and harbors, and looked with no favor on any claims to exclusive possessionfeelings, on their part, which long delayed the peopling of Newfoundland, causing it to be regarded, till a very recent period, less as a colony than as a mere fishing station, of which the government, down even to our times, was rather that of a ship at sea than of a colony on shore.

During his residence at Newfoundland, Lord Baltimore paid a visit to Virginia; but the colonists, perhaps suspecting the design with which he came, did not give him a very hospitable reception. Under a standing law, the oath of supremacy was tendered to him-an oath purposely contrived to entangle or detect persons of the Catholic faith, including, as it did, a positive and direct repudiation of the pope's spiritual authority. From this it will be seen that Know-Nothingism is rather an ancient institution among us, and that Catholics got but a cool welcome from the first: Calvert was even exposed to personal insult; but for this the culprits were called to account. Though thus coolly received, he remained long enough to ascertain, that in the northern part of Virginia was a fertile and well-watered tract, upon which no settlements had yet been made. Returning to England, he obtained from Charles I. the promise of a grant, under a royal charter, conferring not only a property in the soil, but powers of government also. This new province was to be called Maryland, after one of the names of the queen. But, before the charter had passed the seals, the first Lord Baltimore died, and the patent issued to his son and heir, Cecilius, the second lord.

Some historians and biographers have ascribed to the projector of the Maryland colony the design of providing a refuge, in America, for the Catholics of England and Ireland, exposed at home, even more than were the Puritans, to the severity of persecuting laws. That Lord Baltimore expected to obtain his colonists, at least such of them as might embark capital of their own in the enterprise, among the Catholics, and that he looked to the state of the English law as likely to facilitate that result, is highly probable. But we know not of any contemporary authority for the supposition, that he had any religious object in view, or that the colony was

not, in its origin and conception, what it subsequently became in its actual plantation, a mere territorial and pecuniary enterprise-the growth of the colony and the increase of quit rents being the considerations always uppermost in the mind of the proprietary, and to which his scheme of toleration was wholly subservient. Still less does there seem any foundation for ascribing, as has been done, to this Catholic nobleman, the project of founding a colony, in which all religions were to be placed on a perfect level of equality -a piece of undutifulness to mother church hardly to be expected from a new convert. We are told, indeed, by Bancroft, that the first Lord Baltimore, whom he supposes, but on what grounds or authority it does not appear, to have been the draughtsman of the Maryland charter, "as he had taken from himself and his successors all arbitrary power, by establishing the legislative franchises of the people, had also taken from them the means of being intolerant in religion, by securing to all present and future liege people of the English king, without distinction of sect or party, free leave to transport themselves and their families to Maryland. Christianity was, by the charter, made the law of the land; but no preference was given to any sect, and equality in religious rights, no less than in civil freedom, was assured." Such is the historian's statement; but, on referring to the charter, nothing whatever of this sort can be found in it. From the liberty assured to all the king's English subjects, of emigrating to Maryland, an express exception is made of such to whom it shall be expressly forbidden;" nor is there the slightest hint, anywhere in the charter, of anything like toleration or freedom in religion. So far from it, all places of worship are required to be consecrated according to "the ecclesiastical law of England," and their erection and the patronage and advowson of them are among the rights specially conferred upon the proprietary, while both he and the assembly are expressly restricted from making any ordinances or enacting any laws "repugnant or contrary to the laws of England; which certainly would have been the case, at the time the charter was granted, as to any attempt to legalize any form of religious worship other than that of the church of England. Lord

Baltimore, no doubt, intended-and that seems to have been the furthest that he went to secure to such Catholics as emigrated to Maryland the quiet enjoyment of their religious opinions and worship; but there was no such provision inserted in the charter, as the Catholics found to their sorrow, when the time came, as it afterwards did, for enacting penal laws against them: nor -considering the fixed prejudices of the English people, even if his own conscience would have allowed it, which is questionable-would the king have dared to set his seal to an instrument in which the toleration of the Catholic religion was secured, even by implication, and, much less, in express terms. The first colony arrived in Maryland in the spring of 1634. The governor and counselors were Catholics. The principal adventurers were Catholic gentlemen of some means. The laboring portion of the colonists were indented servants, among whom were many Protestants. The Catholics had a priest with them, and, no doubt, enjoyed the full exercise of their religion. Indeed, they occasioned not a little alarm and disgust in Puritan Massachusetts, by "setting up mass openly." A like liberty appears to have been practically enjoyed by the Protestant part of the colonists. An early proclamation or ordinance of the governor, based upon a limited power of legislating in that way, conferred by the charter upon the proprietary, prohibited "all unseasonable disputations in point of religion, tending to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the colony, and to the opening of faction in religion;" and we know that at least one Catholic proprietor was early fined, under this ordinance, for attempting to meddle with the devotions of one of his Protestant

servants.

