There can be no doubt that the Proprietary contemplated the foundation of an aristocratic State, with large tracts of land in the hands of individuals who would be interested in upholding his authority. He published, from time to time, certain “conditions of plantation,” stating the quantity of land to which emigrants would be entitled. In the conditions issued in 1636 he directs that to every first adventurer, for every five men brought into the Province in 1634, there should be granted two thousand acres of land for the yearly rent of four hundred pounds of wheat; and to each bringing a less number, one hundred acres for himself, and one hundred acres for his wife and each servant, and fifty acres for every child, under the rent of ten pounds of wheat for each fifty acres. The conditions offered to subsequent adventurers were, naturally, less favorable. All these grants were of fee-simple estates of inheritance, and the colonists received in addition grants of small lots in the town of St. Mary’s. Each tract of a thousand acres or more was erected into a manor, with the right to hold courts baron and leet, and the other privileges belonging to manors in England. A large number of manors were laid off in the Province, and in some instances courts baron and leet were held.[868]
It was only in this regard that the design of transplanting the institutions of expiring feudalism to the New World was carried out. Political and social equality resulted from the conditions of the environment. The “freemen,” who were entitled to make laws, were early held to include all but indented servants, whether they owned a freehold or not. The second Assembly, which met in January, 1638, was a pure democracy. Writs of summons had been issued to every freeman directing his personal attendance. The governor presided as speaker, and the council sat as members. Those freemen who did not choose to attend gave proxies. Proclamation was made that all persons omitted in the writs should make their claim to a voice in the Assembly, “whereupon claim was made by John Robinson, carpenter, and was admitted.” Upon the question of the adoption of the body of laws proposed by Lord Baltimore, the Speaker and Lewger (who counted by proxies fourteen voices) were in the affirmative, and all the rest of the Assembly, being thirty-seven voices, in the negative. Thus was begun a constitutional struggle between the people and the Proprietary. The latter held that, under the charter, the right of originating legislation belonged exclusively to him. For this reason, he had rejected the laws made in 1635, and had himself proposed a number of bills. The colonists were unwilling to concede this claim, and now rejected, in turn, the propositions of the Proprietary. This early evidence of the persistence with which a handful of emigrants maintained what they conceived to be their rights possesses a peculiar interest. The immediate result of the contest was to leave the colony without any laws under which criminal jurisdiction could be exercised. This subject next occupied the attention of the House. Subsequently a number of laws were made, but with the exception of an act of attainder against Clayborne, their titles only remain. They were sent to Lord Baltimore, who promptly exercised his veto power upon them. In February, 1638, a county court was held at which Thomas Smith, who had been captured in the naval engagement described above, and subsequently held a prisoner, was indicted by a grand jury for murder and piracy. There being no court legally constituted to try Smith, he was arraigned and tried before the Assembly, Secretary Lewger acting as the prosecuting attorney. The House found him guilty, with but one dissenting voice, and he was sentenced to be hanged.
Soon after Lord Baltimore had for the second time rejected the acts of the Assembly, he wisely determined to yield his claim of the right to originate legislation. Accordingly he wrote to his brother in August, 1638, giving him power to assent to such laws as he might approve. The assent of the governor was to give force to the laws till the dissent of the Proprietary should be signified. This double veto power was similar to that which existed in most of the royal colonies, where the first negative was in the governor and the second in the king. In a Palatinate government, like Maryland, the Proprietary exercised the royal prerogative. There being no further obstacle to legislation an Assembly was called to meet in February. 1639, which body was composed partly of delegates elected by the people, and partly of freemen specially summoned by the governor’s writ. It was also held that any freeman, who had not participated in the election of deputies, might sit in his individual right. The laws passed at this session provided principally for the administration of justice in criminal and civil cases. It was enacted that the inhabitants should have all their rights and liberties according to the Great Charter.
