To all the Merchant Adventurers for MARY-LAND, together with those Commanders of Ships that saile into that Province.

SIRS,

YOU are both Ad­ven­turers, the one of Estate, the other of Life: I could tell you I am an Ad­ven­turer too, if I durst pre­sume to come in­to your Com­pany. I have ventured to come abroad in Print, and if I should be laughed at for my good meaning, it would so break the credit of my understanding, that I should never dare to shew my face upon the Exchange of (conceited) Wits again.

This dish of Discourse was intended for you at first, but it was manners to let my Lord have the first cut, the Pye being his own. I beseech you accept of the matter as ’tis drest, only to stay your stomachs, and I’le promise you the next shall be better done, ’Tis all as I can serve you in at present, and it may be questionable whether I have served you in this or no. Here I present you with A Character of Mary-Land, it may be you will say ’tis weakly done, if you do I cannot help it, ’tis as well as I could do it, considering several Obstacles that like blocks were thrown in my way to hinder my proceeding: The major part thereof was written in the intermitting time of my sickness, therefore I hope the afflicting weakness of {24} my Microcosm may plead a just excuse for some imperfections of my pen. I protest what I have writ is from an experimental knowledge of the Country, and not from any imaginary supposition. If I am blamed for what I have done too much, it is the first, and I will irrevocably promise it shall be the last. There’s a Maxim upon Tryals at Assizes, That if a thief be taken upon the first fault, if it be not to hainous, they only burn him in the hand and let him go (see note No. [5]): So I desire you to do by me, if you find any thing that bears a criminal absurdity in it, only burn me for my first fact and let me go. But I am afraid I have kept you too long in the Entry, I shall desire you therefore to come in and sit down.

G. ALSOP.

THE
PREFACE
TO THE
READER.

THE Reason why I appear in this place is, lest the general Reader should conclude I have nothing to say for my self; and truly he’s in the right on’t, for I have but little to say (for my self) at this time: For I have had so large a Journey, and so heavy a Burden to bring Mary-Land into England, that I am almost out of breath: I’le promise you after I am come to my self, you shall hear more of me. Good Reader, because you see me make a brief Apologetical excuse for my self, don’t judge me; for I am so self-conceited of my own merits, that I almost think I want none. De Lege non judicandum ex solâ linea, saith the Civilian; We must not pass judgement upon a Law by one line: And because we see but a small Bush at a Tavern door, conclude there is no Canary (see note No. [6]) For as in our vulgar Resolves ’tis said, A good face needs no Band, and an ill one deserves none: So the French Proverb sayes, Bon Vien il n’a faut point de Ensigne, Good Wine needs no Bush. I suppose by this time some of my speculative observers {26} have judged me vainglorious; but if they did but rightly consider me, they would not be so censorious. For I dwell so far from Neighbors, that if I do not praise my self, no body else will: And since I am left alone, I am resolved to summon the Magna Charta of Fowles to the Bar for my excuse, and by their irrevocable Statutes plead my discharge. For its an ill Bird will befoule her own Nest: Besides, I have a thousand Billings-gate (see note No. [7]) Collegians that will give in their testimony, That they never knew a Fish-woman cry stinking Fish. Thus leaving the Nostrils of the Citizens Wives to demonstrate what they please as to that, and thee (Good Reader) to say what thou wilt, I bid thee Farewel.

GEO. ALSOP.

THE
AUTHOR
TO HIS
BOOK.

When first Apollo got my brain with Childe,

He made large promise never to beguile,

But like an honest Father, he would keep

Whatever Issue from my Brain did creep:

With that I gave consent, and up he threw

Me on a Bench, and strangely he did do;

Then every week he daily came to see

How his new Physick still did work with me.

And when he did perceive he’d don the feat,

Like an unworthy man he made retreat,

Left me in desolation, and where none

Compassionated when they heard me groan.

