USA > Maryland > The Day-star of American freedom, or, The birth and early growth of toleration, in the province of Maryland : with a sketch of the colonization upon the Chesapeake and its trobutaries, preceding the removal of the government from St. Mary's to Annapolis > Part 13
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1 Mr. William Bretton, the Roman-Catholic Assembly-man of 1649. See Lib. No. 1, pp. 68-69.
2 The Rev. Thos. Copley, Messrs. Wm. Bretton, Luke Gardiner, Thos. Mathews, John Lewger, and the members of Mr. Lowger's family, were some of the Roman Catholics, who came in 1037. Sce Lib. No. 1, pp. 19-20.
' See Mr. Maunsell's pi ceding deposition.
4 "St. John's," consisting of 100 acres, on the west side of Britton's Bay, was surveyed for Mr. Maunsell in 1649. Rent-Roll for St. Mary's and Charles, vol. 1, fol. 20.
6 In Lib. B. B., 1663 to 1065, Judgments, and on pp. 153-154,
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faith of Colonel William Evans,1 the administrator upon his estate, and the guardian of his orphan son' (a point, upon which our ancestors betrayed the keenest sensibility),' as well as the god-father of his supposed daughter." No fact, in his life,
there is a certificate of Doct. Thos. Gerrard's election, in 1652, to the House of Burgesses, over the signature of thirty-seven free- men, including Mr. Maunsell. Some of them had signed the Pro- testant Declaration. If Mr. Maunsell's neighbors could affix their names, why was not he, also, a signer ?
* See Will of Col. Wm. Evans, the Roman Catholic, Lib. No. 1, 1635 to 1074, p. 331-332.
" Mr. Maunsell, it would seem, died about 1660, without a will. And his son John, then in his seventeenth year (in conformity, we may presume, with the faith of the family), " made choice of Capt." (subsequently Col.) " Wm. Evans, for his guardian ;" who imme- diately afterwards received instructions from the Court, to "take out letters of administration." See Lib. S. 1658 to 1662, Judg- ments, p. 343.
' So great was the anxiety manifested by our ancestors upon this subject, that in some cases they provided, even in their wills, for a change of the guardian, upon his adoption of a different faith from that held by the testator.
* No freeman, or gentleman, who bore the name of Maunsell, bad lived here, but the Assembly-man and his son ; and from the rela- tionship also of Col, Evans-the godfather of the one (see his will) and the guardian of the other child-we infer, that Mary was the sister of John, and the daughter of the emigrant of 1637. In an age of so much earnestness, we cannot believe that a Protestant would allow bis child to be baptized by a Roman Catholic priest ; or that a Roman Catholic would become the sponsor for an infant
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weakens the inference; but everything, that is known of him, confirms and sustains it. Even if he were a Protestant ; or we suppose, he was a delegate, either from St. Clement's, or from New- town ; he could still but represent the sentiments of the Roman Catholic party. Nearly all the inhabitants of the former hundred were the tenants of Doct. Gerrard ; or the suitors before the court- leet and the court-baron held upon St. Clement's manor. For nothing was the latter more noted, than for the great number of its Roman Catholics.
receiving the sacramental rite from a Protestant. How natural, then, is the supposition, that Col. Evans, and the Assembly-man of - 1649, were members of the same church !
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CHAPTER XXXI.
Mr. Thomas Thornborough.
THERE is sufficient evidence to prove the iden- tity of "Thomas" with "Mr. Thornborough," the Assembly-man of 16491-to say nothing of the fact, that he was the only person of his surname, in the province, during that period. The first glimpse, we have of him, relates to the right, he held to " Mr. Neale's Plantation," the same, I pre- sume, as "Wolleston "' (itself a corruption of "Woolstanton "') Manor, surveyed in 1642, near the mouth of the Wicomico,' for Capt. James Neale, the privy councillor of Maryland, and the
1 In some parts of the record, he is styled " Mr. Thornborough ;" in others, relating to the same transactions, " Mr. Thomas Thorn- borough."
" Rent Roll for St. Mary's and Charles, vol. 2, fol. 283.
" The name of a down in Staffordshire.
