Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/275

 and declared himself a catholic. Goodman, who describes him as having been converted by Count Gondomar and Count Arundel (whose daughter Calvert's son had married), states that for some time he had made no secret of his views. ‘As it was said, the secretary did usually catechise his own children, so as to ground them in his own 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 to make open profession of his religion’ (Court of King James, p. 376). Calvert resigned on 12 Feb. 1625 (Cal. State Papers, Dom.), being allowed to sell his office to Sir Albert Morton for 6,000l., and obtaining also the title of Baron of Baltimore in the county of Longford in Ireland (16 Feb. 1625). Large estates in that district had before been granted to him; these were now confirmed to him by a fresh grant (12 Feb. 1625). On the accession of Charles I, Baltimore made objections to taking the oath offered to him as a privy councillor, and was consequently excluded from the council. He returned to Ireland bearing a letter to the lord deputy, in which the king recommended him as one who ‘parted from us with our princely approbation and in our good grace’ (29 May 1625). Except that he was summoned to court in February 1627 to consult on the terms of the proposed peace with Spain, he took henceforth no part in state affairs. For the rest of his life he devoted himself to what one of his biographers terms ‘that ancient, primitive, and heroic work of planting the world.’ As early as 1621 Calvert had despatched Captain Edward Wynne to Newfoundland, where he established a small settlement named Ferryland. In 1622 another ship, under Captain Daniel Powell, was sent to carry on the work (Letters of Wynne and Powell;, British Empire in America, i. 9). Finding their reports favourable, Calvert now obtained a charter for the colony under the name of the province of Avalon (Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 7 April 1623), so called, says Lloyd, ‘in imitation of old Avalon in Somersetshire, where Glastonbury stands, the first-fruits of christianity in Britain, as the other was in that part of America’ (, State Worthies). ‘Mr. Secretary Calvert,’ wrote Sir William Alexander two years later, ‘hath planted a colony at Ferryland, who both for building and making trial of the ground have done more than was ever performed of any in so short a time, having on hand a brood of horses, cows, and other bestials, and by the industry of his people he is beginning to draw back yearly some benefits from thence already’ (An Encouragement to Colonies, p. 25). Nevertheless, in 1627 Baltimore found it necessary either to go over and settle the colony in better order, or to lose the fruit of all his exertions (Strafford Correspondence, i. 39). He arrived at Newfoundland in July 1627, but remained there merely a few weeks; in the following spring, however, he returned again with his family, and continued to reside there until the autumn of 1629. During this second visit Baltimore successfully repulsed the attacks of some French privateers, and took six prizes, but dissensions arose in the colony in consequence of the presence of the priests whom he brought with him, and a puritan denounced him to the home authorities for allowing the practice of catholicism and the saying of masses (Cal. State Papers, Col. 93, 94). A more serious difficulty was the climate, and on 19 Aug. 1629 Baltimore wrote to the king complaining that the winter lasted from October to May, that half his company had been sick, and ten were dead, and begged for a grant of lands in a more genial country (ib. 100). Without waiting for the king's reply he set sail for Virginia, but directly he landed at Jamestown was met with the demand that he should take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and a refusal to allow him to establish himself there except on that condition (ib. 104). Baltimore returned to England and endeavoured to obtain a patent for a new colony. In February 1631 he was on the point of securing a grant for a district south of the James River, but the opposition of the members of the late Virginia Company obliged him to abandon it (, p. 19). He now sought instead for a similar grant in the region north and east of the Potomac, but the same influences interposed to delay its completion, and he died on 15 April 1632, before the patent had passed the great seal. He was buried in the church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, in Fleet Street. The charter of Maryland was finally sealed on 20 June 1632 (Cal. State Papers, Col.), and Cecilius, second lord Baltimore, founded the colony which his father had projected. The name it received was given it by Charles I, in honour of his queen, and the provisions of the charter were copied from the charter of Carolana, granted to Sir Robert Heath in 1629 (, pp. 20–24). The question whether Baltimore designed the colony to be a stronghold for persecuted Romanism, or intended to base it on the principle of toleration for all sects, has been much discussed. But the clause requiring that all churches and places of worship in Maryland should be dedicated and consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of