USA > Maryland > The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations > Part 80
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121
VOL. II .- 52
410
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
CHAP. V. Baltimore) should have the exclusive power of constituting and 1650. appointing his own deputy, or lieutenant, or governor of his province, as well as all such other officers and ministers of the province, as to his lordship should seem most fitting. He had accordingly hitherto exercised that power in the appointment of his brother and other subsequent governors, But the young king, though in exile on the continent, being informed of this toleration of the Puritans in Maryland, as well as of the contra- ry conduct of Sir William Berkeley in Virginia, undertook to deprive lord Baltimore of this power of appointment, by grant- ing his own royal commission to Sir William Davenant, "consti- tuting him governor of the said province," (of Maryland,) "al- leging therein the reasons to be, because the lord Baltimore did visibly adhere to the rebels in England, and admitted all kind of sectaries and schismatics, and ill-affected persons, into that plantation."* This commission to Sir William Davenant was most probably granted by his majesty at the same time and at the same place as that which he transmitted from Breda, in June, 1650, to Sir William Berkeley to be governor of Virginia.} But we have no information, at this day, that Sir William Davenant ever availed himself of this commission, or left Europe on that account to embark for this country. It is probable, that the un- fortunate events of the royal cause in Great Britain for some suc- ceeding years, and the high handed measures now adopted by the parliament towards their American colonies, particularly in their ordinance of October of this year, (1650,) for punishing their rebel colonies, and their subsequent "reducement" of both Virginia and Maryland, prevented Sir William Davenant from ever attempting to exercise any power under this commission.±
The ap- pointment of Mr. Gib- bons, of
It may be mentioned here as some corroborating evidence of the preceding charge against lord Baltimore, at least of his poli- cy at this time in paying court to the Puritans, that Edward Gib-
* This fact is so stated by Mr. John Langford, in his " Refutation of Baby- lon's Fall," &c., before referred to. The commission to Sir William Davenant does not appear to be extant on our records.
t See Chalmers's Annals, p. 122 .- It may be some illustration to the above to mention also, that prince Charles, before his father's death, in the year 1647 or 1648, granted a commission, with his father's privity and consent, who was then a prisoner, to lord Willoughby of Parham, to be governor of Barbadoes, who had previously contracted with the earl of Carlisle, the lord proprietary of the island, for the government thereof .- See Edwards's Hist. W. Indies, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.
# See note (LXXVIII.) at the end of this volume.
411
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
bons, esqr., a gentleman who had been of some note and consi- CHAP. deration for several years past in Boston in New England, was 1651. now, by commission bearing date, January 20th, 1650, (1651, New Eng- N. S.) appointed to be one of the council of Maryland, and a of the
land, to be justice and commissioner for conservation of the peace, and "to council. be our admiral of our said province of Maryland, under us and our lieutenant," &c. The commission, as recorded, is directed to "Edward Gibbons, esqr., major general of New England ;"* which seems to identify him as being the same gentleman, whose name occurs on frequent important occasions in the history of Massachusetts. He is there represented as being "a gay young gentleman," who, together with some others, "of some emi- nence, with thirty servants," under the command of a certain captain Wollaston, emigrated to Massachusetts, in the year 1625. They settled at or near to the place now called Braintree, and, not being Puritans, but supposed to be of the Church of Eng- Jand, were in the habit of occasionally amusing themselves with old English sports, such as dancing round a may-pole on a May morning.t Wollaston, and the greater part of his men, were consequently soon driven out of New England, and they came to Virginia, a place more congenial to such "ungodly habits." Mr. Gibbons, however, remained behind, conscious, perhaps, that he was formed of more pliant stuff. Happening to be pre- sent at the formation of the church at Salem, in 1629, when Higginson and Shelton were ordained ministers thereof, he is said to have been so affected with the solemnity of the proceed- ing, that he suddenly received the grace of God, was converted to a Puritan, and requested to be admitted as a member of the church. He afterwards joined the church in Boston, and, from the number of important trusts which he subsequently bore in Massachusetts, he must have become, externally at least, a zea- lous Puritan. At the first formation of the confederation of the united colonies of New England, in 1643, he was appointed one of the commissioners, on the part of Massachusetts, to sit in that congress.# When the commissioners of the united colonies, sitting in August, 1645, had resolved to make war upon tne Nar- raganset Indians, they appointed major Gibbons commander in
* The commission is recorded in " Council Proceedings from 1636 to 1657," p. 237.
t Hutchinson's Hist. of Massachusetts, vol. 1, p 15, 150.