4 Lib. A. B. and HI., p. 95.
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ancestor of the second archbishop1 of Baltimore. From some expressions in the deposition of Col. Jarboe, it would seem, he soon afterwards mani- fested a sympathy for Capt. Ingle, or the other enemies of the government.' But his offence is nowhere stated; we know but little, if anything, - of its nature; although-it is highly probable (look- ing at the subsequent Act of the Assembly) that the original ground of hostility had reference rather to the subject of a land-title than to the rightful authority of Governor Calvert.3 It is certain that
1 The most Rev. Leonard Neale, who died in 1817.
* The depositions of Col. Evans, and of Col. Jarboe, are of the same purport. "John Jarbo deposed, saith, that being at Kicetan, Mr. Calvert sent this deponent to Mr. Thornborough, to desire him to meet him at York, and speak with him ; and bid this deponent tell ye said Mr. Thornborough, that he should not fear any thing, what had passed in former times, and that ye plantation (meaning Mr. Neale's plantation, as this deponent believeth), or any thing else that was formerly his (to wit Mr. Thornborough's) in Mary. land, he would confirm it unto him. And, upon this, the said Mr. Thornborough came up with Mr. Calvert. And further, meeting him, the said Mr. Calvert, at York ; he, the said Mr. Calvert, took bim, the said Mr. Thornborough, by the hand, bidding bim wel- come ; and, in this deponent's hearing, forgave him ; and spake the former words of gift, or such like, to him." Lib. No 2. p. 286.
' In case of Mr. Thornborough's attainder, or the forfeiture of a fee-simple title, the manor would have become, not Capt. Neale's,
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a cordial understanding was re-established between the governor and himself, while they were both in Virginia; that they returned to Maryland; that · the latter aided the former in the defence of Fort St. Inigo's, as well as the overthrow of the rebels ;' and that he was the object of the most
but the proprietary's. Why should the legislature find it necessary "to stand betwixt " the grantor and the grantee, except upon the supposition of a controversy, which had involved, first, the captain and then the governor, before the meeting in Virginia ? " Whereas it appeareth, that Nathanial Pope, attorney of Mr. James Neale, by virtue of his letter of attorney, gave unto Mr. Thos. Thornbo- rough the plantation, which was formerly ye said Mr. Neale's, to enjoy for ever, upon condition yt he would come into the country, end seat upon it. And whereas likewise there are divers deposi- tions upon record, how that Mr. Calvert, late governor, did confirm what was formerly belonging to the said Mr. Thornborough, in Maryland, before his last coming into the province to reassume the government ; and did give the said plantation unto the said Mr. Thornborough. We, the freemen assembled in this General Assembly, do generally and unanimously bind ourselves, to save ya said Mr. Thornborough harmless ; and to stand betwixt the said Mr. Neale and him; whereby he, the said Mr. Thornborough, may go upon the said plantation, and enjoy the same." See Legisla- tive Proceedings of 1648, Lib. No. 2, pp. 295, 296. The convey- ance from Capt. Neale's attorney to Mr. Thornborough is not, indeed, upon the record ; and it is impossible to say exactly what sort of title was transferred.
' For his service. at St. Inigo's Fort, Governor Calvert gave him a " horse." Lib. No. 3, p. 43.
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bitter hate on the part of the Protestant enemies of the proprietary.1 He also sat in the Assemblies of 1648' and 1649.3 Considering the period of our provincial history, when questions of a religious cha- racter formed the most important element in the composition of political parties ; we do no violence to the evidence still accessible, in at least presum- ing,' he held the same faith as the governor and
' Col. Trice, Mr. Thornborough, and Thos. Hebden, were spe- cially " aimed at, and their deaths vowed," by the enemies of the government. Observe the hostility of Gray, as we find it, in the testimony of Edward Thompson, of Virginia, taken before the government of Maryland, the " 18th January, 1646," O. S. " This examinant saith, that being at his house in Chickacoan, on Wednes- day last, one Samuel Tailor, coming into the house, and being asked by this examinant, what was abroad, replied :- The speaker (meaning Francis Gray) had spoke once again ; and that they, that were the chief cause of entertaining the present governor, were aimed at, and their death vowed (meaning Capt. Price. and Thornbury, and Hebden) ; but that there was a party, that would go over from this place (meaning Chickacoan), so soon as the governor is gone to Kent, or where else they can get an oppor- tunity to go over ; and would fire, and burn, and destroy; all, that they can." Lib. No. 1, p. 210.
" In the Assembly of 1648, he sat simply as an individual free- man. Lib. No. 2, pp. 293-294.
' Lib. No. 2, pp. 488-489.
" Nothing is more raronable-a presumption not rebutted (as it is in the case of Col. Price), but greatly confirmed, with regard
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the proprietary. Nothing is known of his family, or the time of his death ; but it is not unlikely, he was a relative of Capt. Neale, the Roman Catholic gentleman, who "gave" him the plantation.
to Messrs. Thornborough and Hebden ; for neither of them signed the Declaration, although the former, having business at St. Mary's (see Lib. No. 3, p. 43), probably went to the very spot, where that paper was drawn up. Of the latter's faith there is no doubt. See his deed to Messrs. Nicholas Causin, Barnaby Jackson, and Luke Gardiner, for the use of the Rev. Thos. Copley, and his " successors," Lib. No. 2, p. 533. I may also add, that the suppo- sition of two Roman Catholics out of three colonists comes nearer to the ratio of the former to the whole population.
