On the 30th of November, 1675, died Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, after having inscribed his name upon one of the fairest pages in the history of America. The magnificent heritage left him by his father was beset with difficulties; but his courage, perseverance, and skill had triumphed over the hostility of Virginia and the intrigues of Clayborne, over domestic insurrection and Puritan hatred. The first ruler who established and maintained religious toleration is entitled to enduring honor in the eyes of posterity. His name is that of one of the most enlightened and magnanimous statesmen who ever founded a commonwealth.
In the year following his death, Governor Charles Calvert, now the Lord Proprietary, called an assembly at which a thorough revision of the laws of the Province was made. Among the laws continued in force was the Toleration Act of 1649. In the same year Lord Baltimore appointed Thomas Notley deputy-governor, and then sailed for England, where he remained three years. Upon his arrival he found that a clergyman of the Church of England, named Yeo, residing in Maryland, had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, under the date of 25th May, 1676, begging him to solicit from Lord Baltimore an established support for the Protestant ministry. “Here are ten or twelve counties,” he writes, “and in them at least twenty thousand souls, and but three Protestant ministers of the Church of England. The priests are provided for, and the Quakers take care of those that are speakers, but no care is taken to build up churches in the Protestant religion. The Lord’s day is profaned. Religion is despised, and all notorious vices are committed, so that it is become a Sodom of uncleanness and a pest-house of iniquity.” There is reason to believe that this letter was an exaggerated libel. At any rate the writer considered it easy to cure the evil. It would be sufficient to impose an established church upon the Province. The Archbishop referred the letter to the Bishop of London, who asked the Privy Council to “prevail with Baltimore to settle a revenue for the ministry in his province.” The Privy Council wrote to Baltimore communicating the unfavorable information with regard to the dissolute life of the inhabitants of his province, and desiring an account of the number of Established and Dissenting ministers there. Lord Baltimore replied that in every county of the Province there were a sufficient number of churches which were supported by the voluntary contributions of those attending them, and that there were, to his knowledge, four clergymen of the Church of England in the Province. He also urged that at least three fourths of the inhabitants were Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, the members both of the Church of England and of the Church of Rome being the fewest, “so that it will be a most difficult task to draw such persons to consent unto a law which shall compel them to maintain ministers of a contrary persuasion to themselves, they having already assurance by an Act for Religion that they shall have all freedom in point of religion and divine worship, and no penalties imposed upon them in that particular.” The Council, however, directed that some provision should be made for the ministry of the Church of England, and that the laws against vice should be enforced. Baltimore returned to Maryland in 1680, but nothing was done to carry out the orders of the Council.
Soon after his return the restless Fendall, in conjunction with John Coode, attempted to stir up an insurrection of the Protestants against the Proprietary. Baltimore, having early notice of the proceedings, arrested Fendall. He was punished by fine and banishment, and the enterprise ended almost as soon as it began. The great preponderance of the Protestant population, and the course of affairs in England were fast making the position of a Catholic Proprietary untenable. Complaints of the favor shown to Catholics were constantly sent to England. In October, 1681, the Privy Council wrote to Baltimore that impartiality must be shown in admitting Catholics and Protestants to the council and in the distribution of arms. In reply to these complaints a declaration was issued in May, 1682, signed by twenty-five Protestants of the Church of England residing in the Province. This declaration certified that places of honor, trust, and profit were conferred on the most qualified, without any regard to the religion of the participants, and that in point of fact most of the offices were filled with Protestants, one half of the council, and by far the greater part of the justices of the peace and militia officers, being Protestants. The subscribers published to the world the general freedom and privilege which all the inhabitants of the Province enjoyed in their lives, liberties, and estates, and in the free and public exercise of their religion.
