238 DEATH OF CECILIUS LORD BALTIMORE. CHAP. jurisdiction. As in Massachusetts, money was coined XIV. at a provincial mint, and, at a later day, the value of 1686. foreign coins was arbitrarily advanced. A duty was 1671. 4 levied on the tonnage of every vessel that entered 1662. the waters.3 It was resolved to purchase a state1674. house, which was subsequently built at a cost of forty thousand pounds of tobacco-about a thousand dollars. 1666. The Indian nations were pacified; and their rights, subordination, and commerce, defined and established. But the mildest and most amiable feature of legislation 1662. is found in the acts of compromise between Lord 1674. Baltimore and the representatives of the people, in which the power of the former to raise taxes was accurately limited, and the mode of paying quit-rents established on terms favorable to the colony; while, on the other hand, a custom of two shillings a hogshead was levied on all exported tobacco, of which a moiety was appropriated to the defence of the government; the residue became conditionally the revenue of the proprietary. The compromise, though called "an act of gratitude," was favorable to the colonists. The people held it a duty themselves to bear the charges of government, and they readily acknowledged the unwearied care of the proprietary for the welfare of his dominions. Thus was the declining life of Cecilius Lord Baltimore, the father of Maryland, the tolerant legislator, the benevolent prince, blessed with the success which philanthropy deserves. The colony which he had planted in youth, crowned his old age with its grati 1 Compare Albany Records, xvii. 315, 245; xviii. 337-365. More on this subject hereafter. Heerman's Journal sheds a clear light on the controversy with Penn. 2 Bacon, 1661, c. iv.; 1662, c. viii.; 1686, c. iv. 3 Ibid. 1661, c. vii. 4 Ibid. 1662, c. xix.; 1671, c. xl.; 1674, c. i. XIV. tude. Who among his peers could vie with him in CHAP. honors? A firm supporter of prerogative, a friend to the Stuarts, he was touched with the sentiment of humanity; an earnest disciple of the Roman church, of which he venerated the expositions of truth as infallible, he, first among legislators, established an equality among sects. Free from religious bigotry, a lover of concord and of tranquillity, he could not rise above the political prejudices of his party. He knew not the worth or the fruits of popular power; he had not perceived the character of the institutions which were forming in the New World, and his benevolent designs were the results of his own moderation, the fruit of his personal character, without regard to the spirit of his age. In Rhode Island, intellectual freedom was a principle which Roger Williams had elicited from the sympathies of the people; in Maryland, it was the happy thought of the sovereign, who did not know that ideas find no secure shelter but in the breast of the multitude. The people are less easily shaken than the prince. Rhode Island never lost the treasure of which it had become conscious. The principle of freedom of mind did not exist in the people of Maryland, and, therefore, like the benevolence of individuals, was an uncertain possession, till the same process of thought, which had redeemed the little colony of the north, slowly, but surely, infused itself into the public mind on the Chesapeake. Lord Baltimore failed to obtain that highest fame, which springs from successful influence on the masses; his personal merits are free from stain. The commercial metropolis of Maryland commemorates his name; the memory of his wise philanthropy survives in American 1675 history. He died after a supremacy of more than 30 Nov. 240 MARYLAND FAVORED BACON'S REBELLION. CHAP. forty-three years, leaving a reputation for temperate XIV. wisdom, which the dissensions in his colony and the 1676. He various revolutions of England could not tarnish. The death of Cecilius recalled to England the heir of the province, who had now administered its government for fourteen years with a moderation which had been rewarded by the increasing prosperity of his patrimony. Previous to his departure, the whole code of laws received a thorough revision; the memorable act of toleration was confirmed. Virginia had, six 1670. years before, prohibited the importation of felons until April 20. the king or privy council should reverse the order. In Maryland, "the importation of convicted persons was absolutely prohibited without regard to the will of the king or the English parliament, and in 1692 the prohibition was renewed.' The established revenues of the proprietary were continued. As Lord Baltimore sailed for England, the seeds of discontent were already germinating. The office of proprietary, a feudal principality, with extensive manors in every county, was an anomaly; the sole hereditary legislator in the province, his power was not in harmony with the political predilections of the colonists, or the habits of the New World. The doctrine of the paramount authority of an hereditary sovereign was at war with the spirit which emigration fostered, and the principles of civil equality naturally I Hening, ii. 509, 510. Bacon, 1676, c. xvi. XIV. June grew up in all the British settlements. The insurrec- CHAP. tion of Bacon found friends north of the Potomac, and a rising was checked only by the prompt energy of the government.' But the vague and undefined cravings after change, the tendency toward more popular forms of administration, could not be repressed. The assembly which was convened during the absence of 1678. the proprietary shared in this spirit; and the right of suffrage was established on a corresponding basis. The party of "Baconists" had obtained great influence on the public mind. Differences between the proprietary and the people became apparent. On his return to the province, he himself, by proclamation, 1681 annulled the rule which the representatives of Mary- 27 land had established respecting the elective franchise, and, by an arbitrary ordinance, limited the right of suffrage to freemen possessing a freehold of fifty acres, or having a visible personal estate of forty pounds. No difference was made with respect to color. In Virginia, the negro, the mulatto, and the Indian, were first disfranchised in 1723; in Maryland, they retained by law the right of suffrage till the time when the poor- 1802 est white man recovered his equal franchise. These restrictions, which, for one hundred and twenty-one years, successfully resisted the principle of universal suffrage among freemen of the Caucasian race, were introduced in the midst of scenes of civil commotion. Fendall, the old republican,3 was again planning schemes of insurrection, and even of independence. The state was not only troubled with poverty, but 1 T. M.'s Account, p. 21. Lord Baltimore to the earl of Anglesey, in Chalmers, p. 376. "In the time of Bacon's rebellion, he [Fendall] tried to raise a rebellion here." 31 VOL. II. 2 Bacon, 1678, c. iii. McMahon, 445. 3 Documents, in Chalmers, 376. The letter is from Lord Baltimore, -of course, an ex parte statement. Sep Sept. 6. 242 PROTESTANT BIGOTRY IN CATHOLIC MARYLAND. XIV. CHAP. Was in danger of falling to pieces; for it was said, "The maxims of the old Lord Baltimore will not do in the present age."1 1676. The insurrection was for the time repressed; but its symptoms were the more alarming from the religious fanaticism with which the principle of popular power was combined. The discontents were increased by hostility toward the creed of Papists; and, as Protestantism became a political sect, the proprietary government was in the issue easily subverted; for it had struck no deep roots either in the religious tenets, the political faith, or the social condition of the colony. It had rested only on a grateful deference, which was rapidly wearing away. Immediately on the death of the first feudal sovereign of Maryland, the powerful influence of the archbishop of Canterbury had been solicited to secure an establishment of the Anglican church, which clamored for favor in the province where it enjoyed equality. Misrepresentations were not spared. "Maryland," said a clergyman of the church, "is a pest-house of iniquity." The cure for all evil was to be "an established support of a Protestant ministry." The prelates demanded, not freedom, but privilege; an establishment to be maintained at the common expense of the province. Lord Baltimore resisted; the Roman Catholic was inflexible in his regard for freedom of worship. 2 The opposition to Lord Baltimore as a feudal sovereign easily united with Protestant bigotry; and 1681. when the insurrection was suppressed by methods of clemency and forbearance, the government was 1 Culpepper, in Chalmers, 357. 2 Rev. J. Yeo, in Chalmers, 373. |