YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

CALVERT AND PENN;

OR THE GROWTH OF

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

IN AMERICA,

AS DISCLOSED IN THE PLANTING OF

MARYLAND AND PENNSYLVANIA:

A DISCOURSE BY

BRANTZ MAYER,
DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA BEFORE THE
PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
8 APRIL, 1852.

YALE

"Se mai turba il Ciel Sereno
"Fosco vel di nebbia impura,
"Quando il sol gli sguaioia il seno,
" Piu sereno il oiel si fa.
" Rea, disooi-dia, in-vidia irata
"Fuga il tempo, e nuda splende,.
"Vinoitrice e vendicata,
"L'offusoata Verita.''
C kL C 3 , €0

PRINTED POa THS
.PE;NNSYLVA3SriA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
BY JOHN D. TOT,
B ALTIMOHE.

CALVERT AND PENN.

It is a venerable and beautiful rite which commands the
Chinese not only to establish in their dwellings a Hall of
Ancestors, devoted to memorials of kindred who are dead, but
¦which obliges them, on a certain day of every year, to quit
the ordinary toils of life and hasten to the tombs of their Fore
fathers, where, with mingled services of festivity and wor
ship, they pass the hours in honoring the manes of those
whom they have either loved or been taught to respect for
their -virtues.
This is a wholesome and ennobling exercise of the memory.
It teaches neither a blind allegiance to the past, nor a super
stitious reverence for individuals ; but it is a recognition of
the great truth that no man is a mere isolated being in the
great chain of humanity, and that, while we are not selfishly
independent of the past, so also, by equal affinity, we are con
nected with and control the fate of those who are to succeed
us in the drama of the world.
The Time that merges in Eternity, sinks like a drop in the
ocean, but the deeds of that Time, like the drop in the deep,
are again exhaled and fitted for new uses ; so that although
the Time be dead, the acts thereof are immortal — ^for the
achieved action never perishes. That which was wrought, in
innocence or wrong, is eternal in its results or influences.
2

This reflection inculcates a profound lesson of our respon
sibility. It teaches us the value of assembling to look over
the account of the past; to separate the good from the false ;
to winnow the historical harvest we may have reaped; to
survey the heavens, and find our place on the ocean after the
storm. And if such conduct is correct in the general con
cerns of private life, how much more is it proper when we
remember the duty we owe to the founders of great princi
ples, — to the founders of great states, — of great states that
have grown into great nations ! In this aspect the principle
rises to a dignity worthy our profoundest respect. History is
the garnered treasure of the past, and it is from the glory or
shame of that past, that nations, like individuals, take heart
for the coming strife, or sink under irresistible discouragement.
Is it not well, then, that we, the people of this large country,
divided as we are in separate governments, should assemble,
at proper seasons, to celebrate the foundations of our time-
honored commonwealths; and, while each state casts its an
nual tribute on the altar of our country, each should brighten
its distinctive symbols, before it merges their glory in that
great constellation of American nations, which, in the political
night that shrouds the world, is the only guiding sign for
unfortunate but hopeful humanity !

When the Reformation in England destroyed the supre
macy of the Roman Church, and the Court set the example
of a new faith, it may readily be supposed, that the people
¦were sorely taxed when called on to select between the dogmas
they had always cherished, and those they were authorita
tively summoned to adopt. The age was not one either of
free discussion or of printing and publication. Oral argu
ments, and not printed appeals, were the only means of reach
ing the uncultivated minds of the masses, and even of a large
portion of the illiterate gentry and aristocracy. If we reflect
with what reverence creeds are, even now, traditionally
inherited in families, we must be patient with their entailed
tenure in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The soul of

nations cannot be purged of its ancestral faith by Acts of Par
liament. There may be submission to law, external indiffer
ence, hypocritical compliance , but, that implicit adoption
and correspondent honest action, which flow from conscien
tious belief, must spring from sources of very different
sanctity. When the world contained only one great Christian Church,
the idea of Union betwixt that Church and the State, was not
fraught with the disgusts or dangers that now characterize it.
There were then no sects. All were agreed on one faith, one
ritual, one interpretation of God's law, and one infallible
expositor ; nor was it, perhaps, improper that this law — thus
ecclesiastically expounded and administered in perfect national
unity of faith — should be the rule of civil and political, as well
as of religious life. Indeed, it is difficult, even now, to
separate the ideas; for, inasmuch as God's law is a law of life,
and not a mere law of death — inasmuch as it controls all our
relations among ourselves and thus defines our practical duty
to the Almighty — it is difficult, I repeat, to define wherein
the law of man should properly differ from the law of God.
Mere morality — mere political morality, — is nothing but a
bastard policy, or another name for expediency, unless it
conforms in all its motives, means and results, to religion.
In truth, morality, social as well as political, to be vital and
not hypocritical, must be religion put into practical exercise.
This is the simple, just, and wise reconciliation of religion and
good government, which I humbly believe to be, ever and
only, founded upon Christianity. But it was a sad mistake
in other days, to confound a Primitive Christianity and the
dogmas of a Historical Church. U nfortunately for the ancient
union of Church and State, this great identification of the true
christian action of the civil and ecclesiastical bodies, was
but a mere fiction, so far as religion was concerned, and
a fact, only so far as power was interested. Christianity
ever has remained, and ever will remain, the same radiant
unit; but a church, with irresponsible power — a church
which, at best, is but an aggregation of human beings,
with all the passions, as well as all the virtues of our race —

soon, necessarily, abandons the purity of its early time, and
grows into a vast hierarchy, which, founding its claims to
authority on divine institution, sways the world, sometimes
for good and sometimes for evil, with a power suited to the
asserted omnipotence of its origin.
But the idea of honest union between church and state was
naturally destroyed, in the minds of all right thinking persons,
from the moment that there was a secession from the Church
of Rome. The very idea, I assert, was destroyed ; for the
Catholic Princes and the sects into which Protestants divided
themselves, began an internecine war, which, in eflfect, not
only forever obliterated supremacy from the vocabulary of
ecclesiastical power, but almost destroyed, by disgracing, the
religion in whose name it perpetrated its remorseless cruelties.
The social as well as religious anarchy consequent upon
the Reformation, was soon discerned by the statesmen of
England, who took council with prudent ecclesiastics, and,
under the authority of law, erected the Church of England.
In this new establishment they endeavored to substitute for
Romanism, a new ecclesiastical system, which, by its con
cessions to the ancient faith, its adoption of novel liberalities,
its compromises and its purity, might contain within itself,
sufficient elements upon which the adherents of Rome might
gracefully retreat, and to which the Reformers might either
advance or become reconciled. This scheme of legislative
compromise for a national religion, was doubtless, not merely
designed as an amiable neutral ground for the spiritual wants
of the people, but as the nucleus of an institution which would
gradually, if not at once, transfer to the Royalty of England,
that spiritual authority which its sovereigns had found it irk
some to bear or to control when wielded by the Pope.
The architects of this modern faith were not wrong in their
estimate of the Enghsh people, for, perhaps, the great body
of the nation willingly adopted the new scheme. Yet there
were bitter opponents both among the Cathohcs and Cal-
vinists, whose extreme violence admitted no compromise
either with each other, or with the Church of England. For
them there was no resource but in dumbness or rebellion ; and

as many a lip opened in complaint or attempted seduction,
the legislature originated that charitable and reconciling
system of disabilities and penalties, which a phant judiciary
¦was not slow in enforcing with suitable rigor. While the
Puritan could often fairly yield a sort of abstinent conformity
which saved him from penalties, the Roman Catholic, who
adhered faithfully and conscientiously to his ancestral church,
made no compromise with his allegiance. Accordingly, on
him, the unholy and intolerant law fell with all its persecuting
bane. " About the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth there
arose among the Calvinists, a sraall body, who bore nearly
the same relation to them, which they bore to the great body
of the Reformed ; these were ultra Puritans, as they were
ultra Protestants. These persons deemed it their religious
duty to separate themselves entirely from the church, and, in
fact, to war against it. The principle upon which they
founded themselves, was, that there should be no national
church at all, but that the whole nation should be cast in a
multitude of small churches or congregations, each self-
governed, and having only, as they believed, the officers of
which we read in the New Testament, — pastor, teacher, elder
and deacon."'
Such was the ecclesiastical and political aspect of England,
and of a part of Scotland, about the period when the First
James ascended the British throne. As there is nothing
that so deeply concerns our welfare as the rights and duties
of our soul, it is not at all singular to find how quickly
men became zealous in the assertion of their novel privi
leges, as soon as they discovered that there were two ways
of interpreting God's law, or, at least, two modes of worship
ing him, — one wrapped in gorgeous ceremonial, the other
stripped in naked simplicity, — and that the right to this
interpretation or worship was not only secured by law,
' Mr. Joseph Hunter's " Collections concerning the Early History of the
Founders of New Plymouth." London, 1849 : No 2 of his Critical and His
torical Tracts, p. 14.

8
but was inherent in man's nature. Personal interests may
be indolently neglected or carelessly pursued. It is rare to
see men persecute each other about individual rights or pro
perties. Yet, such is not the case when a right or an interest
is the religious property of a multitude. Then, community of
sentiment or of risk, bands them together in fervent support,
and when the thing contended for is based on conscience and
eternal interest, instead of personal or temporary welfare, we
behold its pursuit inflame gradually from a principle into a
passion, — from passion into persecution, until at length, what
once glimmered in holy zeal, blazes in bigoted fanaticism.
Thus, all persecutors may not, originally, be bad men, though
their practices are wicked. The very liberty of conscience
¦which freemen demand, must admit this to be possible in the
conduct of those who differ from us most widely in faith
and politics.
Religious Conscience, therefore, is the firmest founder of
the right of forming and asserting Free Opinions ; and when
it has securely established the great fact of Rehgious Freedom,
it at once, as an immediate consequence, realizes Political
Freedom, which is nothing but the individual right indepen
dently to control our personal destinies, as well as to shape
our conscientious spiritual destinies. The right of free judg
ment asserts that Christianity put into vital exercise, in our
social or national relations, is, in fact, the essence of pure
democracy. It is liberty of action that produces responsi
bility — it is equal responsibility that makes us one before the
law. To teach man the humility and equality of his race as
rights; and to illustrate the glorious lesson that from the
cottage and cabin have sprung the intellects that filled the
world with light, it pleased the Almighty to make a stable
the birth-place of our Redeemer, and a manger his lowlv
cradle !
When the valiant men of olden times had checked the cor
porate system of theology in England and Germany, and estab
lished their right, at least, to think for themselves ; and when
the Reformation had subsequently received a countercheck in

Germany, England and France, — the stalwart, independent
worshippers, who could no longer live peacefully together
¦within their native realms, began to cast about for an escape
frora the persecutions of non-conformity and the mean
"tyranny of incapacitation."
The Reformation was the work of the early part of the
sixteenth century. The close of the fifteenth had been sig
nalized by the discovery of America, and by the opening of
a maritime communication with India. The East, though
now accessible by water, was still a far distant land. The
efforts of all navigators, even -when blundering on our con
tinent, were, in truth, not to find a new world, but to reach
one already well known for the richness of its products, and
the civilization of its people. But distant as it was, it pre
sented no field for colonization. It was the teraporary object
of mercantile and maritirae enterprise, and although colonial
lodgments were impracticable on its far off" shores, it never
theless permitted the establishment of factories which served,
in the unfrequent commerce of those ages, as almost regal
intermediaries between Europe and Asia.
But the Western World was both nearer, and, for a while,
more alluring to avarice and enterprise. It was not a civilized,
populous, and warlike country like the East, but it possessed
the double temptation of wealth and weakness. The fertility
of the West Indies, the reports of prodigious riches, the con
quests of Cortez and Pizzaro, the emasculated semi-civiliza
tion of the two Empires, which, with a few cities and royal
courts, combined the anomaly of an almost barbarous though
tamely tributary people — had all been announced throughout
Europe. Yet, the bold, brave and successful Spaniard of those
days contrived for a long while to reap the sole benefit of the
discovery. What he eflfected was done by conquest. Colo
nization, which is a gradual settlement, either under enter
prise or persecution, was to follow.
The conquest and settlement of the Southern part of this
continent are so well known, that it is needless for me to dwell
on them ; but it is not a little singular that the very first effort
at what may strictly be called colonization, within the present

