The Beginners of a Nation Part 27

[Sidenote: Note 5, page 226.]

It is interesting that in 1622, the year preceding the division of New England by lot, three shares were laid off and no more. They were at the extreme north of the territory divided the next year, and were a.s.signed respectively to the Duke of Lenox, the Earl of Arundel, and Sir George Calvert. A "grand patent" was then in preparation for a colony on the coast of Maine to be called Nova Albion. Calendar Colonial Doc.u.ments, July 24, 1622. It seems probable, from the charter of Avalon, that Calvert intended it to be a colony that should harbor Catholics, but on the other hand the first settlers were chiefly Protestants, with a clergyman of their own faith, and there seem to have been few Romanists or none in Avalon until the arrival of a company with the lord proprietary in 1627.

[Sidenote: Note 6, page 228.]

Fuller's oft-quoted account of the circ.u.mstances of Calvert's resignation, Worthies, Nuttall's edition, iii, 417, 418, gives probably the commonly received story, and shows that the religious motive was popularly accepted as the reason for his leaving office.

Archbishop Abbot was better informed though less impartial. His letter is in the curious work ent.i.tled "The Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe in his Emba.s.sy to the Ottoman Porte from the Year 1621 to 1628," etc., published in 1740. Abbot says: "Mr. secretary Calvert hath never looked merily since the prince his coming out of Spaine: it was thought hee was muche interested in the Spanishe affaires: a course was taken to ridde him of all imployments and negotiations. This made him discontented; and, as the saying is, _Desperatio facit monachum_, so hee apparently did turne papist, whiche hee now professeth, this being the third time that hee hath bene to blame that way. His Majesty to dismisse him, suffered him to resigne his Secretaries place to Sir Albertus Moreton, who payed him three thousand pounds for the same; and the kinge hath made him baron of Baltimore in Ireland; so hee is withdrawn from vs, and having bought a ship of 400 tuns, hee is going to New England, or Newfoundlande, where hee hath a colony." Page 372.

The letters preserved among the state papers are the main authority, especially those addressed to Sir Dudley Carleton, who desired to buy Calvert's place. See, _pa.s.sim_, the Calendar of Domestic Papers for 1624 and 1625 to February 12th. The circ.u.mstantial account given in the Salvetti correspondence, though cited as authority by Mr.

Gardiner, has never been printed, for which reason it is here given in the original from the British Museum Additional MSS. 27962 C.: "Il Signor Cavalier Calvert primo Segretario et Consigliero di Stato, credendosi, doppo la rottura de' trattati, che si haveva con Spagna, (che per comandamento di sua Maesta haveva lui solo maneggiati,) d'essere eclipsato nell' oppinione del Sig{r}. Principe et Signor Duca, et di non essere piu impiegato con quella confidenza, che solevano ricorse pochi giorni sono dal Signor Duca di Buchingam per fargli intendere la sua risolutione, la quale era, che vedendo di non potere G.o.dere della buona grazia dell' Eccellenza sua nella medesima forma che G.o.deva avanti della sua andata in Spagna era risoluto di rittrarsi dalla Corte, et di mettere in sua mano, come di presente faceva, la sua carica, perche ne dispona.s.se ovonque le piacesse con molte altre parole tutte piene di valore et magnanimita: soggiugnendoli di piu come dicono, che essendo risoluto per l'avvenire di vivere et morire Cattolicamente, conosceva di non poterlo fare nel servizio dove era senza gelosia dello stato et pericolo del Parlamento. Il Signor Duca ancorche non ama.s.se questo Cavaliero, ne nessuno altro che ha hauto le mani nel parentado di Spagna, con tutto ci vedendo un atto cosi honorato, gli rispose: che non potera negare che non gli fusse stato da non so che tempo in qua nemico; ma che hora vedendo la franchezza et n.o.bilta d'animo, col rispetto che gli haveva mostrato, l'abracciava per amico, per mostrargliene gli effeti, sempre che ne havesse occasione, con a.s.sicuratione de piu che operrebbe con sua Maesta gli fusse confermato le suoi pensioni, et di piu dato honorevole ricompensa per la sua carica di segretario. Et che quanto alla sua religione egli l'havrebbe protetto quanto fusse mai stato possibile," etc. Salvetti, Correspondence, iii, February 6, 1624-'25.

The letter of the 28th February (O.S.) in the same volume gives an account of the formal resignation to the king, and states that the greater part of the money paid to Calvert was from his successor, and that it was paid _denari contanti_, "cash down," and adds sympathetically that "this good lord will be able to live easily and quietly" hereafter.

[Sidenote: Note 7, page 229.]

