Pott's guilt is made still more doubtful by the fact that execution of the sentence was suspended "untill his Majesties pleasure might be signified concerning him", while the Council united in giving their security for his safe keeping.[259] Harvey himself wrote asking the King's clemency. "For as much," he said, "as he is the only Physician in the Colonie, and skilled in the Epidemicall diseases of the planters, ... I am bound to entreat" your Majesty to pardon him.[260] It would seem quite inexplicable that Harvey should go to so much trouble to convict Dr. Pott, and then write immediately to England for a pardon, did not he himself give the clue to his conduct. "It will be," he said, "a means to bring the people to ... hold a better respect to the Governor than hitherto they have done."[261] Having shown the colonists that he could humble the strongest of them, he now sought to teach them that his intercession with the King could restore even the criminal to his former position.
When Dr. Pott was at Elizabeth City his wife was reported to be ill, but this did not deter her from making the long and dangerous voyage to England to appeal to the King "touching the wrong" done her husband.[262] Charles referred the matter to the Virginia commissioners, who gave her a hearing in the presence of Harvey's agent. Finding no justification for the proceedings against him, they wrote Harvey that for aught they could tell Pott had demeaned himself well and that there seemed to have been "some hard usage against him".[263] The sentence of confiscation seems never to have been carried out, but Pott was not restored to his seat in the Council.[264]
This arbitrary conduct did not succeed in intimidating the other Councillors. These men must have felt that the attack upon Dr. Pott was aimed partly at the dignity and power of the Council itself. If Harvey could thus ruin those that incurred his displeasure, the Councillors would lose all independence in their relations with him. Soon they were in open hostility to the Governor. Claiming that Harvey could do nothing without their consent, and that all important matters had to be determined "by the greater number of voyces at the Councell Table", they entered upon a policy of obstruction. It was in vain that the Governor declared that he was the King's substitute, that they were but his assistants, and that they were impeding his Majesty's business; they would yield to him only the position of first among equals. Early in 1631 Harvey was filling his letters to England with complaints of the "waywardness and oppositions of those of the Councell". "For instead of giving me assistance," he declared, "they stand Contesting and disputing my authoritie, avering that I can doe nothinge but what they shall advise me, and that my power extendeth noe further than a bare casting voice."[265] He had received, he claimed, a letter from the King, strengthening his commission and empowering him to "doe justice to all men, not sparinge those of the Councell", which he had often shown them, but this they would not heed. "I hope," he wrote, "you never held me to be ambitious or vainglorious, as that I should desire to live here as Governor to predominate, or prefer mine owne particular before the generall good." My position in Virginia is most miserable, "chiefly through the aversions of those from whom I expected assistance". He had often tried to bring peace and amity between them, but all to no purpose, for he was scorned for his efforts. He would be humbly thankful if his Majesty would be pleased to strengthen his commission, "that the place of Governor and the duty of Councellors may be knowne and distinguished".[266]
It is probable that the Councillors also wrote to England, to place before the King their grievances against Harvey, for before the end of the year letters came from the Privy Council, warning both sides to end the dispute and to proceed peacefully with the government of the colony. In compliance with these commands they drew up and signed a document promising "to swallow up & bury all forepart Complainte and accusations in a generall Reconciliation". They thanked their Lordships for advice that had persuaded their "alienated & distempered" minds to thoughts of love and peace and to the execution of public justice. The Council promised to give the Governor "all the service, honor & due Respect which belongs unto him as his Majesties Substitute".[267] It is quite evident, however, that this reconciliation, inspired by fear of the anger of the Privy Council, could not be permanent. Soon the Council, under the leadership of Captain Matthews, who had long since forfeited Harvey's favor, was as refractory as ever.