10
acknowledged limits of the United States, was owino- to the
spirit of persecution which was so rife in Europe,
The Bull of the Pope, in its division of the world, had
assigned America to Spain. Florida, which had been dis
covered by Ponce de Leon, and the present coast of our
Republic on the Gulf of Mexico, were not, in the sixteenth
century, disputed with Spain by any other nation. Spain
claimed, however, under the name of Florida, the whole sea-
coast as far as Newfoundland and even to the remotest
north, so that, so far as asserted ownership was involved, the
whole of our coast was Spanish domain.
The poor, persecuted, weather-beaten Huguenots of France,
had been active in plans of Colonization for escape from the
mingled imbecility and terrorism of Charles IX. They saw
that it was not well to stay in the land of their birth.
The Admiral de Coligny, one of the ablest leaders of the
French Protestants, was zealous in his efforts to found a
Gallic empire of his fellow subjects and suflferers on this con
tinent. He desired, at least, a refuge for thera ; and in 1562,
entrusted to John Ribault, of Dieppe, the command of an
expedition to the American shores. The first soil of this
virgin hemisphere that was baptised by the tread of refugees
flying from the terrors of the future hero of St. Bartholomew 
of men who were seeking freedom from persecution for the
sake of their religion — was that of South Carolina. Ribault
first visited St. John's River, in Florida, and then slowly
coasted the low shores northward, until he struck the in
denture where Hilton-Head Island, and Hunting and St.
Helen's Islands are divided by the entrance into the ocean of
Broad River at Port Royal.
It was a beautiful region, where venerable oaks shadowed
a luxuriant soil, -ft'hile the mild air, delicious with the frao-rance
of forest-flowers, forever diff"used a balmy temperature free
alike from the fire of the tropics and the frost of the north
Here, in this pleasant region, he built Fort Carolina and
landed his humble colony of twenty persons who were to keen
possession of the chosen land.

11
But Frenchmen are not precisely at home in the wilderness.
They require the aggregation of large villages or cities. The
Frenchman is a social being, and regret for the loss of civil
comforts soon spoils his vivacious temper, and fills him with
discontent. Accordingly, dissensions broke forth in the
colony soon after the departure of Ribault for France ; and,
most of the dissatisfied colonists, finding their way back to
Europe as best they could, the settlement was broken up
forever. Yet, Coligny was not to be thwarted. In 1564, he again
resolved to colonize Florida, and entrusted Laudonnifere — a
seaman rather than a soldier, who had already visited the
American coasts, — with three ships which had been conceded
by the king. An abundance of colonists, not disheartened by
the failure of their predecessors, soon offered for the voyage,
and, after a passage of sixty days, the eager adventurers
hailed the American coast. They did not go to the old site,
marked as it was by disaster, but nestled on the embowered
banks of the beautiful St. John's, or, as it was then known —
"The River of May."
But the French of that era, when in pursuit of qualified self-
government or of any principle, either civil or religious, were
not unlike their countrymen of the present time. They found
it difficult to make enthusiasm subordinate to the mechanism
of progress, and to restrain the elastic vapor which properly
directed gives energy to humanity, but which heedlessly
handled destroys what it should impel or guide. Religious
enthusiasm is not miraculously fed by ravens in the wilderness.'
Coligny's emigrants were improvident or careless settlers.
Their supplies wasted. They were not only gratified by the
sudden relief^ from royal oppression, but the removal of a
weight, gave room for the display of that secret avarice, which;
more or less, possesses the hearts of all men. They had heard
of the Spaniard's success, and were seized with a passion for
sudden wealth. They became discontented with the toil of
patient labor and slow accretion. Mutiny ripened into rebel
lion. A party compelled Laudonnifere to suffer it to embark
for Mexico ; but its two vessels were soon ettiployed in
3

12
piratical enterprises against the Spaniards. Some of the
reckless insurgents fell into the hands of the men they assailed,
and were made prisoners and sold as slaves, while the fe-w
who escaped, were, on their return, executed by orders of
Laudonni^re. The main body of the colonists who had either remained
true to their duty or were kept in subjection, had, meanwhile,
become greatly disheartened by these occurrences and by the
failing supplies of their settlement, when they were tempo
rarily relieved by the arrival of the celebrated English adven
turer — Sir John Hawkins. Ribault soon after came out
from France to take comraand, and brought with him ne\y
emigrants, seeds, aniraals, agricultural implements, and fresh
supplies of every kind.
These occurrences, it will be recollected, took place in
Florida, within the ancient claim of Spain. It is true that
the country was a wilderness ; but Spain still asserted her
dominion, though no beneficial use had been made of the
neglected forest and tangled swarap. At this epoch, a certain
Pedro Melendez de Aviles — a coarse, bold, bloody man, who
signalized himself in the wars in Holland against the Pro
testants, and was renowned in Spanish America for deeds
which, even in the loose law of that realm, had brought him
to justice, was then hanging about the Court of Phihp II. in
search of plunder or employment. He perceived a tempting
" mission" of corabined destruction and colonization in the
French Protestant settlement in Florida; and, accordingly, a
compact was speedily made between himself and his sove
reign, by which he was empowered, in consideration of cer
tain concessions and rights, to invade Florida with at least
five hundred men, and to establish the Spanish authority and
Catholic religion.
An expedition, numbering under its banner more than
twenty-five hundred persons, was soon prepared. After
touching, with part of these forces, on the Florida "coast in
the neighborhood of the present river Matanzas, the adven
turer sailed in quest of the luckless Huguenots, whose vessels
were soon descried escaping seaward from a combat for which

13
they were unprepared. For a while, Melendez pursued them^
but abandoning the chase, steered south once more, and enter
ing the harbor on the coast he had just before visited, laid the
foundations of that quaint old Spanish town of St. Augustine,
which is the parent of civic civilization on our continent.
Ribault, raeanwhile, who had put to sea with his craft, lost
most of his vessels in a sudden storm on the coast, though the
greater part of his companions escaped.
But Melendez, whose ships suffered slightly from thiS
tempest, had no sooner placed his colonists in security, at
St. Augustine, than he set forth with a resolute band across
the marshy levels which intervened between his post and the
St. John's. With savage fury the reckless Spaniard fell on
the Huguenots. The carnage was dreadful. It seems to
have been rather slaughter than warfare. The Huguenots,
unprepared for battle, little dreamed that the wars of the old
world would be transferred to the new, and vainly imagined
tliat human passion could find victims enough for its malig
nity without crossing the dangerous seas. Full two hundred
fell. Many fled to the forest. A few surrendered, and were^
slain. Some escaped in two French vessels that fortunately
still lingered in the harbor. The wretches who had been pro-'
videntially saved from the wreck, were next followed and found'
by this Castilian monster. "Let them surrender their flags
and arms," said he, " and thus placing themselves at my
discretion, I may do with them what God in his mercy
desires!" Yet, as soon as they yielded, they were bound and
marched through the forest to St. Augustine, and, as they
approached the fort which had been hastily raised on the level
shores, the sudden blast of a trumpet was the signal for the
musketeers to pour into the crowd a volley that laid them
dead on the spot. It was asserted that these victiras of reli
ance on Spanish raercy, were massacred, " not as French
men, but as Lutherans;" — and thus, about nine hundred Pro
testant human beings, were the first offering on the soil of our
present Union to the devilish fanaticism of the age.
_ But the bloody deed was not to go unrevehged. A bold
Gascon, Dominic de Gourgues, in 1567, equipped three ships

14
and set sail for Florida. He swooped down suddenly, like a
falcon on the forts at the mouth of the St. John's, and putting
the occupants to the sword, hanged them in the forest, inscrib
ing over their dangling corpses, this mocking reply to the
taunt at the Lutherans : " I do this not as unto Spaniards and
sailors, but as unto murderers, robbers and traitors !"
The revenge was merciless ; and thus terminated the first
chapter in the history of religious liberty in America. Blood
stained the earliest meeting between Catholic and Protestant
on the present soil of our Union !
The power of Spain, the unattractiveness of our coast, the
indifferent climate, and the failure to find wealthy native
nations to plunder, kept the northern part of our continent in
the back ground for the greater part of a century after the
voyages of Columbus and Cabot. There were discourage
ments at that time for mercantile or maritime enterprise,
which make us marvel the more at the energy of the men
"who with such slender vessels and knowledge of navigation,
tempted the dangers of unknown seas.
Emigration from land to land, from neighboring country
to neighboring country, was, at that epoch, a forraidable
enterprise ; what then must we think of the hardihood, or
compulsion, which could either tempt or drive men, not only
over conterminous boundaries, but across distant seas .''
Feudal loyalty and the strong tie of family, bound them not
only to their local horaes, but to their native land. The lusty
sons of labor were required to till the soil, while their stalwart
brethren, clad in steel, were wandering on murderous errands,
over half ofEurope, fighting for Protestantism or Catholicity.
Adventure, then, in the shape of colonization, must hardly
be thought of, from the inland states of the old world ; and
even from the maritime nations, with the exception of Spain
and Portugal, we find nothing worthy of record, save the
fisheries on the Banks, the small settlements of the French
in Acadia and along the St. Lawrence, and the holy efforts of
Catholic Missionaries among the Northern Indians. If we

15
did not know their zeal to have been Christian, it might
almost be considered romantic.
Soon after the return of De Gourgues from his revengeful
exploit, the report of the daring deed and its provocation,
¦w^as spread over Europe, and excited the people's atten
tion to America more eagerly than ever. Among those who
¦were attracted to the subject, was a British gentleman, whose
character and misfortunes have always engaged my sincere
admiration. Sir Walter Raleigh was the natural offspring of the remark
able age in which he lived. We owe hira our profoundest
respect, for it "was Sir Walter who gave the first decided
impulse to our race's beneficial enjoyment of this continent.
It Avas his fortune to live at a time of great and various action.-
The world was convulsed with the throes of a new civilization,
and the energy it exhibited was consequent upon its long
repose. It was an age of transition. It was an age of coat
and corselet — of steel and satin — of rudeness and refine
ment, — in which the antique soldier was melting into the
modern citizen. It was the twilight of feudalism. Baro
nial strongholds were yielding to municipal independence.
Learning began to teach its marvels to the raasses ; warfare
still called chivalrous men to the field; a spirited queen,
surrounded by gallant cavaliers, sat on a dazzling throne;
adventurous commerce armed splendid navies and nursed a
brood of hardy sailors; while the mysterious New World-
invited enterprise to invade its romantic and golden depths.
It was peculiarly an age of thought and action ; and is
characterized by a vitality which is apparent to all who
recollect its heroes, statesmen, philosophers and poets.
Sir Walter Raleigh was destined, by his deeds and his
doom, to bring this northern continent, which we are now.
eiujoying, into prominent notice. He was the embodiment
of the boyhood of our new world. In early life he had
been a soldier, but the drift of his genius led him into
statesmanship. He -was a well known favorite of the Virgin
Queen. A spirit of adventure bore him across the Atlantic,
¦where, if the occasion had offered, he would have jivalled

