QUAKERS IMPERFECTLY TOLERATED.

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tolerant sceptre of the Roman Catholic. Bohemia CHAP. itself, the country of Jerome and of Huss, sent forth its sons, who at once were made citizens of Maryland with equal franchises. The empire of justice and humanity, according to the light of those days, had been complete but for the sufferings of the people called Quakers. Yet they were not persecuted for their religious worship, which was held publicly and without interruption.3 "The truth was received with reverence and gladness;" and with secret satisfaction George Fox relates that members of the legislature and the council, persons of quality, and justices of the peace, were present at a large and very heavenly meeting. The Indian emperor, after a great debate with his council, came also, followed by his kings, with their subordinate chieftains, and, reclining on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, they listened to the evening discourse of the benevolent wanderer. At a later day, the heir of the province attended a Quaker assembly. But the refusal of the Quakers to perform military duty subjected them to fines and harsh imprisonment; the refusal to take an oath sometimes involved them in a forfeiture of property; nor was it before 1688, six years after the arrival of William Penn in America, that indulgence was fully conceded.

Meantime the virtues of benevolence and gratitude ripened together. Charles, the eldest son of the 1662. proprietary, came to reside in the province which was to be his patrimony. He visited the banks of the Delaware, and struggled to extend the limits of his

1 Bacon, 1666, c. vii.

2 Besse, ii. 381-388. Very exact. McMahon, 227, less full than the Quaker historian.

3 George Fox's Journal, 448, &c.

4 Albany Records, xvii. 286. "Young Baltimore has in contemplation to make a visit on the river." xvii. 297.

238

DEATH OF CECILIUS LORD BALTIMORE.

CHAP. jurisdiction.' As in Massachusetts, money was coined XIV. at a provincial mint, and, at a later day, the value of 1686. foreign coins was arbitrarily advanced. A duty was levied on the tonnage of every vessel that entered 1662. the waters.3 It was resolved to purchase a state1674. house, which was subsequently built at a cost of forty thousand pounds of tobacco-about a thousand dollars. 1666. The Indian nations were pacified; and their rights, subordination, and commerce, defined and established. But the mildest and most amiable feature of legislation 1662. is found in the acts of compromise between Lord 1674. Baltimore and the representatives of the people, in

1671.

which the power of the former to raise taxes was accurately defined, and the mode of paying quit-rents established on terms favorable to the colony; while, on the other hand, a custom of two shillings a hogshead was levied on all exported tobacco, of which a moiety was appropriated to the defence of the government; the residue became conditionally the revenue of the proprietary. The compromise, though called "an act of gratitude," was favorable to the colonists. The people held it a duty themselves to bear the charges of government, and they readily acknowledged the unwearied care of the proprietary for the welfare of his dominions.

Thus was the declining life of Cecilius Lord Baltimore, the father of Maryland, the tolerant legislator, the benevolent prince, blessed with the success which philanthropy deserves. The colony which he had planted in youth, crowned his old age with its grati

1 Compare Albany Records, xvii. 315, 245; xviii. 337-365. More on this subject hereafter. Heerman's Journal sheds a clear light on the controversy with Penn.

2 Bacon, 1661, c. iv.; 1662, c. viii.; 1686, c. iv.

3 Ibid. 1661, c. vii.

4 Ibid. 1662, c. xix.; 1671, c. xL; 1674, c. i.

DEATH OF CECILIUS LORD BALTIMORE.

