Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/71

 a system based on the faith that the Scriptures held forth a perfect rule for the government of all men in church and state and family. In 1662 the two little commonwealths were fused into one colony under a royal charter constituting the "company and society of our colony of Connecticut in America one body corporate and politic in fact and name by the name of Governor and Company of the English Colony of Connecticut in New England, in America."

Other settlements flung off from Massachusetts beyond the Merrimac River grew into a thriving colony which in 1679 was cut away from the parent stem and erected into the royal province of New Hampshire.

Among the men of affairs who watched the colonizing experiments in America was a discreet and shrewd Catholic gentleman from Yorkshire, Sir George Calvert, who had risen high in the service of the Crown by the display of talents and complaisance. He was an investor in the stocks of the Virginia Company and when he was driven from the court by the intrigue of another favorite, he consoled himself with elevation to the peerage, as Lord Baltimore, a large sum of money, and adventures in the New World. After some futile tests in Newfoundland, he visited Virginia; and pleased by the milder climate of that region, he obtained from Charles I an immense grant of land in the neighborhood, which he named Maryland in honor of the king's French wife, Henrietta Maria.

By the terms of the charter, Lord Baltimore and his heirs and assigns were made "the true and absolute lords and proprietaries" of the land granted, on the condition of yielding annually to the Crown two Indian arrowheads and one-fifth of the gold and silver ore found in the colony. By the same terms, the proprietor became captain-general of the armed forces, head of the Church, and disposer of all offices, civil and clerical. Besides being authorized to