16
Cortez in his courageous hardihood, and outstripped him m
his lukewarm huraanity. He became a courtier ; and, min
gling in the intrigues of the palace, according to the morals of
the age, was soon too great a favorite with his sovereign to
escape the dislike of men who beheld his sudden rise with
envy. From the palace he passed to prison ; and, scorning
the idleness which would have rusted so active an intellect, he
prepared that remarkable History of the World, wherein hd
concentrated a raass of rare learning, curious investigation, and
subtle thought, which demonstrate the comprehensive and
yet minute character of his wonderful mind. A volume of
poems shows how sweetly he could sing. The story of his
battles, discloses how bravely he could fight. The narrative
of his voyages proves the boldness of his seamanship. The
calmness of his prison life teaches us the raanly lesson of
endurance. The devotion of his wife, denotes how deeply he
could love ; while his letters to that cherished woman — those
domestic records in which the heart divulges its dearest
secrets — teem with proofs of his affection and Christianity.
Indeed, the gallantry of his courtiership ; the foresight of his
statecraft: the splendid dandyism of his apparel; the wild
freedom and companionship of his forest life, show how com
pletely the fop and the forager, the queenly pet and loyal
subject, the author and the actor, the noble and the democrat,
the soldier and the scholar, were, in the age of Elizabeth and
James, blent in one man, and that man — Sir Walter Raleio-h.
Do we not detect in this first adventurous and practical
patron of North America, many of the seemingly discordant
qualities which mingle so commonly in the versatile life of
our own people .? If the calendar of courts had its saints like
the calendar of the church, well might Sir Walter have been
canonized as protector of the broad realm for which the brutal
James made him a martyr to the jealousy and fear of Spain. i
' It is believed by historians that Sir Walter Raleigh fell a victim to (he
intrigues of Spain at the Court of James. His American adventures and hardi
hood were dangerous to the Spanish Empire. A small pamphlet entitled: A
New Desceiption- or ¦Virginia, published in London in 1649, a reprint of
-which is possessed by the Virginia Historical Society, shows how the pro-

17
' Queen Elizabeth was the first British Sovereign who built
up that maritime power of England which has converted her
magnificent Island — dot as it is, in the waste of the sea — into
the wharf of the world. She was no friend of the Spaniards,
and she had men in her service who admired Spanish galeons.
Wealth, realized in coin, and gold or silver, in bulk, were
tempting merchandize in frail vessels, which sailors, half
pirate, half privateer, might easily deliver of their burden. It
was easier to rob than to mine ; and, while Spain performed
the labor in the bowels of the earth, England took the profit
as a prize on the sea! Such were sorae of the elements of
maritime success, which weakened Spain by draining her
colonial wealth, while it enriched her rival and injured the
Catholic sovereign.
Yet, in the ranks of these adventurers, there were men of
honest purpose; and, among the first whose designs of colo
nization on this continent were unquestionably conceived in
a spirit of discovery and speculation, was the half brother of
Sir Walter Raleigh — Sir Humphrey Gilbert. But Sir Hum
phrey, while pursuing his northern adventures, was unluckily
lost at sea, and Sir Walter took up the thread where his rela
tive dropped it. I regret that I have not time to pursue this
subject, and can only say that his enterprises were, doubtless.

phetic fears of the Spaniard, even at that early time, conjured up the warning
phantom of Anglo-Saxon "annexation."
. " It is well known," says the pamphlet, " that our English plantations have
" had little countenance ; nay, that our statesmen, (when time was,) had store
" of Gundemore's gold," (meaning Gondomar, Spanish Minister at James's
" Court) — " to destroy and discountenance the plantation of Virginia ; and he
" effected it, in great part, by dissolving the company, wherein most of the
" nobility, gentry, corporate cities, and most merchants of England, were
"interested and engaged; after the expense of some hundred of thousands of
" pounds; for Gundemore did affirm to his friends, that he had commission from
" his master" — (the King of Spain,) — " to destroy that plantation. For, said
" he, should they thrive and go on increasing, as they have done under that
" popular Lord of Southampton, my master's West Indies, and his Mexico,
"would shortly be visited by sea and by land, from those Planters in Virginia."
Generals Scott and Taylor— both sons of Virginia — have verified, in the
nineteenth century, the foresight of the cautious statesman of the seventeenth.
See Virginia His. Reg. Vol. 1. j). 28.

18
the germ of that colonization, which, by degrees, has filled
up and formed our Union.
You will reraeraber the striking difference between colo
nization from England, and the colonization from other nations
of ancient and modern times. The short, imperfect navigation
of the Greeks, along the shores and among the islands of their
inland sea, made colonization rather a diffusive overflow,
than an adventurous transplanting of their people. They
-were urged to this oozing emigration either by personal want,
by the command of law, or by the oracles of their gods, who
doubtless spoke under the authority of law. Where the
national religion was a unit in faith, there was no persecution
to drive men off", nor had the spirit of adventure seized those
primitive classics with the zeal of " annexation" that animated
after ages.
The Roman colonies were massive, military progresses of
population, seeking to spread national power by conquest and
permanent encampment.
Portugal and Spain, mingled avarice and dominion in their
conquests or occupation of new lands.
The French Protestants were, to a great extent, prevented
by the bigotry of their home government, as well as by foreign
jealousy, frora obtaining a sanctuary in America. France
drove the refugees chiefly into other European countries,
-where they established their manufacturing industry; and
thus, fanaticism kept out of America laborious multitudes who
would have pressed hard on the British settlements. In the
islands, a small trade and the investment of money, rather
than the desire to acquire fortune by personal industry, were
the motives of the early and regular emigration of Frenchraen.
The Dutch, devoted to trade, generally located themselves
where they "have just room enough to manifest the miracles
of frugality and diligence." i
Thus, wherever we trace mankind abandoning its home,
in ancient or modern days, we find a selfish motive a
superstitious command, a love of wealth, a lust of power, or
'Dr. Miller's " History Philosophically Illustrated," vol 1. p. 95.

19
a Spirit of robbery, controlling the movement. The first
adventurous effort towards the realization of actual settlement
on this continent, was, as we have seen, made by the perse
cuted Huguenots, and was, probably, an attempt rather to fly
from oppression, than to establish religious freedom. The
first English settlement, also, was founded more upon specu
lation than on any novel or exalted principle. There was
a quest of gold, a desire for land, and an honest hope of
improving personal fortunes.
Virginia had been a charter government, but, in 1624,
it was merged in the Royal Government. The crown re-
assumed the dominion it had granted to others. Virginia,
in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, although
exhibiting some prosperous phases, was nothing more than a
delicate off'-shoot from the British stock, somewhat vigorous
for its change to virgin soil, but likely to bear the same fruit
as its parent tree. Virginia was a limb timidly transplanted, —
not a branch torn off", and flung to wither or to fertilize new
realms by its decay. This continent, with all that a century
and a half of maritime coasting had done for it, was but
thinly sprinkled with settlements, which bore the same pro
portion to the vast continental wilderness that single ships
or small squadrons bear to the illimitable sea. But the spirit
of adventure, the desire for refuge, the dream of liberty, were
soon to plant the seeds of a new civilization in the Western
World. Henry VIII, Founder of the English Church, as he had,
whilom, been. Defender of the Roman Faith, was no friend
of toleration; but the rigor of his system was somewhat
relaxed during the reign of the sixth Edward, Mary,
daughter of Henry, and sister of Edward, re-con.^tructed
the great ancestral church, and the world is hardly divided
in opinion as to the character of her reign. Elizabeth re
established the church that had been founded by her father;
and her successor James I of England and VI of Scot
land, — the Protestant son of a Catholic mother, — while he
openly adhered to the church of his realm, could not avoid
4

20
some exhibitions of coquettish tenderness for the faith of his
slaughtered parent.
But, amid all these changes, there was one class upon
which the wrath of the Church of England and of the Church
of Rome, met in accordant severity ;— this was the Puritan
and ultra Puritan sect,— to which I have alluded at the com
mencement of this discourse,— whose lot was even more
disastrous under the Protestant Elizabeth, than under the
Catholic Mary. The remorseless courts of her commis
sioners, who inquisitorially tried these religionists by interro
gation on oath, imprisoned them, if they remained lawfully
silent and condemned them if they honestly confessed !
A congregation of these sectaries had existed for some
time on the boundaries of Lincoln, Nottingham and York,
under the guidance of Richard Clifton and John Robinson,
the latter of whom was a modest, polished, and learned man.
This christian fold was organized about 1602 ; but worried by
ceaseless persecution, it fled to Holland, where its members,
fearing they would be absorbed in the country that had enter
tained them so hospitably, resolved in 1620 to remove to that
portion of the great American wilderness, known as North
Virginia. Such, in the chronology of our Continent, was the
first decisive emigration of our parent people to the New
World, for the, sake of opinion.
It is neither my purpose, nor is it necessary, to sketch the
subsequent history of this New England eraigration, or of the
followers, who swelled it into colonial significance.
Its great characteristic, seems to me, to have been, an
unalterable will to worship God according to its own secta
rian ideas, and to afl^ord an equal right and protection to all
who thought as it did, or were willing to conform to its des
potic and anchoritic austerity. It is not very clear, what
were its notions of abstract political liberty; yet there can be
very little doubt what its practical opinions of equality must
have been, when we remember the common dangers, duties,
and interests of such a band of emigrants on the dreary, ice
bound, savage haunted, coasts of Massachusetts.

21
"When Adam delved, and Eve span,
"Pray who was then the gentleman ?"
may well be asked of a community which for so long a time,
had been the guest of foreigners, and now saw the first great
huraan and divine law of liberty and equality, taught by the
corapulsion of labor and mutual protection, on a strip of land
between the sea and the forest. The colonists were literally
reduced to first principles; they were stripped of the com
forts, pomps, ambitions, distinctions, of the Old World, and
they embraced the coraraon destiny of a hopeful future in
the New. • They had been persecuted for their opinions, but
that did not make them tolerant of the opinions of their per
secutors. It was better, then, that oppressor and oppressed
should live apart in both hemispheres; and thus, in sincerity,
if not in justice, their future history exhibits raany bad exara
ples of the malign spirit from which they fled in Europe. If
they were, essentially. Republicans, their democracy was lim
ited to a political and religious equality of Puritan secta
rianism ; — it had not ripened into the democracy of an all
embracing Christianity.*
'"Men who have to count, miserly, the kernels of corn for their daily breai",
" and to till their ground, staggering through weakness from the effect of famine,
" can do but little in settling the metaphysics of faith, or in counting frames,
" and guaging the exercises of their feelings. Grim necessity of hunger looks
"morbid sensibility out of countenance." — Rev. Dr. G. B. Cheever's edition of
ihe Journal of the Pilgrims; — 1848; p. 112.
' " The New England Puritans, though themselves refugees from religious
"intolerance, and martyrs, as they supposed, to the cause of religious freedom,
"practiced the same intolerance to those who were so unfortunate as to differ
" from them. In 1635, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts
" colony for differences of religious opinions with the civil powers. This was
" the next year after the arrival of the Maryland colony. In 1650, fifteen years
" later, a Baptist received thirty lashes at the whipping post, in Boston, for his
" peculiar faith ; and nine years later, three persons suffered death by the com-
" mon hangman, in the same place, for their adherence to the sect of Quakers." —
Rev. Dr. Bumap's Life of Leonard Calvert, in Sparks's Am. Biog. 2nd series,
vol. IX. p. 170, Boston, 1846.
On the 13th Sept. 1644, these N. England Puritans, passed a law of banish
ment against Anabaptists ; in 1646, another law, imposing the same punish
ment, was passed against Heresy and Error; in 1647, the order of Jesuits came
in for a share of intolerance; — its members were inhibited from entering the
colony ; if they came in, heedless of the law, they were to be banished, and if

22
These occurrences took place during the reign of the prince
who united the Scottish and English thrones. At the Court
of James, and in his intimate service, during nearly the whole
period of his sovereignty, was a distinguished personage, who,
though his name does not figure grandly on the page of history,
was deeply interested in the destiny of our continent.
SiK Georcie Calveet, was descended from a noble Flem
ish family, which emigrated and settled In the North of Eng
land, where, in 1582, the Founder of Maryland was born.
After taking his Bachelor's degree at Oxford and travelling on
the Continent, he became, at the age of twenty-five, private
Secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, the Lord Treasurer — afterwards
the celebrated Earl of Salisbury. In 1609, he appears as
one of the patentees named in the new Charter then granted
to the Virginia Company. After the death of his ministerial
patron, he was honored with knighthood and made clerk of
the crown to the Privy Council. This brought hira closely to
the side of his sovereign. In 1619, he was appointed one of
the Secretaries of State, and was then, also, elected to Parlia
ment; first for his native Yorkshire, and subsequently for Ox
ford. He continued In office, under James, as Secretary of
State, until near that monarch's death, and resigned in 1624.
Born in the Church of England, Sir George, had, in the
course of his public career, become a Roman Catholic. With
the period or the raeans of his conversion from the court-faith
to an unpopular creed, we have, now no concern. Fuller?
in his "Worthies of England," asserts that Calvert resign
ed in consequence of his change of religion ; — other writers,
relying, perhaps, more on the obiter dicta of memoirs and his
tory, believe that his convictions as to faith had changed sorae
they returned after banishment, they were to be put to death. On the 14th of
October 1656, the celebrated law was enacted against "the cursed sect of here
tics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers :"  by its
decrees, captains of vessels who introduced these religionists, knowingly, were
to be fined or imprisoned ; " quaker books or writings containing their devilish
opinions," were not to be brought into the colony, under a penalty ; while qua-
kers who came in, were to be committed to the house of correction, kept con
stantly at work, not allowed to speak, and severely whipped, on their entrance
into this sanctuary !— See original Acts, Hazard's His. Coll. 1, pp 538 545
550,630. '

