1634.]

THE FIRST TOWN.

497

quent raids of the Susquehannahs from the north had already inclined them to this step; and they were the more glad if by so doing they could win the powerful alliance of the Englishmen. They "made mutual promises to each

other, to live friendly and peaceably together, and if any injury should happen to be done on either part, that satisfaction should be made for the same." On the 27th of March the governor took possession, and named the first village of Maryland Saint Mary's. The colonists set about their building and planting at once; and the compact with the Indians was kept with scrupulous fidelity. Through the spring and early summer the whites and savages worked side by side, the Indians teaching the English to make bread and "pone pone" of Indian corn, or helping them in the hunt; the settlers giving them of their trinkets and tools in return. Naturally, Father White and his fellow-priests made haste to fit up a temporary chapel in the Indian cabin falling to their share; but it was not long before they established themselves in a more fitting place for worship. Even before the Indians had the Catholic retired, according to the terms of their agreement, the new houses which the colonists were building on every hand were ready for occupation. A little town of comparatively comfortable dwellings. clustered in the valley, while nearer the river bank, and especially on the bluff, preparations were made for what were to be the public buildings of the colony. On the gradual slope from the inland hills toward the valley, and less than half a mile to the eastward of the promon

Building of
Chapel.

tory, the first church was built a small building, as is shown by the still visible hollow in which its foundations rested, but decorated with all the skill that the rough tools of the colonists permitted. Over the altar was a rudely-carved representation of a mass of clouds, from which rough wooden points descending represented the tongues of flame at Pentecost. In the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown two fragments of this rude altar-piece still remain, plainly showing the simplicity and roughness of the whole.

CHAPTER XIX.

MARYLAND UNDER LEONARD CALVERT.

THE COLONY FIRMLY PLANTED.-HOSTILITY OF THE VIRGINIANS. DISPUTE WITH CLAYBORNE. - ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN CLAYBORNE AND CORNWALLIS. - GOVERNOR HARVEY DEPOSED AND SENT TO ENGLAND.. -MEETINGS OF THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY. TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.-DISSENSIONS BETWEEN PAPISTS AND PURITANS. REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. A PARLIAMENTARY SHIP SEIZED IN MARYLAND. - CLAYBORNE'S RECOVERY OF KENT ISLAND. - HIS RULE IN MARYLAND. RESTORATION OF BALTIMORE.-DEATH OF GOVERNOR CALVERT. - MISTRESS MARGARET BRENT.

BEFORE the winter set in the Maryland colonists were all comfortably sheltered in houses gathered close about the chapel. In that soft and genial climate there was no hardship in living out of doors during the summer, and their

wise treatment of the natives had given them entire freedom from fear of the hostilities which they had most dreaded. Their first trouble came from their own countrymen.

The indignation

CAMINI

Maryland Shilling.

with which the Virginians heard of the new colony was natural enough, however unreasonable. It was not a question of room, for that the country was large enough no one could dispute; but how many it could support was a serious consideration. The Virginians were jealous of even a single man who should encroach upon the trade in peltries; that jealousy grew to open enmity when the intruders were numerous enough to absorb completely all the trade with Indians in the country about them. The advantages that must follow from an increase in the population of civilized people, the cultivation of the soil, the growth of commerce, were less immediate and obvious than the disadvantages so plainly seen and felt at once as a scarcity of beaver skins and corn, and higher prices for these Indian staples. These intruders on the Potomac, moreover, though coming under a royal charter, were settling within the domain which the Virginians had long been accustomed to consider their own, and to the loss of

which, by the abrogation of their charter, they were by no means reconciled.

On the other hand the Marylanders were quite secure in their rights under the patent from the king, and resented, no doubt, with some bitterness, the feeling they knew to exist against them in Jamestown because of their religion. In such a state of feeling, any encounter between the colonists would be likely to lead to trouble.

Among others who had traded within the limits of Baltimore's patent for some years past was William Clayborne, the secretary of Virginia under Governor Harvey, and a member of the Virginia Council. He had done more than trade, licenses of different dates authorizing him

which he did under royal to explore from the thirtyfourth to the forty-first degree of latitude, - he had established on Kent Island, in Chesapeake Bay, and within the limits of the Maryland grant, a small trading post, with a storehouse and a few permanent settlers whom he employed in the traffic with the Indians of that vicinity. His trade-permits were not indeed grants of territory, but it may fairly be questioned whether actual settlement in the wilderness of America was not as good title as a royal patent. At any rate, Clayborne put forward a claim to proprietorship, refused to acknowledge the government of the Maryland proprietary, and used his influence so vigorously in urging this view upon the Virginian authorities that he succeeded in gaining a majority of the council to the support of his pretensions.

Just before the setting out of the colonists from England, in 1633, the planters of Virginia had presented a remonstrance to the king against the Maryland patent; but the Privy Council had only advised an amicable settlement, and had finally decided "that the Lord Baltimore should be left to his patent, and the other parties to the course of law;" while both colonies were ordered to permit entire freedom of trade between them, to harbor no fugitives one from the other, and to preserve a fitting general amity in all their relations. This reasserted conclusively the rights of Maryland; yet so far from ending the pretensions of the Virginian trader, it was followed by a long course of resistance to the new jurisdiction.

1635.]

DISPUTE WITH CLAYBORNE.

501

His bitter hostility to the new colonists had shown itself from the very moment of their landing in America. He had met Leonard Calvert and his emigrants at Jamestown, seeking to discourage them at the outset by stories that the Indians along the Potomac were arming to resist their coming. Their actual landing and settlement excited him to measures for which there is not a word of defence in any view of the case. He attempted to turn against the new-comers the friendly tribes with whom, on a visit soon after their arrival, Harvey found them peacefully associated. He seems to have had influence enough over Fleet at one time to induce him to persuade the Indians that the Maryland colonists were Spaniards, enemies of the Virginians, who meant to drive out the tribes about them as soon as they should be strong enough to spoil their villages and take their lands. So well did he succeed, that even in the tribe with whom they had lived at St. Mary's, jealousies and suspicious conduct had begun to alarm the colonists, who hastened to build a block house for a refuge in emergency. Yet constant and unbroken kindness proved stronger than Clayborne's efforts; gradually, the savages became convinced of the sincerity of the peaceful settlers; harmony was restored, and when the Indians withdrew from the village according to their promise, they did so with assurances of continued friendship.

But Clayborne's energy and persistency in behalf of his claims made him a truly formidable opponent. Easily evading capture by the Marylanders, whom Lord Baltimore had ordered to seize him if they could, he spent the last months of the year in restlessly urging his plans upon the influential men of Virginia, and in preparing to carry out the intention which he had announced, of maintaining his alleged rights even by the use of force. The majority of the Virginians sustained him; the assembly advised Clayborne that they knew no reason why he or they should surrender the Isle of Kent to the new province. Governor Harvey alone was on the side of the Maryland people, and for his good offices Lord Baltimore subsequently procured him a letter of thanks from the king.1

Fight be

tween armed

boats of

and the

colony.

In the early spring of 1635, when Clayborne despatched a small vessel, the Long Tail, determined to carry out his usual trading voyage in spite of resistance, there were few in Virginia disposed to hinder him. But the Marylanders were pre- Clayborne pared, having sent out two armed pinnaces under their com- Maryland missioner or councillor, Cornwallis, to watch for any illegal traders within the charter boundaries. They seized the Long Tail on the 23d of April; and when Clayborne sent an armed boat under the command of one Ratcliff Warren to recapture her or seize any 1 Letter to Windebank, quoted in Neill's English Colonization of America, p. 242.