O h o r ^ ^ i ^ fee.,) B 1 / 

A t B t o r t c a l B a p e r * . M a i l t " ) 

E D I T E D B Y T H E R E V . J O H N M O R R I S , S.J . 

No. X. 

THE FIRST EXPERIMENT 

IN CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

B Y J A M E S C A R M O N T . 

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Gbe first jgyperimeitt in Civil ant) 
IReligioue Xiberty, 

BY JAMES CARMONT. 

AMONG the many benefits which Protestantism claims 
to have conferred upon the world is that of having 
procured for mankind its first experience of civil 
and religious liberty, as practised in this nineteenth 
century. Protestants have repeated this fiction to 
themselves and to their neighbours so often and so 
confidently, that it is little matter for surprise that 
they should, by mere force of repetition, have acquired 
a firm conviction of its truth. George IV. is said to 
have asserted so frequently that he was present at 
the Battle of Waterloo, and in command of a brigade 
there, that he ended in believing his own story, and 
so thoroughly that he, on one occasion at least, even 
ventured to appeal to the Duke of Wellington for 
confirmation of its accuracy. In like manner, Pro-
testants do not hesitate to appeal even to Catholics, 
who have had, in times past, such hard experience 
of Protestant toleration, and they are hurt at our 
ingratitude, and surprised at our prejudice, if we 
venture to call in question the truth of their allegation. 
Too frequently, indeed, through want of definite 
information on the subject, Catholics allow the claim 
to pass unchallenged ; they content themselves with 

M 



12ó The First Experiment 

imitating the courtier-like reply of the Iron Duke to 
the appeal of His Majesty as to whether he was not 
present at the famous battle, "Sire, I have often 
heard you say so." With similar evasions Catholics 
not unfrequently allow the claim to hold the field, 
and suffer their Protestant friends to remain undis-
turbed in their delusion. 

The assertion goes, of course, much further than 
we have stated. Not only do Protestants pose as the 
friends—the original, steady, and consistent friends— 
of civil and religious liberty, but they maintain with 
cool assurance that we Catholics have always been, 
and are, under all circumstances and conditions of 
society, its enemies. George IV. was content to assert 
his own presence at Waterloo, and his right to a share 
in the glory of the world-famous, battle. He never 
ventured to call in question the Duke's position as 
leader in the field. B y their opponents, Catholics are 
not merely refused the credit of being participators 
in the struggle for civil and religious liberty, but they 

are represented as fighting under the enemy's flag 
nay, more, they are the enemy themselves. T o 
support this charge on Catholics and their religion, 
every field of attack has been explored, and only too 
frequently the sources of information have been 
poisoned. In the field of history, for example, the 
foolish, rash, or criminal acts of Catholics, or pro-
fessing Catholics—no matter how repugnant to other 
Catholics, better and wiser than they—are skilfully 
represented as necessary and inevitable consequences 
of their religious belief. In particular, no pains have 
been spared to strengthen the chain Of evidence by 
which Catholics are to be convicted of being, under 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

all circumstances, the enemies, and Protestants ex-
hibited as the friends, of civil and religious liberty. 
In this paper we propose to show, and that chiefly 
on the testimony of Protestant or non-Catholic 
writers of acknowledged competence and impartiality, 
that the popular verdict ought to be reversed—that 
when the altered circumstances of the world seemed 
to render a change necessary, the first application 
of the principle in question was made, not among 
the Protestants of Germany, the Covenanters of 
Scotland, or the Puritans of England or America, 
all of whom have been praised in turn as its authors 
in their respective countries, but in a humble settle-
ment projected and organized by a handful of poor 
despised English Catholics in the reign of Charles I. 
—and that the experiment was successfully carried 
out among them as long as they were permitted to 
conduct it. 

The man to whom the credit of the undertaking 
is due, is George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, the founder 
of what has not unfairly been called the Catholic 
State of Maryland, from the prominence which 
Catholics enjoyed in it. It is matter for regret that 
the public has hitherto remained too little acquainted 
with the interesting work to which he and his sons, 
Cecil and Leonard, devoted their . lives. George 
Calvert was born at Ripley in Yorkshire in the year 
1582, as the long reign of the last of the Tudors was 
drawing to its gloomy close. H e was educated at 
Oxford, and, after taking his degree, spent a con-
siderable time in foreign travel. On his return to 
England he entered political life ; sat in Parliament 
for his native county of York, received the honour 



12ó The First Experiment 

of knighthood, and afterwards, under the patronage 
of Sir Robert Cecil, became one of the two Secre-
taries of State for the Kingdom, and a member of 
the Privy Council. His literary ability was consider-
able, and several of his works in Latin and English, 
on moral, political, and social subjects have been 
preserved to our own day to testify to it. His capacity 
for business and his industry were acknowledged on 
all hands. Possessed of these advantages, and placed 
in a position in which they were not likely to miss 
their reward—enjoying the favour of his Sovereign 
and the good opinion of the world—who can say to 
what heights of prosperity Calvert might not have 
risen, but for one fatal barrier to his success? In 
the early part of the seventeenth century, the sup-
pression of the Catholic Church in England—a work 
of force and fraud—was only a recently accomplished 
fact. The numerous conversions to the Catholic 
Church which took place under Elizabeth, show that 
under an exterior of ashes the embers of the old 
faith still glowed with life and heat, and that but 
slight exertion was needed to kindle them into flame. 
Calvert had travelled much, had seen the Catholic 
religion in its centre of unity, and had associated 
with its adherents. He had been dismayed at the 
proteus-like aspects of Protestantism, and the number-
less divisions into which it had already split, made 
him doubt the. purity of its origin, and despair of its 
future. Once convinced, he suffered no worldly 
obstacles to bar his path of duty, but returned to 
the faith of his fathers, abandoning in the prime of 
life the brilliant career which had just opened before 
him. Though by doing so he did not altogether 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