What could he judge the Parish then would think,

To see me fair, his Brat as black as Ink?

If they had eyes, they’d swear I were no Nun,

But got with Child by some black Africk Son,

And so condemn me for my Fornication,

To beat them Hemp to stifle half the Nation.

Well, since ’tis so, I’le alter this base Fate,

And lay his Bastard at some Noble’s Gate;

Withdraw my self from Beadles, and from such,

Who would give twelve pence I were in their clutch: {28}

Then, who can tell? this Child which I do hide,

(see note No [8]). May be in time a Small-beer Col’nel Pride

But while I talk, my business it is dumb,

I must lay double-clothes unto thy Bum,

Then lap thee warm, and to the world commit

The Bastard Off-spring of a New-born wit.

Farewel, poor Brat, thou in a monstrous World,

In swadling bands, thus up and down art hurl’d;

There to receive what Destiny doth contrive,

Either to perish, or be sav’d alive.

Good Fate protect thee from a Criticks power,

For If he comes, thou’rt gone in half an hour,

Stiff’d and blasted, ’tis their usual way,

To make that Night, which is as bright as Day.

For if they once but wring, and skrew their mouth,

Cock up their Hats, and set the point Du-South,

Armes all a kimbo, and with belly strut,

As if they had Parnassus in their gut:

These are the Symtomes of the murthering fall

Of my poor Infant, and his burial.

Say he should miss thee, and some ign’rant Asse

Should find thee out, as he along doth pass,

It were all one, he’d look into thy Tayle,

To see if thou wert Feminine or Male;

When he’d half starv’d thee, for to satisfie

His peeping Ign’rance, he’d then let thee lie;

And vow by’s wit he ne’re could understand,

The Heathen dresses of another Land:

Well, ’tis no matter, wherever such as he

Knows one grain, more than his simplicity.

Now, how the pulses of my senses beat,

To think the rigid Fortune thou wilt meet; {29}

Asses and captious Fools, not six in ten

Of thy Spectators will be real men,

To Umpire up the badness of the cause,

And screen my weakness from the rav’nous Laws,

Of those that will undoubted sit to see

How they might blast this new-born Infancy:

If they should burn him, they’d conclude hereafter,

’Twere too good death for him to dye a Martyr;

And if they let him live, they think it will

Be but a means for to encourage ill,

And bring in time some strange Antipod’ans,

A thousand Leagues beyond Philippians,

To storm our Wits; therefore he must not rest,

But shall be hang’d, for all he has been prest:

Thus they conclude.—My Genius comforts give,

In Resurrection he will surely live.

To my Friend Mr. GEORGE ALSOP, on his Character of MARY-LAND.

Who such odd nookes of Earths great mass describe,

Prove their descent from old Columbus tribe:

Some Boding augur did his Name devise,

Thy Genius too cast in th’ same mould and size;

His Name predicted he would be a Rover,

And hidden places of this Orb discover;

He made relation of that World in gross,

Thou the particulars retail’st to us:

By this first Peny of thy fancy we

Discover what thy greater Coines will be;

This Embryo thus well polisht doth presage,

The manly Atchievements of its future age.

Auspicious winds blow gently on this spark,

Untill its flames discover what’s yet dark;

Mean while this short Abridgement we embrace,

Expecting that thy busy soul will trace

Some Mines at last which may enrich the World,

And all that poverty may be in oblivion hurl’d.

Zoilus is dumb, for thou the mark hast hit,

By interlacing History with Wit:

Thou hast described its superficial Treasure,

Anatomiz’d its bowels at thy leasure;

That MARY-LAND to thee may duty owe,

Who to the World dost all her Glory shew;

Then thou shalt make the Prophesie fall true,

Who fill’st the World (like th’ Sea) with knowledge new.

WILLIAM BOGHERST. (See note No. [9].)

To my Friend Mr. GEORGE ALSOP, on his Character of MARY-LAND.

