USA > Maryland > Maryland toleration; or, Sketches of the early history of Maryland, to the year 1650 > Part 4
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And by whom was this done? In part by the very men who had fought against him in the battle, and killed his commander by his side, and three of his men. They were the witnesses before the Grand Jury, and consenting Judges in his condemnation ; and who were themselves deserving of the same condemnation, if Smith himself was not deserving it. At this, who can help being astonished, when as yet, the Courts in England had not decided on the injustice of Captain Claiborne's Virginia claim, when the Privy Council and the Board of Commissioners, had given the decision which they had, and when only on the July previous, the King had strictly required and commanded Lord Baltimore and his agents in Maryland, that the Kent Islanders should enjoy their posses- sions, and be safe in their persons and goods! Verily this was taking law and vengeance into their own hands !
But it must be remembered, that at this period, feudal tenures were not entirely abolished ; and that the dependents of a Lord were accus- tomed to range themselves on his side, and act in his defense, leaving to him the matter of settling the right or wrong of the case; and in this view of it, the responsibility rested on Lord Baltimore himself, his Colo- nists being his agents simply.
On the 26ih of February, the King laid before the Commissioners for Plantations, the following petition from William Claiborne and his part- nerst-he being then in England where he had voluntarily gone, as has been stated, some time during the previous year. The date of the peti- tion is not given. He shows : "that the petitioners, by virtue of a com- mission under his Majesty's hand, &c., divers years past, discovered and
* 2 Bozman, 64.
+ 2 Bozmau, 582.
33
did then plant upon an Island in the great Bay of Chesapeake, in Vir- ginia, by them named the Isle of Kent, which they bought of the Kings of the country, and built houses, transported cattle, and settled people thereon, to their very great costs and charges ; which the Lord Baltimore taking notice thereof, and the great hopes for trade of beavers and other commodities, like to ensue by the petitioner's discoveries, hath since . obtained a patent from your Majesty, comprehending said Island within the limits thereof, and sought thereby to dispossess the petitioners there- of, and debar them of their discovery, &c. Complaint thereof being made, your Majesty was pleased to signify your royal pleasure by letter, intimating, that it was contrary to justice, and the true intent of your Majesty's grant to the said Lord! Baltimore-that notwithstanding the said patent, the petitioners should have freedom of trade, requiring the Governor, and all others in Virginia, to be aiding and assisting unto them, prohibiting the Lord Baltimore and all other pretenders under him, to offer them any violence, or to disturb or molest them in their planta- tion, as by your Majesty's letter annexed, appeareth. Since which, albeit, your Majesty's royal pleasure hath been made known to Sir John Harvey, Governor of Virginia, (who slighted the same,) as also to Lord Baltimore and his agents there, yet they have, in a most willful and con- temptuous manner, disobeyed the same, and violently set upon your peti- tioners' pinnaces and boats, having goods to trade, and seized them, and do still detain the same, by the loss of which pinnaces and goods, the inhabitants within the said Isle, were in so great famine and misery, as they became utterly destitute of any corn to sustain themselves ; which enforced them to send a small boat to know why they obeyed not your Majesty's said royal letter and commands, * * * * the said pinnace and goods to enable them to trade for Corn *
* which boat, approaching near unto some vessel of the said Lord Balti- more's, or his agents, they shot among the petitioners' men, and slew three of them and touk eleven more; and not content with these great injuries, the said Lord Baltimore and his agents, have openly defamed and unjustly accused the petitioners, of - crimes to his exceeding great grief, which hath caused him purposely to repair into this King- dom, and humbly prostrate himself and his cause at his Majesty's feet, to be relieved therein."
The rest of the petition relates to other matters-making proposals for a new grant and commission. And what is the record of the Privy Council at the same date when the petition was referred ? It is in part
* Blanks in the record.
3
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34
- this-" His Majesty approving the proposals made in this petition, for the advancement of those plantations, [Kent Island and Palmer's Isl- and,] &c., is graciously pleased to confirm what was contained in his former commission and letter, under the broad seal," and directs the Commissioners of plantations "to settle such a grant of the things here- in desired, as they shall think fit to be prepared by him [the Attorney] for his Majesty's signature. Their Lordships are also to examine the wrongs complained of, and certify to his Majesty what they think fit to be done for the redress hereof." Signed by the Secretary, &c.