# It appears, that he was also at that time one of the deputies or members of
the general court or assembly of Massachusetts. Hutchin's, Hist. vol. 1, p. 120.
412
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
CHAP. V. chief "of all such forces as should be sent forth of the several
1651. colonies."* In the year 1650, (prior to his appointment in Ma- ryland,) he had been made also one of the assistants or council to the governor of Massachusetts. What induced lord Balti- more, or those who administered the government of Maryland, if it was not the act of his lordship, to place him at once in so conspicuous a situation in this province, we have no authority to determine or data to infer from. He had been deeply concerned with La Tour, in 1643, and for some years after in his (La Tour's) contest with D'Aulney, about their respective rights to the French province or government of Acadie. D'Aulney hav - ing succeeded in expelling La Tour from his settlement at St. John's, and capturing his goods and merchandize there to the amount, it is said, of £10,000 sterling, Gibbons lost the whole of his debt from La Tour, for the hire of ships, &c., to the amount of £2500. It is not impossible, that this might have induced him to turn his attention to the repairs of his fortune in some other part of the British colonies. It would seem, that with that design he made a friend of lord Baltimore. Having become indebted to him, most probably by loan, in the sum of £100 sterling, he settled in St. Mary's, and, as may be inferred from circumstances, died there about the last of the year 1655 or the first of 1656; where he left a widow, who, in satisfaction of the said debt, assigned to his lordship a wind mill belonging to her husband, (possibly the last remains of his shattered for- tunes,) v hich he had probably built there as an humble resource for a livelihood. Whether he renounced puritanism or not, we. have no authority to determine. But it seems, that he did not consider a Popish lord so greatly anti-christain, as to induce him to disdain the acceptance of favours at his hands. This no- tice of him has been here made, with a view to illustrate the proceedings of lord Baltimore, or his government in Maryland, in regard to the toleration, and indeed promotion, of men of re- ligious professions widely different from the Roman Catholic.
An assem- Our provincial documents afford us, at this period, but few bly called. events or transactions worthy of notice. There seems to have been at this time within the province, a solemn stillness, like
* See his commission and instructions, bearing date the 19th of the 6th month, 1645, among the "records of the united colonies."-Hazard's Collections, vol. 2, p. 33, 34.
tSee lord Baltimore's instructions of the 23d of October, 1656, hereafter in- serted.
O
i
0
1
0
413
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
that which sometimes in nature precedes an approaching storm. CHAP. V. A similar tempest was now impending over the heads of those, 1651. who administered the government of lord Baltimore within his province. Governor Stone, it seems, agreeably to annual usage, had called an assembly to meet at St. Mary's in March of this year; (1651, N. S.,) which accordingly met on the eleventh of March, (1650, old style, as stated in the record;) but from strong circumstances it is to be inferred, that the Puritans of Provi- dence, (or Ann Arundel,) refused or neglected to send any dele- gates or members to attend that assembly. It is probably ow- ing to this non-attendance of those members, that few laws were passed at this session. Three only, relative to officers' fees and county or provincial levies, appear to have been enacted; of these the first of them only seems to be of any importance .* No journal or account of the proceedings of this assembly appears on record .; This may possibly be imputed to the succeeding disturbances and contests in the province, during which little care seems to have been taken for the preservation of any re- cords of the passing events of the day.
