prietary, as if holding the exclusive privilege of proposing statutes, had prepared for their government; and, in their turn, enacted a body of laws, which they proposed for the assent of the proprietary. How discreetly they proceeded cannot now be known, for the laws which were then enacted were never ratified, and are not to be found in the provincial records.

In the early history of the United States, popular assemblies burst everywhere into life, with a consciousness of their importance, and an immediate efficiency. The first assembly of Maryland had vindicated the jurisdiction of the colony; the second had asserted its claims to original legislation; in 1639, the third examined its obligations, and, though its acts were not carried through the forms essential to their validity, it showed the spirit of the people and the times by framing a declaration of rights. Acknowledging allegiance to the English monarch and the prerogatives of Lord Baltimore, it confirmed to all Christian inhabitants of Maryland, slaves excepted, all the liberties which an Englishman enjoyed at home by virtue of the common or statute law, established a system of representative government, and asserted for their general assemblies all such powers as were exercised by the commons of England. The exception of slaves implies that negro slavery had already intruded itself into the province. At this session, any freeman, who had not taken part in the election, might attend in person; thenceforward the governor might summon his friends by special writ, while the people were to choose as many delegates as "the freemen should think good." As yet there was no jealousy of power, no strife for place. While these laws prepared a frame of government for future` generations, we are reminded of the feebleness of the state, where the whole people contributed to "the setting up of a water-mill."

In October, 1640, the legislative assembly of Maryland, in the grateful enjoyment of happiness, seasonably guarded the tranquillity of the province against the perplexities of an “interim" by providing for the security of the government in case of the death of the deputy governor. Commerce was fostered, and tobacco, the staple of the colony, subjected to in

spection. The act which established church liberties declares that “holy church, within this province, shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties, and franchises, wholly and without blemish." This revival of a clause in Magna Charta, cited in the preceding century by some of the separatists as a guarantee of their religious liberty, was practically interpreted as in harmony with that toleration of all believers in the divinity of Jesus Christ, which was the recognised usage of the land.

Nor was it long before the inhabitants acknowledged Lord Baltimore's great charge and solicitude in maintaining the government, and protecting them in their persons, rights, and liberties; and, therefore, so runs the statute of March, 1642, " out of desire to return some testimony of gratitude," they granted "such a subsidy as the young and poor estate of the colony could bear." Ever intent on advancing the interests of his colony, the proprietary invited the Puritans of Massachusetts to Maryland, offering them lands and privileges, and “free liberty of religion;" but Gibbons, to whom he had forwarded a commission, was "so wholly tutored in the New England discipline" that he would not advance the wishes of the Irish peer, and the people were not tempted to desert the bay of Massachusetts for the Chesapeake.

The aborigines, alarmed at the rapid increase of the Europeans, and vexed at being frequently overreached by their cupidity, began hostilities; for the Indians, ignorant of the remedy of redress, always planned retaliation. After a war of frontier aggressions, extending from 1642 to 1644, but marked by no decisive events, peace was re-established with them on the usual terms of submission and promises of friendship, and rendered durable by the prudent legislation of the assembly and the humanity of the government. Kidnapping them was made a capital offence, the sale of arms to them prohibited as a felony, and the pre-emption of the soil reserved to the proprietary.

To this right of pre-emption Lord Baltimore would suffer no exception. The Jesuits had obtained a grant of land from an Indian chief; the proprietary, "intent upon his own affairs, and not fearing to violate the immunities of the church," would not allow that it was valid, and persisted in enforcing against

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ENGLISH PEOPLE IN AMERICA. PART I.; CH. X. Catholic priests the necessity of obtaining his consent before they could acquire real estate in his province in any wise, even by gift.

In the mixed population of Maryland, where the administration was in the hands of Catholics, and the very great majority of the people were Protestants, there was no unity of sentiment out of which a domestic constitution could have harmoniously risen. At a time when the commotions in England left every colony in America almost unheeded, and Virginia and New England were pursuing a course of nearly independent legislation, the power of the proprietary was almost as feeble as that of the king. The other colonies took advantage of the period to secure and advance their liberties; in Maryland the effect was rather to encourage insubordination; the government vibrated with every change in the political condition of England.