On the 4th of April, the Lord's Commissioners having heard the case, decided, "that the right and title to the Isle of Kent and other places in question, to be absolutely belonging to Lord Baltimore; and that no plantation or trade with the Indians ought to be within the precints of his patent without leave from him. And concerning the violences and wrongs by the said Claiborne and others complained of," they left " both sides to the ordinary course of justice."
They said, that Claiborne confessed the Isle of Kent to be within the bounds and limits of Lord Baltimore's patent ; and so it was. They also said, that Claiborne's Commission, referring to the license of 1631, was only a license to trade with the Indians, under the signet of Scotland- not under the broad seal ; which did not extend, nor give warrant to Claiborne or any other-nor had they any right or title thereby to the Isle of Kent, or to plant or trade there. This discovery of Claiborne's license being signed by only the Signet of Scotland, instead of the broad seal of England, shows that gross imposition had been practiced upon him. Kilty, in his Landholder's Assistant," says, judging from what appears on record, "I consider him as a man trifled with by the Crown, for the traffic in his license being that of furs, &c., with the natives, could not well be carried on without settlements. Being turned over and subjected to Lord Baltimore, without any compensation for his disappointment, he had all the excuse that can arise from high provoca- tion, for his subsequent procedures."
The claim of Captain Claiborne, on the ground of prior occupancy, does not seem by the Commissioners to have been thought worth noticing; for they passed it by without any reference to it. And yet on this very ground, under the claim of the Peuns, of Pennsylvania, in a subsequent year, 1685, all that is now Delaware, being one million two hundred and sixty seven thousand two hundred acres,t within the bounda-
* Page 17.
+ Scott's Geog. Del.
35
1746104
ries_of Lord Baltimore's patent, was taken from him and given to them, by the decision of the Privy Council. And it does not appear that the claim of prior occupancy was even as good as was that of the Virginians to Kent Island .* Either the one or the other decision, therefore, was clearly wrong. And if the first decision was not right, does not the latter look something like retributive justice? For, though by gaining his case in the first instance, he gained thirty-nine thousand acres, yet in losing it in the other, by the Penns, he lost, as just stated, one million two hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred acres. There was a power behind the throne greater than the throne.
It has been said,t that " Lord Baltimore's motives were purely political and religious," while " Claiborne's was founded on private self-interest, though plausibly holding out, at the same time, the possibility of imme- diate commercial advantages to the nation or its monarch." That the motives of the Secretary of Virginia were founded on private self-inter- est, need not be denied ; and yet the annual rent which he imposed on his Colonists amounted, in each case, to only two capons; said, then, to be equal to sixteen pounds of tobacco, or one bushel of wheat, or two shillings ; which allowing the entire Island to have been divided into farms of fifty acres each, and taken up, would give him only seventy- eight pounds sterling a year.
But was there no private self-interest in Lord Baltimore's case ? By his terms of plantation of 1636, every first adventurer in 1634, for every five men between sixteen and fifty years of age, which he brought over, received two thousand acres, subject to a yearly rent of four hundred pounds of wheat, or one pound to every five acres. To every one with- in that year, 1636, bringing out less than five men, one hundred acres for himself, one hundred for his wife and every servant; and for every child, under sixteen years of age, fifty acres, subject to an annual rent of ten pounds of wheat for every fifty acres, or, as before, one pound to every five acres. . The terms of plantation, however, were subsequently changed. But what would the annual income be at this rate, were all Lord Baltimore's lands taken up? Why, £7,767, or about $34,000. And this sum is even actually less than his annual rents are stated to have been in 1770, by a thousand dollars. This certainly was moderate enough. And the amount said to have been expended by him, could have doubtless been better invested. But the Government of the Colony was paid for by the Colonists, and some of the members of the family
* 1 McMahon, 32.
+ 2 Bozman, 71.
