Catholic priests the necessity of obtaining his consent before they could acquire real estate in his province in any wise, even by gift.

In the mixed population of Maryland, where the administration was in the hands of Catholics, and the very great majority of the people were Protestants, there was no unity of sentiment out of which a domestic constitution could have harmoniously risen. At a time when the commotions in England left every colony in America almost unheeded, and Virginia and New England were pursuing a course of nearly independent legislation, the power of the proprietary was almost as feeble as that of the king. The other colonies took advantage of the period to secure and advance their liberties; in Maryland the effect was rather to encourage insubordination; the government vibrated with every change in the political condition of England.

In this state of uncertainty, Leonard Calvert, the proprietary's deputy, repaired to England to take counsel with his brother. During his absence, and toward the end of the year 1643, a London ship, commissioned by parliament, anchored in the harbor of St. Mary's; and Brent, the acting governor, under a general authority from the king at Oxford, but with an indiscretion which was in contrast with the caution of the proprietary, seized the ship, and tendered to its crew an oath against the parliament. Richard Ingle, the commander, having escaped, in January, 1644, was summoned by proclamation to yield himself up, while witnesses were sought after to convict him of treason. The new commission to Governor Calvert plainly conceded to the representatives of the province the right of originating laws. It no longer required an oath of allegiance to the king, but it exacted from every grantee of land an oath of fidelity to the proprietary. This last measure proved a new entanglement.

In September, Calvert returned to St. Mary's to find the colony rent by factions, and Clayborne still restless in asserting his claim to Kent island. Escaping by way of Jamestown to London, Ingle had obtained there a letter of marque, and, without any other authority, reappearing in Maryland, he raised the standard of parliament against the established au

thorities, made away with the records and the great seal, and, by the aid of Protestants, compelled the governor and secretary, with a few of their devoted friends, to fly to Virginia. Father White and the other Jesuit missionaries were seized and shipped to England; an oath of submission was tendered to the inhabitants, but it was not subscribed by even one Catholic. After his lawless proceedings, which wrought for the colony nothing but confusion and waste of property and insurrectionary misrule, Ingle returned to England.

A fugitive in Virginia, Calvert, in 1645, asked aid of that province. Its governor and council "could send him no help," but they invited Clayborne "to surcease for the present all intermeddling with the government of the isle of Kent." Their offer to act as umpires was not accepted. Before the close of the year 1646, Calvert organized a force strong enough to make a descent upon St. Mary's, and recover the province. In April, 1647, he, in person, reduced Kent island, and established Robert Vaughan, a Protestant, as its commander. Tranquillity returned with his resumption of power, and was confirmed by his wise clemency. On the ninth of the following June he died, and his death foreboded for the colony new disasters, for, during the troublous times which followed, no one of his successors had his prudence or his ability. His immediate successor was Thomas Greene, a Roman Catholic.

Meantime, the committee of plantations at London, acting on a petition, which stated truly that the government of Maryland, since the first settlement of that province, had been in the hands of recusants, and that under a commission from Oxford it had seized upon a ship which derived its commission from parliament, reported both Lord Baltimore and his deputy unfit to be continued in their charges, and recommended that parliament should settle the government of the plantation in the hands of Protestants.

This petition was read in the house of lords in the last week of the year 1645; but neither then nor in the two following years were definite measures adopted by parliament, and the politic Lord Baltimore had ample time to prepare his own remedies. To appease the parliament, he removed Greene, and in August, 1648, appointed in his place William

Stone, a Protestant, of the church of England, formerly a sheriff in Virginia, who had promised to lead a large number of emigrants into Maryland. For his own security, he bound his Protestant lieutenant, or chief governor, by the most stringent oath to maintain his rights and dominion as absolute lord and proprietary of the province of Maryland; and the oath, which was devised in 1648, and not before, and is preserved in the archives of Maryland, went on in these words : “I do further swear I will not by myself, nor any other person, directly trouble, molest, or discountenance any person whatsoever in the said province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ; and, in particular, no Roman Catholic, for or in respect of his or her religion, nor his or her free exercise thereof within the said province, so as they be not unfaithful to his said lordship, or molest or conspire against the civil government established under him." To quiet and unite the colony, all offences of the late rebellion were effaced by a general amnesty; and, at the instance of the Catholic proprietary, the Protestant governor, Stone, and his council of six, composed equally of Catholics and Protestants, and the representatives of the people of Maryland, of whom five were Catholics, at a general session of the assembly, held in April, 1649, placed upon their statute-book an act for the religious freedom which, by the unbroken usage of fifteen years, had become sacred on their soil. "And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion," such was the sublime tenor of a part of the statute, "hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof." Thus did the star of religious freedom harbinger the day; though, as it first gleamed above the horizon, its light was colored and obscured by the mists and exhalations of morning. The Independents of England, in a paper which they called "the agreement of the people," expressed their desire to grant to all believers in Jesus Christ the free exercise of their religion;