23
years before. Be that, however, as it raay, the resignation,
and its alleged cause which was well known to his loving
master, James, produced no ill feeling in that sovereign. He
retired in unpersecuted peace. He -was even honored by the
retention of his seat at the Privy Council ; — the King bestowed
a pension for his faithful services ; — regranted him, in fee sim
ple, lands which he previously held by another tenure ; and,
finally, created him Lord Baron of Baltimore, in Ireland.'
W^hilst Sir George was In office, his attention, it seems,
had been early directed towards America ; and in 1620, he is
still mentioned in a list of the members of the Virginia Com
pany. Soon after, he becarae concerned In the plantation of
Newfoundland, and finally, obtained a patent for it, to hira
and his heirs, as Absolute Lord and Proprietary, with all the
royalties of a Count Palatine. We raust regret that the origi
nal, or a copy of this grant for the province of Avalon, in
Newfoundland, has not been recently seen, or, if discover
ed, transmitted to this country.
Here, Sir George built a house ; spent ^£25,000 In improve
ments ; removed his family to grace the new Principality ;
manned ships, at his own charge, to relieve and guard the
' See Mr. John P. Kennedy's discourse on the life and character of Sir George
Calvert, and the reviews thereof, with Mr K's reply, on this question of reli
gion, in the U. S. Catholic Magazine, 1846. Since the publication of Mr.
Kennedy's discourse and the reviews of it, in 1846, 1 have met with an English
work published in London in 1839, attributed to Bishop Goodman, entitled an
" Account of the Court of James the first." In vol. 1, p. 376, he says : "The
" third man who was thought to gain by the Spanish match was Secretary Cal-
" vert ; and as he was the only Secretary employed in the Spanish match, so un-
" doubtedly he did what good offices he could therein, for religion's sake, being
"infinitely addicted to ihe Roman CathoUc faith, having been converted thereto by
" Count Gondemar and Count Arundel, whose daughter Secretary Calvert's Son
" had married ; and, as it was said, the Secretary did usually catechise Ids own
" children, so to ground them in his ovm religion ; and in his best room having an
" altar set up, with chalice, candlesticks, and all other ornaments, he brought all
" strangers thither, never concealing anything, as if his whole joy and comfort had
" been io make open profession nfhis religion." As the Prelate was a contempo
rary, this statement, founded, as it may be, on report, is of considerable impor
tance. Fuller, also, was a contemporary though thirty years younger than
Calvert. The Spanish match, alluded to, was on the carpet as early as 1617,
and was broken off in the beginning of 1624. It was probably during this
period that Lord Arundel and the Spanish Minister influenced the mind of Sir
George as to religion.

24
British fisheries from the attacks of the French ; but, at length,
after a residence of some years, and an ungrateful return from
the soil and climate, he abandoned his luckless enterprise.
Yet, it was soil and climate alone that disheartened the
Northern adventurer: — he had not turned his back on America.
In 1629 he repaired to Virginia, in which he had been so
long concerned, and was most ungraciously greeted by the
Protestant royalists, with an off"er of the Test-Oaths of Alle
giance and supremacy. Sir George, very properly refused
the challenge, and departed with his followers from the inhos
pitable James River, where the bigotry of prelacy denied him
a foothold within the fair region he had partly owned.
But, before he returned to England, he remembered that
Virginia was now a Royal Province and no longer the pro
perty of corporate speculation ; — ^he recollected that there
were large portions of it still unoccupied by white men, and
that there were bays and rivers, pouring, sea-like, to the
ocean, of which grand reports had come to him when he was
one of the committee of the Council for the aff"airs of the Plan
tations. Accordingly, when he left the James River, he
steered his keel around the protecting peninsula of Old Point
Corafort, and ascending the raajestic Chesapeake, entered its
tributary streams, and laid, in imagination, at least, the foun
dations of Maryland.
His examination of the region being ended, Calvert went
horae to England, and in 1632, obtained the grant of Mary
land from Charles I, the son of his royal patron and friend.
The charter, which is said to have been the composition
of Sir George, did not, however, pass the seals until after
the death of Its author ; but was Issued to his eldest son and
heir, Cecilius, on the 20th of June, 1632. The life of Sir
George had been one of uninterrupted personal and political
success; his faraily was large, united and happy ; if he did
not inherit wealth, he, at least, contrived to secure it; and,
although his conscience taught him to abandon the faith of
his fathers, his avowal of the change had been the signal for
princely favors instead of political persecution.

25
Here the historic connexion of the first Loan Baltimore
with Maryland ends. The real work of Plantation was the
task of Cecilius, the first actual Lord Proprietary, and of
Leonard Calvert, his brother, to whom, in the following
year, the heir of the family Intrusted the original task of colo
nial settlement. If anything was done by Sir George, in
furtherance of the rights, liberties, or interests of humanity,
so far as the foundation of Maryland is concerned, it was un
questionably eflfected anterior to this period, for we have no
authority to say, that after his death, his children were mere
executors of previous designs, or, that what was then done,
was not the result of their own provident liberality. I think
there can be no question that the charter was the work of Sir
George. That, at least, is his property ; and he must be
responsible for its defects, as well as entitled to its glory, i
I presume it is hardly necessary for me to say what manner
of person the King was, whom Calvert had served so intimate
ly during nearly a whole reign. Jaraes is precisely the histo
rical prodigy, to which a reflective raind would suppose the
horrors of his parentage naturally gave birth. In royal chro
nology he stands between two axes, — the one that cleft the
ivory neck of his beautiful mother — the other that severed the
irresolute but refined head of his son and heir. His father,
doubtless, had been deeply concerned in the shocking murder
of his raother's second husband. Cradled on the throne of
Scotland ; educated for Kingship by strangers ; the ward of a
regency ; the shuttle-cock of ambitious politicians ; the hope
and tool of two kingdoms, — James lived during an age in
which the struggle of opinion and interest, of prerogative and
' Mr. Chalmers, in his Hist, of the Revolt of the Am. Col. B. 2 ch. 3, says
that the charter of Maryland was a literal copy from the prior patent of Avalon ;
but of this we are unable to judge, as he neither cites his authority nor indi
cates the depository of the Avalon Charter. If the Maryland charter is an ex
act transcript of the Avalon document, it is interesting to know the fact, as Cal
vert may have been a Protestant, when the latter was issued. Bozman states
an authority for its date, as of 1623, which would indicate that this document
may still probably be found in the British Museum. If it was issued in 1623,
it was granted a year before. Fuller says, Calvert resigned because he had be
come a Catholic. In all likelihood, however. Sir George was not converted in
a day ! — See Bozman Hist. Maryland ed. 1837, vol. 1 p. 240 et seq. in note.

26
privilege, of human right and royal power, of glimmering
science and superstitious quackery, might well have bewil
dered an intellect, brighter and calmer than his. The English
people, who were yet in the dawn of free opinions, but who,
with the patience that has always characterized them, were
willing to obey any symbol of order, — raay be said, rather to
have tolerated than honored his pedantry in learning, his king
craft in state, his petulance in puthority, and his manifold
absurdities, which, while they made hira tyrannical, deprived
him of the dignity that sometimes renders even a tyrant respec
table. You will readily believe that a man like George Calvert
found it sometimes difficult to serve such a sovereign, in inti
mate state relations. In private life he might not have se
lected him for a friend or a companion. But James was his
King ; the Impersonation of British Royalty and nationality.
In serving him, he was but true to England ; and, even in
that task, it, no doubt, often required the whole strength of his
heart's loyalty, to withstand the follies of the royal buffoon-
Calvert, I think, was not an enthusiast, but, emphatically, a
man of his time. His time was not one of Reform, and he
had no brave ambition to be a Reformer. Accustomed to the
routine of an observing and technical official life, he was,
essentially a practical man, and dealt, in politics, exclusively
with the present. Endowed, probably, with but slender imagi
nation, he found little charm or flavor in excursive abstrac
tions. His maxim may perhaps have been — "quieta ne mo-
vete," — the motto of moderate or cautions men who live in dis
turbed times, preceding or succeeding revolutions, and think
it better — "  to bear those ills we have

" Than fly to others that we know not of!"
Yet, with all these characteristics, no one will hesitate to be
lieve that Calvert was a bold and resolute person, when it is
recollected that he visited the wilderness of the New World
in the seventeenth century, and projected therein the forma
tion of a British Province.

27
But, in truth, our materials for his biography are extremely
scant. He died at the very moment when America's chief
interest in him began. He belonged to the Court Party, as
distinguished from the Country Party. He is known to have
been a zealous supporter of the "supremacy of authority." He
held, that "America, having been acquired by conquest, was
subject, exclusively, to the control of royal prerogative." He
was the defender of the Court in its diplomacy ; and, ultra as
James was in his monarchical doctrines, there can be little
doubt that he would have dismissed Calvert from office, had
there not been concord between the crown and its servant, as
to the policy, if not the justice, of the toryism they both pro
fessed. But let us not judge that century by the standards of
this. That would be writing history from a false point. Let
us not condemn rulers who seem to be despotic in historic
periods of transition — in periods of mutual intolerance and dis
trust — in periods when men know nothing, from practical
experience, of the capacity of mankind for self government, i
The charter which Sir George Calvert framed, and the suc
cessor of James granted, was precisely the one we might justly
' The Baron Von Raumer, in his Hist, of the XVI and XVII Centuries, vol.
2, p. 263, quoting from Tillieres, says of Calvert :" He is an honorable, sensible
" well-minded man, courteous towards strangers, full of respect towards embas-
" sadors, zealously intent on the welfare of England ; but by reason of all these
" good qualities, entirely without consideration or influence."
The only original work or tract by which we know the character of Sir
George Calvert's mind is " The Answek to Tom Tell-Troth, the Pbac-
TisE or Pbinces and the Lamentations of the Kibke, vmtten by Lord
Baltimore, late Secretary of State, hondon, printed 1642: — a copy of which, in
MS., is in the collections of the Maryland Hist. Soe. This is a quaint speci
men of pedantic politics and toryism — larded with Latin quotations, and alto
gether redolent of James's Court. It was addressed to Charles I, and shows
the author's intimate acquaintance with the political history and movements of
the continental powers. We may judge Calvert's politics by the following pas
sage in which he commends the doctrines of his old master : —
" King James,'' says he, " in his oration to the Parliament, 1620, used these
"words very judiciallie; Kings and Kingdoms were before Parliaments; the
"Parliament was never called for the purpose to meddle with complaints against
" the King, the Church, or State matters, but ad consultandum de rebus arduis,
" Nos et Regnum nostrum concemantibus ; as the writ will inform you. I was
" never the cause, nor guiltie of the election of my sonne by the Bohemians,
" neither would I be content that any other king should dispute whether I am
" a lawful King or no, and to tosse crowns like Tennis-balls."
5

28
suppose such a subject, and such a sovereign would pre
pare and sign. It Invested the Lord Proprietary with all the
royal rights, enjoyed by the Bishop of Durhara, within the
County Palatine of Durham. He was the source of justice.
He was the fountain of honor, and allowed to decorate merito
rious provincials with whatever titles and dignities he should
appoint. He had the power to establish feudalism and all its
incidents. He was not merely the founder and filler of office,
but he was also the sole executive. He might erect towns,
boroughs and cities ; — ^he might pardon offences and command
the forces. As ecclesiastical head of the Province, he had
the right to found churches, and was entitled to their advow
sons. ' In certain cases he had the dangerous privilege of
issuing ordinances, which were to have the force of sovereign
decrees. In fact, allegiance to England, was alone preserved,
and the Lord Proprietary became an autocrat, with but two
limitations : 1st, the laws were to be enacted by the Proprie
tary, with the advice and approbation of the free men, or free
holders or their deputies, — the "¦liberi homines,'''' and "liberi
tenentes," spoken of in the charter ; — and 2nd, "no interpre
tation" of the charter was " to be made whereby God's Holy
Rights and the true Christian Religion, or the allegiance due
to us," (the King of England,) " our heirs and successors,
may, in any wise, suffer by change, prejudice or diminution."
Christianity and the King — I blush to unite such discordant
names — were protected in equal co-partnership !^
The first of these reserved privileges of the people, the
Lord Proprietary Cecilius understood, to mean, that Ae had the
exclusive privilege of proposing laws, and that the free-men,
or free-holders of his province, could only accept or reject his
propositions. These laws of the province were not to be sub-
' It may seem strange, that, being a Catholic, he still had the right of advow
son or of presentation to Protestant Episcopal Churches; but it was not until
the Act of 1st William and Mary, chapter 26, that Parliament interfered with
the right of Catholics to present to religious benefices. That Act vested the
presentations belonging to Catholics in the Universities. An Act passed 12th
Anne, was of a similar disabling character. — Butler's Hist. Mem. vol. 3, pp.
136, 148, 149.
" See Appendix No. 1, in regard to the erroneous translation of this clause
from the Latin, that has hitherto been adopted from Bacon's laws of Maiyland.