# Ibid, 36.
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36
were provided with places in that Government. Besides, there was the honor of being proprietor of such wide lands, and having so many ten- ants. It told large. No other individual in England could boast of any- thing like such domains. If this view indicates, as it so clearly does, some regard to self interest, other facts unquestionably confirm it. The Colonial Assembly's letter to Lord Baltimore in 1649,* for instance, will show somewhat how intent he was upon this matter of property. The stock on his plantation in the Colony had been pledged by Governor Calvert, his brother, to pay the soldiers employed by him-to regain the province from the usurpation of Ingle and others ; and he finds such fault with the pledge having been fulfilled, that the Assembly say to him, "We much wonder that your honor should consider, or think much, that a few cattle, not above eleven or twelve cows at most, of your lord- ship's known clear stock, and those conquered again to your lordship, and taken from the unlawful possessor, should be distributed among those men who had ventured and hazzarded their fortunes, lives and estates, in the defense, recovery and preservation of your lordship's province ;" and much more to the same purpose.
But Lord Baltimore's " motives were purely political and religious" ! Passing those merely political, whatever the first Lord Baltimore's motives were, who negotiated the charter, the second Lord Baltimore, to whom it was actually given, certainly found England so safe and pleasant a place of residence, that he never came over to his Maryland Colony. And just as certainly he did not seek to make his province an exclusive asylum for his Roman Catholic brethren. Witness the fact of so large a portion of the first Colonists being Protestants; his invitation to Captain Fleet ; his invitation to the Puritan Colonists of Massachusetts to come and reside in the Colony in 1643 ;t his constituting Colonel Stone his Governor in 1648, who was a Protestant, and was to bring in five hundred Colonists ; his admitting the Puritans of Virginia in the same year ; and in the year following creating a new County for Robert Brooke, a Puritan, and his Colonists. This shows, beyond question, that he was more solicitous to settle his lands, and thus secure some income from them, than he was to render his province a religious asylum for his brethren of his own faith. But we pass on.
In July of this year, 1638, occurred a well known incident to every reader of Maryland history, which shows something of the religious con-
* 2 Bozman, 666.
+ Hawks' Maryland, 30.
---
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dition of the St. Mary's Colonists .* Captain Cornwallis, a member of the Council, had some servants so called, white men they were, who, as the custom then was, had sold themselves to him for a term of years, to pay for their passage across the ocean, who were Protestants. They were residents in the same house with William Lewis, a zealous Roman Catholic, who had them in charge. Among them were Francis Gray and Robert Sedgrave. They were one day reading Smith's Sermons, and reading aloud, where he remarks, " that the Pope is anti-Christ-the Jesuits anti. Christian Ministers," &c. Lewis told them, " that it was a falsehood, and came from the devil, as all lies did, and that he that writ it was an instrument of the devil, and he would prove it, and that all Protestant Ministers were of the devil," and forbade them reading any more.
Soon after, Sedgrave, at the request of Gray, drew up the following petition, to be signed by the Protestants on the next Sunday at the Chapel, which petition, Lewis said, was to be presented to Governor Har- vey, of Virginia; but the others said it was for the Governor and Coun- cil of the Province.
" Christopher Carroll, Ellis Beache, R'd. Sedgrave, and others, which may hereafter be brought forth : Beloved in the Lord, &c .- this is to- give you notice, of the abuses and scandalous reproaches which God and his ministers do daily suffer, by William Lewis, of St. Inigoes; who saith, that our Ministers are Ministers of the devil, and that our books are made by the instruments of the devil, and further saith, that- who are under his charge, shall keep nor read any books which doth appertain to our religion, within the house of the said William Lewis, to the great discomfort of those poor bondmen, who are under his sub- jection, especially, in this heathen country, where no godly Minister is, to teach and instruct ignorant people in the grounds of religion. And as for people who - unto the said Lewis, or otherwise, to pass the week, the said Lewis takes occasion to call them into his chambers and there laboreth with all vehemence, craft, and subtility, to delude ignorant persons. Therefore we beseech you, brethren, in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that you who have the power, that you will do what lieth in you to have these absurd and ridiculous to be reclaimed, and that God and his Ministers may not be so grievously trodden down by such ignominious speeches : and no doubt but you, or they, who strive to uphold God's Ministers and word, - all be crowned with eternal
* 2 Boaman, 506, from the proceedings of the Governor and Conneil.
t Blanks in the record.