forfeit the favour of his Sovereign, it was clear that 
from the time Sir George Calvert became a Catholic, 
his political career, lately so promising, was ended. 
He still, however, retained his place in the Privy 
Council, and was advanced to the dignity of an 
Irish Peerage, under the title of Lord Baltimore, of 
Baltimore, in County Longford. 

While the sunshine of political prosperity still 
shone upon him, Calvert had taken great part in 
promoting the movement which impelled so many 
Englishmen to leave their native land to try their 
fortunes amid the trackless wilds of America, of 
which, although more than one hundred years 
had passed since its discovery, little more was then 
known than the seaboard, and even that imperfectly. 
He had been a member of the great Company 
which colonized Virginia, and while Secretary of 
State he had obtained a patent, or grant, of Avalon, 
the southern promontory of Newfoundland. Those 
who have related the story of his life tell of the 
generosity with which he lavished his extensive 
fortune in promoting the interests of the settlement 
entrusted to him, of his care in selecting emigrants, 
and of the diligence and kindness with which he 
endeavoured to instil into them principles of industry, 
economy, and order. But the climate was found to 
be colder and the soil less fruitful than his agents 
had represented them to be—earlier colonists were 
jealous of the privileges which had been accorded to 
him—the English possessions were menaced by the 
French, who held the adjoining territories, and though 
he appears to have acted with becoming vigour, and 
to have gallantly repelled by force at arms _th<? 



12ó The First Experiment 

attacks made upon his settlement, he found his hopes 
of success doomed to disappointment. He thereupon 
resolved to try whether, in the richer country which 
lay towards the sunny South, a more successful 
attempt might not be made to found a settlement 
in which he might not only employ his great wealth, 
but establish for himself and his suffering co-religionists 
a place of refuge from the persecution which had 
become chronic in England. 

He first turned his attention to the vast Province 
of Virginia, the original charter for which had recently 
been cancelled by James I., and he visited that State 
in person in the year 1629, in order to see what 
prospects it afforded for establishing a settlement. 
Land there was in abundance, and settlers were few, 
but with these few, Protestant intolerance had already 
entered, and Lord Baltimore and his followers, were, 
as a condition of settling, confronted with the oath 
bf allegiance to the King, and of his supremacy in 
matters temporal and spiritual, couched in terms 
which no Catholic could accept. It was in vain that 
Lord Baltimore offered to pledge himself by a form 
of oath which a Catholic might take with a safe 
conscience, and in vain, too, he pointed out that in 
attempting to force the obnoxious oath upon him, 
the authorities of Virginia were exceeding the powers 
committed to them by law. The opposition was too 
strong, and, foiled in his attempt, Lord Baltimore 
returned to England. 

But time and experience had in the meantime 
enabled him to mature a bolder scheme. The 
oppression from which Catholics suffered weighed 
upon his mind, and he conceived the generous idea 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

of undertaking an enterprise which should relieve 
their sufferings, and at the same time extend the 
power and influence of the English nation. Other 
peoples of Europe had begun to scramble for the 
rich provinces which lay open to the enterprise of 
their adventurous subjects, and it was not difficult 
for a man of the high character of Lord Baltimore, 
to obtain from King Charles, who had then newly 
succeeded to the throne of England, a charter of the 
territory to the north-east of Virginia, which after-
wards received the name of Maryland, in compliment, 
it is understood, to Charles' newly-married Queen, 
Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France. 

By the Charter, the extensive territory was to be 
held o f the Crown, by the tenure of fealty only, for 
the singular payment of a yearly rent of " two Indian 
arrows of those parts, every year on Easter Tuesday," 
and one-fifth part of all the gold and silver ore which 
might be discovered within the domain.1 T o the 
emigrants was secured an independent share in the 
legislation of the province, the statutes of which were-
to be established by the advice and approbation of 
its freemen or their deputies. Provision was made 
for representative government, and it was enacted 
that the authority of the proprietary should not 
extend to the life, the freehold, or the estate ef the 
colonists. 

Christianity was made the law of Maryland, but 
to no sect of Christians was given predominance or 
pre-eminence over another, and to each man was 
religious freedom secured, as well as civil liberty. 
The province was exempted for ever from English 
taxation, and so absolute was the freedom accorded 

1 Hazard, i. 327. 



12ó The First Experiment 

to it, that neither was recourse to the English King 
necessary for confirmation of the Acts or deeds of 
the Legislature, nor was it even required that when 
passed or enacted, these should be intimated to him. 
Such was the Charter, the like of which had never 
before passed the Great Seal of England, obtained by 
the Catholic founder of the settlement of Maryland ; 
such were the provisidns which, it is believed, were 
penned by Lord Baltimore himself. Surely they 
merit the warmest recognition in our democratic 
days, as the first successful attempt to introduce 
a new principle of civil government suited to the 
altered circumstances of the world. 