This plain, yet pithy and concise Description

Of Mary-Lands plentious and sedate condition,

With other things herein by you set forth,

To shew its Rareness, and declare its Worth;

Compos’d in such a time, when most men were

Smitten with Sickness, or surpriz’d with Fear,

Argues a Genius good, and Courage stout,

In bringing this Design so well about:

Such generous Freedom waited on thy brain,

The Work was done in midst of greatest pain;

And matters flow’d so swiftly from thy source,

Nature design’d thee (sure) for such Discourse.

Go on then with thy Work so well begun,

Let it come forth, and boldly see the Sun;

Then shall’t be known to all, that from thy Youth

Thou heldst it Noble to maintain the Truth,

’Gainst all the Rabble-rout, that yelping stand,

To cast aspersions on thy MARY-LAND:

But this thy Work shall vindicate its Fame,

And as a Trophy memorize thy Name,

So if without a Tomb thou buried be,

This Book’s a lasting Monument for thee.

H. W., Master of Arts. (See note No. [10]).

From my Study,
Jan. 10, 1665.

A Land-skip of the Pro­vince of MARY LAND Or the Lord Bal­ti­mors Plan­ta­tion neere Vir­gin­ia By Geo: Alsop Gent.

Am. Photo-Lithographic Co. N.Y. Osborne’s Process

A
CHARACTER
OF THE PROVINCE OF
MARY-LAND.

CHAP. I. Of the situation and plenty of the Province of
Mary-Land.

MARY-LAND is a Pro­vince sit­uated upon the large ex­tending bowels of America, under the Govern­ment of the Lord Baltemore, ad­ja­cent North­wardly upon the Con­fines of New-England, and neigh­bour­ing South­wardly upon Virginia, dwel­ling pleas­ant­ly upon the Bay of Chæsapike (see note No. [11]) between the Degrees of 36 and 38, in the Zone temperate, and by Mathematical computation is eleven hundred and odd Leagues in Longitude from England, being within her own imbraces extraordinary pleasant and fertile. Pleasant, in respect of the multitude of Navigable Rivers and Creeks that conveniently and most profitably lodge within the armes of her green, spreading, and delightful Woods; whose natural womb (by her plenty) maintains and preserves the several diversities of Animals that rangingly inhabit her Woods; as she doth otherwise generously fructifie {36} this piece of Earth with almost all sorts of Vegetables, as well Flowers with their varieties of colours and smells, as Herbes and Roots with their several effects and operative virtues, that offer their benefits daily to supply the want of the Inhabitant whene’re their necessities shall Sub-pœna them to wait on their commands. So that he, who out of curiosity desires to see the Landskip of the Creation drawn to the life, or to read Natures universal Herbal without book, may with the Opticks of a discreet discerning, view Mary-Land drest in her green and fragrant Mantle of the Spring. Neither do I think there is any place under the Heavenly altitude, or that has footing or room upon the circular Globe of this world, that can parallel this fertile and pleasant piece of ground in its multiplicity, or rather Natures extravagancy of a superabounding plenty. For so much doth this Country increase in a swelling Spring-tide of rich variety and diversities of all things, not only common provisions that supply the reaching stomach of man with a satisfactory plenty, but also extends with its liberality and free convenient benefits to each sensitive faculty, according to their several desiring Appetites. So that had Nature made it her business, on purpose to have found out a situation for the Soul of profitable Ingenuity, she could not have fitted herself better in the traverse of the whole Universe, nor in convenienter terms have told man, Dwell here, live plentifully and be rich. {37}