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joy and felicity, to reign in that eternal kingdom with Jesus Christ, under whose banner we fight ever more."
Both of the parties were summoned before the Governor and Council, and witnesses were examined. Lewis was found " guilty of an offensive and indiscreet speech, in calling the author of the book an instrument of the devil-and of a very offensive speech, in calling Protestant Ministers the Ministers of the devil, and to have exceeded in forbidding them to read a book, allowed and lawful to be read by the state of England, and because that these offensive speeches, and other of his unreasonable dis- putations in point of religion, tended to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the Colony, and were committed by him against a pub- lic proclamation set forth to prohibit all such disputes," or, as stated by Captain Cornwallis, made "for the suppressing all further disputes tend- ing to the opening of a faction in religion." Therefore he was fined 500 lbs. of tobacco to the Lord of the Province, and was bound over to good behavior, giving security therefor, in 3,000 pounds of tobacco.
The Smith, whose Sermons are here spoken of, was Henrie Smith .* He was a member of Lincoln College in 1575, and "esteemed the miracle and wonder of his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his fluent, eloquent, and practical way of preaching." He took his degree in 1583, and "was lecturer of St. Clement Danes, without the Temple Bar, near London, which was much frequented by the puritanical party. He was in very great renown among men in 1593, in which year he died, aet 34."
The volume of Sermons from which those servants were reading, it is presumed, was a fac simile of the copy now before us.t It is an 18mo. of upwards of a thousand pages, just such a volume as we might natu- rally suppose would find its way into an emigrant's chest. The Sermons are such as we might expect from such an one as described by Woods, and answers well to the character of the times. In a sermon from Job i, 7, which, as given in the old translation then in use, reads thus : "Then the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou ? And Satan answered the Lord, saying-from compassing the earth to and fro, and from walking up and down in it." In the sermon, there is found the following passage, and was doubtless the very one which the servants were then reading, as it is the only one in the volume which answers the allegation of Lewis. " As the serpent compasseth, so does his seed-and therefore doth Solomon call the ways of the wicked, crooked ways.
* Wood's Athenae Oronienses. .
t Ex libris, Bishop Whitingham.
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This is the great compasser. There be little compassers beside, like the Pharisees, of whom it is said, that they compass sea and land to make one like themselves. Instead of these compassers, we have Seminary priests which compass from Rome to Tyburn, to draw one from Christ to anti-Christ. I will not name all compassers, lest I be compassed myself; but this I speak within compass, that there is a craft in compass- ing, and Satan is the craftiest Master, and the rest are his prentices or factors under him." The first Sermon in the volume was printed in 1592, and stated to be printed after the author's death. Woods, conse- quently, must be wrong by a year, in the date which he assigns for his death.
There are various facts which this petition and trial present worthy of notice. One is, that there were a number of Protestant men in the St. Mary's Colony. Four are mentioned in connection with the petition, and others on the trial ; that the Protestants had a chapel, and consequently were so numerous as to require one; that there was, notwithstanding their number, no Protestant Clergyman in the Colony, though worship was kept up by them, they being accustomed to meet in their chapel ; and that these Protestants could write as well as read, and write to some purpose. The tone and wording of the petition shows them to be Puri- tanic ; and this is confirmed by the very volume they read from in Lewis' house ; true Church of England men had little sympathy with such authors in that day. Besides, while there was a common sympathy between the Roman Catholics and Puritans, they being alike oppressed and persecuted under the laws of that period, there was the most entire antipathy between them and the Church of England men. And this shows us, why all in the St. Mary's Colony so readily ranged themselves under Lord Baltimore's banners, against the Church of England men of Kent Island. The Puritans disliked the Churchmen not less than they did the Romanists.
We are told, indeed, that then and there, Roman Catholics and Protestants " lived in harmony."* But the facts elicited in this trial show us otherwise. We are shown here that there were offensive speeches and unreasonable disputations on religion, which tended to fac- tion, to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the Colony ; and that they were carried to such an extent that the Governor found himself obliged to issue a public proclamation to prevent them ; and that men were fined and bound under heavy penalties to keep the peace for
* Hawks, 30.
