USA > Maryland > The founders of Maryland as portrayed in manuscripts, provinical records and early documents > Part 10
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Your Grace is so sensible of our sad condition, and for your place and piety's sake, have so great an in- fluence on our most religious and gracious King, that if I had not your Grace's promise to depend upon, I could not question your Grace's intercession and pre- vailing. £500 or £600 for a church, with some small encouragement for a minister, will be extremely less charge, than honor, to his Majesty.
One church settled according to the Church of Eng- land, which is the sum of our request, will prove a nursery of religion and loyalty through the whole Pro- vince. But your Grace needs no arguments from me, but only this, it is in your power to give us many happy opportunities to praise God for this and innumerable mercies, and to importune His goodness, to bless his
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162
THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
Majesty, with a long and prosperous reign over us, and long continue to your Grace, the great blessing of being an instrument of good to his Church. And now that I may be no more troublesome, I humbly entreat your pardon to the well meant zeal of
Your Grace's most obedient servant,
MARY TANEY.
Accompanying this letter was the following Petition : " To the Most Reverend the Archbishops, and the rest of the Right Reverend the Bishops, the humble petition of Mary Taney, on the behalf of herself and others his Majesty's subjects inhabitants of the Province of Maryland.
" Sheweth, That your petitioner in her petition to the King's Majesty, setting forth That the said Province, being without a church or any settled ministry, to the great grief of all his Majesty's loyal subjects there, his late Majesty, King Charles the Second of blessed memory, was graciously pleased to send over thither, a minister, and a parcel of Bibles, and other church books of considerable value, in order to the settlement of a church and ministry there. .
" That the said minister dying, and the inhabitants who have no other trade but in tobacco, being so very poor that they are not able to maintain a minister, chiefly by reason of his Majesty's customs, here upon tobacco, which causes the inhabitants to sell it there, to the merchants, at their own rates. By means whereof so good a work as was intended by his said
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السر وات وعلى
163
REV. PAUL BERTRAND.
late Majesty is like to miscarry, to the utter ruin of many poor souls, unless supplied by his Majesty.
"Praying his Majesty, that a certain parcel of tobacco, of one hundred hogsheads or thereabouts, of the growth or product of the said Province, may be custom free, for and towards the maintenance of an orthodox divine, at Colvert Town, in the said Province, or otherwise ' allow maintenance for a minister there.
"Your petitioner, therefore, most humbly prays, that your Lordships will be pleased, not only to mediate with his Majesty and in your petitioner's behalf request him to grant her desire in such petition, but likewise, that your Lordships will vouchsafe to contribute to- wards the building of a church at Colvert Town, as your Lordships in charity and goodness shall think meet."
A little while after this petition was received, on the 29th of September, 1685, a sum of money was given from the secret service fund of the King, to defray the passage of the Rev. Paul Bertrand to Mary- land.
There is preserved the report of this clergyman dated the 12th of September, 1689, written in French, addressed to the Bishop of London, which describes the condition of religion in the province at that time.1
Year after year the members of the Society of Friends increased, and were respected. In a reply to
1 See Stevens's Catalogue of Manuscripts presented by George Peabody to Maryland Historical Society.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
a petition, that Quakers might be allowed to affirm, in the place of taking the usual oath, the Upper House of the Assembly ou the 6th of September, 1681, took the following action :
"Upon reading the paper, delivered yesterday, by William Berry and Richard Johns,' this House do say ; That if the rights and privileges of a free born English- man, settled on him by Magna Charta, so often con- firmed by subsequent parliaments, can be preserved by yea, and nay, iu wills and testaments, and other occur- rents, the Lower House may do well to prepare such a law, and that the Upper House will consider of it."
Subsequently, the Quakers presented an able and logical argument for a change in the law concerning oaths. It opened with the following dignified and eloquent preamble : " We are Englishmen ourselves, and free born, although in scorn commonly called Quakers, and therefore, so far from desiring the least breach of Magna Charta or of the least privilege be- longing to a free-born Englishman, that we had rather suffer many degrees more than we do, if it was possible, than willingly admit of the least violation of those ancient rights and liberties, which are indeed our birth-right and so often confirmed to us, by subsequent Parliaments, And had we not been full well assured that our sufferings may be redressed, and our request granted, without the violating of Magna Charta in the least degree, we would not have desired it."
1 Richard Johns was a distant relative of the founder of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore.
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WILLIAM PENN'S ARRIVAL.
