The Lost Capital of Maryland, I

...The Puritans prolonged their first insubordination for a year, during which time they remained outside of the operations of the Maryland government, taking no part in it and paying no deference to its legislation...

...which, if we do not take within three months after publication, all our lands are to be seized for his lordship's use...

...Then its ruin was wrought...

...neither do we see by what lawful power such an oath, with such extreme penalties, can by his lordship be exacted of us who are free subjects of the Commonwealth of England and have taken the engagement to them...

...As to the government there, they knew it very well before they came thither...

...They were first acquainted by Captain Stone before they came there with that oath of fidelity which was to be taken by those who would have any land there from his lordship...

...Black ingratitude marked the course of these Puritans, for Lord Baltimore had sheltered them when brother Protestants had broken up their conventicle and driven them from their homes...

...Mary's...

...If they neglected or refused to send burgesses to the General Assembly, they should be fined "according to their demerits...

...But in the very next year, 1651, the Puritans peremptorily declined to elect delegates to the Assembly, most probably because they hoped that Cromwell would rob Lord Baltimore of his palatinate...

...there they set an example of just and peaceful dealings with the natives...

...for sixty years it spread its kindly influence over an increasing population, contented and prosperous under a beneficent administration...

...Neither can we be persuaded in our consciences by any light of God, or engagement upon us, to such an oath...

...The Proprietary heard of their refractoriness with indignation...

...There are none there sworn to uphold Anti-Christ, as Mr...

...We have complained of this grievance to the late Honorable Councel of State, in a petition subscribed by us, which never received an answer, such as might clear the lawfulness of such his proceedings with us, but an aspersion cast upon us of being factious fellows...

...and, if they had not liked it, they might have forborne coming or staying there, for they were never forced to either...

...Mary's was the capital of Maryland...

...They likewise protested because "they must swear to uphold that government and those officers who were sworn to countenance and uphold Anti-Christ—in plain words expressed in the officers' oath—the Roman Catholic religion...

...There these hardy pioneers located the headquarters of their colony...

...But their scruples melted away for a time in 1650 when they elected two delegates to the Assembly that convened at St...

...and there they proclaimed civil and religious liberty, in an era when, both in their mother country and in all the other British colonies, a savage intolerance universally obtained...

...Then the seat of government was taken from it, and its prestige departed...

...This broad stream they ascended until they came in sight of the Indian village of Chief Yaocomoco...

...But affirmative commands are incessantly urged and must not be denied...

...But it is now, it seems, thought by some of these people too much below them to take an oath to the Lord Proprietary of that province, though many Protestants of much better quality have taken it, and (which is more than can be hoped for some of these men) kept it...

...He directed his lieutenant to admonish "the factious and turbulent spirits" to a better compliance with his government, and, if the warning were disregarded, to compel them to be law-abiding...

...The centre of the conspiracy that undid St...

...They made overtures of friendship to the Redskins, whose good will they readily secured, and from whom they bought thirty miles of land on the right-hand shore, including the huts and the tepees that were then upon it...

...For sixty years St...

...Though some of these people (it seems) think it unfit that my lord should have such a jurisdiction and dominMarch 10, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 491 ion there, yet they, it seems, by their arrogant and insolent proceedings, think it unfit for them to exercise farre more absolute jurisdiction and dominion there, than my Lord Baltimore ever did...

...Together they cooperated against the established government to such an extent that Governor Stone, in a public proclamation issued on July 4, 1654, denounced them for "drawing away the people, and for leading the populace into faction, sedition, and rebellion against the Lord Baltimore...

...and for nearly sixty years it was a beacon of liberal institutions to all the neighboring states...

...John Langf ord, aptly declared: There was nothing promised by my lord or Captain Stone to them but what was performed...

...MARY'S By LOUIS W. REILLY WHEN the colonists whom Leonard Calvert led from England to America to establish his brother's palatinate of Maryland, arrived at the province in March, 1634, they first sailed up the Potomac River about forty leagues to Piscataway, in search of an eligible landing-place...

...there in a rude log-cabin they made a tabernacle for Christ and assisted in His worship...

...Strong falsely suggests...

...He wrote to Governor Stone to express his wonder at their ingratitude and perversity...

...This oath we conceive not agreeable to the terms on which we came hither, nor to the liberty of our consciences as Christians and free subjects of the Commonwealth of England...

...James Cox, was at once elected Speaker of the House, which fact shows the magnanimous liberality of the loyal burgesses...

...The Maryland pilgrims, including two Jesuit priests, Fathers Andrew White and John Altham, disembarked from their ships, the Ark and the Dove, on March 25, 1634, and took possession of the place which they had purchased, and which they called St...

...there they laid the broad foundations of an enduring commonwealth...

...One of its first laws was one that,"enacted and declared that none who profess and exercise the Popish (commonly called the Roman Catholic) religion can be protected in this province by the laws of England formerly established and yet unrepealed...

...and in doing so, he had risked the friendship of the neighboring colony of Virginia and incurred the enmity of King Charles II, then in exile on the continent...

...Early in 1653 they addressed a petition to Richard Bennett and William Claiborne, the commissioners for Virginia and Maryland, in which, after alleging that they had been "invited and encouraged" to settle in the province and that they had done so at "great cost and danger," they declared: Now the Lord Baltimore imposeth an oath upon us by proclamation, which he requireth his lieutenant forthwith to publish...

