XIV.

evidence of treason.' Is it strange that posterity was CHAP. for more than a hundred years defrauded of the truth? Every accurate account of the insurrection remained 1677. in manuscript till the present century.

It was on occasion of this rebellion, that English troops were first introduced into the English colonies in America. Their support was burdensome. After three years they were disbanded, and probably mingled with the people.3

With the returning squadron Sir William Berkeley sailed for England. Guns were fired, and bonfires kindled at his departure. Public opinion in England censured his conduct with equal severity; and Lord Berkeley used to say, that the unfavorable report of the commissioners in Virginia caused the death of his brother. It took place soon after Sir William's arrival in England, before he had had an opportunity of waiting on the king.

Oct.

10.

The results of Bacon's rebellion were disastrous for Virginia. The suppression of an insurrection furnished an excuse for refusing a liberal charter, and conceding nothing more than a patent, containing not 1676. one political franchise.5 Freedom in Virginia rested on royal favor, and was measured by the royal will, except so far as the common law protected the inhabitants in the rights of Englishmen. The form of government was further defined by royal instructions that had been addressed to Berkeley. Assemblies Nov were required to be called but once in two years, and to sit but fourteen days, unless for special reasons.

1 Hening, ii. 385, 386.
2 Compare Walsh's Appeal, 78.
3 Chalmers, 351, 352.

4 F. Morryson, in Burk, ii. 267.

VOL. II.

30

5 Burk, ii. App. xi. Hening, ii. 532. Beverley, 76.

6 Hening, ii. 424-426, where they are printed at large.

13.

234

HISTORY OF MARYLAND ON THE RESTORATION.

CHAP. "You shall take care," said the king, "that the

Feb.

XIV. members of assembly be elected only by freeholders." 1677. In conformity with these instructions, all the acts of Bacon's Assembly, except perhaps one which permitted the enslaving of Indians, and which was confirmed and renewed, were absolutely repealed,' and the former grievances immediately returned. The private levies, unequal and burdensome, were managed by men who combined to defraud; the public revenues were often misapplied; each church was again subjected to its self-perpetuating vestry; an enormous loss had been sustained by the insurrection; and the burden was more severely felt by the poorer classes, because the elective franchise was circumscribed, while taxes continued to be levied by the poll. The commissioners sent by the king to inquire into the condition of Virginia, allowed every district to present its afflictions. The happy county of Westmoreland, the county of which John Washington was a burgess and a magistrate, declared that it felt no grievances. In other counties there were long reports of tyranny and rapine. But if complaints were heard with impartiality—if the rash imprudence of Berkeley did not escape rebuke-every measure of effectual reform was considered void, and every aristocratic feature that had been introduced into legislation, was perpetuated.

3

While the restoration had thus been attended by scenes of carnage and civil war, the progress of Maryland, under the more generous proprietary government, was tranquil and rapid. Like Virginia, Maryland was a

1 Hening, ii. 380; ii. 346, 404.
2 Culpepper, in Chalmers, 355,
356.

3 Hening, ii. 250, 309, 330.

4 Chalmers, 338.

2

XIV.

colony of planters; its staple was tobacco, and its CHAP. prosperity was equally checked by the pressure of the navigation acts. Like Virginia, it possessed no considerable village; its inhabitants were scattered among the woods and along the rivers; each plantation was a little world within itself, and legislation vainly attempted the creation of towns by statute. Like Virginia, its laborers were in part indented servants, whose term of service was limited by persevering legislation; in part negro slaves, who were employed in the colony from an early period, and whose importation was favored both by English cupidity and by provincial statutes. As in Virginia, the appointing power to nearly every office in the counties as well as in the province, was not with the people; and the judiciary was placed beyond their control. As in Virginia, the party of the proprietary, which possessed the government, was animated by a jealous regard for prerogative, and by the royalist principles, which derive the sanction of authority from the will of Heaven. As in Virginia, the taxes levied by the county officers were not conceded by the direct vote of the people, and were, therefore, burdensome alike from their excessive amount and the manner of their levy. But though the administration of Maryland did not favor the increasing spirit of popular liberty, it was marked by conciliation and humanity. To foster industry, to promote union, to cherish religious peace, these were the honest purposes of Lord Baltimore during his long supremacy.

1 Bacon, 1661, c. x.; 1662, c. vi. 2 Ibid. 1671, c. ii.; confirmed 1672, c. ii. ; renewed Oct. 1692, c. lii. 3 Macculloch's Maryland, 155,

&c.

4 This is in part inference from the laws at large. Compare T. M.'s Account of Bacon's Rebellion, p. 21. An important passage.

236

XIV.

HAPPINESS AND CANDOR OF MARYLAND.

CHAP. At the restoration, the authority of Philip Calvert, whom the proprietary had commissioned as his deputy, was promptly and quietly recognized. Fendall, the former governor, who had obeyed the impulse of the popular will as paramount to the authority of Baltimore, was convicted of treason. His punishment was mild; a wise clemency veiled the incipient strife 1661. between the people and their sovereign, under a general amnesty. Peace was restored, but Maryland was not placed beyond the influence of the ideas which that age of revolution had set in motion; and the earliest opportunity would renew the strife.

Yet the happiness of the colony was enviable. The persecuted and the unhappy thronged to the domains of the benevolent prince. If Baltimore was, in one sense, a monarch-like Miltiades at Chersonesus, and other founders of colonies of old-his monarchy was tolerable to the exile who sought for freedom and repose. Numerous ships found employment in his harbors. The white laborer rose rapidly to the condition of a free proprietor; the female emigrant was sure to improve her condition, and the cheerful charities of home gathered round her in the New World. Affections expanded in the wilderness, where artificial amusements were unknown. The planter's whole heart was in his family; his pride in the children that bloomed around him, making the solitudes laugh with innocence and gayety.

Emigrants arrived from every clime; and the 1666. colonial legislature extended its sympathies to many nations, as well as to many sects. From France came Huguenots; from Germany, from Holland, from Sweden, from Finland, I believe from Piedmont, the children of misfortune sought protection under the

Bohemia CHAP.

tolerant sceptre of the Roman Catholic.
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.

XIV.

Meantime the virtues of benevolence and gratitude ripened together. 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,