G. Brent.”
Ingle, however, was not again arrested, though he still remained in the neighborhood of St. Mary’s, for on January 30th his vessel was riding at anchor in St. George’s river, and mention is made of him in the records as being in the province. For nearly two months the Ingle question was agitated and for the sake of clearness an account will be given of the acts concerning him in the order of their occurrence.
The information given by Hardige to Lewger which had caused Ingle’s arrest was: that in March or April, 1642, he heard Ingle, who was then at Kent Island, and at other times in St. Mary’s, say, that he was “Captain of Gravesend for the Parliament against the King;” that he heard Ingle say that in February of that year he had been bidden in the King’s name to come ashore at Accomac, in Virginia, but he, in the parliament’s name had refused to do so, and had threatened to cut off the head of any one who should come on his ship.[12] On January 29th, Hardige and others were summoned to appear and to give evidence of—here the pirate enters—“pyratical & treasonable offences” of Ingle. On February 1st, the sheriff impannelled a jury of which Robert Vaughan was chosen foreman, and witnesses were sworn, among them Hardige who “being excepted at as infamous,” by Capt. Cornwallis, “was not found so.”[13] John Lewger, the attorney-general, having stated that the Court had power to take cognizance of treason out of the province in order to determine where the offender should be tried, presented three bills for the jury to consider. The first bill included the second charge brought by Hardige, the second ordered the jury to inquire “if on the 20th of November and some daies afore & since in the 17 yea of his Maties reigne at Gravesend in Comit Kent in England” the accused “not having the feare of God before his eies, but instigated thereunto by the instigation of the divill & example of other traitors of his Matie traiterously & as an enemy did levie war & beare armes agst his matie and accept & exercise the comand & captainship of the town of Gravesend,” and by the third bill they were to inquire if Ingle did not, on April 5th in the eighteenth year of Charles’ reign, on his vessel in the Potomac river, near St. Clement’s island, say, “that Prince Rupert was a rogue or rascall.” If the rest of the testimony was no stronger or more conclusive than that of Hardige, it is not surprising that the jury replied to all the bills “Ignoramus.”[14] Another jury was impannelled to investigate the charge of Ingle’s having broken from the sheriff, and they returned a like finding. In the afternoon the first jury were given two more bills, first, to find “whether in April 1643 Ingle, being then at Mattapanian,[15] St. Clement’s hundred, said ‘that Prince Rupert was Prince Traitor & Prince rogue and if he had him aboard his ship he would whip him at the capstan.’” This bill met the fate of the others, but the second charging him with saying “that the king (meaning or Gover L. K. Charles) was no king neither would be no king, nor could be no king unless he did ioine with the Parlamt,” caused the jury to disagree and no verdict having been reached at 7 P. M., they adjourned until the following Saturday.[16] On that day, February 3rd, at the request of the attorney-general the jury were discharged and the bill given to another jury who returned it “Ignoramus.”[17] In spite of the unanimity of all the juries in finding no true indictment, another warrant was issued for the arrest, by Parker or Ellyson, of Ingle for high treason, and after a fruitless attempt to secure by another jury a different finding, Ingle was impeached on February 8th, for having on January 20th, 1643/4, committed assaults upon the vessels, guns, goods, and person of one Bishop, and upon being reproached for these acts, having threatened to beat down the dwellings of people and even of Giles Brent, and for “the said crimes of pyracie, mutinie, trespasse, contempt & misdemeanors & every of them severally.”[18] If Ingle did commit these depredations he was, no doubt instigated by the proceedings instituted on that day against him, and moreover by the fact that Henry Bishop had been among the witnesses to be summoned against him.
