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VII.

CHAP. Lord Baltimore and his officers determined, under the powers, which the charter conferred, to vindicate 1655. his supremacy. In the latter end of January, on the arrival of a friendly ship, it was immediately noised abroad, that his patent had been confirmed by the protector; and orders began again to be issued for the entire restoration of his authority. Papists and others were commissioned by Stone to raise men in arms; and the leaders of this new revolution were able to surprise and get possession of the provincial records. They marched, also, from Patuxent towards Anne Arundel, the chief seat of the republicans, who insisted on naming it Providence. The inhabitants of Providence and their partisans gathered together with the zeal that belongs to the popular party, and with the courage in which puritans were never deficient. Vain were proclamations, promises and threats. The party of Stone was attacked and utterly discomfited; he himself was taken prisoner; and would have been put to death but for the respect and affection borne him by the soldiers, on whom his execution was enjoined. He was kept a prisoner during most of the administration of Cromwell.3

A friend to Lord Baltimore, then in the province, begged of the protector no other boon, than that he would "condescend to settle the country by declaring

1 Langford, p. 9, 10.
2 Strong, p. 5.

3 On this occasion, were pub-
lished, Strong's Babylon's Fall in
Maryland, and Langford's Just
and Clear Refutation of a scan-

dalous pamphlet, entitled, Babylon's Fall in Maryland, 1655. Both are minute, and, in the main, agree. Compare Chalmers; McMahon, p. 207; Hazard, v. i. p. 621 -628, and 629, 630; Bacon's Pref.

MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE.

283

VII.

his determinate will." And yet the same causes, CHAP. which led Cromwell to neglect the internal concerns of Virginia, compelled him to pay but little attention 1655. to the disturbances in Maryland. On the one hand, no steps were taken to invalidate the patent, in right of which the proprietary might exercise the government; on the other hand, Cromwell corresponded with his commissioners, and expressed no displeasure at their exercise of power. The right to the jurisdiction of Maryland remained, therefore, a disputed question. Fuller, Preston and the others, appointed by Clayborne, actually possessed authority; while 1656. Lord Baltimore commissioned3 Josias Fendall to appear as his lieutenant. Fendall had, the preceding year, been engaged in exciting an insurrection, under pretence of instructions from Stone; he now appeared as an open insurgent. But he was unsuccessful; and little is known of his "disturbance," except that it 1657. occasioned a heavy public expenditure.*

July 10.

Sept.

18.

Yet the confidence of Lord Baltimore was continued to Fendall, who received anew an appointment Nov. to the government of the province. For a season, there was a divided rule; Fendall was acknowledged 1658. by the catholic party in the city of St. Mary's; and the commissioners were sustained by the puritans of St. Leonard's. At length, the conditions of a compromise were settled; and the government of the Mar. whole province was surrendered to the agent of the proprietary. Permission to retain arms; an indem

1 Barber, in Langford, p. 15. 2 Thurloe, v. i. p. 724, and v. iv. p. 55. Hazard, v. i. p. 594,

quotes but one of the rescripts.
3 McMahon, p. 211.
4 Bacon, 1657, c. viii.

24.

VII.

CHAP. nity for arrears; relief from the oath of fealty; and a confirmation of the acts and orders of the recent puritan assemblies; these were the terms of the surrender, and prove the influence of the puritans.'

1658.

Fendall was a weak and impetuous man, but I cannot find any evidence, that his administration was stained by injustice. Most of the statutes enacted during his government, were thought worthy of being perpetuated. The death of Cromwell left the condition of England uncertain, and might well diffuse a gloom through the counties of Maryland. For ten 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 1660. convulsions, a general assembly saw no security but in asserting the power of the people, and constituting the government on the expression of their will. Mar. Accordingly, just one day 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

12.

1 Bacon's Preface, and 1658, c. Proceedings, in McMahon, note i.; McMahon, p. 211, and Council to p. 14.

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MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE..

285

VII.

1660.

a lawful assembly, without dependence on any other CHAP. 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.

Thus was Maryland, like Virginia, at the epoch of the restoration, in full possession of liberty, based upon the practical assertion of the sovereignty of the people. 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.3

1 Bacon, 1659-60; McMahon, p. 212; Chalmers, p. 224, 225; Griffith, p. 18; Ebeling, v. v. p. 709. The German historian is remarkably temperate. All the others

have been unjust to the legislature
of Maryland.

2 Fuller's Worthies, printed in
1662.

3 Chalmers, p. 226.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PILGRIMS.

CHAP.

VIII.

THE settlement of New-England was a result of the Reformation; 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 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 Augustin 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

1 Heeren on the Reformation, Historische Werke, v. i. p. 102, 103.

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