There are strong grounds for supposing, that reports were The ordi- now prevalent in the province, and perhaps eagerly believed and nance of propagated by the little band of Puritans settled on the Severn, of 1650. that there would shortly be, as his lordship himself subsequent- ly expressed it,-"a dissolution or resignation in England of his patent and right to the province."} The ordinance, or act of parliament, before mentioned, of the 3d of October, 1650, for the prohibition of all trade or intercourse with Virginia and the West India islands, therein mentioned, for their " divers acts of rebellion," therein stated, was most probably one principal cause in originating these reports. There was a particular clause in that ordinance, (section 5th,) which seemed ominous to Mary- land as well as Virginia. It provided,-"That the council of
* Mr. Kilty, in his Landholder's Assistant, p. 84, has observed, that in the first one of these laws, entitled, "an act concerning the secretary's and clerk's fees," the first notice is to be found of a distinction between common and special war- rants, as referring to the location of lands ; in which it was directed, that these officers should be allowed for every extraordinary or special warrant double the fee of an ordinary or common warrant .- N. B. The act is stated erroneously in his book, as of 1750, when it was in 1650 : but this must have been an error of the press, or in copying.
t See Bacon's Collection of the Laws of Maryland, under the date of March, 1650.
# This appears from lord Baltimore's message or address, of August 20th, 1651, hereafter stated.
parliament
414
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
CHAP. V. state shall have power to send ships to any of the plantations 1651. aforesaid, and to grant commissions to such persons as they shall think fit, to enforce all such to obedience, as stand in opposi- tion to the parliament, and to grant pardons, and settle govern- ors in the said islands, plantations, and places, to preserve them in peace, until the parliament take further order."-When the council of state came to act under this ordinance, as they did in the succeeding year, (1651,) no question appears to have been entertained, whether power was not thereby given to them "to enforce" Maryland "to obedience ;" but only whether or not Maryland should be expressly comprehended in the instructions to the commissioners for the "reducement" of the colonies. Hence this ordinance has become the leading state paper in the history of the conduct of the parliament at this time towards the English colonies in America, and the foundation of those sub- sequent violent proceedings towards Maryland, as well as the other colonies therein expressly included .* To this ordinance, then, we may trace the origin of those "reports" which are said to have been now, (in the commencement of the present year, 1651,) circulating in Maryland, relative to a dissolution of the proprietary government thereof. Emboldened by these reports, those inhabitants of Maryland, who were disaffected to the pro-
*This ordinance, as a state paper, ought properly to be here inserted ; but as none of the ordinances during the usurpation in England appear in any of the editions of the English statutes at large, and Scobell's Collection thereof, pub- lished in 1658, is scarce, if at all, in America, the difficulty of obtaining a cor- rect copy compels the omission of it. The copy of this ordinance, as publish- ed in Hazard's Collections, vol. 1, p. 636, purporting to be taken from Hughes's Abridgment, edit. 1657, is very imperfect. . The preamble to it is there entirely omitted ; although it contains a more important principle than any statute or or- dinance ever made by an English parliament in relation to their colonies in America. The substance of this preamble, however, as well as the body of the act, is stated by Chalmers, in his Annals (p. 122,) thus :- "That in Virginia, and divers other places in America, there are colonies, which were planted at at the cost, and settled by the people and by the authority, of this nation, which are and ought to be subordinate to, and dependent upon, England; that they ever have been, and ought to be, subject to such laws and regulations as are, or shall be, made by the parliament ; that divers acts of rebellion have been com- mitted by many persons inhabiting Virginia, whereby they have most traitorous- ly usurped a power of government, and set up themselves in opposition to this commonwealth." Least, however, it might be said, that this Chalmers was a Scotchman, a tory, and a refugee, and his authority invalid, it may be added that the substance of the same preamble is stated, in nearly the same words, by Ro- bertson, in his Hist. of Virginia, and also in a document published in Hazard's Collections, (vol. 1, p. 559,) entitled,-"Province of Maine's Petition to the council of the state in England."
