Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/103

] Parliament, and was so great a favorite at Court as to have become one of the Secretaries of State. Calvert, however, had, some time previously, become a convert to the Romish Church. With honorable candor he avowed his opinions, and tendered the resignation of his office. Far, however, from losing the influence he had obtained, he was loaded with fresh favors, and soon after created an Irish peer, by the title of Lord Baltimore. He had been one of the original associates of the Virginia Company, and had tried an experimental colony of his own at Avalon, on the island of Newfoundland; after having twice visited it, and expended in the attempt at colonization more than $100,000, he at length resolved to abandon it. He then turned his attention to Virginia, where he met with little encouragement to engage in a settlement, the oath of allegiance, framed so as that no Roman Catholic could conscientiously subscribe it, being expressly tendered for his adoption. He thus became desirous of obtaining a settlement to which these of like faith with himself might repair unmolested; and on his return to England he had little difficulty in obtaining from Charles I. a grant of a considerable tract on the river Potomac, which, in compliment to the queen, Henrietta Maria, he denominated.

Lord Baltimore was a man of clear and comprehensive mind, and of high and generous character; he appreciated the necessity of a popular government, as well as of its independence of the despotism of the crown; and thus the charter which gave to him, and to his heirs, the absolute proprietorship in the soil, together with the power of making necessary laws, was coupled with the condition that nothing should be enacted without the advice, consent, and approbation of the freemen of the province, or their representatives convoked in general assembly, and nothing enacted but what was in spirit, if not in letter, consonant with the laws of England. Maryland, too, furnishes the first instance in which the local proprietary was exempted from the control of the crown, and from the power of parliamentary taxation. The Potomac, with a line due east from its mouth, across the Chesapeake Bay, and the peninsula called the eastern shore, formed the southern boundary of the new province; on the east it had the ocean and Delaware Bay; on the north the fortieth degree of latitude, the southern boundary of the great New England patent; and on the west, a line due north from the westernmost head of the Potomac.

Before the patent had passed through all the necessary formalities, Lord Baltimore died; but the charter was issued and confirmed to his son, Cecilius Calvert, whose zealous energies were devoted to the carrying out his father's purposes. Considerable opposition was excited against the charter and its privileges, by William Clayborne, secretary, and one of the Council of Virginia. An acute and enterprising man, he had entered into speculations and trade with the Indians under a royal license. Consequently,