The first Proprietary had finally come off successful in the long contest for his territory with Virginia and Clayborne. The second Proprietary was now called upon to begin a longer and less successful struggle with William Penn. The charter limits of Maryland included the present State of Delaware and a large part of Pennsylvania. In 1638 a settlement of Swedes was made on the Delaware, which was brought under subjection to the government of the States General in 1655.[872] In 1659 the governor and council, in pursuance of Lord Baltimore’s instructions, ordered Colonel Utie to “repair to the pretended governor of a people seated on the Delaware Bay, within his lordship’s province, and to require them to depart the province.” Utie had an interview with the authorities of New Amstel, and threatened them with war in case of a refusal to leave. They replied that the matter must be left to their principals in England and Holland. Towards the close of the year the Dutch sent Augustine Hermann and Resolved Waldron as ambassadors to Maryland. They had an interview with the governor and council in which the claim of Holland to the territory in question was formally presented. The governor asserted the title of Lord Baltimore and demanded the submission of the settlements. This demand was rejected and the interview terminated. The Dutch power in America was soon after brought to an end by the Duke of York, to whom Charles II. in 1664 granted all the territory between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers.[873] In 1680 Penn asked for a grant of the territory west of the Delaware and north of Maryland. In his patent, which passed the seals in March, 1681, the southern boundary of his province was a “circle of twelve miles drawn around New Castle to the beginning of the forty degrees of latitude,”—a description which it was impossible to gratify. In April, 1681, the King wrote to Baltimore notifying him of Penn’s grant, and directing him to aid Penn in seating himself, and to appoint some persons to make a division between the provinces, in conjunction with Penn’s agents.[874] Lord Baltimore met Penn’s deputy, in September, 1682, at Upland (now Chester), when it was found, by a precise observation, that the fortieth degree of latitude was beyond Upland itself. The knowledge of this fact caused Penn to be anxious to obtain a grant of Delaware. Though the Duke of York’s grant did not extend south of the Delaware, Penn, by dint of importunity, obtained from him in August, 1682, a grant of the territory twelve miles around New Castle, and southward, along the river, to Cape Henlopen. Penn asked for that which he knew to be within the boundaries of Maryland, and beyond the power of the Duke to grant. He also received a release of the Duke’s claim to the territory of Pennsylvania, and soon afterwards sailed for his province.
On August 19, 1682, he had procured from the King a letter to Baltimore directing the latter to hasten the adjustment of the boundaries. An interview between the two Proprietaries took place in December, when Penn handed to Lord Baltimore the King’s letter. Baltimore insisted upon the fortieth degree as his northern boundary, and the conference was fruitless. They had another interview, at New Castle, in the following year, which also made it apparent that no agreement between the rival Proprietaries was possible. Penn now raised against the Maryland charter an objection similar to that which had been urged by Virginia and Clayborne,—that Delaware had been settled by the Dutch before the grant of the charter, and that, if this were not the case, Baltimore had forfeited his rights by failure to extend his settlements there.
Both Penn and Lord Baltimore now resolved to go to England to contest the matter before the King and Council. Baltimore called an assembly—the last over which he presided in person—in April, 1684. He acquainted them with the necessity he was under of going to England, and assured them that his stay would be no longer than requisite for the decision of the differences between Penn and himself. The Assembly then proceeded to revise the laws of the Province; after which the Proprietary appointed a council of nine, under the presidency of William Joseph, to govern the Province during his absence, and sailed for England. Baltimore found that he was no match in court influence for Penn. In November, 1685, the Board of Trade decided that the Maryland charter included only “lands uncultivated and inhabited by savages, and that the territory along the Delaware had been settled by Christians antecedently to his grant, and was therefore not included in it;” and they directed that the peninsula between the two bays should be divided equally by a line drawn from the latitude of Cape Henlopen to the fortieth degree, and that the western portion was Baltimore’s and the eastern Penn’s. The Revolution, however, came in time to prevent the execution of this decision, and the vexed question was not finally settled till the middle of the following century.
The accession of James II. brought increased danger to Lord Baltimore. To a king who designed the subversion of the liberties of the colonies as well as of England, the liberal charter of Maryland was especially odious. In April, 1687, an order in Council was made directing the prosecution of a writ of quo warranto against the Maryland charter. In that age the issuing of such a writ seldom failed to achieve its object; but before judgment could be obtained against Baltimore the Revolution of 1688 had occurred, and the Stuart dynasty was at an end. The tidings that a writ had been issued against Baltimore’s charter alarmed the imaginations of the provincials. When the Assembly met in November, 1688, President Joseph sought to counteract this state of feeling in a manner which only served to increase the anxiety. In his opening speech he claimed his right to rule jure divino, tracing it from God to the King, from the King to the Proprietary, and from the Proprietary to himself. He then took the unprecedented step of demanding an oath of fidelity from the Houses. The burgesses at first refused, and were with difficulty persuaded to yield. The Assembly showed its loyalty to the monarch, who was then a fugitive from his kingdom, by passing an act for a perpetual thanksgiving for the birth of the prince, and fixed a commemoration of it each succeeding tenth day of June.