The argument had a good effect, and the Lower House of the Assembly voted for a modification of the statute, but Lord Baltimore did not give his approval.
The period was arriving when the cause of the
Quakers was to receive a powerful impulse. As William Penn, the son of a British Admiral, in early life a student at Oxford and Paris, heard of the ' oppression of his fellow religionists, under the statutes of Maryland and Virginia, he conceived the project of " a free colony for all mankind," wherein entire liberty of conscience should be allowed.
From the hour that Penn made his treaty under the shade of the elm trees on the Delaware, Quakerism was more respected.
The men that began to build on the rectangular streets of the newly surveyed city of Philadelphia, were industrious, and glad to welcome as sharers in the municipal government, the Jew or the Turk, the Calvinist or Roman Catholic.
Not long after he sailed up the Delaware he pro- ceeded to visit the societies of Friends on the tri- butaries of the Chesapeake. Subsequently he made a second visit and conducted Lord and Lady Baltimore1 to a religious meeting at Tred Haven. Richardson, who was one of the preachers, describes Lady Balti- more, as "a notable, wise, natural, and courteously carriaged woman."
1 Lady Baltimore had been the widow of Henry Sewall of Patuxent, one of the councillors of the Province.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
After Penn's return to England, Quakerism was strengthened in America, by the arrival of Thomas Story, another man of cultivated intellect. He had received in England a complete education, and was not only a proficient in Greek and mathematics, but also skilled in the arts of music and fencing. His asso- ciations in youth were with an excessive ritualism. The church he attended conformed to the " new fan- gleism" that crept back again to the Church of England in the days of Archbishop Laud. For a time he was very zealous in the observance of rubrics, but in time they became a burden, and at length he bounded over to that Society of Friends, which well nigh forgot that man was a compound of flesh and spirit, and demanded a few expressive rites.
Having studied law, Story came to Pennsylvania, was made Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seal, and subsequently Mayor of the city of Phila- delphia.1
On the 27th of the 3d month, 1699 O. S., he attended the yearly meeting of the Quakers at West River, County, Maryland, in company with a distinguished physician of Philadelphia, whom Penn called, " tender Griffith Owen." On the 13th of the next month Story says in his journal, " came one Henry Hall, a priest of the Church of England, and with others of his motion eaves-dropped the meeting, but came not in." Richard
1 Story, in 1706, married a daughter of Edward Shippen of Phila delphia.
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167
STORY, QUAKER PREACHER.
Johns, a prominent member of the meeting, then arose, and made the following confession of faith.
1 " We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, being conceived by the pro- - mise and influence of the Holy Ghost, is the true Mes- siah or Saviour; that he died upon the cross at Jerusalem, a propitiation and sacrifice for the sins of all mankind; that he rose from the dead on the third day, ascended, and seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high, making intercession for us ; and in the fulness of time shall come to judge both the living and the dead, and reward all according to their work. "
The next day the clergyman and his friends again lurked near the meeting, and Story says:
" My companion in his testimony apprehending they were within hearing, cried aloud to them to come forth out of their holes, and appear openly like men, and if they had anything to say, after meeting was over, they should be heard."
Story next challenged them to prove their call to the ministry," which they, taking upon them to do, only told us that Christ called the apostles, and they ordained others, and they again others in succession to that time."
Then Story demanded proof " who they were that the apostles ordained, and who from age to age suc- cessors ordained, wherein if they justly failed they were to be rejected as no ministers of Christ, since they had rested the matter on such a succession." " Many people," continues the journal, " called out to the clergy-
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
man. ' We will pay you the tobacco, being obliged by law, that is forty pounds of tobacco for every negro slave, but we will never hear you more.' While we were yet in the gallery one climbed up into a window, and cried out with a loud voice to Henry Hall, 'Sir, you have broken a canon of the Church; you have baptized several negroes, who being infidels, baptism ought not to have been administered to them.'
" At this the priest was enraged, but made no answer to the charge, only fumed and fretted and threatened the man to trounce him.