40
its open violation. Their living in harmony is a fancy picture. Would that it had been a true delineation.
We are shown here, also, that some at least of the Romanists were most earnest in their proselyting efforts. We shall see more of it as we proceed further, and the exasperation which it caused, and at the same time, how firmly these Protestants, without a shepherd, stood their ground. And one thing more. We are shown that the Governor and his assistants were prompt in sustaining the rights and privileges of the Protestants, as secured by the Charter, to which attention has been called. In their decision, they state incidentally, the very ground on which they acted-"the book was allowed and lowful to be read in the State of England." And by the Charter, they were not allowed to make any laws, repugnant or contrary to the laws, statutes, customs, and rights of the kingdom of England,* and consequently no judicial de- cisions.
The settling of the case was unquestionably creditable and honorable to them. But it must not be forgotten, that under the Charter they could not do otherwise. Besides, the Roman Catholics were a small minority in England, prescribed and excluded from office, and from many of the civil rights. The King was Protestant; and the Parlia- ment was more Protestant than the King. The Romanists durst scarce lift up their heads-they were obliged to be submissively quiet. And in this colony .- while just across the Potomac was the rigidly Protestant colony of Virginia, ready always to act in defense of Protestantism,-the settlement on Kent Island was Protestant, and it is by no means certain that putting the Protestants of the Island and St. Mary's together, they did not at that very time, constitute a majority even in Maryland.
Mr. Bozmant estimates the population of St. Mary's at this time, to be about three hundred. There was however a considerable accession this year, by an arrival from abroad. Among the number was a Jesuit Priest, Father Pulton, and a lay coadjutor, Wm. Morley. But John Knowles, the coadjutor before spoken of, died, and also one of the priests, whose name is not known, a young man, said to be of great promise, who had been in the colony but two months. Nor did the other priests escape sickness. But no other died, and so the number continued as before. In the narrative of Father White and others,t they say, " we have not ceased. in an active manner, to exert, our endeavors for our neighbors, [the In- dians,] although it is not permitted us, by the rules of the province, to
* Charter, Sec. 7. + 2 Bozman, 88.
# P. 25.
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41
live among the barbarians, both on account of the prevailing sickness, and the hostile acts which they commit. In the interim, we are more earnestly intent on the English. And since there are Protestants as well as Catholics in the colony, we have labored with both, and God has blessed our labors. For of the Protestants who came from England this year, almost all have been converted to the faith, besides many others, with four servants that we bought for necessary use in Virginia. And of five workmen, whom we hired for a month, we have in the mean time gained two." They were thus on their own showing, in proselyting in- defatigable. But no station had yet, on this fifth year of the colony, been established among the Indians.
As illustrating something of the way in which some of the proselytes were gained, we may take the following in the narrative of this same year. "A certain one altogether unknown to us, but zealous in the re- ligion of the Protestants, and staying with a host more fervent than him- self, having been bitten by a snake, expected death every instant. One of our people understanding this, having taken a surgeon with him to the sick man, who was now said to be deprived of his senses, was anx- ious for his soul, that he might in a measure heal it also. But his host perceiving the thing, interrupted his pious endeavors. And when the priest could think of no other opportunity, he resolved to spend the night with the sick man. But the host then threw an impediment in the way of this also, and lest by night access might be granted to the priest, he set a watch who would sleep in a bed opposite to the door of the chamber. Nevertheless, the priest taking advantage of every means, at an unseasonable hour of the night, when he supposed the guard most oppressed with sleep, without his being aroused, found a way of entrance to the sick man, and admitted him into the Church as he desired it." The sleepless efforts to proselyte the neglected Protestants, who were kept without a shepherd, could hardly be better illustrated-" of this sort are they which creep into houses."*
1639.
Mr. Boznian estimates, from data which he gives, that the population of Kent Island at this time, was about one hundred and twenty,t and that of the St. Mary's Colony, to be about three hundred, though there were not more than two or three wealthy persons among them.t
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