264

VII.

MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE.

CHAP. years the unhappy province had been distracted by dissensions, of which the root had consisted in the claims that Baltimore had always asserted, and had never been able to establish. What should now be done? England was in a less settled condition than ever. Would the son of Cromwell permanently hold the place of his father? Would Charles II. be restored? Did new revolutions await the colony? new strifes with Virginia, the protector, the proprietary, the king? Wearied with long convulsions, a general 1660. assembly saw no security but in asserting the power

of the people, and constituting the government on the Mar. expression of their will. Accordingly, just one day 12. before that memorable session of Virginia, when the

people of the Ancient Dominion adopted a similar system of independent legislation, the representatives of Maryland, convened in the house of Robert Slye, voted themselves a lawful assembly, without dependence on any other power in the province. The burgesses of Virginia had assumed to themselves the election of the council; the burgesses of Maryland refused to acknowledge the rights of the body claiming to be an upper house. In Virginia, Berkeley yielded to the public will; in Maryland, Fendall permitted the power of the people to be proclaimed. The representatives of Maryland, having thus successfully settled the government, and hoping for tranquillity after years of storms, passed an act, making it felony to disturb the order which they had established. No authority would henceforward be recognized, except the assembly, and the king of England.' The light of peace promised to dawn upon the province.

1 Bacon, 1659-60. McMahon, 212. Chalmers, 224, 225. Griffith, 18. Ebeling, v. 709. The German

historian is remarkably temperate. All others have been unjust to the legislature of Maryland.

MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE.

265

VII.

Thus was Maryland, like Virginia, at the epoch of CHAP. the restoration, in full possession of liberty, based upon the practical assertion of the sovereignty of the people. 1660. Like Virginia, it had so nearly completed its institutions, that, till the epoch of its final separation from England, it hardly made any further advances towards freedom and independence.

Men love liberty, even if it be turbulent; and the colony had increased, and flourished, and grown rich, in spite of domestic dissensions. Its population, in 1660, is variously estimated at eight thousand,' and at twelve thousand. The country was dear to its inhabitants. There they desired to spend the remnant of their lives; there they coveted to make their graves.

1 Fuller's Worthies, Ed. 1662. 2 Chalmers, 226. 3 Hammond, 25 34

VOL. I.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PILGRIMS.

CHAP

VIII.

THE settlement of New England was a result of the Reformation;1 not of the contest between the new opinions and the authority of Rome, but of implacable differences between Protestant dissenters and the established Anglican church.

Who will venture to measure the consequences of actions by the apparent humility or the remoteness of their origin? The mysterious influence of that Power which enchains the destinies of states, overruling the decisions of sovereigns and the forethought of statesmen, often deduces the greatest events from the least commanding causes. A Genoese adventurer, discovering America, changed the commerce of the world; an obscure German, inventing the printing-press, rendered possible the universal diffusion of increased intelligence; an Augustine monk, denouncing indulgences, introduced a schism in religion, and changed the foundations of European politics; a young French refugee, skilled alike in theology and civil law, in the duties of magistrates and the dialectics of religious controversy, entering the republic of Geneva, and conforming its ecclesiastical discipline to the principles of republican simplicity, established a party, of which Englishmen became members, and New England the

1 Heeren, i. 102, 103.

EARLY VOYAGES TO NEW ENGLAND.

267

VIII.

asylum. The enfranchisement of the mind from re- CHAP. ligious despotism led directly to inquiries into the nature of civil government; and the doctrines of popular liberty, which sheltered their infancy in the wildernesses of the newly-discovered continent, within the short space of two centuries, have infused themselves into the life-blood of every rising state from Labrador to Chili, have erected outposts on the Oregon and in Liberia, and, making a proselyte of enlightened France, have disturbed all the ancient governments of Europe, by awakening the public mind to resistless action, from the shores of Portugal to the palaces of the czars.

10.

The trading company of the west of England, in- 1606 corporated in the same patent with Virginia, possessed too narrow resources or too little enterprise for success in establishing colonies. The Spaniards, affecting an exclusive right of navigation in the seas of the new hemisphere, captured and confiscated a vessel1 which Nov. Popham, the chief justice of England, and Gorges, the governor of Plymouth, had, with some others, equipped for discovery. But a second and almost simultaneous expedition from Bristol encountered no disasters; and the voyagers, on their return, increased public confidence, by renewing the favorable reports of the country which they had visited. The spirit of adventure was not suffered to slumber; the lord chief justice displayed persevering vigor, for his honor was interested in the success of the company which his influence had contributed to establish; Gorges,3 the companion and friend of Raleigh, was still reluctant to surrender his

1 Purchas, iv. 1827 and 1832, and ff. Gorges' Briefe Narration, c. iv. Prince's N. E. Chronology, 113, 114. ii. Mass. Hist. Coll. ix. 3, 4. 2 Gorges, c. v. 6.

3 The name of Gorges occurs in Hume, c. xliv.; Lingard, viii. 449. Compare Belknap's Biography, i. 347-354. Gorges was ever a sincere royalist.

268

COLONY AT SAGADAHOC.

CHAP. sanguine hopes of fortune and domains in America; VIII. and, in the next year, two ships were despatched to 1607. Northern Virginia, commanded by Raleigh Gilbert,

8.

5.

and bearing emigrants for a plantation under the presidency of George Popham. After a tedious voyage, Aug. the adventurers reached the coast of America near the mouth of the Kennebec, and, offering public thanks to God for their safety, began their settlement under the auspices of religion, with a government framed as if for a permanent colony. Rude cabins, a storehouse, and some slight fortifications, were rapidly prepared, Dec. and the ships sailed for England, leaving forty-five emigrants in the plantation, which was named St. George. But the winter was intensely cold; the natives, at first friendly, became restless; the storehouse caught fire, and part of the provisions was consumed; the emigrants grew weary of their solitude; they lost Popham, their president, "the only one of the company that died there;" the ships which re1608. visited the settlement with supplies, brought news of the death of the chief justice, the most vigorous friend of the settlement in England; and Gilbert, the sole in command at St. George, had, by the decease of his brother, become heir to an estate which invited his presence. So the plantation was abandoned; and the colonists, returning to England, "did coyne many excuses," and sought to conceal their own deficiency of spirit by spreading exaggerated accounts of the rugged poverty of the soil, and the inhospitable sever

1 Gorges, c. vii. viii. ix. Purchas, iv. 1828. Smith, ii. 173-175. Belknap, 1. 350-354. i. Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 251, 252. Williamson's History of Maine, i. 197–203. Prince, 116, 117, 118, 119. Hubbard's N. E. 36, 37.

2 Chalmers, 79, writes, "They

looked at the numerous graves of the dead;" drawing on his imagination for embellishments. Compare ii. Mass. Hist. Coll. ix. 4. Chalmers, 79, names among those who died, "Gilbert, their chief" an

error.