"Then I observed to the people that if these negroes were made Christians in this sense, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, received into the body of the Church of Christ, as the language is at the time of sprinkling, how could they now detain them longer as slaves ? Several justices of the peace being ashamed of their priest, slid out of the meeting as unobservable as might be, and the people in general contemned them as such, who behind the back of the Quakers had greatly re- proached and belied them, but face to face were utterly. subdued by them. That night several of the justices, lodging with our friend Samuel Chew,1 ex- pressed their sentiments altogether in our favor, and
' Samuel Chew was the son of Samuel Chew of Chewton, Somer- setshire, England. He was a physician and became Chief Justice of Delaware. Ilis son Benjamin, was born on West River in 1722, studied law at the Inner Temple, London, and ultimately became the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania.
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169
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.
the priests were really ignorant men in matters of religion."
, Sir Thomas Lawrence,1 the Secretary of the colony, wincing under the plain arguments of Story, com- plained of what he called the tart expressions of the Quaker, to the Lords of Trade and Plantations. , William Penn being in England, his attention was called to the subject, to which he alludes in a letter to a friend :
" A silly knight ! Though I hope it comes of offi- cious weakness, the talent of the gentleman, with some malice. Matters there are never attacked by Thomas Story, nor in irreverent tones.
" I never heeded it, only said, that if the gentleman had sense enough for his office, he might have known this tale was no part of it, that Thomas Story was dis- creet and temperate, and did not exceed in his retorts and returns.
" But 'tis children's play to provoke a combat and then cry out that such a one beats them ; that I hoped they were not a committee of conscience and religion, and that it showed the shallowness of the gentleman that played the busybody in it."
At the commencement of the eighteenth century the Quakers exercised a powerful influence in the colonies. Men were forced to admit, that they were keepers at home, industrious, intelligent, not given to
1 Sir Thomas Lawrence, son of Sir John, B't, having spent all his estate was made Secretary of Maryland in 1606 and in 1712, died there. - Notes and Queries, Dec. 27, 1873.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
wine or brawling, cleanly in their habits, and honest in their commercial transactions.
The yearly meeting of the Society was eagerly looked for by all classes. Edmundson well observed, " Yearly meeting in Maryland, many people resort to it and transact a deal of trade with one another, so that it is a kind of market or change, where the captains of ships and the planters meet and settle their affairs, and this draws abundance of people." Occurring as it did near the Whitsuntide holidays, the black slaves flocked thither to enjoy rest for a few days from the exhaust- ing labors of the tobacco field. Families from the different counties rolled there, in ponderous old- fashioned carriages for the purpose of social reunion, young men came on fine horses, to compare them and give a trial of their speed, and others went to confer with the beautiful and pure minded maidens, who, in their plain drab dresses and scooped bonnets, were to them far more interesting than the angels, who seemed cold and distant, because they had neither flesh nor blood.
The accession of James the Second to the throne of England, although he was in religious sympathy with Charles Lord Baltimore, brought trouble to the Pro- prietary of Maryland.
The King, fond of arbitrary power, determined to make all of his colonial governments directly depend- ent upon the Crown, and in April, 1687, ordered a writ of quo warranto to be issued against the charter of Maryland, but before there could be a hearing of
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FIRST PRINTING PRESS.
the case, James was an exile, and William and Mary by the revolution of 1688 ascended the throne.
1 Taking advantage of the new order of affairs in Eng. land, John Coode a clergyman, the Titus Oates of Maryland, described as a "democratic Ferguson in principles of government, an Hobbist or worse in · principles of religion," became the leader of the party in the Province in favor of abrogating the charter.
In April, 1689, was formed " an association in arms for the defence of the Protestant religion, and for as- . serting the rights of King William and Queen Mary to the province of Maryland and all the English dominion."
A statement was printed for them, by Richard Nut- head at Saint Mary, a copy of which is preserved in the British Museum library, affording the first evidence of a printing press in Maryland.
After the accession of William and Mary, the King of England appointed the Governors of Maryland. Lionel Copley was in 1691 commissioned as Governor, and soon after his arrival an Act for the establishment of the Protestant religion was passed, and the ten counties divided into twenty parishes.
The opposition of the Quakers was so great that the law was a dead letter. After the death of Copley, in 1694, Nicholson became Governor, and with him, there came in the month of August, six clergymen,1 making
1 Dickinson, a Quaker preacher, under date of Sth 11mo, 1695 O. S., writes at the Downs :
" Several priests were going over into Maryland having heard that
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
the whole number in the Province, nine. He suc- ceeded in passing a law forbidding public worship to Roman Catholics, but in 1695, under the influence of Quakers and Romanists, the invidious legislation was repealed, but the very next year it was enacted, that the Church of England in the Province, should enjoy all the rights, established by law, in the kingdom of England, and it was proposed that a Bishop should be appointed, who should, as a representative of the clergy, have a seat in the Upper House of the Assembly.
