SOCIAL CONDITIONS

55

to be in force till he should pass on them in England. The proprietor tried again in 1649 to introduce a system of law favorable to his predominance, and failed again. In 1650 Maryland was given a legislature with two houses, one composed of representatives and the other of the councillors and persons specially summoned by the governor. Baltimore learned in another way that the feudal ideas of the Stuarts could not be grafted on society in America. In pursuance of his grant he created manors consisting of one thousand

Manorial
System.

or more acres. The lord of the manor was authorized Short-Lived to hold manor courts, to which his tenants might come and vote under his direction. The tenants consisted of English laborers who might soon become farm owners. They felt the impulse to freedom which inhered in a society the natural basis of which was the ability to work. They took control of the lord's courts, held local popular meetings, and in a short time the Maryland manors disappeared.

The Jesuits themselves felt the force of democracy. They were much interested in the experiment and used the opportunity to acquire large tracts of land, some from the proprietor The Jesuits and some from the Indians, who trusted them. They Checked. began to talk of the supremacy of the church law over the proprietor and assembly. Lord Baltimore was a true Catholic, but he was not intolerant, and he realized that if the Jesuits obtained control, public opinion in England would demand the destruction of this cherished asylum for his fellow-believers. He sent an agent to Maryland to check the extreme Catholics there. The Jesuits resented this and talked of excommunication. The proprietor then took decisive action. In 1641 he issued new regulations to control the granting of land, and cne provision was that lands should not be granted in mortmain; that is, to religious societies. In the same sagacious spirit he sought to restrain religious disputation between the two religious groups, and in 1643 he went so far as to send notice to New England that all creeds would be protected in Maryland. All these efforts brought slight increase of population. Protestants preferred to settle in one of the Protestant colonies and Catholics were not going to America in large numbers. The most notable accession was the removal of more than one thousand Puritans from southern Virginia to escape Berkeley's strict regulations.

over Kent's

Virginia did not relish the loss of what she considered her territory north of the Potomac. In 1630 she sent one of her chief citizens, William Claiborne, to England to try to defeat Baltimore's plans. He did not succeed, and returned to Vir- Controversy ginia in a mood to make trouble. He lived at what is Island. now Hampton, Virginia, but was engaged in the fur trade on the northern shores of the Chesapeake, and had a trading station with a fort and a small garrison on Kent's Island, within Baltimore's

grant. Governor Leonard Calvert held that it ought to fall under Maryland jurisdiction, and the terms of the charter supported him. But Claiborne held that as it was settled under Virginia authority before the charter was issued it ought to remain under that jurisdiction. When, therefore, Calvert called on Claiborne to submit to Maryland, the latter refused and Virginia supported him. Rival fur traders stirred up feeling at St. Mary's, and August 5, 1635, they seized one of Claiborne's pinnaces. The Virginian was a high-spirited man and retaliated, blood being shed on both sides. Neither party cared to go further, and for nearly three years there was no more trouble, Claiborne continuing most of the time to trade in Maryland in defiance of Calvert. He was confident of his position, and in 1637 went to England on business. Governor Calvert then sent a force which surprised Kent's Island by night and forced its inhabitants to submit to his government. The following year Claiborne was attainted of treason by the Maryland assembly, and one of his followers was hanged for having committed manslaughter in one of the recent encounters. At the same time royal commissioners decided that the disputed island belonged to Lord Baltimore. Claiborne submitted unwillingly and bided his time. He had lost his island, but he found a means of annoying Maryland.

Maryland
Drawn into
Politics by
Virginians.