Nothing more was done in the matter, for from a copy of a certificate to Ingle under date of February 8th, it is learned that “Upon certaine complaints exhibited by his Lops attorny agst Mr R. Ingle the attending & psequution whereof was like to cause great demurrage to the ship & other damages & encumbrances in the gathering of his debts it was demanded by his Lops said attorny on his Lops behalfe that the said R. I. deposite in the country to his Lops use one barrell of powder & 400 l of shott to remaine as a pledge that the said R. I. shall by himself or his attorny appeare at his Lops Cort at S. Maries on or afore the first of ffebr next to answere to all such matters as shalbe then and there obiected agst him * * * * and upon his appearance the said powder & shott or the full value of it at the then rate of the country to be delivered to him his attorny or assigne upon demand.”[19]
What a change of policy, from charging a man with treason, the penalty for which was death, to offering him the right of bail for the appearance of his attorney, if necessary, to meet indefinite charges! In view of all the facts, it seems probable that the Maryland authorities were committed to the King’s cause by the commission granted by him to Leonard Calvert in 1643, and by their action in seizing Ingle; that after his arrest it was thought to be injudicious to go to extremes, and that they made little resistance to, if they did not connive at, his escape. Certainly, efforts to recapture him must have been very feeble, for when the sheriff demanded the tobacco and cask due him from the defendant for summoning juries, witnesses, &c., it was found that Ingle had left in the hands of the Secretary the required amount.[20] In arresting Ingle for uttering treasonable words, the palatine government was not only placing itself upon the side of King Charles, but was preparing to do what he had been prevented from doing a few months before. For when at his command some persons who had acted treasonably were condemned to death, parliament declared that “all such indictments and proceedings thereon were unjust and illegal; and that if any man was executed or suffered hurt, for any thing he had done by their order, the like punishment should be inflicted by death or otherwise, upon such prisoners as were, or should be, taken by their forces,” and their lives were saved.[21] The authorities of Maryland themselves show why Ingle was allowed to escape. On March 16th, Lewger showed that “whereas Richard Ingle was obnoxious to divers suits & complaints of his Lop for divers and sundry crimes all wch upon composition for the publique good & safety were suspended agst the said Richard Ingle assuming to leave in the country to the publique need at this time,” powder and shot, but he had not paid the composition and had left without paying custom dues, which were required for the proper discharge of his ship “by the law & custom of all Ports,” he prayed that all of Ingle’s goods, debts, &c., might be sequestered until he should clear himself.[22] Under the circumstances, the grave charges pending against him, as there is no proof that he had known the terms of composition, a crew and vessel being at his command, it is not surprising that he sailed away from danger, without attending to the formality of clearing, and leaving unpaid debts, for Lewger claimed 600 pounds of tobacco from him, as payment for some plate and a scimitar, for which Cornwallis went security.[23] There is a touch of seeming sarcasm in the suggestion that the deposit by Ingle of ammunition would have relieved the public need, for he would have been that much less dangerous, and the government would have been so much the more prepared to resist him.
But how were those who assisted him treated? On January 30th, Thomas Cornwallis, James Neale, Edward Parker and John Hampton, were impeached for having rescued him, and thereby of being accessories to high treason. Cornwallis made answer, “that he did well understand the matters charged agst the said Richard Ingle to be of no importance but suggested of mean malice of the —— William hardige, as hath appeared since in that the grand enquest found not so much probability in the accusations, as that it was fitt to putt him to his triall” and “he supposed & understood no other but that the said rich. Ingle went aboard wth the licence and consent of the L. G. & Counsell & of the officer in whose custody he was & as to the escape & rescuous in manner as is charged he is no way accessory to it & therefore prayeth to be dismissed.”[24] The judgment was delayed, but Cornwallis was anxious to be at once discharged. The lieutenant general and the attorney general, therefore, having consulted together, found Cornwallis guilty, and fined him one thousand pounds of tobacco, though at the request of the accused the fine was respited until the last day of the month, when Brent ordered the sheriff “to levie 1000 lbs tob. on any goods or debts” of Capt. Tho. Cornwallis “for so much adjudged by way of fine unto the Lord Proprietr agst him at the Court held on the 9th ffeb last.”[25] This fine, which was to be given to the attorney of Tho. Wyatt, commander of Kent Island, in payment of Lord Baltimore’s debt to him, Cornwallis afterward acknowledged he had paid.[26]
Neale did not make his appearance before the court, though he seems to have been in St. Mary’s, and was suspended from the council for his contempt. On February 11th, being accused of having begged Ingle from the sheriff, he denied all the charges, and in a few days was restored to his seat in the council, upon the eve of Brent’s departure for Kent Island.[27] Parker said Ingle had escaped against his will, and he was discharged, while Hampton escaped prosecution, presumably, for there is no further record of action in the case against him.[28]
