America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the Nevv VVorld / Containing the Original of the Inhabitants, and the Remarkable Voyages Thither. The Conquest of the Vast Empires of Mexico and Peru, and Other Large Provinces and Territories, with the Several European Plantations in Those Parts. Also Their Cities, Fortresses, Towns, Temples, Mountains, and Rivers. Their Habits, Customs, Manners, and Religions. Their Plants, Beasts, Birds, and Serpents. With an Appendix, Containing, Besides Several Other Considerable Additions, a Brief Survey of What Hath Been Discover'd of the Unknown South-land and the Arctick Region.

by John Ogilby

A
NEW DESCRIPTION
OF
MARY-LAND.

SECT. III.

Before We proceed to the Description of this Countrey, it will be first requisite to relate the true occasion and means, whereby this part of America came to be erected into a Province, and call’d Mary-land.

The situation.

In the Year of our Lord 1631. George Lord Baltemore obtain’d of King Charles the First, of Great Brittain, &c. a Grant of that part of America, (first discover’d by the English) which lies between the Degrees of thirty seven and fifty Minutes, or thereabouts, and forty of Northerly Latitude; which is bounded on the South by Virginia; on the North, by New England, and New Jersey, part of New York, lying on the East side of Delaware Bay; on the East, by the Ocean; and on the West, by that part of the Continent which lies in the Longitude of the first Fountains of the River call’d Patomeck.

In pursuance of this Grant to his said Lordship, a Bill was prepar’d, and brought to His Majesty to Sign, who first ask’d his Lordship, what he should call it, there being a Blank in the Bill designedly left for the Name, which his Lordship intended should have been Crescentia; but his Lordship leaving it to His Majesty to give it a Name, the King propos’d to have it call’d Terra-Mariæ, in English, Mary-land, in honor of his Queen, whose Name was Mary; which was concluded on, and inserted into the Bill, which the King then Sign’d; and thereby the said Tract of Land was erected into a Province by that Name.

His Lordship somewhat delaying the speedy passing of it under the Great Seal of England, dy’d in the interim, before the said Patent was perfected; whereupon a Patent of the said Province was shortly afterwards pass’d to his Son and Heir, (who was Christen’d by the Name of Cœcil, but afterwards confirm’d by the Name of Cœcilius,) the now Lord Baltemore, under the Great Seal of England, bearing Date June 20. 1632. in the eighth Year of His said Majesties Reign, with all Royal Jurisdictions and Prerogatives, both Military and Civil in the said Province, as Power to Enact Laws, Power of pardoning all manner of Offences, Power to confer Honors, &c. to be held of His said Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, Kings of England in common Soccage, as of His Majesties Honor of Windsor in the County of Berks in England; yielding and paying yearly for the same to His Majesty and to His Heirs and Successors for ever, two Indian Arrows of those parts, at the Castle of Windsor aforesaid, on Tuesday in Easter Week, and the fifth part of all Gold and Silver Oar, which shall happen to be found in the said Province.

The Bounds.