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tude. Who among his peers could vie with him in CHAP. honors? A firm supporter of prerogative, a friend to the Stuarts, he was touched with the sentiment of humanity; an earnest disciple of the Roman church, of which he venerated the expositions of truth as infallible, he, first among legislators, established an equality among sects. Free from religious bigotry, a lover of concord and of tranquillity, he could not rise above the political prejudices of his party. He knew not the worth or the fruits of popular power; he had not perceived the character of the institutions which were forming in the New World, and his benevolent designs were the results of his own moderation, the fruit of his personal character, without regard to the spirit of his age. In Rhode Island, intellectual freedom was a principle which Roger Williams had elicited from the sympathies of the people; in Maryland, it was the happy thought of the sovereign, who did not know that ideas find no secure shelter but in the breast of the multitude. The people are less easily shaken than the prince. Rhode Island never lost the treasure of which it had become conscious. The principle of freedom of mind did not exist in the people of Maryland, and, therefore, like the benevolence of individuals, was an uncertain possession, till the same process of thought, which had redeemed the little colony of the north, slowly, but surely, infused itself into the public mind on the Chesapeake. Lord Baltimore failed to obtain that highest fame, which springs from successful influence on the masses; his personal merits are free from stain. The commercial metropolis of Maryland commemorates his name; the memory of his wise philanthropy survives in American 1675. history. He died after a supremacy of more than 30.

Nov.

240

MARYLAND FAVORED BACON'S REBELLION.

CHAP. forty-three years, leaving a reputation for temperate XIV. wisdom, which the dissensions in his colony and the

1676.

various revolutions of England could not tarnish. He did not leave the impress of his mind on the political character of Maryland, and, therefore, failed of obtaining the brightest glory of a legislator. Of the elements of which he was primarily the author, nothing endured but the rights of property reserved for his family.

The death of Cecilius recalled to England the heir of the province, who had now administered its government for fourteen years with a moderation which had been rewarded by the increasing prosperity of his patrimony. Previous to his departure, the whole code of laws received a thorough revision; the memorable act of toleration was confirmed. Virginia had, six 1670. years before, prohibited the importation of felons until the king or privy council should reverse the order. In Maryland, "the importation of convicted persons was absolutely prohibited without regard to the will of the king or the English parliament, and in 1692 the prohibition was renewed.' The established revenues of the proprietary were continued.

April

20.

As Lord Baltimore sailed for England, the seeds of discontent were already germinating. The office of proprietary, a feudal principality, with extensive manors in every county, was an anomaly; the sole hereditary legislator in the province, his power was not in harmony with the political predilections of the colonists, or the habits of the New World. The doctrine of the paramount authority of an hereditary sovereign was at war with the spirit which emigration fostered, and the principles of civil equality naturally

1 Hening, ii. 509, 510. Bacon, 1676, c. xvi.

THE PARTY OF BACONISTS IN MARYLAND.

241

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June

grew up in all the British settlements. The insurrec- CHAP. tion of Bacon found friends north of the Potomac, and a rising was checked only by the prompt energy of the government.' But the vague and undefined cravings after change, the tendency toward more popular forms of administration, could not be repressed. The assembly which was convened during the absence of 1678. the proprietary shared in this spirit; and the right of suffrage was established on a corresponding basis. The party of "Baconists" had obtained great influence on the public mind. Differences between the proprietary and the people became apparent. On his return to the province, he himself, by proclamation, 1681. annulled the rule which the representatives of Mary- 27. land had established respecting the elective franchise, and, by an arbitrary ordinance, limited the right of Sept. suffrage to freemen possessing a freehold of fifty acres, or having a visible personal estate of forty pounds. No difference was made with respect to color. In Virginia, the negro, the mulatto, and the Indian, were first disfranchised in 1723; in Maryland, they retained by law the right of suffrage till the time when the poor- 1802. est white man recovered his equal franchise. These restrictions, which, for one hundred and twenty-one years, successfully resisted the principle of universal suffrage among freemen of the Caucasian race, were introduced in the midst of scenes of civil commotion. Fendall, the old republican, was again planning schemes of insurrection, and even of independence. The state was not only troubled with poverty, but

3

2 Bacon, 1678, c. iii. McMahon, 445.

3 Documents, in Chalmers, 376. The letter is from Lord Baltimore, -of course, an ex parte statement.

6.