Calvert attributes his deception to interested letters. The princ.i.p.al motives to settle in Newfoundland may be seen by the reader who has patience enough to thread his way through the jumble of mythology, allegory, political economy of a certain sort, verse in English and Latin, theology, satire, and an incredible number of what-nots besides "for the generall and perpetuall good of Great Britain," found in Vaughan's Golden Fleece, published in 1626. The nearness of Newfoundland to Ireland and the comparative cheapness of transportation thither, but especially the well-established value of its fisheries and the market they afforded for the produce of the colony, were the most plausible reasons for settling a colony there.

Probably there was a lurking purpose to turn the sh.o.r.e fishery into a monopoly such as was contemplated by projectors for the New England coast. The fact was insisted upon that part of Newfoundland was "equal in climate," or at least in lat.i.tude, to "Little Britain in France,"

or Brittany. Then, too, Newfoundland is an island, and Vaughan at least persuaded himself that "Ilanders should dwel in Ilands." As some of the apostles were fishermen, "Newfoundland the grand port of Fishing was alloted to Professors of the Gospell." Golden Fleece, Part Third, pp. 5 and 6 and _pa.s.sim_.

[Sidenote: Note 8, page 230.]

Lord Baltimore may have had the governorship of Virginia in view.

Cecilius, his son, sought to have himself made governor in 1637.

Colonial Papers, ix, 45, Record Office. See an earlier communication on the same subject in Sainsbury, 246, under the date of February 25, 1637. It is almost the only pet.i.tion of the second Lord Baltimore that was not granted. See also section xvii of the present chapter, and note 21 below.

[Sidenote: Note 9, page 231.]

I have ventured to conjecture so much on evidence not complete. Father White, who was cordially entertained by the Governor of St. Kitts in 1634, speaks of the people of Montserrat as "pulsos ab anglis Virginiae ob fidei Catholicae professionem." White's choice of words does not necessarily imply, I suppose, an actual banishment from Virginia, but at least a refusal of permission to come. Neither Edwards nor Oldmixon mention this fact; but as White visited St. Kitts only two years after the settlement at Montserrat, which was made immediately from St.

Kitts (according to Edwards) and was subject to the same governor, his information was doubtless correct. There seems to have been another project to plant Catholics in Virginia about this time, unless, as is rather probable, we meet the same plan in another form. Sir Pierce Crosby offered to plant ten companies "of the Irish Regiment into a fruitful part of America not yet inhabited." To make the proposal acceptable, it was stated, somewhat diplomatically perhaps, that the major part of the officers and many of the soldiers were Protestants.

Sainsbury's Calendar, p. 95, where the conjectural date is 1628.

[Sidenote: Note 10, page 235.]

The translation quoted is that published by Cecilius Calvert in the Relation of 1635. The original reads: "Unac.u.m licencia et facultate Ecclesias Capellas et Oratoria in locis infra premissa congruis et idoneis Extruendi et fundandi eaque dedicari et sacrari juxta leges Ecclesiasticas regni nostri Anglie facendas." Maryland Archives.

[Sidenote: Note 11, page 235.]

Sir Edward Northey, Attorney-General of England in the following century, gave this decision: "As to the said clause in the grant of the province of Maryland, I am of opinion the same doth not give him power to do anything contrary to the ecclesiastical laws of England."

This is as ingeniously ambiguous as the clause itself. The attorneys-general and solicitors-general during the eighteenth century set themselves to the task of subordinating colonial government to parliamentary authority by a series of opinions in which they make rather than explain law. In the present instance Northey was more modest than usual, for he reaches a purely negative and impotent conclusion, which Neill turns into a positive one in his text.

Founders of Maryland, 99. There is a collection of opinions on colonial subjects rendered by the attorneys and solicitors-general in the first half of the eighteenth century, in a volume at Landsdowne House which I have examined. This collection was made, or at least furnished, for the use of Lord Shelburne. Before Northey's opinion was given the English Parliament had a.s.sumed power to override some provisions of the Maryland charter, as is pointed out in Abercromby's Examination, MS. at Landsdowne House, 47. How slowly the Church of England grew in the colony may be inferred from the statement made in 1677, that four clergymen have plantations and settled "beings" of their own--a phrase sufficiently obscure. Others were sustained by voluntary contributions. Colonial Papers, No. 49, Record Office, folios 54, 55. This is Baltimore's reply to the paper at folio 56, the order of which is evidently reversed. The population of the province, it is stated, was composed at that time chiefly of dissenters of various sects, Catholics and Anglicans being the smallest bodies.

[Sidenote: Note 12, page 236.]

As early as 1752 it was remarked that the Maryland charter contained "the most extensive power of any charter in British America."