The Rev. Dr. Thomas Bray, who had in 1696 been ap- pointed Commissary for the clergy, in company with Sir Thomas Lawrence, Secretary of Maryland, waited on Anne, the Princess of Denmark, to request her ac- ceptance of the respect shown her by naming the capital of Maryland, Annapolis. Bray having received a do- nation for libraries from the Princess, he presented books to the amount of £400 to the capital. Some of these books are still on the shelves of the library of St. John's College in that eity, and on the covers is stamped " De Bibliotheca Annapolitana.1 In March, 1700, Bray arrived and preached before the legislative Assem-
the Government had laid a tax of forty pounds of tobacco on each in- habitant for the advancement of the priest's wages."
These were probably the clergymen recently ordained at Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.
In 1698 a Rev. Mr. Gaddes was at Annapolis, and Rev. Chs. H'y Hall at Herring Creek.
1 The following is from the book of St. James Parish : " 1698. Books received ye Rev. Ch's H's Hall -- May. A Catalogue of books be- longing to ye library of St. James Parish in Ann Arundel Co., sent by ye Rev. Dr. Bray, and marked thus " belonging to ye library of IIer- ring Creeke, Ann Arundel County."
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PAROCHIAL LIBRARIES.
bly at Annapolis. At this session, it was reenacted, - that the Church of England should be the established church of Maryland. As before, the Quakers used their influence with the King, to prevent, while I'r. Bray went back to England to secure, its approval.
The biographer of Bray writes : "Though the law, with much solicitation and struggling, was preserved
The following parochial libraries were sent to Maryland by Dr. Bray in the course of a few years.
Books
Annapolis, 1095
St. Mary's,. 314
Herring Creek,. 150
South River, 109
North Sassafras, 42
King and Queen's Parish,. 196
42
All Saints,.
49
St. Paul's, Calvert County, ..
106
Great Choptank, Dorchester County,
76
7 St. Paul's, Baltimore
42
Stepney, Somerset
60
Porto Batto, Charles 16
30
St. Peter's, Talbot
10
St. Michael's
15
All Faith's, Calvert .€
11 10
Piscatoway, “
10
Broad Neck, Ann Arundel
10
St. John's, Baltimore
10
St. George's,
10
Kent Island,
10
Dorchester,
10 10
Snow Hill, Somerset
South Sassafras,
10
St. Paul's, Kent County, ..
35 26
Somerset, Somerset
20
Coventry, .
25
St. Paul's Talbot
2
1
.
William and Mary, Charles County
Nanjemoy, Charles
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Christ Church, Calvert County,
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
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from being totally disannulled, yet many of the excep- tions which the Quakers made against it, sticking with the Lords of Trade, all that could be obtained was, that Dr. Bray might, with advice of Council, draw up another bill, according to the instructions of that Board, and sending the bill to Maryland, had the pro- mise, that his Majesty, upon its return, would confirm it."
The law drawn up by Dr. Bray was submitted to an Assembly begun at Annapolis, the 16th day of March, 1701-2, and was approved by the King. It was styled " An Act for the establishment of religious worship in this Province, according to the Church of England : and for the maintenance of ministers."
The Act provided, that " the dissenters, commonly called Quakers " should have the privilege of making a solemn affirmation or declaration instead of the usual oath.
Although absent in body, the interests of the Epis- copal church in Maryland were not forgotten by Dr. Bray, and a Rev. Mr. Hewetson, of Ireland, was re. commended as superintendent of the clergy. In a letter, written at Chelsea, August 27, 1703, and addressed to Mr. Smithson, Speaker of the Maryland Assembly, he alludes to the rude treatment by the Governor, of himself and the clergyman, whom he had suggested for suffragan or commissary, and proposes that the Maryland legislature shall set apart one of the best parishes, as the cure of a suffragan, to be appointed
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CONCLUSION. 175-176
by the Bishop of London, and build a house for his residence. He further suggests that the glebe should be stocked with ten negroes, twenty cattle, and twenty hogs. It had been proposed, that the suffragan should have a seat at the Council Board of the Province, but this did not receive his approval, and he thought that this officer should not reside on the same side of the Bay as the Governor of the province.
