When Lord Baltimore heard how Stone had surrendered the government, he wrote a letter chiding him for it. The legal authority of the commissioners, Bennett and Claiborne, had expired with the Rump Parliament. Cromwell was now Lord Protector, and according to his own theory the Protectorate was virtually the assignee of the Crown and successor to all its rights and obligations. Baltimore's charter was therefore as sound under the Protectorate as it had ever been. Knowing that Cromwell favoured this view, Cecilius wrote to Stone to resume the government and withstand the Puritans. This led at once to civil war. Governor Stone gathered a force of 130 men and marched against the settlement at Providence, flying Baltimore's beautiful flag of black and gold. Captain Fuller, with 175 men, was ready for him, and the two little armies met on the bank of the Severn, March 25, 1655. Besides his superiority in numbers, Fuller was helped by two armed merchant ships, the one British, the other from New England, which kept up a sharp fire from the river. Stone's men were put to flight, leaving one third of their number in killed and wounded. One old Puritan writer tells us with keen enjoyment that the field whence they fled was strewn with their "Papist beads." Among the prisoners taken was Stone himself, who was badly wounded. Fuller at once held a court-martial at which Stone and nine other leading men were sentenced to death. Four were executed, but on the intercession of some kind-hearted women Stone and the others were pardoned.
Lord Baltimore sustained by Cromwell.
The supremacy of the Puritans in Maryland thus seemed to be established, but it was of short duration. Some of the leading Puritans in Virginia, such as Bennett and Mathews, visited London and tried to get Baltimore's charter annulled. But their efforts soon revealed the fact that Cromwell was not on their side of the question, and so they gave up in despair, and the quarrel of nearly thirty years' standing was at last settled by a compromise in 1657. Lord Baltimore promised complete amnesty for all offences against his government from the very beginning, and he gave his word never to consent to the repeal of his Toleration Act of 1649. Upon these terms Virginia withdrew her opposition to his charter, and indemnified Claiborne by extensive land grants for the loss of Kent Island. Baltimore appointed Captain Josias Fendall to be governor of Maryland and sent out his brother Philip Calvert to be secretary. The men of Providence were fain to accept toleration at the hands of those to whom they had refused to grant it, and in March, 1658, Governor Fendall's authority was acknowledged throughout the palatinate. Peace reigned on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the claims of Leah and Rachel were adjusted, and the fair sisters quarrelled no more.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] E. E. Hale, in Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc. N. S. viii. 190-212.
[2] Grimm et Diderot, Correspondance littéraire, tom. xv. p. 325.
[3] Genty, L'influence de la découverte de l'Amérique, etc., 2^e éd., Orleans, 1789, tom. ii. pp. 148-150.
[4] Id. p. 192 ff.
[5] Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist. iii. 19.
[6] Froude, History of England, viii. 439.