History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 14

Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, descended from a n.o.ble family in Flanders, born at Kipling, in Yorkshire, England, was educated partly at Trinity College, Oxford, and partly on the continent. Sir Robert Cecil, lord treasurer, employed him as his secretary, and he was promoted to the clerkship of the council. In 1618 he was knighted, and in the succeeding year he was made a secretary of state, and one of the committee of trade and plantations, with a pension of one thousand pounds. Through the influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, he was chosen a member of Parliament. Receiving a patent for the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, he undertook to establish, in 1621, the plantation of Ferryland, which he called the Province of Avalon--a name derived from some mediaeval legend. In 1624 he professed the Romish faith, and resigned his place of secretary of state; but James the First still retained this strenuous defender of royal prerogative as a member of his privy council, and created him[183:A] Baron of Baltimore, in the County of Longford, in Ireland, he being at this time the representative of the University of Oxford in the House of Commons. Still bent upon establishing a colony in America, for the promotion of his private interests, and to provide an asylum for the unmolested exercise of his religion, embarking in a ship lent him by King Charles the First, he came over to Virginia in the year 1629.

Virginia was founded by men devoted to the principles of the Reformation, amid vivid recollections of the persecutions of Mary, the Spanish armada, and the recent gunpowder plot, and when horror of papists was at its height. The charter of the colony expressly required that the oaths of allegiance and supremacy should be taken for the purpose of guarding against "the superst.i.tions of the Church of Rome."[184:A]

The a.s.sembly being in session at the time of Lord Baltimore's arrival, proposed these oaths to him and those with him. He declined complying with the requisition, submitting, however, a form which he was ready to accept, whereupon the a.s.sembly determined to refer the matter to the privy council. The virtues of this able and estimable n.o.bleman did not secure him from personal indignity. In the old records is found this entry: "March 25th, 1630, Thomas Tindall to be pilloried two hours for giving my Lord Baltimore the lie, and threatening to knock him down."[184:B]

Finding the Virginians unanimously averse to the very name of papist, he proceeded to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and observing an attractive territory on the north side of the Potomac River unoccupied, returned to England, and, in violation of the territorial rights of Virginia, obtained from Charles the First a grant of the country, afterwards called Maryland,[184:C] but before the sealing of his patent.

During the session of 1629-30 ministers were ordered to conform themselves in all things "according to the canons of the Church of England." It would appear that Puritanism had begun to develope itself among the clergy as well as the laity of the colony. Measures were adopted for erecting a fort at Point Comfort; new-comers were exempted from military service during the first five years after their arrival; engrossing and forestalling were prohibited. For the furtherance of the production of potashes and saltpetre, experiments were ordered to be made; to prevent a scarcity of corn, it was enacted that two acres of land, or near thereabouts, be planted for every head that works in the ground; regulations were established for the improvement of the staple of tobacco. An act provided that the war commenced against the Indians be effectually prosecuted, and that no peace be concluded with them.[185:A]

The first act of the session of February, 1632, provides that there be a uniformity throughout this colony, both in substance and circ.u.mstance, to the canons and const.i.tution of the Church of England, as near as may be, and that every person yield ready obedience to them, upon penalty of the pains and forfeitures in that case appointed. Another act directs that ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinking, or riot, spending their time idly, by day or night, playing at dice, cards, or any other unlawful game. Another order was, that all the council and burgesses of the a.s.sembly shall in the morning be present at divine service, in the room where they sit, at the third beating of the drum, an hour after sunrise. No person was suffered to "tend" above fourteen leaves of the tobacco-plant, nor to gather more than nine leaves, nor to tend any slips of old stalks of tobacco, or any of the second crop; and it was ordained that all tobacco should be taken down before the end of November. No person was permitted to speak or parley with the Indians, either in the woods or on any plantation, "if he can possibly avoid it by any means." The planters, however, were required to observe all terms of amity with them, taking care, nevertheless, to keep upon their guard.

The spirit of const.i.tutional freedom exhibited itself in an act declaring that the governor and council shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony, their land, or commodities, otherwise than by authority of the grand a.s.sembly, to be levied and employed as by the a.s.sembly shall be appointed.