Let us hear the terms in which it is described by 
Bancroft, the eminent historian of the United States, 
and the warm admirer and apologist of the Puritans 
of New England: 

Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise and 
benevolent lawgivers of all ages. He was the first in the 
history of the Christian world to seek for religious security 

' and peace by the practice.of justice, and not by the exercise 
of power} to plan the establishment of popular institutions 
with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience. . . . The 
asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner 
of the world, on the banks of rivers which as yet had hardly 
been explored, the mild forbearance of a proprietary adopted 
religious freedom as the basis of the State.1 

Testimony such as this is too important to be over-
looked, in discussing the claim of Protestantism to 
have been the first to recognize the altered conditions 
of society into which the world had entered, and to 
inaugurate a new departure.suited to the times. 

The Charter was nearly completed when, on 
June 20, 1632, Lord Baltimore died, leaving a name 

1 Bancroft, History of United States, c. vii. i8<;. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

which the breath of slander had hardly dared to 
sully. The high regard in which he had been held 
by the King, rendered it an easy matter for his son 
Cecil, second Lord of the name, to procure the 
Charter designed for his father. Cecil was a worthy 
inheritor of the estimable qualities of his parent, but 
whether he did not possess the same enterprising dis-
position, or sufficient physical strength, he does not 
appear to have ever visited the colony over whose 
fortunes he never ceased to watch with paternal 
solicitude. The most probable explanation is, that 
in those troublous times, when Catholics were exposed 
to so many risks, it was absolutely necessary for the 
safety of the settlement, that it should have a pro-
tector at home to ward off the dangers to which, as 
we shall find, its existence was continually exposed. 
He committed the active management of the enter-
prise to his younger brother Leonard, whom he 
appointed Governor of Maryland, and who fully and 
ably fulfilled the trust committed to him, till his 
death in 1647. 

The Charter being sealed, and all preparations 
made, the Enterprise being favoured by the suspension 
of the statutes which restrained emigration from 
England, it may readily be supposed that, harassed 
and persecuted as Catholics had been during the 
last two reigns, it could not be a difficult matter to 
find a sufficient number of them ready to avail them-
selves of any means of escape from the grinding 
tyranny which had crushed them to the earth. A 
company numbering about two hundred, chiefly, but 
not exclusively, Catholics, was gathered together, 
and sailed from Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, on 

(x*) 



12ó The First Experiment 

November 22, 1633. Among the party we find the 
names of Gerard, Winter, Wiseman, Green, Fairfax, 
Baxter, Hill, and others, so often repeated in the 
lists of "Popish recusants" under Elizabeth and 
James. The vessel which bore them from the shores 
of their native land was named the Ark avd Dove, a 
title appropriate to a band of exiles seeking a place of 
refuge, in which they might forget the troubles that 
had driven them from their native land. The course 
which the vessel took would, in our days, be con-
sidered a strange one. Instead of boldly steering to 
the West, they sailed by the Azores, and thence by 
Barbadoes and St. Christopher's to the shores of 
Virginia. It is highly illustrative of the persecu-
tions to which Catholics were exposed in those 
unhappy times, that the emigrants, on touching at 
Montserrat, found there a colony of Irishmen who 
had been exiled from Virginia on account of their 
religion. 

The expedition arrived off Point Comfort towards 
the end of February, 1634, after a prosperous voyage. 
Entering Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River in 
search of a suitable place whereon to found a settle-
ment, they anchored off a small Indian town called 
Joamaco, on the St. Mary's River. Meeting with a 
friendly reception .from the natives, Calvert soon 
came to an amicable arrangement with them, obtain-
ing from them at once one-half of their town, and 
a promise to surrender the other half later in the 
season, when they had completed their arrangements 
for withdrawing further inland, which for other 
reasons they had already resolved to do. Landing 
with his followers on March 25, 1634, Leonard 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

Calvert entered upon the territory granted to his 
brother, and took possession " for our Saviour, and 
for our Sovereign Lord the King of England." 

The following extract from a letter written by-
Father Andrew White, one of the Jesuit missionaries 
who accompanied the settlers in their search for a 
new home, will be read with interest, as showing the 
dispositions in which the Catholic portion of them 
commenced their new career. 

On the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy 
Virgin Mary [writes Father White] we celebrated on this 
Island [namely, on a small place called St. Clement's Island], 
the first Mass which had been ever offered up in this part 
of the world. After we had completed the Sacrifice, we 
took upon our shoulders a great cross which we had shaped 
out of a tree, and advancing in order to the appointed 
place, with the assistance of the Governor and his associates 
and the other Catholics, we erected a trophy to Christ, the 
Saviour, humbly reciting on our bended knees the Litanies 
of the Holy Cross, with great emotion. 

The little Indian town was made the seat of the 
Colonial Assembly, and the name " St. Mary's " given 
to it, shows the Catholic instinct which animated the 
settlers, and prompted them to place their enterprise 
under the patronage of the " H e l p of Christians." 
Peace and good fortune smiled upon the rising 
colony—the emigrants came at a season suited to 
their enterprise—the rich land yielded them abundant 
crops of corn, and their new-found Indian friends 
instructed the wives of the colonists in the art of 
making Indian bread, while their husbands were 
taught the Indian ways of trapping game, which 
swarmed in abundance in the trackless forest. After 
a few months, it could be said that the prosperity 

J 



12ó The First Experiment 

of Maryland had advanced as much as that of 
Virginia had done in as many years. 