but the Long Parliament rejected their prayer, and in May, 1648, passed an ordinance, not to be paralleled among Protestants for its atrocity, imposing death as the penalty for holding any one of eight enumerated heresies. Not conforming wholly to the precedent, the clause for liberty in Maryland, which extended only to Christians, was introduced by the proviso that "whatsoever person shall blaspheme God, or shall deny or reproach the Holy Trinity, or any of the three persons thereof, shall be punished with death."

The design of the law of Maryland was undoubtedly to protect freedom of conscience; and, some years after it had been confirmed, the apologist of Lord Baltimore could assert that his government, in conformity with his strict and repeated injunctions, had never given disturbance to any person in Maryland for matter of religion; that the colonists enjoyed freedom of conscience, not less than freedom of person and estate. The disfranchised friends of prelacy from Massachusetts, and the exiled Puritans from Virginia, were welcomed to equal liberty of conscience and political rights by the Roman Catholic proprietary of Maryland; and the usage of the province from its foundation was confirmed by its statutes. The attractive influence of this liberality for the province appeared immediately: a body of Puritans or Independents in Virginia, whom Sir William Berkeley had ordered to leave that province for their nonconformity, negotiated successfully with the proprietary for lands in Maryland; and, before the end of the year 1649, the greater part of the congregation planted themselves on the banks of the Severn. To their place of refuge, now known as Annapolis, they gave the name of Providence; there "they sat down joyfully, and cheerfully followed their vocations."

An equal union prevailed between all branches of the government in explaining and confirming the civil liberties of the colony. In 1642, Robert Vaughan, in the name of the rest of the burgesses, had desired that the house might be separated, and thus a negative secured to the representatives of the people. Before 1649, this change had taken place; and, in 1650, it was established by an enactment constituting a legislature in two branches. The dangerous prerogative of employing martial law

VOL. I.-13

was limited to the precincts of the camp and the garrison; and a perpetual act declared that no tax should be levied upon the freemen of the province, except by the vote of their deputies in a general assembly. Well might the freemen of Maryland place upon their records an acknowledgment of gratitude to their proprietary, "as a memorial to all posterities," and a pledge that succeeding generations would faithfully "remember" his care and industry in advancing "the peace and happiness of the colony."

The revolutions in England could not but affect the destinies of the colonies; and, while New England and Virginia vigorously advanced their liberties under a salutary neglect, Maryland was involved in the miseries of a disputed administration. Doubts were raised as to the authority to which obedience was due; and the government of benevolence, good order, and toleration, was, by the force of circumstances, abandoned for the misrule of bigotry and the anarchy of a disputed sovereignty. When the throne and the peerage had been subverted in England, it might be questioned whether the mimic monarchy of Lord Baltimore should be permitted to continue; and scrupulous Puritans hesitated to take an unqualified oath of fealty. Englishmen were no longer lieges of a sovereign, but members of a commonwealth; and, but for Baltimore, Maryland would equally enjoy republican liberty. Great as was the temptation to assert independence, it would not have prevailed, could the peace of the province have been maintained. But who, it might well be asked, was the sovereign of Maryland? "Beauty and extraordinary goodness" were her dowry; and she was claimed by four separate aspirants. Virginia, pushed on by Clayborne, was ready to revive its rights to jurisdiction beyond the Potomac; Charles II., incensed against Lord Baltimore for his adhesion to the rebels and his toleration of schismatics, had issued a commission as governor to Sir William Davenant; Stone was the active deputy of Lord Baltimore; and the Long Parliament prepared to intervene.

In the ordinance of 1650, for the reduction of the rebellious colonies, Maryland was not included. Charles II. had been inconsiderately proclaimed by Greene, while acting as governor during an absence of Stone in Virginia, and assurances had