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CHAPTER XXXII.
Mr. Walter Peake.1
Ir still remains for us, to notice the life of another Assembly-man of 1649; but one upon whose memory, is cast the shade of sin and shame ; whose fate it was, under the stern laws of that period, to look forward, as the consequence of his own deed, to the forfeiture of all his lands, and to the beggary of his children ; and, about the sixtieth year of his age,' to suffer a felon's death." The time of his arrival is not exactly known ; but it is probable, he came in 1646;' and that, in 1648 and
1 Spelt also Pake.
" "Considering the miserable condition of the orphan," "who no way shared in the guilt of the parent," the proprietary subse- quently gave a new patent for St. Margaret's, to Margaret, the daughter of Mr. Peake, and the wife of John Noble. Lib. No. 17, p. 98.
3 In January, 1664, he was fifty-five. See his deposition, Lib. B. B., 1663 to 1665, Judgments, p. 262.
" The patent to Mrs Margaret Noble recites his execution.
· He brought his son, Peter, during that year. Lib. No. 2, p. 523.
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1649 (when he sat in the Assembly,' apparently one of the most respectable members), he resided in Newtown hundred; as he certainly did soon afterwards,? and for a period of many years later. From his association with Governor Calvert,' we cannot doubt the sincerity of his attachment to the proprietary's government. There is also further evidence of his faith in the Roman church, derived from the fact, that he did not sign the Protestant Declaration; from the composition of the jury, which tried his painful case ;' from his intimacy with many of the noted members of the Roman church,' from more than one of whom
2 Lib. No. 2, p. 288, and p. 488.
" Lib. No. 3, p. 100 ; Lib. No. 4, p. 11; and Lib. F. F. 1665 to 1660, Judgments, pp. 651-656.
' Bozman, vol. 2, p. 640.
* If Mr. Peake were a Protestant ; and the rule, in the cases of Robt. Holt and Parson Wilkinson, observed; the jury, in his case, would have been of the same faith. It seems, however, it was not a pure, but a mixed one. See, e. g., the will of the juror, Raymond Staplefort, Lib. G. p. 265. " And so," says he, at the end of that paper, " I rest in God, and all his saints, and angels. Amen." Roman Catholics, it seems, never asked for a jury of their own faith.
$ He was intimate with Philip Land, John Jarboe, Thos. Mathews, and James Langworth . See Lib. No. 2, p. 449, and p. 372 ; Lib. No. 1, p. 502 ; and Lib. No. 3. p. 201.
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. did his children, at different times, receive those gifts, which it was so much the practice of the early colonial god-fathers to present;' from the well-known Roman Catholic family of Peake, living in St. Mary's, as late as the American Revo- lution, whose ascent indeed cannot be clearly traced (such has been the destruction of our records), but who, we have but little ground to doubt, were either his lineal or his collateral descendants; from the names given to his chil- dren; and from the marks borne by the tracts, he had taken up. His eldest daughter was named after the Virgin Mother ; his son, in remembrance of him who is regarded as the chief of the Apos- tles, and the founder of the universal primacy of the Roman see. The names? of his wife, of a
1 See the gift from Col. Jarboe, Lib. No. 2, p. 372 ; and the one from Thos. Mathews, Lib. No. 1, p. 562." Doct. Mathews was pro- bably the god-father of Mr. Peake's son.
2 His wife was named Frances. Anne Peake was either his daughter, or his daughter-in-law. I am inclined to think, there were two persons of that name, besides his other children, Peter, Mary, and Margaret. Richard Lawrence gave a legacy to one of bis children. See the will, Lib. No. 1, 1635 to 1674, p. 65. For the names of his wife and children, see Lib. No. 2, p. 372 ; Lib. No. 17, p. 98 ; Lib. No. 2, p. 523 ; Lib. B. B. 1063 to 1605, Judg- 11*
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second daughter, of a third member of his family, and of a friend, were, each of them, given to cor- responding tracts, all of which had the prefix of St.1 More estates were surveyed for him, with the Roman Catholic mark, than for Governor Calvert, for Capt. Cornwallis, for Mr. Lewger, for Doctor Gerrard, or for any other Roman Catholic colonist in the whole province of Maryland. The evidence is conclusive.
ments, p. 226 ; Lib. No. 1, 1635 to 1674, p. 473 ; and Lib. No. 14, p. 82. Margaret was married to Henry Aspinall.