29
mitted to the King for his approval, nor had he the important
right of taxation, which was expressly relinquished. In the
early legislation of Maryland, this supposed exclusive right of
proposing laws by the Proprietary, was soon tested by mutual
rejections, both by the legislative Assembly and by Cecilius,
of the Acts, which each had separately passed or prepared.
But the other clause, touching " God's Holy Rights and
the true Christian Religion," was one, in regard to the prac
ticed interpretation of which, I apprehend, there was never a
moment's doubt in the mind either of the people or of the Pro
prietary. It is a radiant gem in the antique setting of the char
ter. It is the glory of Calvert. It is the utter obliteration of
prejudice among all who professed Christianity. Toleration
was unknown in the old World ; but this was raore than tole
ration, for it declared freedom at least to Christians, — yet it
was not perfect freedom, for it excluded that patient and suf
fering race — that chosen people — who, to the disgrace even
of republican Maryland, within my recollection, were bowed
down by political disabilities.
I am aware that many historians consider the religious free
dom of Maryland as originating in subsequent legislation, and
claim the act of 1649 as the statute of toleration. I do not
agree -with them. Sir George Calvert had been a Protestant ; —
he becarae a Catholic. As a Catholic, he carae to Virginia,
and in the colony where he sought to settle, he found himself
assailed, for the first time in his life, by Protestant viruleiK e
and incapacitation. He was now, himself, about to become
a Lord Proprietor. The sovereign who granted his charter
was a Protestant, and moreover, the king of a country whose
established religion was Protestant. The Protestant monarch,
of course, could not grant anything which -would .compro
mise him with his Protestant subjects ; yet the Catholic no
bleman, who was to take the beneficiary charter, could not
receive, from his Protestant master, a grant which would assail
the conscience of co-religionists over whom he was. In fact, to
be a sovereign. In England, the King had no right to inter
fere with the Church of England ; but in Araerica, which was
a vacant, royal domain, his paramount authority permitted

30
him to abolish invidious ecclesiastical distinctions. Calvert,
the Catholic, must have been less than a man, if he forgot his
fellow suff"erers and their disabilities when he drew his char
ter. His Protestant recollections taught him the vexations of
Catholic trials, while his Catholic observation informed him
sharply of Protestant persecution. Sectarianism was already
rampant across the Atlantic' The two British lodgments, in
Virginia and New England, were obstinately sectarian. Vir
ginia was Episcopalian ; New England was Puritan ; — should
Maryland be founded as an exclusively Protestant province,
or an exclusively Catholic settlement.'' It is evident that either
would be impossible : — the latter, because it would have been
both impolitic and probably illegal ; and the former because it
would have been a ridiculous anomaly to force a converted
Catholic, to govern a colony wherein his own creed was not
tolerated by a fundamental and unalterable law. It is impos
sible to conceive that the faith of Calvert and the legal reli
gion of Charles, did not enter into their deliberations, when
they discussed the Charter; and, doubtless, both subject and
sovereign justly decided to make "The Land of Mary,"
which the Protestant Charles baptised in honor of his Catho
lic Queen, a free soil for Christianity. It was Calvert's duty
and Interest to make Charles tolerant of Catholic Christianity ;
nor could he deny to others the immunity he demanded for
himself and his religious brethren. The language of the
charter, therefore, seems explicit and incapable of any other
raeaning. There were multitudes of Catholics in England,
who would be glad to take refuge in a region where they were
to be free from disabilities, and could assert their manhood.
' As an illustration of this feeling, I will quote a passage showing how it fared
with Marylanders in Massachusetts in 1634. " The Dove," one of the vessels
of the first colonists to Maryland, was dispatched to Massachusetts with a
cargoof corn to exchange for fish. She carried a friendly letter from Calvert
and another from Harvey, but the magistrates were suspicious of a people who
" did set up mass openly." Some of the crew were accused of reviling the in
habitants of Massachusetts as " holy brethren," " the members," &,c., and just
as the ship was about to sail ; the supercargo, happening an shore, was arrested in
order io compel ihe muster io give up the culprits. The proof failed, and the
vessel was suffered to depart, but not without a special charge to the master
"to bring no more such disordered persons!" — Hildreth Hist. U. S.,vol. 1,209.

31
The king, moreover, secured for his Catholic subjects a quiet,
but chartered banishment, which still preserved their allegi
ance. At the court there was much leaning towards the
church of Rome. It was rather fashionable to believe one
way, and conform another. The Queen was zealous in her
ancestral faith ; and her influence over the king, colored more
than one of his acts. Had Calvert gone to the raarket place,
and openly proclaimed, that a Protestant king, by a just char
ter of neutrality, had established an American sanctuary for
Catholics, and invited thera thither under the banner of the
cross, one of his chief objects, must have been at once defeat
ed ; for intolerance would have rallied its parties against the
project, and the dream of benevolence would have been de
stroyed for ever. If by the term, "God's Holy Rights and the
true Christian religion," the charter meant, the church of Eng
land, then, ex vi termini. Catholicity could never have been
tolerated in Maryland ; and yet it is unquestionable that the
original settlement was made under Catholic auspices — bless
ed by Catholic clergymen — and acquiesced in by Protestant
followers. Was it not wise, therefore, to shield conscience in
Maryland, under the indefinite but unsectarian phraseology of
" God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion .'"'
So far, then, for the basis of the charter, and for the action
of Sir George Calvert. After his death, the planting of the
colony took place under the administration of Cecilius, who,
remaining in Europe, dispatched his brother Leonard to
America to carry out his projects.
If the personal history of the Calverts is scant, the history
of the early days of Maryland is scarcely less so ; but the in
dustry of antiquarians, and the researches of a learned Catho
lic clergyman, have brought to light two documents which dis
close much of the religious and business character of the set
tlement. The work entitled : — "A Relation of Marvland,"
which Avas published in London in 1635, and gave the first
account of the planting of the province, is a minute, mercan
tile, statistical, geographical and descriptive narrative of the
' See Appendix No. 2.

32
landing and locating of the adventurers who set sail in 1633,
and of their genial intercourse with the aborigines. If I had
time, it would be pleasing to sum up the facts of this historical
treasure, which was evidently prepared under the direction of
Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, if not actually written by him.
It is full of the spirit of careful, honest enterprise ; and ex
hibits, I think, conclusively, the fact that the design of Cal
vert, in establishing this colony, was mainly the creation of a
great estate, manorial and agricultural, whose ample revenues
should, at all times, supply the needs of his ten children and
their descendants.
The other document to which I refer, is a manuscript dis
covered sorae years ago, by the Rev. Mr. McSherry, in the
archives of the college of the Propaganda, at Rome, and ex
hibits the zeal with which the worthy Jesuits, whom Lord
Baltimore sent forth with the first settlers, applied themselves
to the christlanization of the savages. It presents some beau
tiful pictures of the simple life of these devotees. It shows
that, in Maryland, the first step was not made in crirae ; and
that the earliest duty of the Governor,- was not only to concili
ate the Indian proprietors, but to purchase the land they were
willing to resign. Nor was this all ; there was provident
care for the soul as well as the soil of the savage. There is
something rare In the watchful forethought which looks not
only to the present gain orfuture prospects of our fellow men,
which takes heed not only of the personal rights and material
comforts of the race It is displacing, but guards the untutor
ed savage, and consigns him to the vigilance of instructed
piety. This "Narrative of Father White," and the
Jesuits' letters, preserved In the college at Georgetown, por
tray the zeal with which the missionaries, in their frail barks,
thridded the rivers, coves and inlets of our Chesapeake and
Patapsco ; — how they raised the cross, under the shadow of
which the first landing was effected ; — how they set up their
altars in the wigwams of the Indians, and sought, by simplicity,
kindness and reason, to reach and save the Indian. In Mary
land, persecution was dead at the founding ; — prejudice, even,
was forbidden. The cruelties of Spanish planting were un-

33
known in our milder clime. No violence was used, to con
vert or to appropriate, and thus, the symbol of salvation, was
properly raised on the green Isle of St. Clement, as an emblem
of the peace and good will, which the Proprietary desired
should sanctify his enterprise. '
' In order to illustrate the spirit in which the region for the first settlement at
St. Mary's was acquired, I will quote from a MS. copy of "A Relation of Mary
land, 1635," now in my possession : "To make his entrie peaceable and safe,
he thought fit to present ye Werowance and Wisoes of the town (so they call
ye chief men of accompt among them,) with .some English cloth (such as is
used in trade with ye Indians,) axes, hoes, and knives, which they accepted
verie kindlie, and freely gave consent toe his companie that hee and they should
dwell in one part of their towne, and reserved the other for themselves : and
those Indians that dwelt in that part of ye towne which was allotted for ye
English, freely left them their houses and some come that they had begun to
plant : It was also agreed between them that at ye end of ye Harvest they
should have ye whole Towne, which they did accordinglic. And they made
mutuall promises to each other to live peaceably and friendlie together, and if
any injury should happen to be done, on any part, that satisfaction should be
made for ye same; and thus, on ye 27 Daie of Makch, A. D. 1634, ye Gou-
ernour took possession of ye place, and named ye Towne — Saint Marie's.
"There was an occasion that much facilitated their treatie with these Indians
which was this : the Susquehanocks (a warlike people that inhabit between
Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay) did usualiie make warres and incursions
upon ye neighboring Indians, partly fbr superioritie, partly for to gett their
women, and what other purcheise they could meet with ; which the Indians of
Yoacomaco fearing, had, ye yeere before our arivall there, made a resolution,
for there safetie, to remove themselves higher into ye countrie, where it was
more populous, and many of them where gone there when ye English arrived."
At Potomac, Father Altham, — according to Father White's Latin MS. In
the Maryland Hist. Soe. Col. — informed the guardian of the King that "we (the
clergy) had not come thither for war, but for the sake of benevolence, — that we
might imbue a rude race with the principles of civilization, and open a way to
Heaven, as well as to impart to them the advantages enjoyed by distant regions.
The prince signified that we had come acceptably. The interpreter was one
of the Virginia Protestants. When the Father, for lack of time, could not con
tinue his discourse, and promised soon to return : "I will that it should be so,"
said Archihau — " our table shall be one ; my men shall hunt for you ; all
things shall be in common between us."
The Werowance of Pautuxent visited the strangers, and when he was about
departing, used the following language, as recorded in the MS. Relation of
Maryland of 1635 : "I love ye English so well that if they should goe about to
" kill me, if I had so much breath as to speak, I would command ye people not
" to revenge my death ; for I know they would not doe such a Ihinge except
« it was through mine own default." See also Mr. B. U. Campbell's admira
ble Sketch of the eaely missions to Maryland, read before the Md.
Hist. Soe. Sth Jan. 18-16, and subsequently printed in the U. S. Catholic
Magazine.