A new cause for complaint against the Governor arose with the founding of Maryland. In 1623 George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, had received a grant of the great southeastern promontory in Newfoundland, and had planted there a colony as an asylum for English Catholics. Baltimore himself had been detained in England for some years, but in 1627 came with his wife and children to take personal control of his little settlement. His experience with the severe Newfoundland winter persuaded him that it would be wise to transfer his colony to a more congenial clime. "From the middle of October," he wrote Charles I, "to the middle of May there is a sad face of winter upon all the land; both sea and land so frozen for the greater part of the time as they are not penetrable ... besides the air so intolerable cold as it is hardly to be endured.... I am determined to commit this place to fishermen that are able to encounter stormes and hard weather, and to remove myself with some forty persons to your Majesties dominion of Virginia; where, if your Majesty will please to grant me a precinct of land, with such privileges as the King your father ... was pleased to grant me here, I shall endeavour to the utmost of my power, to deserve it."[268]
In 1629 he sailed for Virginia, with his wife and children, and arrived at Jamestown the first day of October. His reception by Governor Pott and the Council was by no means cordial. The Virginians were loath either to receive a band of Catholics into their midst, or to concede to them a portion of the land that they held under the royal charters. Desiring to be rid of Baltimore as speedily as possible, they tendered him the oath of supremacy. This, of course, as a good Catholic he could not take, for it recognized the English sovereign as the supreme authority in all ecclesiastical matters. Baltimore proposed an alternative oath of allegiance, but the Governor and Council refused to accept it, and requested him to leave at once. Knowing that it was his intention to apply for a tract of land within their borders, the Virginians sent William Claiborne after him to London, to watch him and to thwart his designs.
Despite Claiborne's efforts a patent was granted Baltimore, making him lord proprietor of a province north of the Potomac river, which received the name of Maryland. Baltimore, with his own hand, drew up the charter, but in April, 1632, before it had passed under the Great Seal, he died. A few weeks later the patent was issued to his eldest son, Cecilius Calvert. The Virginians protested against this grant "within the Limits of the Colony", claiming that it would interfere with their Indian trade in the Chesapeake, and that the establishment of the Catholics so near their settlements would "give a generall disheartening of the Planters".[269] But their complaints availed nothing. Not only did Charles refuse to revoke the charter, but he wrote the Governor and Council commanding them to give Lord Baltimore every possible assistance in making his settlement. You must, he said, "suffer his servants and Planters to buy and transport such cattle and comodities to their Colonie, as you may conveniently spare ... and give them ... such lawful assistance as may conduce to both your safetyes".[270]
The second Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland, and sent him with two vessels and over three hundred men to plant the new colony. In February, 1634, the expedition reached Point Comfort, where it stopped to secure from the Virginians the assistance that the King had promised should be given them.
They met with scant courtesy. The planters thought it a hard matter that they should be ordered to aid in the establishment of this new colony. They resented the encroachment upon their territories, they hated the newcomers because most of them were Catholics, they feared the loss of a part of their Indian trade, and they foresaw the growth of a dangerous rival in the culture of tobacco. Despite the King's letter they refused to help Calvert and his men. "Many are so averse," wrote Harvey, "that they crye and make it their familiar talke that they would rather knock their Cattell on the heades than sell them to Maryland."[271] The Governor, however, not daring to disobey his sovereign's commands, gave the visitors all the assistance in his power. "For their present accomodation," he said, "I sent unto them some Cowes of myne owne, and will do my best to procure more, or any thinge else they stand in need of."[272] This action secured for Harvey the praise of the Privy Council, but it made him more unpopular with his Council and the people of Virginia.
After a stay of several weeks at Point Comfort, Calvert sailed up the Chesapeake into the Potomac, and founded the town of Saint Mary's. This, however, was not the first settlement in Maryland. In 1631, William Claiborne, returning from England after his unsuccessful attempt to block the issuing of Baltimore's charter, had established a settlement upon Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Here he had built dwellings and mills and store houses, and had laid out orchards and gardens. In thus founding a colony within Baltimore's territory he was sustained by the Council. When Calvert arrived in 1634 he sent word to Claiborne that he would not molest his settlement, but since Kent Island was a part of Maryland, he must hold it as a tenant of Lord Baltimore. Upon receipt of this message Claiborne laid the matter before his colleagues of the Virginia Council, and asked their commands. The answer of the Councillors shows that they considered the new patent an infringement upon their prior rights and therefore of no effect. They could see no reason, they told Claiborne, why they should render up the Isle of Kent any more than the other lands held under their patents. As it was their duty to maintain the rights and privileges of the colony, his settlement must continue under the government and laws of Virginia.