1 St. Frances, St. Margaret, St. Lawrence, and St. Peter's Hill were, all of them, in Newtown hundred, St. Mary's County ; St. Anne's was in Charles. See Rent-Rolls. He lived upon St. Law- rence, at the time of his trial.
" In counting the tracts taken up by Mr. Peake, I include St. Anne's, surveyed, not for him, but for Ann. Excluding that tract, his number equals Mr. Lewger's, or that of any other colonist. For Gov. Calvert were surveyed the manors of St. Michael and St. Gabriel ; for Capt. Cornwallis, St. Elizabeth, and West-Saint- Mary's Manor ; for Mr. John Lewger, St. John's Freehold, and St. Anne's, in St. Mary's, and St. Barbara's, and St. Thomas's in Charles ; for Doct. Thos. Gerrard, St. Winfred, and St. Clement's Manor, in St. Mary's ; for Thomas Simpson, three tracts, with the prefix, in Charles ; for Thos. Mathews, two, in the same county ; for Luke Gardiner, St. John's, and St. John's Landing, in St. Mary's ; for Col. Jarboe, St. John's, in Charles ; for Mr. Clarke, the privy-councillor, St. Lawrence, and St. Lawrence's Freehold, in St. Mary's ; and for Mr. James Lindsey, St. James's, St. Thomas's,
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At St. Mary's city, in the month of December, during the year 1668, sat the high Provincial Court of the Right Honorable Cecilius, the lord pro- prietary. Charles Calvert, the governor, subse- quently the third baron of Baltimore, was the chief justice. Before the bar of this tribunal, appeared this Assembly-man, indicted for the murder of William Price,1 by piercing him, with a " sword," " on the left," "through, to his right side, under the shoulder;" and then cutting his " throat," to "the depth of three inches." His plea (the usual one in such cases) was Not Guilty. Thomas Sprigg? was the chief member of the grand jury ; and Christopher Rowsby' (destined,
St. Philip's, and St. James', all of them in Charles-and two having the same name-four being the highest number, with the Roman Catholic index, taken up by any one, excepting Mr. Peake ; for whom, I am inclined to think, St. Anne's also was originally surveyed (although the certificate cannot now be found), making a fifth.
1 "By force and arms "-" feloniously, and of malice fore- thought "-" contrary to the peace of his said lordship, his rule, and dignity,"-are the words used in the indictment.
' A near relation of Gov. Stone, and the ancestor of the Spriggs of Calvert, now of Prince George's County.
' Stabbed in 1684, by Col. Talbot, the deputy governor. See Thomas's Lessee v. Lwmilton, 1 Harris and McHenry, p. 192.
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himself, many years afterwards, to die by the hand of violence), the foreman of the panel summoned to try the case. No technical objection is made to the indictment; no attorney appears on the priso- ner's behalf ; no testimony is offered in his defence ; no witness for the proprietary, in any way, cross- examined.` The jury retire ; but soon return with their verdict. Asking the court to say, whether the deed was manslaughter, or murder; they find he " is guilty of the death," but " was drunk " at the time, and knew' not "what he did." He addresses no appeal to the sympathy of the judges ; he submits no objection to the form of Respecting the governor's flight to Virginia, his conviction there, and subsequent retreat to a cave, in Cecil, near the Susquehannah, where he was fed for a long time by the falcons, a strange and somewhat interesting legend has also been preserved.
' I write from the record of the case. We have no knowledge whatever of any cross-examination.
' The verdict :- " We, the men of the jury, sworn upon the trial of the life and death of Walter Peake, do return our verdict specially in manner following : That Walter Peake is guilty of the death of Wm. Price, by wounding him, in several places of the body, whereof he died ; that Walter Peake was drunk, and did not know what he did, at the time of committing the fact aforesaid. Therefore, if the court are of judgment, that it was murdor, then the jury do find it murder ; but if not, then the jury do find it manslaughter." Lib. F. F. 1665 to 1669, Judgments, pp. 651-656.
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the verdict; but still remains in silence. "The whole bench, then," decide, he is guilty of " mur- der." But neither against the decision of the court, nor the impending sentence of death, does he utter a word. Once, and once only, did he open his mouth. It was the moment after the sentence. Then, he " desired," as a favor (and the request was not denied), that "he " might " suffer death before his own house, where he" had " com- mitted the fact." Thus perished and passed away, upon the gallows, in the spirit of a Catholic peni- tent, after a life of toilsome, heroic sacrifice in the wilderness, one of the men so honorably connected with the most sublime and magnificent conception of the seventeenth century ! Pope Alney was the name of his executioner1-the only fact, which gives him a claim to any place upon the page of our country's history.
