Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/145

 from any control on the part of the crown. This requisition of the king met with little attention in Maryland.

It was while Lord Baltimore was in England that a Protestant excitement was raised in the colony against the proprietary on the ground of his being a Papist. Fendal, the former governor, took the lead in this matter, he being experienced in managing in times of civil commotion. The proprietary, however, hastened his return, and soon succeeded in putting an end to the insurrection. Fendal was arrested, tried, found guilty of sedition, and banished.

Although James II. was an avowed, as Charles II. was a secret, Romanist, yet his accession was by no. means favorable to the Roman Catholic proprietary of Maryland. On the contrary, he was disposed to favor the Quaker William Penn, far more, and in the disputes about the boundaries, Lord Baltimore was compelled to yield to his neighbor's claims. Even the charter of Maryland, like other charters at the time, was not safe; and despite Lord Baltimore's remonstrances and appeals, a writ of Quo Warranto was issued against it. He hastened to England to defend his rights, but before the question was settled, the abandonment of the throne by James II. placed this and all other matters of the kind on an entirely new footing. We shall see, as we proceed, the effect of the political changes in England upon the American colonies.

 

1630—1690.

disastrous results of the attempts on the part of the French to found a colony on the shores of Florida have already been narrated. Spain had never relinquished her title to that region, yet she had made no progress in colonization beyond here and there a settlement on the coast. The efforts made by Raleigh and Gilbert had been productive of no permanent result; and even the patent granted by Charles I. to Sir Robert Heath, his Attorney General, in 1630, for a tract to the southward of Virginia, to be 