The Trees, Plants, Fruits, Flowers, and Roots that grow here in Mary-Land, are the only Emblems or Hieroglyphicks of our Adamitical or Primitive situation, as well for their variety as odoriferous smells, together with their vertues, according to their several effects, kinds and properties, which still bear the Effigies of Innocency according to their original Grafts; which by their dumb vegetable Oratory, each hour speaks to the Inhabitant in silent acts, That they need not look for any other Terrestrial Paradice, to suspend or tyre their curiosity upon, while she is extant. For within her doth dwell so much of variety, so much of natural plenty, that there is not any thing that is or may be rare, but it inhabits within this plentious soyle: So that those parts of the Creation that have borne the Bell away (for many ages) for a vegetable plentiousness, must now in silence strike and vayle all, and whisper softly in the auditual parts of Mary-Land, that None but she in this dwells singular; and that as well for that she doth exceed in those Fruits, Plants, Trees and Roots, that dwell and grow in their several Clymes or habitable parts of the Earth besides, as the rareness and super-excellency of her own glory, which she flourishly abounds in, by the abundancy of reserved Rarities, such as the remainder of the World (with all its speculative art) never bore any occular testimony of as yet. I shall forbear to particularize those several sorts of vegetables that flourishingly grows here, by {38} reason of the vast tediousness that will attend upon the description, which therefore makes them much more fit for an Herbal, than a small Manuscript or History. (See note No. [12]).

As for the wilde Animals of this Country, which loosely inhabits the Woods in multitudes, it is impossible to give you an exact description of them all, considering the multiplicity as well as the diversity of so numerous an extent of Creatures: But such as has fallen within the compass or prospect of my knowledge, those you shall know of; videlicet, the Deer, because they are oftner seen, and more participated of by the Inhabitants of the Land, whose acquaintance by a customary familiarity becomes much more common than the rest of Beasts that inhabit the Woods by using themselves in Herds about the Christian Plantations. Their flesh, which in some places of this Province is the common provision the Inhabitants feed on, and which through the extreme glut and plenty of it, being daily killed by the Indians, and brought in to the English, as well as that which is killed by the Christian Inhabitant, that doth it more for recreation, than for the benefit they reap by it. I say, the flesh of Venison becomes (as to food) rather denyed, than any way esteemed or desired. And this I speak from an experimental knowledge; For when I was under a Command, and debarr’d of a four years ranging Liberty in the Province of Mary-Land, the Gentleman whom I served my conditional and {39} prefixed time withall, had at one time in his house fourscore Venisons, besides plenty of other provisions to serve his Family nine months, they being but seven in number; so that before this Venison was brought to a period by eating, it so nauseated our appetites and stomachs, that plain bread was rather courted and desired than it.

The Deer (see note No. [13]) here neither in shape nor action differ from our Deer in England: the Park they traverse their ranging and unmeasured walks in, is bounded and impanell’d in with no other pales than the rough and billowed Ocean: They are also mighty numerous in the Woods, and are little or not at all affrighted at the face of a man, but (like the Does of Whetstons Park) (see note No. [14]) though their hydes are not altogether so gaudy to extract an admiration from the beholder, yet they will stand (all most) till they be scratcht.

As for the Wolves, Bears, and Panthers (see note No. [15]) of this Country, they inhabit commonly in great multitudes up in the remotest parts of the Continent; yet at some certain time they come down near the Plantations, but do little hurt or injury worth noting, and that which they do is of so degenerate and low a nature, (as in reference to the fierceness and heroick vigour that dwell in the same kind of Beasts in other Countries), that they are hardly worth mentioning: For the highest of their designs and circumventing reaches is but cowardly and base, only {40} to steal a poor Pigg, or kill a lost and half starved Calf. The Effigies of a man terrifies them dreadfully, for they no sooner espy him but their hearts are at their mouths, and the spurs upon their heels, they (having no more manners than Beasts) gallop away, and never bid them farewell that are behind them.

The Elke, the Cat of the Mountain, the Rackoon, the Fox, the Beaver, the Otter, the Possum, the Hare, the Squirril, the Monack, the Musk-Rat (see note No. [16]) and several others (whom I’le omit for brevity sake) inhabit here in Mary-Land in several droves and troops, ranging the Woods at their pleasure.