Act XL. provides, that the governor shall not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labors to service of his own, upon any color whatsoever. In case of emergency, the levying of men shall be ordered by the governor, with the consent of the whole body of the council. For the encouragement of men to plant a plenty of corn, it was enacted, that the price shall not be restricted, but it shall be free for every man to sell it as dear as he can. Men were not allowed to work in the grounds without their arms, and a sentinel on guard; due watch to be kept at night when necessary; no commander of any plantation shall either himself spend, or suffer others to spend, powder unnecessarily, that is to say, in drinking or entertainments. All men fit to bear arms were required to bring their pieces to the church on occasion of public worship. No person within the colony, upon any rumor of supposed change and alteration, was to presume to be disobedient to the present government, nor servants to their private officers, masters, and overseers, at their uttermost peril. No boats were permitted to go and trade to Canada or elsewhere that be not of the burthen of ten tons, and have a flush deck, or fitted with a grating and a tarpauling, excepting such as be permitted for discovery by a special license from the governor.[186:A]

FOOTNOTES:

[179:A] Chalmers' Introduction, i. 22. Beverley, B. i. 47, says expressly that an a.s.sembly was allowed. Burk, ii. 15, a.s.serts that "a.s.semblies convened and deliberated in the usual form, unchecked and uninterrupted by royal interference, from the dissolution of the proprietary government to the period when a regular const.i.tution was sent over with Sir W. Berkeley in 1639." For authority reference is made to a doc.u.ment in the Appendix, which doc.u.ment, however, is not to be found there. The opinions of Chalmers--who, as clerk of the privy council, had access to the archives in England--and Hening, confirmed by a corresponding hiatus in the records, appear conclusive against the unsupported statements of Beverley and Burk.

[180:A] Belknap, art. WYAT, errs in making Sir John Harvey the successor.

[181:A] The number of cattle amounted to several thousand head; the stock of goats was large, and their increase rapid; the forests abounded with wild hogs, which were killed and eaten by the savages.

[183:A] 1625.

[184:A] Burk, ii. 25; Hen., i. 73, 97.

[184:B] 1 Hen., 552.

[184:C] Belknap, iii. 206; Allen's Biog. Dic., art. CALVERT.

[185:A] 1 Hening, 149.

[186:A] 1 Hening, 155, 175.

CHAPTER XX.

1632-1635.

Charles the First appoints Council of Superintendence for Virginia--Acts of a.s.sembly--William Clayborne authorized by the Crown to make Discoveries and Trade--George Lord Baltimore dies--The Patent of Territory granted is confirmed to his Son Cecilius, Lord Baltimore--Virginia remonstrates against the grant to Baltimore--Lord Baltimore employs his Brother, Leonard Calvert, to found the Colony of Maryland--St. Mary's Settled--Harvey visits Calvert--Clayborne's Opposition to the New Colony--Character of Baltimore's Patent--Contest between Clayborne and the Marylanders--He is convicted of High Crimes--Escapes to Virginia--Goes to England for trial of the Case.

IN the year 1632 King Charles issued a commission appointing a Council of Superintendence over Virginia, empowering them to ascertain the state and condition of the colony. The commissioners were Edward, Earl of Dorset, Henry, Earl of Derby, Dudley, Viscount Dorchester, Sir John c.o.ke, Sir John Davers, Sir Robert Killegrew, Sir Thomas Rowe, Sir Robert Heath, Sir Kineage Tench, Sir Dudley Diggs, Sir John Holstenholm, Sir Francis Wyat, Sir John Brooks, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir John Tench, John Banks, Esq., Thomas Gibbs, Esq., Samuel Rott, Esq., George Sands, Esq., John Wolstenholm, Esq., Nicholas Ferrar, Esq., Gabriel Barber, and John Ferrar, Esquires.[187:A]

Elaborate acts pa.s.sed by the Colonial Legislature at this period, for improving the staple of tobacco and regulating the trade in it, evince the increasing importance of that crop. t.i.thes were imposed of tobacco and corn; and the twentieth "calfe, kidd of goates and pigge" granted unto the minister. During the year 1633 every fortieth man in the neck of land between the James River and the York, (then called the Charles,) was directed to repair to the plantation of Dr. John Pott, to be employed in building of houses and securing that tract of land lying between Queen's Creek, emptying into Charles River, and Archer's Hope Creek, emptying into James River. This was Middle Plantation, (now Williamsburg,) so called as being midway between the James River and the York. Each person settling there was ent.i.tled to fifty acres of land and exemption from general taxes. All new-comers were ordered to pay sixty-four pounds of tobacco toward the maintenance of the fort at Point Comfort.[188:A] Thus far, under Harvey's administration, the a.s.sembly had met regularly, and several judicious and wholesome acts had been pa.s.sed.