415
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
prietary government, particularly the Puritans settled on the Sev- CHAP. V. ern, conceiving that such "dissolution" of that government 1651. was fast approaching, refused to send delegates to meet in the The colo- general assembly to be held in March at St. Mary's, as before ny at Pro- vidence mentioned. It will be recollected, that governor Stone had, by refuses to his commission of the 30th of July of the preceding year, (1650,) gates to send dele- appointed Mr. Edward Lloyd to be "commander of Ann Arun- del county." Such commander was, agreeably to the usage of the province at that time, as had been before in respect to the isle of Kent, the returning officer of those burgesses who might be elected as delegates to meet in the provincial assembly. But Mr. Lloyd, as it appears, acting most probably in conformity to the wishes of those over whom he presided as commander, re- turned some message "to the general assembly then sitting at St. Mary's, which gave considerable displeasure to the government at St. Mary's, or at least to lord Baltimore in England, when he came to be informed of it; who expressed his resentment at the message somewhat warmly, in his subsequent letter to the assem- bly. What this message was, is not now to be exactly ascer- tained, no copy of it remaining on record. We are authorised, however, in collecting from what his lordship wrote upon the subject, that the purport of Mr. Lloyd's message was, that the inhabitants of Ann Arundel county, which they themselves call- ed Providence, had come to a resolution of not sending any bur- gesses or delegates to the general assembly at St. Mary's, not- withstanding the summons for that purpose. This stand was, without doubt, taken with a view to the expected dissolution of the proprietary government, as before mentioned, and was pro- bably meant by them as a prompt manifestion of their willing- ness and desire, that Maryland, as well as Barbadoes and Vir- ginia, should be "reduced" to the obedience of the common- wealth of England.
An account of this conduct of the Puritans on the Severn was His Jord- in due time transmitted to lord Baltimore in England ; who, in ship's mes- return, sent back his letter, or message, addressed to "William this sub- sage on Stone, esqr., his lieutenant of his said province of Maryland, Ject. and to his right trusty and well beloved the upper and lower houses of his general assembly there, and to all other his officers and inhabitants of his said province," bearing date "the twen- tieth day of August, one thousand six hundred fifty and one." In this letter, his lordship, after expressing his "wonder at a message which he understood was lately sent by one Mr. Lloyd,
the assem- bly.
416
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
CHAP. V. from some lately seated at Ann Arundel within his said province
1651. of Maryland, to his general assembly, held at St. Mary's in March last ; and his unwillingness to impute either to the sender or deliverer thereof so malign a sense of ingratitude and other ill-affections as it may seem to bear ; conceiving rather, that it proceeded from some apprehensions in them at that time, ground- ed upon some reports in those parts of a dissolution or resigna- tion here (in England) of his patent and right to that province ;" and, after affirming that "those rumours and reports were false," and referring them to Mr. Harrison, then in England, their for- mer pastor,* for proof of their falsehood, and observing, that "in consideration of a better complyance from those people with his government there for the future, he should not any further expostulate or make any further reflection on that message, till further occasion given him by them, and if such admonition did not prevail, then that he would make use of his authority, with the assistance of well-affected persons, to compel such factious and turbulent spirits to a better complyance with the lawful go- vernment there ;" he, accordingly, "wills and requires his lieu- tenant to proceed with all such as shall be for the future refrac- tory in that kind ; and in case any of the English inhabitants of that province should at any time hereafter refuse or neglect to send burgesses to our general assembly there, being lawfully summoned for that purpose, he wills and requires all the other members of the said assembly, which shall lawfully meet upon such summons, to proceed, as they ought and may lawfully do, in all business belonging to a general assembly there, notwith- standing any such refusal or neglect as aforesaid, and to fine all such refusers or neglectors according to their demerits ;} and
* See ante, p. 370 .- Mr. Harrison went from Virginia to Boston in New Eng- Jand. After residing a year or two there, he went to England. Having taken the degree of doctor of divinity in England, he settled at last in Ireland ; but, was most probably at the time of his lordship's letter, then in England. See Hutchinson's Hist. of Massach. vol. i. p. 147. - Holmes's Annals, vol. i. p. 347. t It seems to be unquestionable, that even at the time of, as well as since, his lordship's letter, as above, by force of the statute of 5 Rich. II. (stat. 2,) ch. 4, members of the house of commons, after election and return thereof, were finable by the house for their absence ; and this, from the expression in the statute,- "according as of old times hath been used to be done within the said realm in the said case,"-was a principle or rule of the common law. But, where no elec- tion had been held, and consequently no member elected, as appears to have been the case of the inhabitants of Ann Arundel, the "refusers or neglectors," alluded to above, must have been either the commander of the county or the sheriff of such county, to whomsoever of them the writ of election had been sent, in not holding an election. If the statute of 23 Hen. 6, ch. 15, was in force here, (as
417
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
moreover, in case of their persisting in such refusal or neglect, CHAP. V. after admonition thereof by the lieutenant, then that they be de- 1651.
clared enemies to the public peace of the province, and rebels to the lawful government thereof, and be proceeded against accord- ingly."