The meat of most of these Creatures is good for eating, yet of no value nor esteem here, by reason of the great plenty of other provisions, and are only kill’d by the Indians of the Country for their Hydes and Furrs, which become very profitable to those that have the right way of traffiquing for them, as well as it redounds to the Indians that take the pains to catch them, and to slay and dress their several Hydes, selling and disposing them for such commodities as their Heathenish fancy delights in.

As for those Beasts that were carried over at the first seating of the Country, to stock and increase the situation, as Cows, Horses, Sheep and Hogs (see note No. [17]) they are generally tame, and use near home, especially the Cows, Sheep and Horses. The Hogs, whose increase is innumerable in the Woods, do {41} disfrequent home more than the rest of Creatures that are look’d upon as tame, yet with little trouble and pains they are slain and made provision of. Now they that will with a right Historical Survey, view the Woods of Mary-Land in this particular, as in reference to Swine, must upon necessity judge this Land lineally descended from the Gadarean Territories. (See note No. [18].)

Mary-Land (I must confess) cannot boast of her plenty of Sheep here, as other Countries; not but that they will thrive and increase here, as well as in any place of the World besides, but few desire them, because they commonly draw down the Wolves among the Plantations, as well by the sweetness of their flesh, as by the humility of their nature, in not making a defensive resistance against the rough dealing of a ravenous Enemy. They who for curiosity will keep Sheep, may expect that after the Wolves have breathed themselves all day in the Woods to sharpen their stomachs, they will come without fail and sup with them at night, though many times they surfeit themselves with the sawce that’s dish’d out of the muzzle of a Gun, and so in the midst of their banquet (poor Animals) they often sleep with their Ancestors.

Fowls of all sorts and varieties dwell at their several times and seasons here in Mary-Land. The Turkey, the Woodcock, the Pheasant, the Partrich, the Pigeon, and others, especially the Turkey, whom I have seen {42} in whole hundreds in flights in the Woods of Mary-Land, being an extraordinary fat Fowl, whose flesh is very pleasant and sweet. These Fowls that I have named are intayled from generation to generation to the Woods. The Swans, the Geese and Ducks (with other Water-Fowl) derogate in this point of setled residence; for they arrive in millionous multitudes in Mary-Land about the middle of September, and take their winged farewell about the midst of March (see note No. [19]) But while they do remain, and beleagure the borders of the shoar with their winged Dragoons, several of them are summoned by a Writ of Fieri facias, to answer their presumptuous contempt upon a Spit.

As for Fish, which dwell in the watry tenements of the deep, and by a providential greatness of power, is kept for the relief of several Countries in the world (which would else sink under the rigid enemy of want), here in Mary-Land is a large sufficiency, and plenty of almost all sorts of Fishes, which live and inhabit within her several Rivers and Creeks, far beyond the apprehending or crediting of those that never saw the same, which with very much ease is catched, to the great refreshment of the Inhabitants of the Province.

All sorts of Grain, as Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oates, Pease, besides several others that have their original and birth from the fertile womb of this Land (and no where else), they all grow, increase, and thrive here {43} in Mary-Land, without the chargable and laborious manuring of the Land with Dung; increasing in such a measure and plenty, by the natural richness of the Earth, with the common, beneficial and convenient showers of rain that usually wait upon the several Fields of Grain (by a natural instinct), so that Famine (the dreadful Ghost of penury and want) is never known with his pale visage to haunt the Dominions of Mary-Land. (See note No. [20]).

Could’st thou (O Earth) live thus obscure, and now

Within an Age, shew forth thy plentious brow

Of rich variety, gilded with fruitful Fame,

That (Trumpet-like) doth Heraldize thy Name,

And tells the World there is a Land now found,

That all Earth’s Globe can’t parallel its Ground?

Dwell, and be prosperous, and with thy plenty feed

The craving Carkesses of those Souls that need.