Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/75

 thither, with free liberty of religion and all other privileges which the place afforded, paying such annual rent as should be agreed upon." Though Winthrop added that none of his people had "any temptation that way," as a matter of fact many Puritans from Massachusetts and many Anglicans from Virginia did accept the terms offered to them and settled on the fertile lands of the Chesapeake shore. Indeed, they became so numerous in a few years that they threatened to overturn the original polity of the proprietor. Forgetting their ancient grudges, they made common cause against his mild tolerance, in their effort to get at his Catholic and Quaker subjects. If it had not been for the Toleration Act of 1649, so famous in local history, the Catholics would have been immediately subdued to Protestant dominion.

This measure of religious indulgence has been the subject of so much argument and the basis of such large claims in the name of liberty by both Catholics and Protestants that its history deserves examination in some detail. The practice of toleration, which arose from the principles entertained by Lord Baltimore, from his anomalous position under a Protestant sovereign, and from his eagerness to sell his land to emigrants, brought into Maryland, as we have noted, a decided mixture of religious sects, with the Protestant elements increasing more rapidly than the Catholic. When Charles I in 1648 was engaged in his desperate struggle with the Puritan party at home and was already within the dark shadow of the scaffold, he begged Lord Baltimore to take measures to avoid the charge that his colony was in reality a Catholic stronghold. Complying with this urgent request, Baltimore removed his Catholic governor and council, appointed Protestant substitutes, and sent out to his dominion a draft of a bill for limited religious freedom.

Shortly afterward the great Toleration Act was passed by the Maryland Assembly. At the time the governor and council were Protestants. If, as often claimed, the majority