Upon the accession of William and Mary the Privy Council directed Lord Baltimore to cause their majesties to be proclaimed in Maryland. He immediately despatched a messenger with orders to his council to proclaim the king and queen with the usual ceremonies. This messenger unfortunately died at Plymouth, and, although William and Mary had been acknowledged in the other colonies, the Maryland council shrank from acting without orders from the Proprietary, while they alarmed the inhabitants by collecting arms and ammunition. Information of this delay was sent to the Board of Trade from Virginia. Baltimore was consequently summoned before it, when he explained that he had sent the required directions to Maryland, but that they had failed to arrive. He was ordered to despatch duplicate instructions, but before they reached the Province the Proprietary’s power was overthrown. The absence of all colonial records from the close of the session of 1688 to the year 1692 makes it difficult to understand the exact cause of this revolution. Enough appears from other sources, however, to show that it was a rebellion fostered by falsehood and intimidation,—“a provincial Popish plot.” In April, 1689, John Coode and other disaffected persons formed “An Association in arms for the defence of the Protestant religion, and for asserting the right of King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland and all the English dominions.” Early in July they began to gather in large numbers on the Potomac. They alleged that the Catholics had invited the northern Indians to join them in a general massacre of the Protestants in the following month, and that they had taken arms to defeat this conspiracy. When a similar rumor had been set on foot, in the preceding March, a declaration had been published, signed by several of those who were now Associators, asserting that the subscribers had examined into all the circumstances of the pretended design, and “found it to be nothing but a sleveless fear and imagination fomented by the artifice of some ill-minded persons.” But in July the Association availed itself of this baseless rumor to obtain the adherence of those who were foolish enough to believe it; while to others they asserted that their purpose was only to proclaim William and Mary.
By these means the neutrality or support of the greater part of the population was secured, and the Associators moved upon St. Mary’s. The council prepared for resistance, but, upon the approach of Coode with greatly superior forces, they surrendered the State House and the provincial records. The Association then published a “Declaration of the reasons and motives for the present appearing in arms of their Majesties’ Protestant subjects in the Province of Maryland.” This Declaration, dated July 25, 1689, signed by Coode and many others, was printed at St. Mary’s.[875] It is an ingenious and able paper, but certainly an audacious calumny, which could only have found credence in England. It set forth that, by the contrivances of Lord Baltimore and his officers, “the tyranny under which we groan is palliated,” and “our grievances shrouded from the eye of observation and the hand of redress.” These grievances were then stated in general terms. In the mean time Joseph and his council retired to a fort on the Patuxent. When Coode marched against them with several hundred men they were again compelled to surrender, and the Associators became masters of the situation. On the third of August, 1689, they sent an address to the king and queen congratulating them upon having restored the laws and liberties of England to their “ancient lustre, purity, and splendor,” and declaring that, without the expense of a drop of blood, they had rescued the government of Maryland from the hands of their enemies, and would hold it securely till a settlement thereof should be made. A convention was called to meet on the 23d of August, to which however several counties refused to send delegates. The convention sent an address to the King asking that their rights and religion might be secured under a Protestant government. The matter was now to be determined in England, and addresses from all the counties and from both parties poured in to the King. Many Protestants favored the Proprietary, and, in their addresses, denounced the falsehoods of the Associators. A number of the Protestants of Kent County declared in their address that “we have here enjoyed many halcyon days under the immediate government of Charles, Lord Baron of Baltimore, and his honorable father, ... by charter of your royal progenitors, wherein our rights and freedoms are so interwoven with his Lordship’s prerogative that we have always had the same liberties and privileges secured to us as other of your Majesty’s subjects in the Kingdom of England.” The greater number of signers, however, sided with the revolutionists. A friend of Lord Baltimore wrote that “people in debt think it the bravest time that ever was. No courts open nor no law proceedings, which they pray may continue as long as they live.” The same writer asserted that the best men and the best Protestants stood stiffly up for the Proprietary’s interest.
Those who had benefited by a Protestant Revolution in England were naturally disposed to look with favor upon a similar Revolution in America. And thus it came to pass that the Proprietary government “fell without a crime.”