And here we may point out how pleasantly the 
conduct of the colonists of Maryland contrasts with 
that of a Puritan band, which about the same time 
landed at Salem, in Massachusetts. Peace and 
harmony reigned among the former, in spite of the 
religious differences which existed among them. 
Of the two hundred who landed at Salem, all were 
Protestants without exception, and that moreover of 
a pronounced type, who had contended zealously for 
what they called religious freedom. Hardly had they 
landed to make their thanksgiving for a prosperous 
voyage, when " religions " strife began. The Book 
of Common Prayer was then, as now, a rock of 
offence to the extremists of the party. By some it 
was unsparingly condemned. Others were strongly 
attached to its use in forms of worship to which, they 
had been accustomed from their childhood, and they 
refused to give it up at the bidding of prejudiced 
fanaticism. The upholders of the Prayer Book were 
the weaker party. They were censured, denounced, 
and for the most part terrified into silence. Their 
leaders, whose conscientious convictions were too 
strong to be overcome, and who could not be forced 
into submission, were treated like criminals, seized 
and shipped back to England, there to consider 
whether the intolerance of the Church of England, 
or that of Puritan zealots, was the harder to bear. 

But troubles soon disturbed the peace of Mary-
land. The evil genius of the colony was, undoubtedly, 
a certain Captain William Clayborne, a highly-
placed official of the State of Virginia. There, as 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

in later times, officials enriched themselves not so 
much by the emoluments of office, as by their per-
quisites, and the opportunities for trade which their 
position afforded them. Before the arrival of Leonard 
Calvert in Maryland, Clayborne had obtained a pro-
vincial commission to trade with the Indians, and 
to explore Chesapeake Bay. He had planted an 
establishment in the Isle of Kent, in the heart of the 
province, and in virtue of this irregular settlement 
he contested the right of Lord Baltimore to that 
island and to other parts of Maryland. Resting as 
it did on Royal patent, Lord Baltimore's right was 
undoubtedly superior to that of Clayborne, whose 
position was more that of a private adventurer. 
Still, being a man of great determination of character 
and apparently conceiving himself to have suffered 
wrong, he waged determined war against Lord Balti-
more's rights, and involved the rising settlement in 
disorder and bloodshed during a long series of years. 

Availing himself of the prejudices which existed 
in the minds of the natives against the Spaniards, 
he first attempted to deprive the settlers of the 
confidence of the Indians, by representing to them 
that their new friends were of that nation, and would 
soon practise upon them the cruelties which had 
made the name of Spaniard hated and feared 
throughout America. The religion of the colonists 
gave some colour to the slander, and the simple 
Indians silently withdrew from their neighbourhood, 
leaving the settlers perplexed and alarmed at their 
desertion. It was not long, however, till the natives 
found that they had been deceived, and the former 
friendly relations were soon re-established. Clayborne 



12ó The First Experiment 

then had recourse to arms, but the Governor having 
assembled a superior force, defeated the insurgents, 
took several prisoners, and denounced their leader as 
a pirate. Clayborne escaped, and made his way to 
England, where, having influential friends ready to 
take up any story to the disadvantage of Catholics, 
he nearly succeeded in stirring up mischief. K ing 
Charles, however, on becoming acquainted with the 
true circumstances of the case, dismissed the com-
plaints, and for some years Maryland obtained peace, 
and was blest with prosperity. Here is the testimony 
which Bancroft bears to the state of Maryland in 
1642, eight years after its first settlement: 

Maryland in that day was unsurpassed for happiness 
and liberty. Conscience was without restraint; a mild and 
liberal proprietary conceded every measure which the 
welfare of the colony required: domestic union, a happy 
concert between all the branches of government, an in-
creasing emigration, a productive commerce, a fertile soil 
which Heaven had richly favoured with rivers and deep 
bays, united to perfect the scene of colonial felicity and 
contentment. Ever intent on advancing the interests of 
his colony, Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massa-
chusetts to emigrate to Maryland, offering them lands and 
privileges and free liberty of religion, but Gibbons, to whom 
he had awarded a commission, was so wholly tutored in the 
New England discipline, that he would not advance the 
wishes of the Irish peer.1 

From the first the principle adopted by Lord 
Baltimore, in the settlement and administration of 
his province, had been that „of strict impartiality 
towards every sect or denomination of Christians. 
There was freedom for every law-abiding citizen, and 
every one was secured in the free exercise of his 

1 Bancroft, c. vii. 191. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

religion, as well as in the possession of his freehold. 
The testimony given on this point by the historian, 
whose words we have already cited, are so important 
and emphatic that we need hardly apologize for 
quoting him again: 

But far more memorable was the character of the Mary-
land institutions. Every other country in the world had 
persecuting laws. " I will not," such was the oath for the 
Governor of Maryland, " I will not by myself or any other, 
directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to beli eve 
in Jesus Christ for, or in respect of religion." Under the 
mild institutions and munificence of Baltimore, the dreary 
wilderness soon bloomed with the swarming life and activity 
of prosperous settlements. The Roman Catholics who 
were oppressed by the laws of England were sure to find 
a peaceful asylum in the quiet harbours of the Chesapeake ; 
and there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestant 
intolerance-1 

