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XL

earned a title to favor and influence by his brilliant de- CHAPTER fense of the people of England against the execrations heaped upon them for the execution of Charles I.

The English colonies in the West Indies, as well as Virginia and Maryland, adhered to Charles II.

Pro

1650.

voked at this obstinacy, the victorious Parliament ordained "that in Virginia, and in diverse other places in Oct. 3. America, there are colonies which were planted 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 Parliament; that diverse acts of rebellion have been committed by many persons inhabiting Virginia, whereby they have most traitorously usurped a power of government, and set up themselves in opposition to this commonwealth." The Council of State was therefore authorized "to send ships to any of the plantations aforesaid, and to grant commissions to such persons as they shall think fit, to enforce all such to obedience as stand in opposition to the Parliament, and to grant pardons and settle governors in the said islands, plantations, and places, to preserve them in peace until the Parliament take further order." All trade with the rebellious colonies was prohibited, and the capture of all vessels so employed was authorized. A similar prohibition was enacted in Massachusetts, whence a profitable trade to Virginia and the West Indies was already carried on; but the Massachusetts General Court put in a special protest against the extension to them of the Parliamentary claim of unlimited jurisdiction.

Sir George Ayscue was presently dispatched by the 1651. Council of State with a fleet against Barbadoes; but he May. encountered there an unexpected resistance. That isl

CHAPTER and had a large population, and Lord Willoughby, the XI. governor, was able to array against the parliamentary

1651. forces an army of not less than five thousand men.

Sept.

Meanwhile, a separate expedition was fitted out against Virginia, under the direction of five commissioners, among them Richard Bennet, one of the Puritan emigrants to Maryland, and William Clayborne, the old enemy of Maryland, now treasurer of Virginia. The three others, Dennis, Stagge, and Curtis, were military officers. Dennis and Stagge suffered shipwreck on their passage, and only Curtis acted. The ships for this expedition, furnished by English merchants in the Virginia trade, had on board a regiment of seven hundred and fifty men, besides a hundred and fifty Scotch prisoners taken in the battle of Worcester, and sent to Virginia to be sold as servants.

These forces proceeded by way of the West Indies, where they joined Ayscue, and assisted him to land at Barbadoes. Thus re-enforced, he took the principal fort, and the Barbadians capitulated; not, however, without a full and express concession in the articles of surrender of their sole right to tax themselves. To this inconsiderable island the honor thus belongs of having first vindicated in arms that right of self-taxation, the denial of which afterward occasioned the American Revolution.

After some delay in sailing from the West Indies, the 1652. vessels of the Virginia expedition at length reached the March. Chesapeake. There were several Dutch ships lying in James River, liable, under the late parliamentary ordinance, to seizure and confiscation, whose crews agreed to assist in the defense. A negotiation, however, ensued, and terms of capitulation were soon arranged. Two sets of articles were signed, one with the Assembly, the other with Berkeley and his council, who were to be allowed a

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XI.

year to settle up their affairs, without being required to CHAPTER take any new oaths, being guaranteed, also, the right within that time to sell their property and to go where 1652. they pleased. The other set of articles assured the colony against any claim of conquest, or any charge for the expense of the present expedition. It conceded government by an assembly; indemnity for the past; security of land grants; the existing privilege of fifty acres of land to every new comer; the same freedom of trade as was enjoyed in England; the non-imposition, as in Barbadoes, of any taxes or customs, except by the Assembly ; the use, for one year, of the Book of Common Prayer, the suppression of which was one of the things specially enjoined on the commissioners; and a year's liberty of sale and removal for all colonists who did not choose to take "the engagement," that is, to subscribe a promise, now exacted throughout the British dominions, "to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established, without king or House of Lords." The safety of the Dutch allies was also provided for.

The capitulation being signed, Berkeley's commission and instructions were declared void; and, a new assembly being called, Bennet was elected governor, and Clay- April 30. borne secretary. Samuel Mathews was sent as agent to England.

Maryland was not mentioned by name either in the parliamentary ordinance, or the commission for subduing Virginia. But that commission authorized the reduction of all plantations within Chesapeake Bay. Clayborne, one of the commissioners, had no good will toward Lord Baltimore. Even before the final settlement of affairs in Virginia, Stone and his council had been called upon to March. take the engagement," to which they did not object; but when required to enact all laws and to issue all or

CHAPTER ders in the name of the "keepers of the liberty of En

XI. gland," they demurred on the ground that the king's

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1652. name had never been so used in the province, and that it was not to be supposed that the new government claimed, to the detriment of Lord Baltimore's rights, any greater authority than had hitherto been exercised by the king. For this resistance to their orders the comMarch 29. missioners deposed Stone, and appointed a new council, of which Brooke, the commander of Charles county, was made president; but, upon Stone's submission, and at June 28. the request of the inhabitants, he was presently reinstated as governor.

Already, before the subjection of Virginia, on the point of a rupture with the Dutch, and jealous of the extensive carrying trade which that republic had acquired during the civil war, as well as of the shelter afforded to the banished Loyalists, the Parliament had 1651. passed an ordinance which prohibited the transport into Oct. 9. England of any merchandise from Asia, Africa, or America, except in English-built vessels, owned in England or the English colonies, and navigated by an English commander and crew. The same policy had 1647. prompted a previous ordinance, authorizing shipments Jan. 23. from England to Virginia, Bermuda, and Barbadoes, duty free, provided the said plantations would allow no shipment of their produce except to England. These embryos of the subsequent navigation laws still, however, allowed a direct trade between Europe and the English colonies; and, after the peace with the Dutch, the vessels of that nation seem to have regained, notwithstanding the ordinance above recited, a considerable share in the carrying trade even between Virginia and 1652. England. Another parliamentary ordinance, adopting the policy of the royal proclamations formerly issued by

XI.

James and Charles, prohibited the cultivation of tobacco CHAPTER in England.

Feb.

In consequence of instructions which Stone had re- 1654. ceived from Lord Baltimore, he presently declined to conform any longer to the conditions imposed upon him by the parliamentary commissioners, and proceeded to act, as formerly, in the name of the proprietary only. What was very disagreeable to the Puritan settlers, he demanded that oath of fidelity to the proprietor, the imposition of which by the Assembly has been heretofore mentioned. He took care, indeed, to proclaim the ac- May 6. cession of Cromwell as Lord Protector; but, by orders from Lord Baltimore, he dismissed Brooke from the July 3. council, revoking, also, the erection of Charles county, lately established on his special account. At the same time, he appointed both sides of the Patuxent to be a new county, by the name of Calvert. These proceedings brought Bennet and Clayborne again to Maryland, and, by the aid of the Puritans of Ann Arundel county, and the threat of a force from Virginia, they compelled Stone again to resign. Having commissioned William Fuller as governor, with Durand, the Puritan immigrant from Virginia, as secretary, they appointed a new council, and ordered a new Assembly to be called. Copying July 22. the provisions of the instrument of government under which Cromwell had lately assumed authority as Lord Protector, no person was to be allowed to sit in this Assembly, nor to vote for members of it, who had been in arms against the Parliament, or who professed the Catholic religion. One of the first doings of this Assembly was to modify the act of toleration, so as to exclude Oct. 20. "papists and prelatists" from its benefit-thus requiting the indulgence of Lord Baltimore by disfranchising the original settlers. Acts were also passed nullifying

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