by Izaak Walton, as well as by Richard Baxter, employed hours of night in translating ten books of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." The lover of the garden found the fruits of Europe improved in flavor by the joint influence of climate and soil. The chase furnished a perpetual resource. It was not long before the horse was multiplied; and to improve that noble animal was early an object of pride, soon to be favored by legislation.

The hospitality of the Virginians was proverbial. Land was cheap, and competence followed industry. There was no need of a scramble. The morasses were alive with waterfowl; the creeks abounded with oysters, heaped together in inexhaustible beds; the rivers were crowded with fish; the forests were alive with game; the woods rustled with coveys of quails and wild turkeys; and hogs, swarming like vermin, ran at large in troops. It was "the best poor man's country in the world." "If a happy peace be settled in poor England," it had been said, "then they in Virginia shall be as happy a people as any under Heaven."

VOL. 1.-12

CHAPTER X.

COLONIZATION OF MARYLAND.

VIRGINIA, by its second charter, extended two hundred miles north of Old Point Comfort, and therefore included the soil which forms the state of Maryland. It was not long before the country toward the head of the Chesapeake was explored; settlements in Accomack were extended; and commerce was begun with tribes which Smith had been the first to visit. In 1621, Pory, the secretary of the colony, "made a discovery into the great bay," as far as the river Patuxent, which he ascended; but his voyage probably reached no farther to the north. An English settlement of a hundred men, on the eastern shore, was a consequence of his voyage. The hope "of a very good trade of furs" with the Indians animated the adventurers.

An attempt to obtain a monopoly of this intercourse was made by William Clayborne, whose resolute spirit was destined to exert a long-continued influence. His first appearance in America was as a surveyor, sent by the London company to make a map of the country. At the fall of the corporation, he had been appointed by King James a member of the council; and, on the accession of Charles, was continued in office, and, in repeated commissions, was nominated secretary of state. He further received authority from the governors of Virginia to discover the source of the bay of the Chesapeake, and explore any part of the province, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree of latitude. Upon his favorable representation, a company was formed in England for trading with the natives; and, in May, 1631, through the agency of Sir William Alexander, the Scottish proprietary of

Nova Scotia, a royal license was issued, sanctioning the commerce, and conferring on Clayborne powers of government over the companions of his voyages. Under this grant, the isle of Kent was occupied in the following August, and the right to the soil was soon after purchased of the Indians. An advanced post was established near the mouth of the Susquehanna. The settlers on Kent island were all members of the church of England; and in February, 1632, they were represented by a burgess in the grand assembly of Virginia. In March of that year, their license was confirmed by a commission from Sir John Harvey as governor of Virginia.

The United States were severally colonized by men, in origin, religious faith, and purposes, as various as their climes. Before Virginia could occupy the country north of the Potomac, a new government in that quarter was promised to Sir George Calvert. Born in Yorkshire, educated at Oxford, with a mind enlarged by extensive travel, on his entrance into life he was befriended by Sir Robert Cecil, advanced to the honors of knighthood, and at length employed as one of the two secretaries of state. In 1621, he stood with Wentworth to represent in parliament his native county, and escaped defeat, though not a resident in the shire. His capacity for business, his industry, and his fidelity to King James, are acknowledged by all historians. In the house of commons it was he who made an untimely speech for the supply of the king's purse ; and, when the commons claimed their liberties as their ancient and undoubted right and inheritance, it was to Calvert the king unbosomed his anger at their use of such "anti-monarchical words." The negotiations for the marriage of the prince of Wales with a Spanish princess were conducted entirely by him. In an age of increasing divisions among Protestants, his mind sought relief from controversy in the bosom of the Roman Catholic church; and, professing his conversion without forfeiting the king's favor, in 1624, he disposed advantageously of his place, which had been granted him for life, and obtained the title of Lord Baltimore in the Irish peerage.

He had, from early years, shared the enthusiasm of England in favor of American plantations; had been a member of the great company for Virginia; and, while secretary of state,

had obtained a special patent for the southern promontory of Newfoundland, named Avalon, after the fabled isle from which King Arthur was to return alive. How zealous he was in selecting suitable emigrants, how earnest to promote order and industry, how lavishly he expended his estate in advancing the interests of his settlement-is related by those who have written of his life. He desired, as a founder of a colony, not present profit, but a reasonable expectation; and, avoiding the evils of a common stock, he left each one to enjoy the results of his own industry. Twice did he, in person, inspect his settlement. In 1629, on his second visit, with ships manned at his own charge he repelled the French, who were hovering round the coast to annoy English fishermen ; and, having taken sixty of them prisoners, he secured temporary tranquillity to his countrymen and his colonists.

Notwithstanding this success, he wrote to the king from his province that the difficulties he had encountered in that place were no longer to be resisted; that from October to May both land and sea were frozen the greater part of the time; that he was forced to shift to some warmer climate of the New World; that, though his strength was much decayed, his inclination carried him naturally to "proceedings in plantations." He therefore desired the grant of a precinct of land in Virginia, with the same privileges which King James had conceded to him in Newfoundland.

1

Despatching this petition to Charles I., he embarked for Virginia, and arrived there in October, the season in which the country on the Chesapeake arrays itself in its most attractive brightness. The governor and council forthwith ordered the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to be tendered him. It was in vain that he proposed a form which he was willing to subscribe; they insisted upon that which had been chosen. by the English statutes, and which was purposely framed in such language as no Catholic could adopt. An explanatory letter was transmitted from the Virginia government to the privy council, with the prayer that no papists might be suffered to settle among them.

Almost at the time when this report was written, the king at Whitehall, weighing that men of Lord Baltimore's condi

tion and breeding were unfit for the rugged and laborious beginnings of new plantations, advised him to desist from further prosecuting his designs, and to return to his native country. He came back; but it was "to extol Virginia to the skies," and to persist in his entreaties. It was represented that on the north of the Potomac there lay a country inhabited only by native tribes. The French, the Dutch, and the Swedes were preparing to occupy it; and a grant seemed the readiest mode of securing it by an English settlement. The cancelling of the Virginia patents had restored to the monarch his prerogative over the soil; and it was not difficult for Calvert -a man of such moderation that all parties were taken with him, sincere in his character, disengaged from all interests, and a favorite with the royal family—to obtain a charter for uncultivated domains in that happy clime. The conditions of the grant conformed to the wishes, it may be to the suggestions, of the first Lord Baltimore himself, although it was finally issued for the benefit of his son.

The ocean, the fortieth parallel of latitude, the meridian of the western fountain of the Potomac, the river itself from its source to its mouth, and a line drawn due east from Watkin's Point to the Atlantic-these were the limits of the province, which, by the king's command, took the name of Maryland, from the queen, Henrietta Maria. The country thus described. was given to Lord Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, as to its absolute lord and proprietary, to be holden by the tenure of fealty only, paying a yearly rent of two Indian arrows, and a fifth of all gold and silver ore which might be found. Yet authority was conceded to him rather with reference to the crown than the colonists. The charter, like the constitution. of Virginia of July, 1621, provided for a resident council of state; and, like his patent, which, in April, 1623, had passed the great seal for Avalon, required for acts of legislation the advice and approbation of the majority of the freemen or their deputies. Authority was intrusted to the proprietary from time to time to constitute fit and wholesome ordinances, provided they were consonant to reason and the laws of England, and did not extend to the life, freehold, or estate of any emigrant. For the benefit of the colony, the English