T o promote emigration to his colony, Lord Balti-
more offered land-grants on the most extensive 
scale—for example, to each adventurer who should 
bring into his province in the year 1633 five men 
aged between sixteen and fifty, 2,000 acres of land 
of English measure, for the yearly rent of 400 lbs. of 
wheat; to each adventurer bringing ten men in the 
years [634 and 1635, the like extent of 2,000 acres 
of land, for the yearly rent of 600 lbs. of wheat ; 
and to each adventurer who should bring five men 
in any year after 1635, 1,000 acres for the yearly 
rent of 20s., to be paid in the commodities of the 
country; while to single adventurers 100 acres per 
man were offered, with 100 more for his wife, if he 
brought any, and 50 acres for every child under the 
age of sixteen, at a rent of 10 lbs. of wheat for every 

1 Bancroft, c. vii. 187. 



T 34 12ó The First Experiment 

SO acres.1 In our times an allotment of three acres 
with a cow is supposed to have powerful attractions 
for the agricultural community, and votes have been 
angled for with the tempting bait. It is clear from 
the above figures, that whatever might have been 
thought of the cow in the seventeenth century, the 
three acres would have been regarded as a ridiculously 
insignificant offer. 

We have mentioned that by the Charter to Lord 
Baltimore, provision, wonderfully liberal for that 
age, was made for participation by the people in 
the government of the country. A scheme of 
Government so laid down, must necessarily have 
been to a considerable extent experimental, but it 
redounds to the credit of the proprietary of the 
colony that, on cause shown, Lord Baltimore evinced 
on many occasions, a willingness to place the Govern-
ment on a more popular basis. There was a House 
of Assembly, a single Chamber, in which originally 
every free man of the province had a right to sit, 
either personally, or by deputy, as he chose. Later 
on, this single Chamber was divided into an Upper 
and a Lower House. 

In his extreme anxiety for the preservation of 
religious peace, Lord Baltimore appears to have been 
exceedingly severe towards Catholics and others, who 
allowed their tempers to get the better of their 
judgments, and to use harsh or injurious expressions 
concerning their neighbours' religion. A very hard 
case was that of a certain Mr. William Lewis, a 
zealous, but apparently short-tempered Catholic, who 
allowed himself to be provoked by one of his Servants 

1 Bozman, History of Maryland* 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

reading aloud in his house some choice extracts from 
a bigoted book, such as, " That the Pope was Anti-
christ and the Jesuits were anti-Christian ministers." 
Lewis flew into a passion, and said that " i t was a 
falsehood, and came from the devil, as all lies did, 
and he that writ it was an instrument of the devil, 
and he would prove it." Though the master's irritable 
temper appears to have been deliberately worked 
upon, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to pay 
a fine of 500 lbs. of tobacco, besides having to find 
security for 3,000 lbs. more to keep the peace for six 
months. Of the same anxiety on Lord Baltimore's 
part we may judge from the following provision in 
section 3 of the " Act concerning religion," passed 
in 1649: 

Persons reproaching any other within the province by 
the name or denomination of heretick, schismatick, idolater, 
Puritan, Independent, Presbyterian, Popish priest, Jesuit, 
Jesuitic Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Brownist, 
Antinomian, Barronist, Roundhead, Separatist, or any other 
name or term in a reproachful manner, relating to matters 
of religion, [shall] forfeit 10s. sterling for each offence; 
one half to the person reproached, the other half to his. 
lordship, or in default of payment, to be publicly whipped 
and imprisoned without bail or mainprise until the offender 
shall satisfy the person reproached by asking him or her 
respectively forgiveness publicly for such offence, before the 
chief officer or magistrate of the town or place where the 
offence shall be given.1 

A pleasing feature in Lord Baltimore's administra-
tion is the anxiety shown for the avoidance of hostili-
ties with the Indians, into whose country the settlers 
had in some measure intruded. Wars with them could 
not indeed be entirely avoided, for his Government was 

1 Bozman, History of Maryland. 



12ó The First Experiment 

bound to protect the friendly Indians who had given 
the early settlers such a kindly reception, and who 
had thereby incurred the wrath of their more 
implacable comrades. Y e t the history of Maryland 
does not appear to have been stained by any of 
those frightful massacres which occurred in Virginia 
and New England. Neither were Indians excluded 
from the exercise of the franchise. B y a law passed 
in 1681 under Charles, third Lord Baltimore, every 
freeholder, white, negro, or Indian, possessing fifty 
acres of land—a small holding in Maryland—or 
personality to the value of £\o, was entitled to 
cxercise electoral rights. Curiously enough this 
franchise lasted in Maryland to the present century, 
when, in 1803, the poorest white acquired the 
franchise, and the negro and the Indian lost it. In 
Virginia, the negro, the mulatto, and the Indian were 
disfranchised in 1723. The feelings of Lord Baltimore 
towards the aborigines are best shown by his well-
meant attempt to preserve them in their rights and 
liberties, and to allow them the opportunity of follow-
ing their native habits, by making a reservation of 
ten thousand acres of land selected by themselves 
as best suited for the purpose. Of this experiment 
we shall only say, that if it failed, it did so in other 
hands than those of the Catholics of Maryland. 

