order of things. Stone was not only a Protestant, but known to be a friend of Parliament. Tho onth of allegiance was no longer demanded, and overy show of opposition avoided. The leaders in England appear to have had no ill-will to- ward him, and for a while it seemed that the storm would leave Maryland untouched.
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