We enter not upon the eighteenth century. The aim of this little book has been attained, if it has brought to light a few facts not hitherto published re- lative to the mode of life, the struggles, and principles of those who were the founders of Maryland.
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ADDENDA.
CLAYBORNE FAMILY AND ARMS.
THIS family from an early period, dwelt in West- moreland, on the borders of Cumberland.
In the days of Richard the Second, there was a knight of Westmoreland, Robert de Clyborne, who bore on his arms the Saxon motto " Clibbor ne scearn " which has been variously translated, " A burden shames not," " Untouched by shame," or " Adversity no Disgrace."
Over the door of Cleburne Hall erected in 1577, near Westmoreland, not far from Penreth, Cumberland, is cut the same arms given to Robert Clyborne in the Visitation of Cumberland, published by the Har- leian Society; quartering of four. First and fourth argents : three cheverons interlaced in base, chief sable : second and third, argent saltier engrailed vert, over all a mullet for difference.
The Visitation of Cumberland calls the father of William Clayborne of Virginia, Edward; and his grandfather Robert, but some writers state that his father's name was Edmund, and his grandfather's Raphe or Rich'd, the result perhaps of careless tran- scription.
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
Thomas, an elder brother of the Virginia Clayborn, in 1580, married Agnes daughter of Sir John Lowther, of the distinguished family of Lowther Hall, West- moreland.
A son of Thomas, named William, resided in Tip- perary County, Ireland, and in the ancient church of Kilbarron on the east side of Lough Derg near where it flows into the Shannon, not far from Killaloe, is a stone over a vault, in the chancel with the following coat of arms, and inscription :
Crest .- A Dove and olive branch.
· Arms .- Argent three chevronels braced in base sa. A. chief and bordure of the last.
Motto .-- Pax et copia.
INSCRIPTION.
Gulielmus Cleburne de Ballicultan, obiit vigesimo secundo die, mensis Octobris, Anno Domini, 1684.
William Clayborne on his return from England, as Treasurer of Virginia, sought for 3000 acres of land, near Potomac Creek, and perhaps it was through his influence, that the Legislature of Virginia, in 1653, designated the region from Machodac Creek to the Falls of the Potomac, Westmoreland County.
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ADDENDA.
SIR EDMUND PLOWDEN.
SIR Edmund Plowden was the great grandson of Edmund Plowden the distinguished jurist whose com- mentaries on law, Chief Justice Coke called " exquisite and elaborate."
Francis his grandfather born in 1562, married in Oxfordshire, and died in 1652, at the age of ninety.
Edmund resided after his marriage, about A.D., 1610, at Wanstead, Hampshire. His wife, was Mabel, daughter of Peter Mariner of that place.
Although he had been educated a Roman Catholic, before he came to America he conformed to the Church of England.
In 1632, he petitioned King Charles, for a tract of land, to be " exempted from all appeal and subjection to the Governor and Company of Virginia, and with such other additions, privileges and dignities, like as have been heretofore granted to Sir George Calvert K't, late Lord Calvert in New Foundland, together with the usual grants and privileges that other colonies have for governing, and ordering their planters and subordinates, and for supplying of corn, cattle and necessaries from your Majesty's Kingdom of Ireland, with power to take artificers and laborers there."
In June, 1632, the great seal of State was affixed to the charter of Maryland, and issued to Cecil, the Second Lord Baltimore, and the next month Charles the First, from his court at Oatlands, issued an order
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THE FOUNDERS OF MARYLAND.
for a grant of land in answer to the petition of Sir John Lawrence, Baronet, and Sir Edward Plowden Kn't. The king writes :
" Our pleasure is, and we do hereby authorize and require you, upon the receipt of these, our letters, forthwith to cause a grant of the said Isle, called the Isle Plowden, or Long Isle between 39 and 40 degrees North Latitude, and of forty leagues square of the ad- joining continent * to be holden of us, as of our crown of Ireland, by the name of New Albion, with such privileges, additions and dignities to Sir Edmund Plowden, his deputies and assigns, as first Governor of the premises, etc."
Plowden appears to have been a choleric and eccen- tric person. In the year 1635, his wife Mabel com- plains, to the High Commission Court, that because she refused to sell an estate, which she brought on her marriage, twenty-five years before, worth £3000 per annum, her husband had treated her with extreme cruelty. By the persuasion of friends, the complaint was dropped, and the wife consented to return once more to Plowden's house, but he soon began, as before, ill treatment.
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