In considering the claim made by Catholics for 
the credit of initiating the first successful experiment 
which the world has witnessed, of combining, in a 
community radically divided in religious belief, the 
free exercise of civil rights with religious toleration, 
many Protestants may be ready to admit that facts 
undoubtedly bear out the claim—as they do the 
assertion that it was a Catholic who discovered 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

America, and another who invented the art of 
printing—yet they may feel convinced that the 
experiment must have been in the hands of Catholics 
not only much in advance of the age in which they 
lived, but also singularly independent of the influence 
of their clergy. To such it may be of special interest 
to inquire what provision was made by Lord 
Baltimore for the spiritual interests of the Catholic 
portion of his colonists, and in what section or order 
of the clergy it was possible for him to find men who 
would not only abstain from using their influence 
to thwart his enlightened aims, but would support 
and further them. Of all orders of the Catholic 
clergy the ordinary Protestant would find it difficult 
to suppose that Lord Baltimore would find such 
men in the ranks of the Jesuits, and yet it was 
precisely to them that he turned for assistance in his 
enterprise. The result justified his selection, for the 
relations which subsisted between them and the 
proprietary, as well as between them and the popula-
tion of the colony, Catholic and Protestant alike—the 
Puritan subverters of the free constitution of Maryland 
excepted—were singularly happy, and prove that the 
confidence reposed in them was not misplaced. 

In this short paper, only a brief reference is 
possible to the noble band of missionaries who kept 
alive the light of Catholic faith during the dark days 
which, as we shall see, were to come upon Mary-
land. Prominent among them was Father Andrew 
White, of whose name mention has already been 
made. He accompanied the first expedition in the 
Ark and Dove, and his labours on behalf of the 
flock committed to his care, and zeal in extending 



12ó The First Experiment 

the faith 01 Christ among the pagan Indian tribes of 
the country, have deservedly gained for him the title 
of " Apostle o f Maryland." He was a typical English 
Jesuit of the period, full of zeal for the faith, and 
ready at all times to use his utmost efforts to extend 
it. Cool and undaunted in danger, and patient in 
suffering, neither prison nor exile, nor fear of death 
itself, could deter him from following out the holy 
vocation to which he had devoted his life and 
energies. Scarcely less distinguished was Father 
Philip Fisher, who shared with Father White the 
dangers of the Maryland Mission, and who along 
with him was seized in 1644 by the Puritan insurgents 
whose doings we have briefly to chronicle, and with 
him was sent to England in irons. Nothing daunted, 
the courageous missionary, after regaining his liberty, 
returned to Maryland, where his reappearance was 
welcomed as that of an " A n g e l of God," by the 
settlers and Indians, to both of whom the missionaries 
had endeared themselves by their labours and 
services. 

Clayborne, Lord Baltimore's inveterate foe, did 
not by any means relax his hostile pursuit of his 
enemy's Government, on the failure of his first 
endeavour to seize the Isle of Kent. A more 
successful attempt was made by him in 1644 in 
combination with one Richard Ingle—"the pirate 
Ingle," as he is called by Catholic writers of the 
day. ' In the early part of that year the insurgents 
succeeded for a time in obtaining the mastery, 
and Leonard Calvert, the Governor, was forced to 
abandon the colony and take refuge in Virginia. 
For a year they retained the power which, through 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

the unpreparedness of the colonists, they had been 
able to seize, and it was not till near the end of 
1646 that the Governor was able to collect a force 
sufficient to expel the rebels and recapture the district 
of St. Mary's. This success was afterwards followed 
by the submission of the county of Kent. Before 
being driven from the former stronghold, Ingle and 
his associates showed their malignant spirit by using 
their opportunity to destroy or embezzle the public 
records, and to purloin the Great Seal, thus throwing 
a cloud of obscurity over the history of the province, 
and introducing the utmost confusion and insecurity 
of possession of property in it. Fleeing from justice, 
Clayborne, Ingle, and their confederates made their 
way to England, where their accusations against the 
" Popish Government" of the province were only too 
favourably received by the Protestants and Presby-
terians, who had now gained the upper hand. 
Leonard Calvert, who had so faithfully assisted his 
brother in the administration of his province, died 
in 1647, shortly after its reconquest. 

Relieved at last, to some extent, from fears oi 
immediate disturbance, Lord Baltimore's Government 
struggled on during the next few years, endeavouring 
to promote the welfare of the colony in every way, 
encouraging useful legislation, and placing upon their 
statute-book additional provisions, such as we have 
already quoted, for safeguarding and extending the 
principle of civil and religious liberty, to which all 
along Lord Baltimore had shown himself so friendly. 
Prominent among the Acts passed by the colonial 
Government is the remarkable one enacted in the 
year 1649, by which evidence was given to the world 



12ó The First Experiment 

that no feeling of vindictiveness against the promoters 
and abettors of the recently quelled disturbances, 
however justly incurred, had been, or would be for 
the future, allowed to interfere with the principle of 
civil and religious liberty on which they had taken 
their stand. Again it was enacted, in conformity 
with that principle, 

And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters 
of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous 
consequence, in those commonwealths where it has been 
practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government 
of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and 
amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province 
professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be any ways 
troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for his or her 
religion, or in the free exercise thereof.1 

But a more serious trial was at hand for Lord 
Baltimore and the Catholic party from the operation 
of the very principle of civil and religious liberty, of 
which they were the authors and the consistent and 
steadfast defenders. In the New England States 
the adherents of the Church of England were not 
allowed a footing, nor was their worship tolerated. 
In Virginia the stale of matters was reversed. There 
the Church of England was supreme, and as long as 
it was so, it would tolerate no worship but its own. 
To Maryland fled the New England Episcopalian, 
from the persecution of his New England Protestant 
brethren ; to Maryland, and chiefly to the district 
of Providence—now Annapolis—fled the Virginian 
Puritan, to escape the pursuit of the equally intol-
erant Episcopalian. Both were welcomed in Lord 
Baltimore's territory, and each was free to worship 