One of the acts declared that “Holy Church within this Province shall have all her rights and liberties.” A similar law was made in the following year. Both are founded upon the first clause of Magna Charta and must be held to apply to the Roman Church, since the phrase “Holy Church” was never used in speaking of the Church of England. But these acts can hardly be regarded as evidence of an intention to establish the Roman Church. They do not seem to have had any practical effect whatever. We have seen that Lord Baltimore purposed to make all creeds equal in Maryland. Apart from this fixed purpose, from which he never swerved, the impolicy of granting any peculiar privileges to the Catholic Church, in a province subject to England, was so apparent that it was recognized by the Jesuits themselves. Among the Stonyhurst Manuscripts there is preserved the form of an agreement between the Provincial of the Society of Jesus, and Lord Baltimore, in which, after a statement of the manner in which Maryland had been obtained and settled, it is recited that it is “evident that, as affairs now are, those privileges, etc., usually granted to ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church by Catholic princes in their own countries, could not possibly be granted here without grave offence to the King and State of England (which offence may be called a hazard both to the Baron and especially to the whole colony).” The agreement then binds the members of the society in Maryland not to demand any such privileges except those relating to corporal punishments.[869]
It is certain that, from the time the emigrants first landed at St. Mary’s, religious toleration was the established custom of the Province. The history of Maryland toleration does not begin with the famous Act of 1649. That was merely a legislative confirmation of the unwritten law. Long before that enactment, at a time when intolerance and martyrdom was almost the law of Christendom, and while the annals of the other colonies of the New World were being stained with the record of crimes committed in the name of religion, in Maryland the doctrine of religious liberty was clearly proclaimed and practised. It is the imperishable glory of Lord Baltimore and of the State. For the first time in the history of the world there was a regularly constituted government under which all Christians possessed equal rights. All churches were tolerated, none was established. To this “land of the sanctuary” came the Puritans who were whipped and imprisoned in Virginia, and the Prelatists who were persecuted in New England. In 1638 one William Lewis was fined by the council five hundred pounds of tobacco, and required to give security for his good behavior, because he had abused Protestants and forbidden his servants to read Protestant books. The Puritans were invited to settle in Maryland. In 1643 Lord Baltimore wrote to Captain Gibbons of Boston, offering land to any inhabitants of New England that would remove to his province, with liberty in matter of religion, and all other privileges.[870]
It appears from a case that came before the Assembly in 1642 that there was at that time no Protestant clergyman in Maryland. The only religious guides were the Jesuit missionaries, and they formed the only Catholic mission ever established in any of the English colonies in America. Two priests, as we have seen, accompanied the first emigration. In 1636 the mission numbered four priests and one coadjutor. They labored among the Indians in the spirit of Xavier, establishing stations at points distant from St. Mary’s. Their efforts to elevate the savage were not without success. One of their converts was Tayac, the chief of the Piscataways. He and his wife were baptized in 1640, when Governor Calvert and many of the principal men of the colony were present at the ceremony. The Jesuits also succeeded in converting many Protestants. The annual letter of 1638, as communicated to their Superior, states that nearly all the Protestants who came from England in that year, and many others, had been converted.
Although the missionaries did much towards conciliating the Indians, and a fair and gentle treatment of them was the constant policy of the colony, it was yet impossible to preserve a perfect peace with all the tribes. The increase of the colonists began to alarm them, and they were constantly committing petty depredations. All the inhabitants capable of bearing arms were trained in military discipline, and a certain quantity of arms and ammunition was required to be kept at each dwelling-house. Expeditions were frequently made for the purpose of punishing particular tribes which had committed “sundry insolencies and rapines.” Scarcely anything is known of the details of these Indian wars. It was made a penal offence for the colonists to supply any Indian with arms, but the Swedes on the Delaware had no scruples in this respect.
In 1640 another Assembly was held. St. Mary’s County had now been divided into hundreds, and conservators of the peace appointed for each hundred. In addition to the burgesses elected in each hundred, the governor summoned certain freemen by special writ, as had been previously done. The theory upon which this Assembly and those held in the following years proceeded, in framing laws, was that justice should be done according to the law of England, except in so far as changed by provincial enactments.
The Civil War was now at its height in England, and that mighty convulsion filled all the colonies with alarm and uncertainty. The supremacy of the Puritans foreboded danger to the colony of a Catholic nobleman, who still adhered to the cause of the King. Governor Calvert determined to consult his brother personally in regard to the course to be pursued in this crisis. Delegating his powers to Giles Brent, he sailed for England and soon after joined his brother at Oxford. They received from the King a commission to seize any London ships that might come to St. Mary’s. Baltimore sent this commission to Maryland; and in January, 1644, when one Richard Ingle appeared in the Province with an armed ship from London, Governor Brent seized the vessel, and issued a proclamation against Ingle, charging him with treason to the King. Ingle was taken, but soon after made his escape and returned to England. Governor Calvert arrived in September, 1644, and found the Province torn with internal feuds and harassed by Indian incursions. Many thought that the triumph of Parliament would put an end to the Proprietary dominion. Clayborne availed himself of the confusion to renew his designs upon Kent Island, and, by the end of the year, he had regained his former possession. Ingle soon after arrived in another ship, with parliamentary letters of marque. The Proprietary was as powerless as the King with whose fortunes his own were thought to be linked. Ingle landed his men, allied himself with the disaffected, and easily took possession of the government. Governor Calvert fled to Virginia, and the insurgents were undisturbed. The records of the Province brand Ingle as a pirate. To plunder seems indeed to have been his main purpose, and it is not clear that he even professed to act on behalf of the Commonwealth. He afterwards alleged, in a petition to Parliament, that, when he arrived in Maryland, he found that the governor had received a commission from Oxford to seize all London ships, and to execute a tyrannical power against Protestants; and that, therefore, he felt himself to be conscientiously obliged to come to the help of the Protestants against the Papists and Malignants. His only statement as to his proceedings in the Province is that “it pleased God to enable him to take divers places from them, and to make him a support to the well-affected.” It is, however, certain that the period of Ingle’s usurpation was marked with much oppression and extortion. The Jesuits were sent in chains to England, and most of those deemed loyal to the Proprietary were deprived of their property and banished.