But it would have been bad policy for the authorities to allow the matter to drop without apparent effort on their part to punish somebody, and Cornwallis had to bear the brunt of their attacks. The feeling against him was so strong, according to his own statements, that besides paying a fine, the highest “that could by law be laid upon him,” he was compelled for personal safety to take ship with Ingle for England, where the doughty captain testified before a parliamentary committee of Cornwallis’ devotion to its cause, and of the losses he had sustained in its behalf.[29]
The lieutenant governor, and council, may have congratulated themselves about the departure of Ingle and Cornwallis, but that mariner and trader was preparing to return to Maryland. On August 26th, 1644, certain persons trading to Virginia petitioned the House of Commons to allow them to transport ammunition, clothes, and victuals, custom free, to the plantations of the Chesapeake, which were at that time loosely classed under the one name—Virginia. The Commons granted to the eight[30] vessels mentioned in the petition, the right of carrying victuals, clothes, arms, ammunition, and other commodities, “for the supply and Defence and Relief of the Planters,” and referred the latter part of the petition, asking power to interrupt the Hollanders and other strange traders, to the House of Lords.[31] It is hardly necessary to say at this point that the planters to be relieved and defended by the cargoes of the vessels, were planters not at enmity with the parliament. For vessels from London were used in the interests of parliament, while those from Bristol were the King’s ships. De Vries, the celebrated Dutchman, who has left such acute observations about the early colonists, wrote that while visiting Virginia in 1644 he saw two London ships chase a fly-boat to capture it, and it was reported in Massachusetts that a captured Indian had given as a reason for the Indian massacre, on April 18th, 1644, “that they did it because they saw the English took up all their lands, * * * and they took this season for that they understood that they were at war in England, and began to go to war among themselves, for they had seen a fight in the river between a London ship, which was for the parliament, and a Bristol ship, which was for the King.”[32]
Among the ships commissioned by the parliament, which were armed, was the “Reformation,” of which Ingle was still master. He was in London in October, 1644, receiving cargo, and Cornwallis entrusted to him goods, valued at 200 pounds sterling.[33] The vessel soon afterwards sailed, and was in Maryland in February. In the province, at that time, affairs were in a very unsettled condition. The energetic Claiborne, who was also called by Maryland authorities a pirate and a rebel, but who was a much better man than is generally supposed, and whose life ought to be especially studied, was still pushing his claims to Kent Island, and Leonard Calvert had been compelled to visit Virginia more than once during the winter in trying to prevent his actions. The Indians were aroused and prone to take advantage of disputes between the factions in the province, while the colonists themselves were in a state of unrest. At this juncture Ingle appeared. Streeter wrote of his coming, “several vessels appeared in the harbor, from which an armed force disembarked, (Feb. 14, 1645,) under the command of Capt. Richard Ingle, St. Mary’s was taken; many of the members were prisoners; the Governor was a fugitive in Virginia; and the Province in the hands of a force, professing to act, and probably acting, under authority of Parliament.”[34] There is no authority given for the first part of this statement, though it is not improbable, and is partly substantiated by the exaggerated charges against Ingle, made by the Assembly of 1649, and the references to him in proclamations. There is no mention in the provincial records of Calvert’s having being forced out of the province, but, on the contrary, Calvert in his commission to Hill in 1646 stated that “at this present, I have occasion, for his lordship’s service to be absent out the said province,” and says nothing at all about Ingle. The rebellion has been called “Claiborne’s and Ingle’s,” and, although association with Claiborne would not have been dishonorable to any one, historical accuracy seems to call for a distinction. In Greene’s proclamation of pardon given in March, 1647/8; in the letter written by the Assembly to Lord Baltimore in April, 1649; in the Proprietor’s commissions for the great seal, for muster master general, for commander of Kent Island, respectively, in 1648; and in his letter to Stone in 1649, the rebellion is attributed to the instigation of Ingle.[35] In the commission to Governor Stone, of August, 1648, is the statement, “so as such pardon or pardons extend not to the pardoning of William Clayborne heretofore of the isle of Kent in our said province of Maryland and now or late of Virginia or of his complices in their late rebellion against our rights and dominion in and over the said province nor of Richard Ingle nor John Durford mariner,” and in the act of Oblivion, in April, 1650, pardon is granted to all excepting “Richard Ingle and John Darford Marryners, and such others of the Isle of Kent” as were not pardoned by Leonard Calvert.[36] In these two instances alone is any kind of an opportunity offered for connecting the two names, even here they are separated, and the distinction is made greater by the fact that in a commission concerning Hill, also of August, 1648, and in other places, Claiborne is mentioned with no reference at all to Ingle.[37] It is probable, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that Ingle and Claiborne never planned any concerted action, but that each took advantage of the other’s deeds, to further his own interests.