From 1630 to 1650 Englishmen were divided into a king's party and a parliamentary party. The old court party of the London Company, still intriguing for the restoration of their charter, favored the king, who in 1630 sent John Harvey to rule Virginia in the interest of the royal prerogative. The former supporters of Sandys and Southampton were still active and were very strong in Virginia, where Claiborne was one of their leaders. In 1635 they deposed the governor and sent him to England with charges of misconduct. Lord Baltimore was a supporter of the king and a friend of John Harvey. He used his influence with Charles and got the deposed governor restored; but in 1639 the king felt the need of the liberal party and replaced Harvey by Wyatt, whom he removed in 1641 to make room for Sir William Berkeley, a thorough royalist. The popular party in Virginia followed these movements closely and identified Baltimore with their enemies.. When, therefore, the king and parliament were at last at war, 1642, they thought the time had come to strike Baltimore in Maryland. Although they were not willing to oppose Charles in Virginia, they were willing to urge the Puritans of Maryland to strike at his friend, the proprietor of that province. Claiborne saw in it an opportunity to recover his property, and in 1645 landed on Kent's Island and tried to get the inhabitants to join him in an attack on the proprietary government. They would not follow him, not because there was no discontent in Maryland, but because they did not want to take up Claiborne's quarrel.

MARYLAND CONTROVERSIES

57

This discontent came to the surface in 1644 when Edward Hill, member of the popular Virginia party, appeared in Maryland to persuade the Puritans to return to their old homes south of the James. They did not heed him, but persuaded him to espouse their cause against the Catholics. They or- 1644. ganized a Protestant assembly, and elected Hill governor,

Maryland,

in the absence of Governor Calvert in England. But at this juncture Calvert returned, and finding his province in revolt got a body of soldiers from his brother royalist, Governor Berkeley, and made. prisoners of Hill and his assembly. Six months later Governor Calvert died. He tried to pass the governorship to a Catholic and royalist, but affairs in England were ordered otherwise.

Shrewd

Policy of

Baltimore.

In England the king's cause was now desperate, and astute Cecilius Calvert was looking for means of appeasing Parliament. The vacant governorship was just the opportunity; he gave it to William Stone, a Virginia liberal and a Protestant, and began to think of laws for religious liberty. Stone's first assembly passed the famous Toleration Act of 1649, protecting all who professed faith in Jesus Christ. It was honestly meant by the proprietor, but it was needed in order to protect the Catholics under a government thoroughly Protestant. Baltimore's reversal of policy created disgust among his old English friends, and Charles II in exile ordered that he surrender his government because he adhered to the Parliamentarians. This was an impotent thrust, and he used it as a good argument when his enemies tried to get Parliament to seize the province on the ground that it was a nest of Romanism.

Triumph of

the Protes

tants.

In 1651 Parliament, now completely under Cromwell, sent commissioners - one of them being the ubiquitous Claiborne- to reduce to obedience Virginia, Maryland, Barbados, Antigua, and Bermuda. The islands submitted at once, Virginia made no resistance, and in 1652 Maryland also submitted. Baltimore's property rights were maintained, but he lost the government, though Stone remained in office under the parliamentary government. He was friendly to the proprietor, and in 1654 tried to get him recognized as head of the government under Parliament. This aroused the resentment of the commissioners, and Claiborne appeared with a Virginia army, deposed Stone, appointed commissioners in his stead, and disfranchised the Catholics. A new assembly was strongly Puritan and toleration was cast to the winds. The deposed governor appealed to force, the Catholics and some Protestants fighting under him for the proprietor and liberty of conscience. He marched against the Puritans in 1655 and sustained a complete defeat at Providence. The Vir- Peace at ginians now felt that they might reunite Maryland to their own colony. They sent a petition to England urging that the proprietary government be abolished and that the two colonies be

Last, 1657.

made one. Baltimore's wise concessions to Puritans now bore fruit. He completely defeated his enemies; and the government forced a settlement which left him in control of Maryland according to his charter and placed the Act of Toleration beyond question. With this settlement ended Virginia's interference with Maryland affairs and her hopes of recovering that province. At this time Baltimore's colony contained 8000 inhabitants on both sides of the Chesapeake as far north as the mouth of the Susquehanna.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The best general authorities are: Channing, History of the United States, vol. I (1905); Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 3 vols. (1904–1907); Tyler, England in America (1904); Avery, History of the United States and Its People, 7 vols. (1905); Doyle, English Colonies in America, 5 vols. (1882-1907); Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, 2 vols. (1900); and Eggleston, The Beginners of a Nation (1897).