34
I think there can be no doubt that this adventure had the
double object of affording an exile's refuge to Calvert's co
religionists, as well as of promoting the welfare of his family.
It was designed for land-holders and laborers. It was a
manorial, planting colony. Its territory was watered by two
bays, several large rivers, and innumerable streams. Its fer
tile lands and thick forests, invited husbandmen, while its
capacious coasts terapted the hardy fisherraan. And so it is,
that in the Arms which were prepared for the Proprietary go
vernment, the baronial shield of the Calvert family, dropped,
in America, its two supporting leopards, and received in
their stead, on either side, a Fisherman and a Farmer.
"Crescite et Multiplicamini," — its motto, — was a watchword
of provident thrift.
Forty-nine years after the charter was granted to Lord
Baltimore, King Charles II issued a patent, for a magnifi
cent patrimony in America, to William Penn.
But what a change, in that half century, had passed over
the world ! A catalogue of the events that took place, in
Great Britain alone, is a history of the growth of Opinion and
of the People.
Charles's efforts to overthrow the Presbyterian Church in
Scotland, and to enforce Episcopacy, brought on the war
with the stern enthusiasts of that country. Laud, in the
Church, and the Earl of Strafl^ord, In the Cabinet, kept the
King in a constant passion of royal and ecclesiastical power.
Strafford fell, and the civil war broke out. Cromwell towered
up suddenly, on the bloody field, and was victorious over the
royalists. The King perished on the scaffold. Cromwell
became Lord Protector. Anon, the commonwealth fell ; the
Stuarts were restored, and Charles II ascended the throne ; —
but amid all these perilous acts of political and religious fury,
the world of thought had been stirred by the speeches and
writings, of Taylor, Algernon Sydney, Hampden, and Milton.
As the people gradually felt their power they learned to know
their rights, and, although they went back from Republi
canism to Royalty, they did so, perhaps, only to save them-

35
selves from the anarchy that ever tlireatens a nation while
freeing itself from feudal traditions.
Besides these political and literary phases of the tirae, there
had been added to the Catholic, Episcopal, and Puritan sects,
a new eleraent of religious power, which was destined to
produce a slow but safe revolution among raen.
An humble shoemaker, named George Fox, arose and
taught that " every man was complete in himself; he stood in
need of no alien help ; the light was free of all control,- — above
all authority external to itself. Each human being, man or
woman, was supreme." The christian denomination called
Quakers, or more descriptively — "Friends," — thus obtained
a hearing and a standing among all serious persons who
thought Religion a thing of life as well as of death.
Quakerism, with such fundamental principles of equality
in constant practice, became a social polity. If the Quaker
was a Democrat, he was so because the " inner light" of
his Christianity made him one, and he dared not disobey
his Christianity. He recognized no superiors, for his con
science taught him to deny any privileges to claimed supe
riority. But the Quaker added to his systera, an eleraent
which, hitlierto, was unknown in the history of sects ; — he was
a Man of Peace. It is not to be supposed that any royal or
ecclesiastical government would allow such radical doctrines
to pass unnoticed, in the midst of a society which was ever
greedy for new teachings. The Quaker, therefore, soon par
ticipated in the persecutions which prelacy thought due to
liberal Christianity. But persecution of the Friend, was the
Friend's best publication, for he answered persecution, not by
recantation, but by peaceful endurance. Combative resistance,
in religious differences, always gives the victor a right, or at
least, an excuse, to slay. But Quakerism, a systera of personal
and religious independence and peace, — becarae slowly suc
cessful by the vis inertice of passive resistance. All other
sects were, more or less, combative ; — Quakerism was an
obstinate rock, which stood, in rooted firmness, amid a sea of
strife : — the billows of faction raged around it and broke on
its granite surface, but they wasted themselves — not the rock !
6

36
And this is a raost important fact in the history of Religion
in its development of society. All other sects lost caste,
power or material, either by aggression or by fighting. But
the Quaker said to the Prelate, the Puritan, and the Catholic,
you may annoy us by public trials, by denial of justice, by
misrepresentation, by imprisonment, by persecution, by the
stake, — ^yet we shall stand immovable on two principles,
which deny that God is glorified by warfare — especially for
opinion. Our principles are, equality and peace — in the
church and In the world. Equality is to make us humble
and good citizens. Peace is to convert this den of human
tigers into a fold, wherein by simply performing our duties to
each other and to God, we may prepare ourselves for the
world of spirits. You can persecute — we can suffer. Who
shall tire first.' We will be victorious by the firmness that
bears your persecutions ; and those very persecutions, while
they publish your shame, shall proclaim our principles as well
as our endurance. They knew, from the history of Charles
Ist, that the worst thing to be done with a bad king was to
kill him ; for. If the axe metamorphosed that personage into
a martyr, the prison could never extinguish the light of
truth in the doctrines of Quakerism ! '
You -will pardon me, gentlemen, for having detained you so
long in discussing the foundation of Maryland. The planting
of your own state is familiar to you. It has been thoroughly
treated in the writings of your Proud, Watson, Gordon,
Du Ponceau, Tyson, Fisher, Wharton, Reed, Ingraham, Arm
strong and many others. Can it be necessary for me to say
a word. In Philadelphia, of the history of William Penn ; —
of hira, who, as a lawgiver and executive magistrate, — a
practical, pious, Quaker,— ^rs^ developed in state affairs, and
reduced to practice, the liberty and equality enjoined by his
' In William Penn's second reply to a committee of the House of Lords ap
pointed in 1678, he declares that those who cannot comply with laws, through
tenderness of conscience, should not "revile or conspire against the govern-
" ment, but with christian humility and patience tire out all mistakes against us,
" and wait their better information, who, we believe, do as undeservedly as
" severely treat us."

37
religion and founded on liberal Christianity; — of him who
first taught mankind the sublime truth, that —
" Beneath the rule of men entirely great
" The Pen is mightier than the sword? Behold
" The arch-enchanter's wand, — itself a nothing !
" But taking sorcery from the master hand
" To paralyse the Cesars ! Take away the sword,
" States can be saved without it!"
It would be idle to detail the facts of his life or government,
for, not only have Pennsylvanians recorded and dwelt upon
them until they are household lessons, but they have been
favorite themes for French, British, Italian, German and
Spanish philosophers and historians.
It was Penn to whom the charter of 1681 was granted,
half a century after the patent Issued to Cecilius Calvert.
The instrument itself, has many of the features of the Mary
land grant ; but it is well known that the absolute powers it
bestowed on the Proprietary, were only taken by him in order
that he might do as he pleased in the formation of a new
state, whose principles of freedom and peace, might, first in
the World's history, practically assume a national aspect.
I shall not recount the democratic liberalities of his system,
as it was matured by his personal efforts and advice. Origi
nal, as he unquestionably was, in genius ; bold as he was in
resisting the pomp of the world, at a time when its vanities
sink easiest and most corruptingly into the heart, — we may
nevertheless, say, that the deeds and history of his time, as
well as of the previous fifty years, had a large share in
moulding his character.
In William Penn, the crude germs of religious originality,
which, in Fox, were struggling, and sometimes almost stifling
for utterance, found their first, ablest, and most accomplished
expounder. He gave them refinement and respectability.
His intimacy with Algernon Sidney taught him the value of
introducing those principles into the doctrines of govern-
jjient ; — and thus, he soon learned that when political rights
grow into the sanctity of religious duties, they receive thereby

38
a vitality which mak6s them irresistible. Penn, in this wise,
became an expanded embodiment of Fox and Sidney ; and,
appropriating their mingled faith and polity, discarded every
thing that was doctrinal and not practical, and realized, in
government, their united wisdom. Nobly in his age, did he
declare : " I know what is said by the several admirers of
" monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule
" of one, of a few, and of the many, and are the three common
"ideas of government when men discourse on that subject.
" But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinc-
" tion, and It belongs to all three •.—any government is free to
<' the people under it, whatever be the frame, where the laws
" rule and the people are a party to those laws ; and more than
" this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion." '
In these historical illustrations, I have striven to show that
Primitive Christianity was the basis of equal rights and re
sponsibilities. The alleged defence of this Christianity, in the
land of its birth, gave rise to " holy wars," in which Feudal
ism and Chivalry originated. Feudalisra was the source of
the strictest military dependence, as well as of manifold social
perversions. The knight expanded into a lord, — the subject
commoner dwindled to a soldier or a serf. Thus Feudalism
and a great historical Church, grew up in aristocratic copart
nership over the bodies and souls of mankind, until the one,
by the omnipotence of its spiritual authority, ripened into an
universal hierarchy, while the other, by the folly of its "divine
right," decayed into a temporal despotism that fell at the first
blow of the heads-man's axe. The reformation and revolution
broke the enchanter's wand ; and, when the cloud passed
from the bloody stage, instead of seeing before us a magician
full of the glories of his art and almost deceived himself, by
the splendor of his Incantations, we beheld a meagre and
pitiful creature, who though blind and palsied, still retained
for a while, the power of witch-like mischief. But his reign
was not lasting. The stern Puritan, — the pioneer of Inde
pendence, — advanced with his remorseless weapon, — while
quietly, in his shadow, followed the calm and patient Friend,
' Preface to Frame of Government, 25 April, 1682.

39
sowing the seed of Peace and Good- Will in the furrows
plowed by the steel of his unrelenting predecessor. And
thus again, after ages of corrupt and desolating perversion,
the selfish heart of man came humbly back to its original faith
that Libera] Christianity is the true basis of enlightened free
dom, and the only foundation of good and lasting government.
The bleak winds of March were blowing in Maryland,
when Calvert conciliated and purchased from the Indians at
Saint Mary's ; but Autumn was
" Laying here and there
" A liery finger on the leaves,"
•when Penn, also, established a perfect friendship with the
savages at Shackamaxon.'
Calvert, a protestaut officer of the crown, became a cath
olic, and, retiring to private life, was rewarded by his king,
¦with a pension, estates, and an American principality ; —
Penn, the son of a British Admiral, and who is only accurately
known to us by a portrait which represents him in armor, be
gan life as an adherent of the Church of England, and havihg
Conscientiously, doffed the steel for the simple garb of Quaker
ism, was persecuted, not only by his government but his
parent. Calvert took the grant of a feudal charter, and
asserting all its legislative and baronial powers, sought to fas
ten its Chinese influence, in feudal fixedness, on his colo
nists ; — ^but Penn, knowing that feudalism was an absurdity,
in the necessary equality of a wilderness, embraced his great
authority in order "to leave himself and his successors no
power of doing mischief, so that the will of one man might
not hinder the good of a whole community."'
' Those who desire to know the precise character of the celebrated Elm-tree
Treaty, should read the Memoir on its history, in vol. 3, part 2, p. 145 of the
Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Hist. Soe, written by the late Mr. Du Ponceau,
and Mr. Joshua Francis Fisher. It is one of the finest specimen of minute,
exhaustive, historical analysis, with which I am acquainted. These gentla-
men, prove, I think, conclusively, that the Treaty was altogether one of amity
and friendship, and was entirely unconnected with the purchase of lands.
" Janney's Life of Penn, 163.