Some other occurrences of this year within the province are Sir Wil- also to be gleaned from his lordship's message just mentioned. Berkeley's
fix a settle-
liam The reports complained of and alluded to therein by his lordship, attempt to had, it seems, prevailed in Virginia as well as in Maryland. It ment on must be imputed to the prevalence of these reports, that Sir Palmer's William Berkeley so far entrenched upon the rights of lord Bal- island. timore as to grant a commission, (probably about the commence- ment of the present year, 1651,) to one Edmond Scarborough, of Accomack in Virginia, to fix a settlement of inhabitants from that colony on Palmer's island, a small island situated at the mouth of the Susquehanah river, unquestionably within his lordship's province. The purport of which settlement appears to have been, to establish a trade with the Indians in those parts; which trade must have been principally with the Susquehanocks, who then occupied the country contiguous to the mouth of that river ;* and consequently a trade carried on in and through lord Baltimore's province, without any lawful authority derived from him ; as he himself states, "a strange usurpation upon his rights!" It does appear extraordinary at this day, how so loyal a governor as Sir William Berkeley was, still holding out against the usurp- ed powers of the mother country, could thus commit so hostile an act towards lord Baltimore. He must have considered his lordship, as having already lost all right to and jurisdiction over
it probably was,) such commander or sheriff, as the case might be, would seem to have incurred the penalty prescribed in the second section of that statute, on such their refusal or neglect to hold an election and to make a return thereof.
* Although the Susquehanocks appear to have been the most warlike and for- midable tribe of Indians within the bounds of Maryland, at the time of its first settlement, yet they must now have considerably decreased in numbers, for, in an anonymous pamphlet written in the year 1648, (an extract from which is published in Smith's Hist. of New Jersey, p. 31, and in Proud's Hist. of Penn- sylvania, vol. i. p. 3,) it is stated, that "of the Susquehanocks there were not then left more than one hundred and ten ;" which number, if it included women and children, could not comprehend more than fifty warriors. But the advanta- geous situation of Palmer's island for a trade with the Indians at that time, by means of the navigation of the Susquehanah, easy to the natives with their light canoes, must have enabled such traders to extend their traffic, not only with all the various tribes then inhabiting Pennsylvania and the upper parts of what is now the state of Delaware, but also as far north as with the Iroquois or Five Nations bordering on lake Ontario and the Niagara.
VOL. II .- 53
418
HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
CHAP. v. his province, and that it was fair to permit his Virginians to par-
1651. ticipate in this lucrative trade with the Indians. It is probable also, that the old claim of Clayborne to Palmer's island and the right of the Virginians to a free trade " for beavers and other com- modities" with the numerous nations of Indians, which the situa- tion of that island admitted and favoured, as may be remember- ed to have been herein before stated in Clayborne's petition to the late king, in 1638,* now suggested to Sir William, that, if lord Baltimore's rights should be done away, the Virginians might lawfully avail themselves of this advantageous site for In- dian traffic. He might possibly also have considered lord Bal- timore, in his patronage of the Puritans and reception of them into his province, after they had been driven from Virginia, as decidedly taking part against the loyalists of Virginia, and there- fore as not meriting any favour from them, although the Puritans should cast him away from them, as they subsequently did. His lordship, however, after expressing in his letter, his surprise at Sir William's conduct in this respect, authorises and requires his lieutenant, governor Stone, and calls upon his council, the as- sembly, his officers, and all the inhabitants of the province, to aid and assist therein, that, in case the said Scarborough or any other should presume, upon pretence of any such commission, to settle or trade within his province, without a lawful authority de- rived from him, to use his best endeavours to hinder them from so doing; to seize upon their persons, boats, and goods, and to proceed against them according to the laws of the province, or in default thereof according to his best discretion, in vindi- cation of his wrongs and in preservation of his rights.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.