The Chesapeake Bay is supposed to have been discovered by the Spaniards as early as the year 1566 or before, being called by them the Bay of Santa Maria.[188:B] It was discovered by the English in 1585, when Ralph Lane was Governor of the first Colony of Virginia. In 1620 John Pory made a voyage of discovery in the Chesapeake Bay, and found one hundred English happily settled on its borders, (in what particular place is not known,) animated with the hope of a very good trade in furs.[188:C]

During the years 1627, 1628, and 1629 the governors of Virginia gave authority to William Clayborne, "Secretary of State of this Kingdom," as the Ancient Dominion was then styled, to discover the source of the bay, or any part of that government from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree of north lat.i.tude.[188:D] In May, 1631, Charles the First granted a license to "our trusty and well-beloved William Clayborne," one of the council and Secretary of State for the colony, authorizing him to make discoveries, and to trade. This license was, by the royal instructions, confirmed by Governor Harvey; and Clayborne shortly afterwards established a trading post on Kent Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, not far from the present capital of Maryland, Annapolis; and subsequently another at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. In the year 1632 a burgess was returned from the Isle of Kent to the a.s.sembly at Jamestown.[189:A] In 1633 a warehouse was established in Southampton River for the inhabitants of Mary's Mount, Elizabeth City, Accomac, and the Isle of Kent.

In the mean time, George, the elder Lord Baltimore, dying on the fifteenth of April, 1632, aged fifty, at London, before his patent was issued, it was confirmed June twentieth of this year, to his son Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore. The new province was named Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles the First of England, and daughter of Henry the Fourth of France. For eighteen months from the signing of the Maryland charter, the expedition to the new colony was delayed by the strenuous opposition made to the proceeding. The Virginians felt no little aggrieved at this infraction of their chartered territory; and they remonstrated to the king in council in 1633, against the grant to Lord Baltimore, alleging that "it will be a general disheartening to them, if they shall be divided into several governments." Future events were about to strengthen their sense of the justice of their cause. In July of this year the case was decided in the Star Chamber, the privy council, influenced by Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, deeming it fit to leave Lord Baltimore to his patent and the complainants to the course of law "according to their desire," recommending, at the same time, a spirit of amity and good correspondence between the planters of the two colonies.

So futile a decision could not terminate the contest, and Clayborne continued to claim Kent Island, and to abnegate the authority of the proprietary of Maryland.

At length, Lord Baltimore having engaged the services of his brother, Leonard Calvert, for founding the colony, he with two others, one of them probably being another brother, were appointed commissioners. The expedition consisted of some twenty gentlemen of fortune, and two or three hundred of the laboring cla.s.s, nearly all of them Roman Catholics. Imploring the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, St.

Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland, they set sail from Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, in November, 1633, St. Cecilia's day. The canonized founder of the order of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, was the patron saint of the infant Maryland. February twenty-seventh, 1634, they reached Point Comfort, filled with apprehensions of the hostility of the Virginians to their colonial enterprise. Letters from King Charles and the chancellor of the exchequer conciliated Governor Harvey, who hoped, by his kindness to the Maryland colonists, to insure the recovery of a large sum of money due him from the royal treasury. The Virginians were at this time all under arms expecting the approach of a hostile Spanish fleet. Calvert, after a hospitable entertainment, embarked on the third of March for Maryland. Clayborne, who had accompanied Harvey to Point Comfort to see the strangers, did not fail to intimidate them by accounts of the hostile spirit which they would have to encounter in the Indians of that part of the country to which they were destined.

Calvert, on arriving in Maryland, was accompanied in his explorations of the country by Captain Henry Fleet, an early Virginia pioneer, who was familiar with the settlements and language of the savages, and in much favor with them; and it was under his guidance and direction that the site of St. Mary's, the ancient capital of Maryland, was selected.[190:A] White, a Jesuit missionary, says of Fleet: "At the first he was very friendly to us; afterwards, seduced by the evil counsels of a certain Clayborne, who entertained the most hostile disposition, he stirred up the minds of the natives against us."[190:B]

White mentions that the Island of Monserrat, in the West Indies, where they touched, was inhabited by Irishmen who had been expelled by the English of Virginia "on account of their profession of the Catholic faith."