40
Calvert seems to have thought of English or Irisb emigra-?
tion alone ; — Penn, did not confine himself to race, but
sought for support from the Continent as well as from Britain. '
Calvert was ennobled for his services ; — Penn rejected a
birthright which might have raised him to the peerage.
Calvert's public life was antecedent to his American visit —
Penn's was almost entirely subsequent to the inception of his
"holy experiment."
Calvert laid the foundations of a mimic kingdom ; — Penn,
with the power of a prince, stripped himself of authority.
The one was naturally an aristocrat of James's time ; the
other, quite as naturally, a democrat of the transition age of
Sidney. Calvert imagined that raankind stood still ; but, Penn be
lieved, that raankind ever raoves, or, that like an army under
arms, when not marching, it is marking time.
While to Calvert is due the honor of a considerable religious
advance on his age, as developed in his charter, — Penn is to
be revered for the double glory of civil and perfect religious
liberty. Calvert mitigated man's lot by toleration ; — Penn
expanded the germ of toleration into unconditional freedora.
Calvert was the founder of a Planting Province, mainly
agricultural, and creative of all the manorial dependencies ; —
but Penn seeras to have heartily cherished the idea of a great
City, and of the coraraerce it was to gather and develope
from a wilderness over which It was to stand as guardian
sentinel. As farming was the chief interest of the one, trad
ing, became, also, a favorite of the other ; and thus, while
the transient trader visited, supplied, and left the native
Indian free, — the permanent planter settled forever on his
" hunting grounds," and drove him further into the forest.
Calvert recognized the law of war ; — Penn made peace a
fundamental institution. They both felt that civilized nations
have a double and concurrent life, — material and spiritual ; —
but Calvert sought rather to develop one, while Penn ad
dressed hiraself to the care of both.
' See 2nd Bozman Hist. Md. p. 616— note XLIII, Conditions, &c.

41
Calvert's idea was to open a new land by old doctrines,
and to form his preserving amber around a worthless fly ; —
but Penn's Pennsylvania was to crystalize around the novel
and lucid nucleus of freedom.
Calvert supposed that America was to be a mere reflex of
Britain, and that the heart of his native Island would pul
sate here ; but Penn, seeing that the future population of
America, like the'soil of the Mississippi Valley, would be an
alluvial deposit from the overflow of European civilization,
thought it right to plant a new doctrine of human rights,
which would grow more vigorously for its transplanting and
culture. The germs of Civil and Religious freedom may be found
elsewhere in the foundation of American provinces and colo
nies. I know they are claimed for the cabin of the May
flower, the rock of Plymouth, and the sands of Rhode Island.
But I think that William Penn is justly entitled to the honor
of adopting them on principle, after long and patient reflection,
as the seed of his people, and thus, of having taken from their
introduction by him into this country, all the disparagement
of originating either In discontent or accident. His plan was
the offspring of beautiful design, and not the gypsey child of
chance or circurastance.
History is to raan what water is to the landscape, — It mir
rors, but distorts in its reflection, and the great founder of
Pennsylvania has suffered from this temporary distortion.
But, at length, the water will become still, and the image will
be perfect. Penn is one of those majestic figures that loom
up on the waste of time, in the same eternal permanence and
simple grandeur in which the Pyramids rise in relief from the
sands of Egypt Let no Arab displace" a single stone !

APPENDIX No. I.

It is singular that the clause in the XXII section of Charles Ist's charter to
Lord Baltimore, relating to the interpretation of that instrument in regard to
religion, has never been accurately trtinslated, but that all commentators have,
hitherto, followed the version given by Bacon. I shall endeavor to demon
strate the error.
The following parallel passages exhibit the original Latin, and Bacon's
adopted translation :

ORIGINAL latin.
The 22nd section of the charter of
Maryland, copied from Bacon's Laws,
wherein it was adopted from an attest
ed copy from the original record re
maining in the Chapel of Rolls in 1758:
" Section xxii. Et si forte impos-
terum contingat Dubitationes aliquas
qusestiones circa varum sensum et lu-
tellectum alicujus verhi clausula vel
sententise in hac presenti Charta
nostra contents generari Eam semper
et in omnibus Interpretationem adhi-
beri et in quibuscunque Curiis et PriE-
toriis nostris obtinere Vol-umits pras-
cipimus et mandamus quae prEefato mo
do Baroni de Baltimore Hseredibus
et Assignatis suis benignior utilior et
favorabilior esse judicabitur Proviso
semper quod nulla fiat Interpretatio per
quam sacro-sancta Dei et vera Chris
tiana Religio aut Ligeantia Nobis
Haeredibus et successoribus nostris de-
bita Immutatione Prejudicio vel dis-
pendio in aliquo patiantur :" &c. 8ce.

ENGLISH translation.
Translation of the 22nd section of the
charter, from Bacon's Laws of Mary
land, wherein it is copied from an old
translation published by order of the
Lower House in the year 1725:
"Section xxii. And if, peradven-
ture, hereafter it may happen that any
doubts or questions should arise con
cerning the true sense and meaning of
any word, clause or sentence con
tained in this our present charter, we
will, charge, and command, That In
terpretation to be applied, always, and
in all things, and in all our Courts and
Judicatories whatsoever, to obtain
which shall be judged to be more ben
eficial, profitable and favorable to the
aforesaid now Baron of Baltimore,
his heirs and assigns : Provided always
that no interpretation thereof be made
whereby Gon's holy and true christian
religion, or the allegiance due to us,
our heirs and successors, may, in any
wise, suifer by change, prejudice or
diminution :" &c. &c.

It will be noticed that this Latin copy, according to the well known ancient
usage in 'such papers, is not punctuated, so that we have no guidance, for the
purpose of translation, from that source.
7

44
The translation of this section as far as the words: "Proviso temper quod
nulla fiat interpretatio," inc. is sufficiently correct; but the whole of the final
clause, should in my opinion, be rendered thus : —
-" Provided always that no interpretation thereof be made, whereby God's
" .HOLY bights arui the true christian religion, or the allegiance due to
" as our heirs or successors, may, in any wise suffer by change, prejudice or
" diminution." Let me offer my reasons for this alteration:
1st, This new translation harmonizes with the evident grammatical con
struction of the Latin sentence, and is the easiest as well as most natural.
The common version, given by Bacon : God's holy and true Chbistian
religion,"— is grossly pleonastic, if not nonsensical. Among christians, "God's
religion," can of course, only be the "christian religion ;" and, with equal
certainty, it is not only a " true" religion, but a " holy" one !
2nd, The word Sacrosanctos, always conveys the idea of a consecrated inviola-
bUity, in conseguence of inherent riglUs and privileges. In a dictionary, contempo
rary vnth the charter, I find the following definition, — in verbo sacrosanctus.
"Sacrosanctus : Apud Ciceronem dicebatur id quod interposito jure-
jurando sanctum, et institutum erat idem etiam significat ac sanctus, santo.
Tribunus plebis dicebatur sacrosanctus, quia cum nefas erat attingere, longi
diviniori ratioae CaitlioUci appellamus ecclesiam Romanam sacrosanctam. Calpi-
Eus Parvus ; — seu Dictionarium Cffisaris CalderiniMirani : VenetUs, 1618.
Cicero, in Caiil: 2. 8. — ^^uses the phrase — "Possessiones sacrosanctse," in this
sense ; and so does Livy in the epithet, — " Sacrosancta potestas," as applied to
the Tiibuneship ; and, in the sentence, — ut plebi sui magistratus essent sacro-
sanctae." From the last sentence, in the definition given in the Venetian Dictionary of
16 IS, which I have cited in italics, it will be seen that the epithet had a pecu-
liiarly Catholic signification in its appropriation by the Roman Church.
3d, I contend that " sacrosancta" does not qualify " religio," but agrees with
negotia, or some word of similar import, understood ; and thus the phrase —
'•' sacrosancta Dei" — forms a distinot branch of the sentence.
If the translation given in Bacon is the true one, the positions of the words
"iSacrosancta" and " Dei" should be reversed, for their present collocation clearly
violates accurate Latin construction. In tliat case, " Dei" being subject to the
government of "religio," ought to precede " sacrosancta," which would be ap
purtenant to "religio," while "et," which would then couple the two adjectives
instead of the two members of the sentence, should be placed immediately be
tween them, without the interposition of any word to disunite it either from
" sacrosancta" or "vera." If my translation be correct, then the collocation of
all the words in the original Latin of the charter, is proper. If " sacrosancta"
is a neuter adjective agreeing with " negotia," understood,— and " et" conjoins
members of sentences, then the whole clause is obedient to a positive law of
Latin verbal arrangement. Lejverett says : " The genitive is elegantly put be
fore the noun which governs it with one or more words between ; except when
the genitive is govierned by a neuter adjective, in which case, it must be placed
after it."
4th, Again : — if" ct" joins "sacrosancta" and "vera," which, thereby, qualify
the fiame noun, there are then only two nominatives in the Latin sentence of
the charter, viz : "religio" and " ligeantia." Now these nouns, being coupled

45
by the disjunctive conjunction " aut," must have the verb agreeing with them
separately in the singular. But, as "patiantur" happens to be in the plural, the
author of the charter must cither have been ignorant of one of the simplest
grammar rules, or have designed to convey the meaning I contend for.
I must acknowledge the aid and confirmation I have received, in examining
this matter, from the very competent scholarship of my friend Mr. Knott,
assistant Librarian of the Maryland Historical Society.

APPENDIX No. II.
The scope of my discourse is confined to the illustration of principles either
announced, or acted on, in the founding of Maryland and Pennsylvania. I
have contended that Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, so framed
the charter which was granted by Charles I, that, without express concessions,
the general character of its language in regard to religious rights, would secure
liberty of conscience to christians.
1 : 1632. — Language can scarcely be more perspicuously comprehensive,
than in the phrase : " God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion."
Under such a clause, in the charier, no particular church could set up a claim
for its exclusive Christianity. There was no mention, in the instrument, of
" the Established Church," or, of " the Church of England." The Catholic
could not deny the Episcopalian's Christianity ; the Episcopalian could not
deny the Catholic's, nor could the Puritan question the Christianity of either.
All professed'faith in Christ. Each of the three great sects might contend that
its form of worship, or interpretation of the Bible, was the correct one; but
all came lawfully under the great generic class of christians. And, while the
political government of the colonists was to be conducted by a Catholic magis
trate, in a province belonging to a Catholic Lord, — the interpretation of the law
of religious rights was to be made, not by the laws of England, but exclusively
under the paramount law of the provincial charter. By that document the
broad " rights of God," and " the true christian religion," could not " suffer by
change, prejudice or diminution."
This view is strengthened by a clause in the 4th section of the charter, by
which the king granted Lord B. "the patronages and advowsons of all churches
which, with ihe increasing worship and Religion of Christ, {crescenii Christi
cultu etreligione,") shoa\d be built within his province. The right of oduoic-
son, being thus bestowed on the Lord Proprietary, for all Christian Churches ;
his majesty, then, goes on, empowering Lord B. to erect and found churches,
chapels, 8ie. and to cause them to be dedicated "according to ihe Ecclesiastical
laws of our kingdom of England." The general right of advowson, and the par
ticular privilege, conceded to a Catholic, of causing the consecration of Episco
pal churches, are separate powers aud ought not to be confounded by a hasty
reader of the charter.
I think there can hardly be a fair doubt that the interpretation I give to the
22nd clause is the one assigned to it by the immigrants from the earliest colonial