1 Langford, 27. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

God in his own way, assured of the protection of 
just laws, and of the free exercise of his religion. 
Pity it is that these same Puritans, the boasted 
advocates of civil and religious liberty, were destitute 
not only of the principles of which they so unjusti-
fiably made a boast, but of the commonest feelings 
of gratitude towards the Government of the colony 
which had given them refuge in the day of their 
distress. So early as the year 1651, we find indi-
cations of their disaffection to the established 
Government of the country, in their refusal to 
send representatives to the House of Assembly. 
Numerous, bigoted, and overbearing, they scrupled 
to burden their tender consciences with the oath of 
fidelity to a " Popish " proprietary, into whose territory 
they had entered of their own free-will. Matters came 
to a crisis in 1652, and the years which intervened 
between that date and the death of Cromwell were 
years of anxiety, harassment, and distress to the 
Catholics of Maryland. 

For a few years previous to 1652 the unsettled 
state of parties in England, and the uncertainty which 
prevailed there as to the changes which might result 
from the next turn of the political wheel, did not 
fail to produce a corresponding confusion in the 
settlements on the American side of the Atlantic. 
Lord Baltimore had indeed, with prudent foresight, 
given in his adhesion to the Parliamentary party, 
which was de facto the ruling power in the State, 
but his doing so neither secured his rights, nor gave 
stability to his Government. Maryland at this period 
was contended for by four different claimants, and 
appeared to be regarded as a waif and stray to be 



12ó The First Experiment 

secured by the strongest or least scrupulous adven-
turer. Lord Baltimore was doing his best to preserve 
his and his people's chartered rights, which legality, 
prescription, and lavish expenditure of his private 
fortune ought to have rendered inviolable. Charles II., 
angry with Lord Baltimore for his adhesion to Parlia-
ment, issued a commission in favour of Sir William 
Davenant. Virginia, from whose territory Maryland 
had been severed, watched with longing eyes for an 
opportunity of reannexing it. But the enmity of 
Clayborne was more dangerous to Lord Baltimore's 
rights than the impotent anger of Charles, or the 
jealousy of Virginia. Clayborne had been associated 
with Bennett, as one of two Commissioners appointed 
by the English Parliament.to reduce to their allegiance 
the provinces bordering on the Chesapeake. Their 
commission could hardly have been intended to 
disturb the rights of a proprietary who had given 
in his adhesion to the party which granted it, but a 
vindictive and unscrupulous man like Clayborne was 
not likely to forego the opportunity which fortune 
had put within his reach, of punishing his enemy for 
the defeats inflicted on him in 1634 and in 1646. 

Interpreting their commission as including Mary-
land, they entered the province, and having the forces 
of Parliament at their back, deprived Lord Balti-
more's lieutenant, Governor Stone, of his 'commission, 
and changed the officers of the province, leaving him, 
however, in the end, in retention of the executive 
power along with a Council of three, till instructions 
should arrive from England. During this distract-
ing state of matters occurred the fall of the Long 
Parliament, and as it was under, its warrant that 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

Clayborne and Bennett had imposed their will upon 
his lieutenant, it appeared to Lord Baltimore reason-
able that their authority should fall along with 
it. He was besides displeased at the want of 
firmness which he supposed his lieutenant to have 
shown, in yielding to Clayborne and Bennett's 
terms, and deemed the opportunity a favourable 
one for regaining his lost authority. In 1654, Lord 
Baltimore's friends in the province succeeded in 
reinstating his rights in their integrity, displaced the 
Commissioners appointed by Clayborne and Bennett, 
and declared the condition of the province under the 
arrangements made by the latter, to have been a state 
of rebellion. But Clayborne and his associate were 
too powerful to be foiled in this manner. They 
hastened back to Maryland, deprived Governor 
Stone of his commission, and entrusted the adminis-
tration of the province to a board of ten Commis-
sioners appointed by themselves. Thus by Lord 
Baltimore's rash attempt to regain his authority, 
was the last state of the colony rendered worse than 
the first. 

After this event, it was not long till proof was 
furnished that, however zealous Puritans might be 
in fighting for religious liberty for themselves, they 
had not the slightest idea of granting that liberty to 
others. A new Assembly, composed exclusively of 
Protestants, was soon convened, and their sentiments 
towards the Catholic settlers were embodied in an 
" A c t concerning Religion," which recites as follows : 

It is hereby enacted and declared, that none who 
profess and exercise the Popish, (commonly called the 



12ó The First Experiment 

Roman Catholic) religion can be protected in this pro-
vince, but to be restrained from the exercise thereof.1 