Abercromby's Examination, MS., Landsdowne House. In Collier's Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, vol. ix, is the writ of Edward III, A. D. 1327, by which the regalities of the bishopric of Durham are confirmed after a trial in parliament.

[Sidenote: Note 13, page 240.]

Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, wrote to Strafford, 10 January, 1633-'34, that he had sent "a hopeful colony into Maryland with a fair and probable Expectation of Success, however without Danger of any great prejudice unto myself, in Respect that many others are joined with me in the Adventure"--that is, in the financial risk. Strafford Papers, i, 179. Twenty years later Cromwell writes to Bennet, Governor of Virginia, "We have therefore at the request of Lord Baltimore and of divers other persons of quality here who are engaged in great adventures in his interest," etc. Thurloe, i, 724. A tradition of this co-operation may have remained in Maryland a century later, for in 1755 or 1756 there was presented to the Lord Baltimore of that day, who was a Protestant, a pet.i.tion from Roman Catholic residents of Maryland in which this a.s.sertion occurs: "The money and persons of this persuasion contributed chiefly to the settling and peopling of this colony." British Museum MS. 15,489.

[Sidenote: Note 14, page 242.]

The statement of Father Henry More, in 1642, that "in leading the colony to Maryland by far the greater number were heretics," is not conclusive, though it is relied on by General Bradley T. Johnson and others. More was Provincial of the Jesuits in England, and he is no doubt repeating loosely the information contained in Father White's letter of the year before, which says, "Whereas three parts of the people in four at least are heretics"--a statement true, no doubt, in 1641, when the Kent Islanders and newcomers were counted, but not true, probably, of the company of 1634, as Bancroft seems to say.

[Sidenote: Note 15, page 242.]

The original doc.u.ment is in the Stoneyhurst MSS., Anglia, vol. iv. It is reprinted in full in General Bradley T. Johnson's "The Foundation of Maryland." It tends to show that the emigration of many recusants was confidently expected.

[Sidenote: Note 16, page 243.]

"Nubes, terrific.u.m in morem excresentes, terrori erant intuentibus antequam discinderentur: et opinionem faciebant prodiisse adversum nos in aciem, omnes spiritus tempestatum maleficas, et malos genios omnes Marylandiae." Relatio Itineris, 15.

[Sidenote: Note 17, page 247.]

See _pa.s.sim_, Letters of Missionaries. A letter of Copley, the Jesuit, to Lord Baltimore, in Calvert Papers, p. 165, implies the possibility of Catholic inc.u.mbents of Maryland parishes. He is complaining of the law of the a.s.sembly of 1638 relating to glebe land: "In euery Mannor 100 acres must be laid out for Gleabe lande, if then the intention to bind them to be pastors who enjoy it, we must either by retaining so much euen of our owne land undertake the office of pastors or lesse euen in our owne Mannor maintaine pastors, both which to us would be uery Inconuenient."

[Sidenote: Note 18, page 248.]

Letters of Missionaries, p. 77. "The Catholics who live in the colony are not inferior in piety to those who live in other countries; but in urbanity of manners, according to the judgment of those who have visited the other colonies, are considered far superior to them." More than a hundred years later the Catholics retained a superiority, according to Updike's Appendix to McSparran, 1752: "The Catholics, having the start in point of time of the after settlers, are also to this day ahead of them in wealth and substance; by which means the first and best families are for the most part still of the Roman communion," p. 492.

[Sidenote: Note 19, page 248.]

The act pa.s.sed in 1704 was renewed in 1715 and still in force in 1749. I cite from Ogle's Account of Maryland, of the latter date, a ma.n.u.script at Landsdowne House, numbered 45, folio 199. In No. 61 at Landsdowne House is a decision of the Attorney-General in England in 1605 that Jesuits may be expelled from Maryland by order of the queen if aliens, but not if they are subjects. The various eighteenth-century enactments against Catholics will be found in Bacon's Laws of Maryland, _pa.s.sim_. MS. 15,489, British Museum, cites some of these severe laws and the proceedings taken under them. Strong pet.i.tions against these measures were signed by Charles Carroll and others.

[Sidenote: Note 20, page 249.]

Gabriel Hawley, Robert Evelin, and Jerome Hawley, appointed to places in Virginia, appear to have been Catholics and partisans of Baltimore.

Aspinwall Papers, i, page 101, note.

[Sidenote: Note 21, page 250.]

Baltimore's letter bears date February 25, 1637, and is in the Record Office, Colonial Papers, xiv, No. 42. The memorial apparently sent with it is No. 49 in the same volume. Baltimore proposes to reward Windebank for his a.s.sistance, and he sets down the very manner in which the secretary is to approach the king with a diplomatic falsehood. Both the letter and memorial are printed in Maryland Archives, Council Proceedings, pp. 41, 42.