46
movement in 1633. 'We may assert, therefore, the fact, that religious freedora
was offered and secured for christians, in the province of Maryland, from the
very beginning.
II : 163i5 — We must recollect that under the English statutes, adherents of
the national church required no protection ; they Were free in the exercise of their
faith ; but Catholics and Puritans were not so happily situated, and, accord
ingly, they sought, in the new world an exemption from the disabilities and
persecutions they experienced at home. Can it be credited, that, under such
vexations, the Catholic Lord Baltimore would have drawn a charter, or, his
Catholic son and successor, sent forth a colony, under a Catholic Governor,
when the fundamental law, under which alone he exercised his power, did not
secure liberty to him and his co-religionists ? It is simply necessary to ask the
question, in order to demonstrate the absurdity of such a supposition.
Ill : 1634. — If we show, then, that Catholic conscience was untrammeled in
Maryland, I think we may fairly assume the general ground as satisfactorily
proved. What was, briefly, the first movement of this sect, under the Lord
Proprietary's auspices ? When Lord Caecilius was planning his colonial expe
dition in 1633, one of his earliest cares was to apply to the Order of Jesus for
clergymen to attend the Catholic planters and settlers, and to convert the na
tives. Accordingly, under the sanction of the Superior, Father White joined
the emigrants, although, under previous persecutions in England, he had been
sent into perpetual banishment, lo return from which subjected the culprit to the
penalty of death! These facts are set forth, at page 14 of the 2nd volume of
Challoner's Memoirs. Historia Anglo-Bavara, S. J. Rev. Dr. Oliver's collec
tions illustrative of the Scotch, English and Irish Jesuits, page 222, and in
the essay on the Early Maryland Missions, by Mr. B. U. Campbell. Fathers
Andrew White and John Altham, and two lay brothers, named John Knowles
and Thomas Gervase, accompanied the first expedition, and were active agents
in consecrating the possession of the soil, and converting Protestant immigrants
as well as heathen-natives. The colony, therefore, cannot properly be called a
Protestant one, when its only spiritual guides were Catholics ; and consequently
if it was more of a Catholic than a Protestant emigration, it must, by legal
necessity, have been free from the moment it quitted the shores of England.
If the Catholic was free, all were free.
IV •- 1637. — Our next authority, in regard to the early interpretation of reli
gious rights in Maryland, is found in a passage in Chalmers's Political Annals,
page 235. " In the oath," says he, " taken by the Governor and Council,
fetoccn the years 1637 and 1657, there was the following clause, which ought
to be administered to the rulers of every country. 'I will not, by myself or any
other, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest or discountenance, any person pro
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or on account of his religion.' " This
shows,that "belief in Jesus Christ," under the constitutional guaranty of the
charter, anterior to the enactment of any colonial law by the Maryland Assem
bly, secured sects from persecution. The language of the oath, which was
doubtless promulgated by the Lord Proprietor, is as broad as the language of
the charter. The statement of Chalmers has been held to be indefinite as to
whether the oath was taken from 1637 to 1657, or, whether it was taken in
some years between those dates ; but, if the historian did not mean to say that
it had been administered_^rs< in 1637, and continued afterwards, why would he
not have specified any other, as the beginning year, as well as 1637!' The

47
objection seems rather hypercritical than plausible. Chalmers was too accu
rate a writer to use dates so loosely, and inasmuch as he was an old Maryland
law^rer and custodian of the Maryland provincial papers, he had the best oppor
tunity to design.ite the precise date. A Governor's oath was a regular and
necessary official act. No one can doubt that an oath was required of that
personage in Maryland ; and the oath in question, is precisely such an one as
Protestant settlers, in that age, might naturally expect from a Catholic Magis
trate, who, (even from motives of the humblest policy,) would be willing to
grant to others what he was anxious to secure for himself. If ever there was
a proper time for perfect toleration, it was at this moment, when a Catholic
became, for the first time in history, a sovereign prince of theirs* province of
the British Empire I
Mr. Chalmers could not have confounded the oath whose language he cites,
with other oaths which the reader will find cited in the 2nd volume of Boz-
man's History of Maryland, at pages 141, 608, 642. The oath prepared for
Stone in 1648, appears to have been an augmented edition of the one quoted
by Chalmers, and is so different in parts of its phraseology as well as items,
that it cannot have been mistaken by the learned annalist. Bancroft,
McMahon, Tyson, C. F. Mayer and B. U. Campbell, adopt his statement as
true. V: 1638. — In regard to the early practice of Maryland tribunals, on the sub
ject of tolerance, we have a striking case in 1638. In that year a certain
Catholic, named William Lewis, was arraigned before the Governor, Secretary,
&c., for abusive language to Protestants. Lewis confessed, that, coming into a
room where Francis Gray and Robert Sedgrave, servants of Captain Cornwa-
leys, were reading, he heard them recite passages so that he should hear them,
that were reproachful to his religion, "viz: that the Pope was anti-Christ,
" and the Jesuits anti- Christian Ministers, & c : he told them it was a falsehood
" and came from the devil, and that he that Writ it was an instrument of the
" devil, and so he would approve it ! " The court found the culprit " guilty of
" a very offensive speech in calling the Protestant ministers, the ministers of
" the devil," and of " exceeding his rights, in forbidding them to read a lawful
" book." In consequence of this " offensive language," and other " unrea-
" sonable disputations, in point of religion, tending to the disturbance of the
" peace and quiet of the Colony, committed by him, against a public procla-
"maiion set forth lo prohibit all such disputes," Lewis was fined and remanded
into custody until he gave security for future good behaviour.'
Thus, four years, only, after the settlement, the liberty of conscience was
vindicated by a recorded judicial sentence, and " unreasonable disputations in
point of religion," rebuked by a Catholic Governor in the person of a Catholic
offender. There could scarcely be a clearer evidence of impartial and tolerant
sincerity. The decision, moreover, is confirmatory of the fact that the Gover
nor had taken such an oath as Chalmers cites, in the previous year, 1637; espe
cially as there had already been a " proclamatio/^ io prohibit disputes!"
VI : 1638.— At the first efficient General Assembly of the Colony, which
was held in this year, only two Acts were passed, though thirty-six other bills
were twice read and engrossed, but not finally ripened into laws. The second
1 M Boaman, 597, and Oiig, MS. in Md. His. Soe.

48
of the two acts that were passed, contains a section asserting that " Holy
Church, within this province, shall have all her rights and liberties;" thus se
curing the rights of Catholics ; — while the first of the thirty-six incomplete
acts was one, which we know only by title, as "An act for Church liberties."
It was to continue in force until the end of the next General Assembly, and
then, with the Lord Proprietary's consent, to be perpetual. Although we
have no means of knowing the extent of the proposed " Church liberties," we
may suppose that the proposed enactment was general, in regard to all Christian
Sects besides the Catholics.
VII : 1640.— At the session of 1640, an act for " Church liheities" was passed
on the 23d October, and confirmed, as a perpetual law, in the first year of the
accession of Charles Calvert, 3d Lord Baltimore, in 1676. This Act also
declares that " Holy Church, within this province, shall have and enjoy all
her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly and without blemish." Thus, in
1640, legislation had already settled opinion as to the rights of Catholics and
Protestants. Instead of the early Catholics seeking to contract the freedom of
other sects, their chief aim and interest seem to have been to secure their own.
I consider the Acts I have cited rather as mere declaratory statutes, than as
necessary original laws.
VIII : 1649. — In this year, an assembly, believed to have been composed of
a Protestant majority, passed the act which has been lauded as the source of
religious toleration. It is " An Act concerning Religion," and, in my judg
ment, is less tolerant than the Charter or the Governor's Oath, inasmuch as it
included Unitarians in the same category with blasphemers and those who
denied our Saviour Jesus Christ, punishing all alike, with confiscation of
goods and the pains of death. This was the epoch of the trial and execution
of Charles I, and of the establishment of the Commonwealth.
IX : 1654. The celebrated act I have just noticed, however, was passed
fifteen years after the original settlement, which exceeds the period comprised
in the actual founding of Maryland. Besides this, the political and religious
aspect of England was changing, and the influence of the home-quarrel was
beginning to be felt across the Atlantic. In 1654, during the mastery of
Cromwell, religious freedom was destroyed: Puritanism became paramount;
Papacy and Prelacy were denounced by law ; and freedom was assured only
to Puritans, and such as professed " faith in God by Jesus Christ, though dif-
" fering in judgment, from the doctrine or worship publicly held forth."
X. It has been alleged that the clause in the Maryland Charter securing
" God's holy rights and the true Christian religion,'' is only an incorporation
into Lord Baltimore's instrument, of certain clauses contained in the early
Charters of Virginia. If the reader will refer to the Ist volume of Henning's
Statutes at large, he will find all those documents in English, but unaccompa
nied by ihe original Latin. Thus, we have no means of judging the accuracy
of ihe translation, or identity of language in the Maryland and Virginia instru
ments. Adopting, however, for the present, the translation given by Henning,
we find no coincidence of phraseology either to justify the suspicion of a mere
copy, or to subject our charter to the limitations contained in the Virginia
patents. Disabilities are to be construed strictly in law, and our charter is not
to be interpreted by another, but stands on its own, independent, context and
manifest signification.

49
The first Virginia Charter or Patent was issued to Sir Thomas Gates and
others, April 10th, 1606, in the 4th year of James's English reign. Among
the " Articles, Orders, Instructions," &c., set down for Virginia, 20th Nov.,
1606, — (though nothing is said about restrictions in religion, while the pream
ble commends the noble work of propagating the Christian religion among
infidel savages,)— is the following clause: — "And we doe specallie ordaine,
charge, and require the presidents and councills," (of the two Colonies of
Virginia,) "respectively, within their severail limits and precincts, that they
with all diligence, care and respect, doe provide, that the true word and service
of God and Christian faith, be preached, planted and used, not only within
every of the said severail colonies and plantations, but alsoe, as much as they
may, among the salvage people which doe or shall adjoine unto them, or border
upon them, according io the doctrine, rights, ond religion, now professed
and established within our realme of England." — 1st Henning, 69.
The second charter or patent, dated 23d May, 1609, 7th " James I," was
issued to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia, and in its XXIX section,
declares : " And lastly, because the principal effect, which we can desire or
expect of this action, is the conversion and reduction of the people in those
parts unto the Worship of God and Christian religion, in which respect we should
be loath, ihat any person be permitted to pass, ihat we suspected io affect the super
stitions of the Church of Rome ; we do hereby declare that it is our will and
pleasure that none be permitted to pass in any voyage, from time to time, to
be made unto the said country, but such as shall first have taken the Oath of
Supremacy ; &c., &c.^ls< Henning, 97.
The third Charter of James the I, in the 9th year of his English reign, was
issued 12th March, 1611-12 to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia. The
Xllth section empowers certain oflicers to administer the Oath of Supremacy
and Allegiance, to " all and every persons which shall at any time or times
" hereafter go or pass to said Colony of Virginia.''
The Instructions to Governor Wyatt, of 24th of July, 1621, direct him : —
" to keep up the Religion of the Church of Englaiid, as near as may be," &.C.,
&c. — IsJ Henning.
All these extracts, it will be observed, contain limilations and restrictions,
either explicitly in favor of the English Church, or against the, so called, " su
perstitions of the Church of Rome." The Maryland Charter shows no such
narrow clauses, and consequently, is justly free from any connexion, in inter
pretation, with the Virginia instruments. Besides this, we do not know that
the language of the original Latin of the Virginia Charters, is the same as ours,
and, therefore, it would be " reasoning in a circle," or, " begging the question,"
if we translated the Maryland Charter into the exact language of the Virginian.
The phraseology — "God's holy rights and the true Christian religion," —
unlimited in the Maryland Patent, — was a distinct assertion of broad equality
to all professing to believe in Jesus Christ. It was not subject to any sectarian
restriction, and formed the basis of religious liberty in Maryland, until it was
undermined during the Puritan intolerance in 1654.

CORRESPONDENCE. Hall of the Historical Society op Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, AprU I2th, 1852,

1

Dear Sir : We have been appointed a committee to communicate to
you the following resolution passed at a meeting of the Historical Society held
this evening :
" Resolved, That the thanks of the Historical Society, are hereby
returned to Mr. Bbantz Mayer, of Baltimore, for his very able and elo
quent address, delivered before it, on Thursday evening, the Sth instant ; and
that Messrs. Tyson, Fisher, Coates and Armstrong, be appointed a
committee to transmit this resolution to Mr. Mayer, and request a copy of the
address for publication."
Permit us to express the pleasure we derived from the delivery of your Dis
course, and, also, the hope that you will comply with the Society's request.
We remain, with great respect, your obedient servants,
JOB E. TYSON,
J. FllANCIS FISHEE,
B. H. COATES,
EDW. ARMSTEONG.
To ME. BEANTZ MAYEE, Baltimore.

Baltimore, 15l!/t April, 1852.
Gentlemen : I am much obliged to the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, for the complimentary resolution it was pleased to pass in relation to
the Discourse I delivered before it on the Sth of this month. In compliance
with your request, I place a copy of the address at your disposal ; and, while
thanking you for the courtesy with which you have communicated the vote of
your colleagues, I have the honor to be, your most obedient servant.

BEANTZ MAYEK.

To MESsinnKS JOB R. TYSON,
J. FRANCIS FISHEE,
B. H. COATES,
EDW. ARMSTRONG,

Cominittee, &c. &c. &<^

YALE

3 9002 00477 5343

Il -I i' 'MfipwriC'ii'i
' I ' '
i'li'l ii!
-'\iii'«&i