In this state of uncertainty, Leonard Calvert, the proprietary's deputy, repaired to England to take counsel with his brother. During his absence, and toward the end of the year 1643, a London ship, commissioned by parliament, anchored in the harbor of St. Mary's; and Brent, the acting governor, under a general authority from the king at Oxford, but with an indiscretion which was in contrast with the caution of the proprietary, seized the ship, and tendered to its crew an oath against the parliament. Richard Ingle, the commander, having escaped, in January, 1644, was summoned by proclamation to yield himself up, while witnesses were sought after to convict him of treason. The new commission to Governor Calvert plainly conceded to the representatives of the province the right of originating laws. It no longer required an oath of allegiance to the king, but it exacted from every grantee of land an oath of fidelity to the proprietary. This last measure proved a new entanglement.

In September, Calvert returned to St. Mary's to find the colony rent by factions, and Clayborne still restless in asserting his claim to Kent island. Escaping by way of Jamestown to London, Ingle had obtained there a letter of marque, and, without any other authority, reappearing in Maryland, he raised the standard of parliament against the established au

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thorities, made away with the records and the great seal, and, by the aid of Protestants, compelled the governor and secretary, with a few of their devoted friends, to fly to Virginia. Father White and the other Jesuit missionaries were seized and shipped to England; an oath of submission was tendered to the inhabitants, but it was not subscribed by even one Catholic. After his lawless proceedings, which wrought for the colony nothing but confusion and waste of property and insurrectionary misrule, Ingle returned to England.

A fugitive in Virginia, Calvert, in 1645, asked aid of that province. Its governor and council "could send him no help," but they invited Clayborne "to surcease for the present all intermeddling with the government of the isle of Kent." Their offer to act as umpires was not accepted. Before the close of the year 1646, Calvert organized a force strong enough to make a descent upon St. Mary's, and recover the province. In April, 1647, he, in person, reduced Kent island, and established Robert Vaughan, a Protestant, as its commander. Tranquillity returned with his resumption of power, and was confirmed by his wise clemency. On the ninth of the following June he died, and his death foreboded for the colony new disasters, for, during the troublous times which followed, no one of his successors had his prudence or his ability. His immediate successor was Thomas Greene, a Roman Catholic.

Meantime, the committee of plantations at London, acting on a petition, which stated truly that the government of Maryland, since the first settlement of that province, had been in the hands of recusants, and that under a commission from Oxford it had seized upon a ship which derived its commission from parliament, reported both Lord Baltimore and his deputy unfit to be continued in their charges, and recommended that parliament should settle the government of the plantation in the hands of Protestants.

This petition was read in the house of lords in the last week of the year 1645; but neither then nor in the two following years were definite measures adopted by parliament, and the politic Lord Baltimore had ample time to prepare his own remedies. To appease the parliament, he removed Greene, and in August, 1648, appointed in his place William

Stone, a Protestant, of the church of England, formerly a sheriff in Virginia, who had promised to lead a large number of emigrants into Maryland. For his own security, he bound his Protestant lieutenant, or chief governor, by the most stringent oath to maintain his rights and dominion as absolute lord and proprietary of the province of Maryland; and the oath, which was devised in 1648, and not before, and is preserved in the archives of Maryland, went on in these words: “I do further swear I will not by myself, nor any other person, directly trouble, molest, or discountenance any person whatsoever in the said province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ; and, in particular, no Roman Catholic, for or in respect of his or her religion, nor his or her free exercise thereof within the said province, so as they be not unfaithful to his said lordship, or molest or conspire against the civil government established under him." To quiet and unite the colony, all offences of the late rebellion were effaced by a general amnesty; and, at the instance of the Catholic proprietary, the Protestant governor, Stone, and his council of six, composed equally of Catholics and Protestants, and the representatives of the people of Maryland, of whom five were Catholics, at a general session of the assembly, held in April, 1649, placed upon their statute-book an act for the religious freedom which, by the unbroken usage of fifteen years, had become sacred on their soil. "And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion," such was the sublime tenor of a part of the statute, "hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof." Thus did the star of religious freedom harbinger the day; though, as it first gleamed above the horizon, its light was colored and obscured by the mists and exhalations of morning. The Independents of England, in a paper which they called "the agreement of the people," expressed their desire to grant to all believers in Jesus Christ the free exercise of their religion;