...They "exceedingly scrupled," so they said, at the expressions in it of "absolute lord" and "royal jurisdiction...

...for which some of them are equally thankful...

...nor doth the oath of fidelity bind any man to maintain any other jurisdiction or dominion of my lord's, than what is granted by his patent...

...Moreover, the Assembly modified the oath of fidelity to the Proprietary, expunging from it the phrases to which objection had been made, and substituting the clause "that they would defend and maintain all such his lordship's just and lawful right, title, interest, privileges, jurisdictions, prerogatives, propriety, and dominion over and in the said province, etc., not any wise understood to infringe or prejudice liberty of conscience in point of religion...

...Finding, however, that the aborigines were numerous thereabouts, they resolved to commence their settlement lower down, lest, in case of attack, they should be in danger of having their retreat to the ocean cut off...

...He informed them that there was no truth in the rumors that his patent was to be nullified...

...Mary's was at Annapolis...

...They had no sooner taken possession of the lands designated for them than they violated the agreement that they had made when they were seeking a refuge—they refused to take the oath of fidelity to the Maryland government...

...They appointed ten Protestants, the majority of whom were Puritans of Providence, to govern Maryland, giving them authority to hold courts and to summon an assembly, and prohibiting Catholics from voting...

...and doth carry on an arbitrary power, so as whatever is done by the people at great costs in assemblies, for the good of the people, is liable to be made null by the negative voice of his lordship...

...In reply to their objections, Lord Baltimore's representative, Mr...

...So bitter was the latter's anger that, later, setting aside the Proprietary's right to name his own lieutenant in his palatinate, the monarch himself appointed a government for Maryland, openly stating in the commission that he did so "because the Lord Baltimore did visibly adhere to the rebels in England and admitted all kinds of sectaries and schismatics and ill-affected persons in that province...

...but rather humbly conceive it to be a very real grievance and such an oppression as we are not able to bear...

...The jurisdiction exercised there by them, is no other than what is warranted by his lordship's patent of that province, which gives him the power and privileges of a count palatine there, depending on the supreme authority of England, with power to make laws with the people's consent...

...without which powers and privileges his lordship would not have undertaken that plantation, and have been at so great a charge, and run so many hazards as he hath done for it...

...They came in 1649...

...The ten convened a legislature, which began its sessions at Patuxent on October 20, 1654...

...Mary's on April 6 in that year...

...That region had been assigned by the Proprietary, subject to his chartered rights, to a band of Puritans who were harried out of Virginia by the Episcopalians of that colony...

...for nearly sixty years it offered an asylum for all persons who believed in the Divinity of Jesus Christ and who needed a sanctuary from oppression in order to be able to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience...

...The chief officers, under my lord there, are Protestants...

...Bennett and Claiborne, the latter of whom had previously done his worst to destroy the infant colony, gave them a favorable answer...

...Accordingly, they retraced their course until they reached a tributary river about a dozen miles from the mouth of the Potomac...

...This infamous measure was passed by the very men who had been saved from Protestant persecution themselves by the Catholic Proprietary of Maryland...

...When the cause of the Commonwealth triumphed in England and commissioners were sent out by Cromwell to reduce to subjection the American plantations that were unfavorable to his government, the Puritans seized the opportunity to exhibit again their malevolence to the authority to which they were so deeply indebted...

...Therefore, the petitioners implored the commissioners to relieve them "and faithfully apply yourselves to our redress in what is just and our lawful liberty...

...But those narrow-minded fanatics detested the Proprietary because he was a Catholic, and no bounty of his to them could wean them from their hatred or cause them to forego a chance to injure his government...

...One of their representatives, Mr...

...Then falsehood triumphed, and bigotry prevailed, and persecution was enthroned in the place of the freedom which was its birthright...

...neither have we received any conviction of our error in not taking the said oath, nor order by that power before whom our petition is still depending, to take it hereafter...

...and, moreover, in case of their persistency in such refusal or neglect, then, that they be declared enemies to the public peace of the province and rebels to the lawful government thereof, and be proceeded against accordingly...

...nor are they contented with freedom for themselves of conscience, person, and estate (all of which are established to them by law there and enjoyed by them in as ample manner as ever any people did in any place in the world) unless they may have the liberty to debarr others from the like freedom, and that they may domineer and do what they please...

...Thereupon, the commissioners, taking with them some forces brought from Virginia and from the Puritan territory around the Severn and Patuxent Rivers, marched against Captain Stone and compelled him to yield to their authority "under his highness the Lord Protector...

...nor had they any regret to the oath till they were as much refreshed with their entertainment there, as the snake in the fable was with the countryman's breast...

...Then its good name was aspersed and its past services were repudiated...

...neither can we believe that the Commonwealth of England will ever expose us to such a manifest and real bondage (who assert themselves the maintainers of the lawful liberties of the subject) as to make us swear absolute subjection to a government where the ministers of state are bound by oath to countenance and defend the Roman Popish religion, which we apprehend to be contrary to the fundamental law of England, the covenant taken in the three kingdoms, and the conscience of true English subjects...