' Convicted of cow-stealing-but the subject of a respite,-" seve- ral persons " having, " upon their knees," begged his " life " of the governor. See the last-named Liber.
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
Conclusion.
THE result is before the reader. A word will be added, upon the general spirit, which distinguishes the era of Roman Catholic toleration.
For the purpose of depriving the Roman Catho- lics of the honor, to which they are so clearly entitled, skepticism has often united with bigotry, in the feeble and inglorious attempt to overthrow the facts of external history. It has not stopped there. Admitting, for the argument's sake, the accuracy of the preceding narrative ; it has been busy in suggesting, with a cold-blooded malignity, a variety of imaginary reasons for. the policy adopted by the proprietary. It goes upon the assumption, that man is mean; that he has no generous, or noble spring of action. Representing a philosophy, which ignores not only the charity of the Gospel, but the very life and soul of history ;
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it never records the performance of a good deed, without the assignment of a bad motive. And it has been sometimes asserted, but more frequently insinuated-insinuated, also, in the most crafty and sly manner-that the Calverts were actuated by considerations of a selfish sort-that the fear of offending the Anglo-Catholic king at one time, and the Puritans of England at another, was the real secret of the policy, for which they have been so much commended-and that, in giving the invita- tion to Christians of every name, less regard was felt for the bona fide principle of religious liberty, than for the purse of the proprietary, or for the success of an experiment conceived, and executed "in the spirit of a mere money-making adventure ! !
Policy, indeed, of an enlightened and honorable- sort, has always been one of the elements of a good government. It is also admitted, that the province of Maryland grew, both in population and in resources, during the sway of the first, and of the second proprietary. A course of honor is not at all times attended with disaster; virtue is sometimes re- warded, even in this world ; and a liberal principle of government is not necessarily unsuccessful, in
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its practical or commercial results. Is nothing due to the memory of Washington, for spurning the vain and visionary offer of a crown? Does a gentleman regard his honor, in a purely utilitarian light? Do the daughters of America, in protect- ing the purity of our hearth-stones, consider merely how impolitic is the sin, which leads them so swiftly to the chambers of death ? Or was Mammonism, under its thousand forms, either of a gross, or of a refined sensualism, the all-pervading, universal genius of society, two hundred years ago ?
The truth is, the ingenuous student is rather surprised at the small extent, to which the principle of a mere self-loving policy was carried. There is no doubt whatever, that the early Roman Catho- lics of Maryland were heartily opposed to the political party represented by the Puritans. Nor were they afraid to manifest their opposition. We have two memorable instances. They opposed them by a proclamation, in favor of Charles the Second, within twelve months after the passage of the Toleration Act. And they bravely, though unsuccessfully, fought them, at the battle near the
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Severn in 1655. The governor, who issued the proclamation, had been a leading member of the Assembly in April, 1649. He was a Roman Catholic, it will be remembered ; and a fair expo- nent of the views of the Roman Catholic party, on the question, which then divided the English nation at home. His councillors, also, had been in the same Assembly. And however impolitic may have been the course of Governor Green,' his very want of policy is the strongest evidence of the fact, that the administration of the proprie- tary's government was not shaped by any very great fear of the Puritans.
The most remarkable view of the whole era arises from the stability of the principle, the uni- formity of the practice, and the unwillingness of the government to run to extremes in either direc- tion. The case of Lieut. Lewis called for the prompt interposition of the governor ; for the rule was plain. Equally plain do we find it, under the articles filed against Father Fitzherbert. Notwith- standing his indiscreet zeal, no respectable court
' Thomas Green was the acting governor, the latter part of 1649. See Bozman, Addison, and other authorities.
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could have given judgment in favor of the prose- cution. But how easy would it have been for a class of time-serving politicians to pass such a sen- tence, as might gratify the colonists, in the midst of their clamor. Considerations of policy, also, were then urged, but without avail, upon the pro- prietary.
Cases enough have been cited, upon the preced- ing pages, to show also (what is the most interest- ing fact in the whole of our provincial history), that freedom of conscience existed, not only in the legislation, but also in the very heart of the colony. It prevailed for a period of nearly sixty years ; a real, active principle; and the life-guidance of many thousands. Cases of individual intolerance always produced a sensation1-the best proof, in the judgment of the historical critic, that they formed, not the rule itself, but (to borrow a popular expression) the very exceptions to it.
Let not the Protestant historian of America give grudgingly. Let him testify, with a warm heart; and pay, with gladness, the tribute so richly due
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