The leading original sources are: Records of the Virginia Company of London, 2 vols., Miss Kingsbury, ed. (1906); Hakluyt, Principall Navigations, 16 vols. (Edinburgh ed., 1885-1890); Narratives of Early Virginia, Tyler, ed. (1907), contains the best of Smith with portions of other writers; Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, vol. I (1860); Acts of Privy Council, 6 vols. (1908-1912); Brown, Genesis of the United States, 2 vols. (1891); Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia, 13 vols. (1823); Archives of Maryland, 29 vols. (1889); and Macdonald, Select Charters (1899).

On the settlement on Roanoke Island see: Ashe, History of North Carolina, vol. I (1908); Hawks, History of North Carolina, vol. I (1857); Strachey, Travaile into Virginia (Hakluyt Soc., 1848); and Edwards, Life of Raleigh (1868).

Contemporary works on early Virginia are: Captain Smith, True Relation (1608); Ibid., General History of Virginia (1624), both in Arber's edition of Smith's Works (1884); and minor writers in Narratives of Early Virginia (1907). The best histories of Virginia are those of Robert Beverley (1722), William Stith (1747), John D. Burke (1805), and Charles Campbell (1847). Other important works are: Brown, First Republic in America (1898); Ibid., English Politics in America (1901); Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System (1908), excellent for the British side of the colonial movement; Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (1910); Ibid., Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (1896); Ibid., Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (1907).

On Maryland see: Mereness, Maryland, as a Proprietary Province (1901); Bozman, History of Maryland, 2 vols. (1837); Browne, History of Maryland (1893); Neill' Founders of Maryland (1876); Ibid., Terra Mariae (1867); Latané, Early Relations of Virginia and Maryland (Johns Hopkins Studies, XIII, 1895); Steiner, The Beginnings of Maryland (Ibid., XXI, 1903); and Narratives of Early Maryland, Hall, ed. (1910), contains Alsop's Character of Maryland, Hammond, Leah and Rachael, and other early tracts. An important source is the Fund Publications of the Maryland Historical Society, No. 34 of which contains The Calvert Papers.

For Independent Reading

Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, 2 vols. (1900); Eggleston, The Beginners of a Nation (1897); Browne, George and Cecilius Calvert (1893); Bruce, Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (1907); and Ashton, Editor, Adventures and Discourses of Captain John Smith (1883), taken from Smith's own writings.

CHAPTER IV

THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND

THE PLYMOUTH COLONY

Origin of

WHEN James I was driving non-conformist ministers from their livings, two of the victims, Richard Clifton and John Robinson, were received at Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, by William Brewster, living in a manor house of the brother of Sir the Pilgrims. Edwin Sandys. The region is the cradle of religious reform; for not only did the New England Pilgrims originate here, but ten miles northeast of Scrooby is Epworth, whence issued a century later the founder of the great Wesleyan movement. Brewster, a man of stout heart, a retired diplomat, and a strong Puritan, gathered his neighbors under his roof to hear the words of Clifton and Robinson; and in 1606 was organized a separatist congregation, with Robinson for pastor. Self-control, plainness in dress, honesty of speech, and absolute faith in the Bible were some of the features of its faith. The pastor was a fellow of Cambridge, wise in business matters, and capable of ruling others by his sweetness and strength of character. An antagonist called him "the most learned, polished, and modest spirit that ever separated from the Church of England."

The congregation encountered persecutions immediately. The members were watched day and night and, as Bradford later wrote, "some were taken and clapt up in prison . . . and ye In Leyden.

most were faine to flie and leave their howses and habi

tations, and the means of their livlihood. Yet these and many other sharper things which afterwards befell them, were no other than they looked for, and therefore were ye better prepared to bear them by ye assistance of Gods grace and spirite." Fleeing one by one, the members at length arrived in Amsterdam and then went to Leyden, where they found employment and set up their church, their pastor going with them and sharing their sorrows. At the end of ten years

their industrial condition was not improved, and their children were becoming Dutch in speech and ideas. They longed for a home in an English land and applied for a grant in Virginia. February

The Charter.

2, 1620, a patent issued from the London Company permitting them to settle a plantation and to govern it by laws of their own in keeping with the laws of England. Sandys got his friends to