XI. Patuxent for defense against the Susquehannas. Cal- CHAPTER vert, having occasion to go to England—perhaps to consult the proprietary as to the policy to be adopted, now 1643. that civil war was begun-left the administration in the April. hands of Giles Bent, commandant of the Isle of Kent. During Bent's term of office some trouble was occasioned by one Captain Ingle, a ship-master, who was arrested for high treason, but escaped. Shortly after Calvert's return a rebellion broke out, headed by this same Ingle, 1644. in consequence of which Calvert retired to Virginia. Sept. An application, made a year or two previous by Clayborne for reimbursement for his confiscated property, having been rejected by the Assembly, he took advantage of the present disturbed state of affairs to repossess himself by force of the Isle of Kent. Ingle claimed, perhaps, to act under some parliamentary authority; but great obscurity involves all these transactions, as well as some other parts of the early history of Maryland, for, upon the re-establishment of the proprietary government two years after, Clayborne and Ingle destroyed or carried off a large part of the records. Governor Calvert returned from Virginia with a body of armed men, and his authority was presently re-established, though not with- 1646. out bloodshed. Hill, who had been appointed governor by the council, retired on condition of receiving the fees Idue him while he held office. An Assembly was called by Calvert, and martial law and an embargo were proclaimed. For want of other funds, but much to Lord Baltimore's dissatisfaction, Calvert's soldiers were paid by transferring to them a stock of cattle belonging to his 1647. lordship's private estate. The Isle of Kent was also January. duced to subjection. Calvert died soon after, having April. re first, however, under a power of attorney to that effect, nominated as successor Thomas Greene, who presently CHAPTER called a new Assembly, and proclaimed a general amXI. nesty. Some claim, however, to the government, was 1648. set up by Hill, who complained that the promised compensation had not been paid. Having retired to Virginia, Hill had interested Governor Berkeley in his behalf. During the progress of the civil war in England, Lord Baltimore seems to have acted a quiet, cautious, and prudent part. The Parliament having completely triAug. umphed, he deemed it expedient to displace Greene, who was a Catholic, and to appoint as governor William Stone, an inhabitant of Virginia, a zealous Protestant and Parliamentarian. The motive for this appointment, as set forth in Stone's commission, was an undertaking on his part to introduce into the colony five hundred settlers of English or Irish descent. John Price, also a Protestant, was commissioned as "muster-master general," not only for his "knowledge and great abilities in martial affairs," but for "his great fidelity to his lordship on occasion of the late rebellion." A Protestant secretary was likewise appointed, and a majority of the council, in which, however, Greene, the late governor, retained his seat, appear also to have been Protestants. Yet the interests of the Catholic settlers were not overlooked. Stone's instructions required him to take an oath not to molest or discountenance, on religious grounds, any person in the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, and, in particular, no Roman Catholic; nor to make any difference, on that score, in appointments to office or otherwise. The governor was also specially restricted from consenting to the repeal of any laws made or to be made, relating to matters of religion, judicature, or the prerogatives of the proprietary, without special warrant for that purpose. New conditions of plantation required, XI. as preliminary to grants of land, an oath of fidelity to CHAPTER the proprietary. Sixteen acts, engrossed on parchment, were also for- 1649. warded to Maryland, for which the governor was to ob- April. tain the assent of the Assembly. That body, which seems to have been now, for the first time, divided into an upper and a lower house, exhibited a disposition to conform to the wishes of the proprietary by enacting several laws, derived in substance, if not in very words, from Lord Baltimore's drafts. Among these was "an act of toleration," which did, indeed, but carry out a policy coeval with the settlement of the colony, and lately confirmed by the oath imposed upon the governor. The four first sections of this celebrated act exhibit, however, but little of a tolerant spirit. Death, with forfeiture of land and goods, is denounced against all "who shall blaspheme God, that is, curse him, or shall deny our Savior Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said three persons of the Trinity, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachful speeches against the Holy Trinity." Strange as it may seem, this penalty of death, by subsequent re-enactments, remains in force in Maryland to this very day! Fine, whipping, and banishment for the third offense, are denounced against all who "shall utter any reproachful words or speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, or the holy apostles or evangelists." Fine, and, in defect of goods, whipping, and a public apology, are to be the punishment for calling any person within the colony, in a reproachful manner, "heretic, schismatic, idolater, Puritan, Presbyterian, Independent, popish priest, Jesuit, Jesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Roundhead, CHAPTER Separatist, or other name or term, in a reproachful manXI. ner, relating to matters of religion." Similar penalties 1649. are imposed for profaning "the Sabbath or Lord's day, called Sunday," by "any uncivil or disorderly recreation," or by work. After this incongruous preamble, the fifth section sets out that the enforcing the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced," and therefore enacts that, "for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and unity," no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be molested or discountenanced on account of his religion, nor interrupted in the free exercise of it; breaches of this section to be punished by fine and imprisonment. Policy, it is evident, had a much greater share in the enactment of this act than any enlightened view of the rights of opinion, of which, indeed, it evinces but a very limited and confused idea. Now that the Puritans were triumphant in England, an exclusively Catholic colony would not have been tolerated for a moment. The sole chance of securing to the Catholics the quiet enjoyment of their faith consisted in bestowing a like liberty on the Protestants a policy, indeed, upon which Baltimore had found it necessary to act from the very first planting of the colony.. Another act of this Assembly recognized in the proprietary the sole right of acquiring lands from the Indiansa principle adopted afterward in all the other colonies, and incorporated into the existing policy of the United States. Kidnapping the Indians to sell them as slaves was made felony, and other precautions were adopted against Indian hostility similar to those in use in Virginia. Provisions were made for communicating alarms; XI. every family was to be provided with guns and ammu- CHAPTER nition, and none were to go beyond their plantations, not even to church, unless well armed. A very harsh, but, 1649. as it proved, ineffectual act, visited with death, mutilation, branding, whipping, fine and banishment, according to the aggravation of the offense, all mutinous and seditious speeches, practices, or attempts, with or without force, against the person or title of the proprietary. Following some precedents of former assemblies, an impost was levied upon all tobacco exported in Dutch vessels, the produce of it being appropriated partly to pay the expenses of the late insurrection, and partly as a subsidy to the proprietary. An assessment was also im posed on the inhabitants for replacing Lord Baltimore's stock of cattle, of the appropriation of which to the pay of Calvert's soldiers he had very loudly complained. This Assembly had shown a great disposition to gratify all the proprietary's wishes; but in a letter addressed to him at the close of the session, they "humbly request his lordship to send no more such bodies of laws, which serve to little other end than to fill our hearts with suspicions, jealousies, and dislikes." They suggested rather to send "some short heads of what is desired," with assurance of "a most forward willingness" on their part to give "all just and reasonable satisfaction." "A perfect Description of Virginia," a tract published in London this year, serves to give clear ideas of the condition of that colony. The following statements collected from it may be advantageously compared with the extracts from the "Wonder-working Providence" at the end of the preceding chapter. The country is described as diversified with "small ascents and descents, valleys, hills, meadows, and some level upland," "woody all over" except where clearings had been made, the great labor |