Now, as Roger Williams, as we shall presently see, did not establish himself at Providence till the spring of 1636two years after the planting of the Maryland colony at St. Mary's-and as the written agreement of Williams's colonists (the original constitution of the Providence Plantations), to submit "only in civil things" to such orders as themajor part should enact," was not entered into until the autumn of 1638, it is plain that Maryland was the first American colony in which a certain degree of toleration in religious matters

was practically realized. But when we come to consider the very narrow and limited extent of that toleration, compared with the full liberty soon after established in Rhode Island; when we notice the very short period for which even this limited toleration existed; and taking into account, also, the fact, that it owed its existence while it lasted, not to the colonists, but to the proprie tary; looking at the matter in these lights, the superior claims of Rhode Island will be equally evident.

Owing to a dispute which arose between Lord Baltimore and the Assembly, on the question to whom, under the charter, the right belonged of proposing laws, no legislation for the colony received the sanction of that body till 1639. It was then provided, along with other fundamental regulations for the distribution of justice, the punishment of offenses, the payment of debts, and the like, that "holy church, within the province, shall have all her rights and liberties." In thus copying the phraseology of Magna Charta, the question which church (that of England or of Rome) was, under the name of a "holy church," to enjoy the rights and privileges thereto appertaining, was quite dextrously evaded. But however that point might be decided, little hope was left for the Puritan dissenters, of whom both of these churches were equally intolerant; and perhaps this enactment may be regarded as a sort of compromise between the Catholics and the church of England men, while they tolerated each other, to put down, or, rather, to keep out the troublesome and uneasy Puritan nonconformists, who had already began to make their appearance in Virginia, whence it was thought necessary to expel them, two or three years later, under a law expressly enacted for that purpose. But, whatever might have been the aims of the Assembly, the proprietary still persevered in the policy with which he had set out-that of preventing, as far as possible, any religious disputes or agitation, by which the peace and progress of his colony might be disturbed. He judged it necessary, however, to conform to the changed state of feeling in England; and the Puritan party there having triumphed over the king, the colony ceased to have a Catholic governor-that office being conferred by Lord Baltimore upon one William Stone, of Virginia, a zealous

Protestant and Parliamentarian. The offices of "muster-master general" and of "secretary" were also conferred upon Protestants, who had likewise a majority in the council, and perhaps also, by this time, a majority of the colonists. For the protection, however, of the Catholic settlers, an oath was required of the governor, not to molest or discountenance, on religious grounds, any person in the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, and, in particular, any Roman Catholic; nor to make any difference, on that score, in appointments to office. The policy of the proprietary, and the limited extent to which he carried his ideas of religious liberty, are more precisely indicated in the somewhat overlauded "law concerning religion"—often represented as the oorner-stone of toleration in Americawhich he sent out the next year (1649), engrossed on parchment, and to which the Assembly gave its assent. This act begins, in no very tolerant spirit, with enacting death and forfeiture of land and goods, as the punishment of blasphemers and deniers of the doctrine of the trinity. It next denounces fine, whipping, and, for the third offense, banishment, as penalties for the utterance of reproachful speeches against the Virgin Mary or the holy apostles and evangelists. The third section appoints fine, and, if that were not paid, whipping and a public apology, as punishments for applying to any person any reproachful name, or any name in a reproachful manner "relating to matters of religion." Similar penalties are also imposed on profaners of the Lord's day. After this comes the famous section, the only one usually quoted, which, after setting forth that "the enforcing the conscience, in matters of religion, hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it has been practiced," proceeds to enact, "for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province," in the terms of the oath already imposed on the governor, that 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, under penalty of fine and imprison

ment.

In thus attempting to secure the equal rights of the Catholics, Lord Baltimore, as much, we may believe, from necessi

ty as choice, allowed a wide sweep to Puritan dissent, to which recent events in England had given a powerful_impulse-Cromwell and the Independents being already triumphant. He even received into the colony a body of Puritan dissenters recently expelled from Virginia by Governor Berkeley, who established themselves on a plantation which they called Providence, near where now stands the city of Annapolis, the first settlement in the northern part of the province. Nor was it long before these Virginia Puritans, taking advantage of the growth of anti-church feeling among the Protestants of the colony, put themselves forward for the overturn of Lord Baltimore's scheme of toleration; in which object, by the countenance and support of the parliamentary commissioners, by that time at the head of affairs in Virginia, they had a temporary success. Stone was deposed from office; a new governor and council were appointed, and a new Assembly (in 1654) expressly excluded. "papists and prelatists" from the benefit of the act of toleration. A civil war followed, between the Catholic and Puritan settlers, not without bloodshed. The Catholics were beaten, the triumphant Protestants put four of their captured opponents to death, and proceeded to sequestrate the estates of the others. The Catholics subsequently recovered their courage, and reëstablished Lord Baltimore's authority at St. Mary's; but Annapolis and.the northern portion of the province continued to adhere to the Puritan administration, of which Annapolis had been made the seat.

The restoration of Charles II. restored also the authority of Lord Baltimore over his entire province, and by the effect of that change, the former toleration act again came into force. But, notwithstanding the comprehensiveness of its terms, the Quakers were not suffered to take any advantage of it. They became, in Maryland, as in every other Anglo-American colony, Rhode Island alone excepted, the objects of legislative vengeance. By an act of the Maryland Assembly, preachers of that sect were to be apprehended and whipped "as vagabonds who dissuade the people from complying with military discipline, from holding offices, giving testimony, and serving as jurors." It is insisted, however, by some of the recent writers on the history of Mary