In a short time after the landing of Leonard Calvert in Maryland, Sir John Harvey, Governor of Virginia, visited him at St. Mary's. His arrival attracted to the same place the Indian chief of Patuxent, who said: "When I heard that a great werowance of the English was come to Yoacomoco, I had a great desire to see him; but when I heard the werowance of Pasbie-haye was come thither also to see him, I presently start up, and without further counsel came to see them both."[191:A]

In March, 1634, at a meeting of the governor and council, Clayborne inquired of them how he should demean himself toward Lord Baltimore and his deputies in Maryland, who claimed jurisdiction over the colony at Kent Isle. The governor and council replied that the right of his lordship's patent being yet undetermined in England, they were bound in duty and by their oaths to maintain the rights and privileges of the colony of Virginia. Nevertheless, in all humble submission to his majesty's pleasure, they resolved to keep and observe all good correspondence with the Maryland new-comers.[191:B]

The Maryland patent conferred upon Lord Baltimore, a popish recusant, the entire government of the colony, including the patronage and advowson of all churches, the same to be dedicated and consecrated according to the ecclesiastical law. This charter was illegal, inasmuch as it granted powers which the king himself did not possess; the grantee being a papist could not conform to the ecclesiastical laws of England; and, therefore, the provisions of this extraordinary instrument could not be, and were not designed to be, executed according to the plain and obvious meaning. Such was the character of the instrument by which King Charles the First despoiled Virginia of so large a portion of her territory. It is true, indeed, that the Virginia charter had been annulled, but this was done upon the condition explicitly and repeatedly declared by the royal government, that vested rights should receive no prejudice thereby.[192:A]

Clayborne, rejecting the authority of the new plantation, Lord Baltimore gave orders to seize him if he should not submit himself to the proprietary government of Maryland. The Indians beginning to exhibit some indications of hostility toward the settlers, they attributed it to the machinations of Clayborne, alleging that it was he who stirred up the jealousy of the savages, persuading them that the new-comers were Spaniards and enemies to the Virginians, and that he had also infused his own spirit of insubordination into the inhabitants of Kent Island. A trading vessel called the Longtail, employed by Clayborne in the Indian trade in the Chesapeake Bay, was captured by the Marylanders. He thereupon fitted out an armed pinnace with a crew of fourteen men under one of his adherents, Lieutenant Warren, to rescue the vessel. Two armed pinnaces were sent out by Calvert under Captain Cornwallis; and in an engagement that ensued in the Potomac, or, as some accounts have it, the Pocomoke River, one of the Marylanders fell, and three of the Virginians, including Lieutenant Warren. The rest were carried prisoners to St. Mary's. Clayborne was indicted although not arrested, and convicted of murder and piracy, constructive crimes inferred from his opposition. The chief of Patuxent was interrogated as to Clayborne's intrigues among the Indians.[192:B]

Harvey, either from fear of the popular indignation, or from some better motive, refused to surrender the fugitive Clayborne to the Maryland commissioners, and according to one authority[192:C] sent him to England, accompanied by the witnesses. Chalmers, good authority on the subject, makes no allusion to the circ.u.mstance, and it appears more probable that Clayborne having appealed to the king, went voluntarily to England.[192:D] It is certain that he was not brought to trial there.

FOOTNOTES:

[187:A] 2 Burk's Hist. of Va., 35.

[188:A] 1 Hening, 188, 190, 199, 208, 222. The pay of the officers at Point Comfort was at this time:--

Lbs. Tobacco. Bbls. Corn.

To the captain of the fort 2000 10 To the gunner 1000 6 To the drummer and porter 1000 6 For four other men, each of them 500 pounds of tobacco, 4 bbls. corn 2000 16 ---- ---- Total 6000 38

[188:B] Early Voyages to America, 483.

[188:C] Chalmers' Polit. Annals, 206.

[188:D] Chalmers' Annals, 227.

[189:A] 1 Hening, 154.

[190:A] White's Relation, 4; Force's Hist. Tracts.

[190:B] White's Relation of the Colony of the Lord Baron of Baltimore in Maryland, near Virginia, and a Narrative of the Voyage to Maryland, was copied from the archives of the Jesuit's College at Rome, by Rev.

William McSherry, of Georgetown College, and translated from the Latin.

An abstract of it may be found in chapter first of History of Maryland, by James McSherry. The first part of the Relation is a description of the country, and appears to have been written at London previous to the departure of Calvert; the remainder details the incidents of the voyage and the first settlement of the colony, especially of the proceedings of the Jesuit missionaries down to the year 1677.

[191:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, ii. 120, referring to "Relation of the successful beginnings of the Lord Baltimore's Plantation, in Maryland," signed by Captain Wintour, and others, adventurers in the expedition, and published in 1634.

[191:B] Chalmers' Annals. Chalmers is the more full and satisfactory in his account of Maryland, because he had resided there for many years.