Indignant at these proceedings, and relying, on 
the support of the Catholic and other loyal settlers, 
Lord Baltimore commissioned Stone and his lieu-
tenant, Josias Fendall, to reassert his rights by force 
of arms. They were not long in regaining possession 
of the capital of the province, in which lay the chief 
strength of the Catholics. After vainly summoning 
the leaders of the Puritan party to submit, they 
marched against the town of Providence, the 
enemy's head-quarters. There, however, their enter-
prise came to a disastrous end. Faced by the 
Puritans of Providence in- front, and having on 
their flank an enemy's ship, they were completely 
defeated. Stone himself, and many distinguished 
councillors, officers, and soldiers, were taken prisoners. 
Stone had a narrow escape from immediate execu-
tion, and owed his life to a remembrance of the 
kindness he had shown in former years to some of 
the Puritan party, who on that account could not 
bring themselves to imbrue their hands in the blood 
of their benefactor. Others of the prisoners, however, 
were not so fortunate, and in alleged violation of 
a promise guaranteeing their lives, four of the 
prisoners, three of whom were Catholics, - were, 
several days after the battle, put to death in cold 
blood. A s a further consequence of this victory, the 
residences of the Jesuit Fathers at their two settle-
ments in the country, were sacked and plundered ; 
the Fathers themselves narrowly escaped with their 
lives, and made their way at great peril into Virginia, 

1 Bacon, c. iv. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

where they suffered much from want of the neces-
saries of life, and privation of means of support. 
Stone was sent to prison, and remained in confine-
ment till the death of Cromwell brought some relief 
to the suffering Catholics. 

But though Cromwell sustained the Commissioners 
in their authority, and did not disapprove of their 
nefarious actions, the exigencies of his position 
rendered it unadvisable for him to abrogate Lord 
Baltimore's rights, or to cancel his Charter, and under 
the Lord Protector's powerful authority he was to 
a certain extent reinstated, and a kind of dual autho-
rity, in which he shared, was established in the pro-
vince. It might be an interesting subject of inquiry 
to discover what were Cromwell's motives in thus 
partially favouring Lord Baltimore's claims. A 
solution may lie in the desire which he showed 
during the latter part of his life, to gain, or at least to 
divide, the favour of the aristocracy, but a simpler 
explanation may be found in the enormous mass of 
weighty business with which he had to deal, con-
cerning European matters, compared with which 
those of the infant settlements of America were mere 
trifles. 

On the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, a 
season of peace and prosperity dawned again upon 
Maryland. The authority of Lord Baltimore was 
easily and quickly re-established under the presidency 
of Philip Calvert, his brother, whom he appointed 
Governor in 1661. "Freedom of conscience," the 
principle of the colony, again prevailed, and once 
more, as in former times, Protestants were the gainers. 
Strangers, persecuted at home on account of their 

K 2 



12ó The First Experiment 

religious beliefs, came to Maryland, not only from 
England, but from many other European lands, and 
all, on their settling in the colony, were admitted to 
full equality and free citizenship of the province. 
From time to time commotions arose, and the rights 
of the proprietary were challenged. Such attempts 
were on the whole easily overcome, and Lord 
Baltimore's merciful disposition, ever inclined to 
forgiveness, exacted but little in, the way of punish-
ment for past transgressions. " T h e happiness of 
Maryland was," says Bancroft, " enviable." 

A s compared with the immediately preceding 
period, the last fifteen years of Cecil Lord Baltimore's 
administration were peaceful and prosperous, and 
he died in 1675, after having striven consistently for 
forty-three years, to advance, in every possible way, 
the welfare of the colony which he had founded. The 
purity of his aims, and the uprightness of his character, 
have drawn from the historian of the United States 
the following noble tribute to his character: 

To foster industry, to promote union, to cherish 
religious peace, these were the honest purposes of Lord 
Baltimore during his long supremacy.1 

A n d again: 

Thus was the declining life of Cecilius Lord Baltimore, 
the father of Maryland, the tolerant legislator, the bene-
volent prince, blessed with the success which philanthropy 
deserves. The colony which he had planted in youth 
crowned his old age with its gratitude. Who among his 
peers could vie with him in honours ? A firm supporter of 
prerogative, a friend to the Stuarts, he was touched with 
the sentiment of humanity—an earnest disciple of the 
Roman Church, of which he venerated the expositions of 

1 Bancroft, c. xiv. 523. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

truth as infallible, he, first among legislators, established an 
equality among sects. The commercial metropolis of 
Maryland commemorates his name, the memory of his wise 
philanthropy survives in American history. He died after 
a supremacy of more than forty years, leaving a reputation 
for temperate wisdom which the dissensions in his colony 
and the various revolutions of England could not tarnish.1 

About fourteen years before his death, Lord 
Baltimore had entrusted the administration of the 
colony to Charles, his eldest son, On succeeding to 
the title, the third Lord Baltimore strove to follow 
the example set him by his father and grandfather, 
and did so under some of the same discourage-
ments against which both had had to struggle. The 
Established Church of England was now strong at 
home, and victorious over Dissent, but its clergy, 
however much they might delight in persecuting 
Puritans, joined with them in cordial dislike to 
Catholics, and viewed with jealousy the existence 
of a State in which these were free to worship God 
after the manner of their forefathers. The minds of 
the English people were goaded to fury by lying 
tales of Popish plots, artfully fomented by un-
principled men, and the time was found well suited 
for denouncing the " pest-house of iniquity" on the 
other side of the Atlantic, in which Catholics were 
not only permitted to worship God in their own way, 
but to hold sway over Protestants. The English 
clergy demanded the establishment of their Church 
in the province, at the cost of the settlers, Catholics 
and Puritans alike. The attempt was for the time 
warded off by the firmness of the new Lord Baltimore. 
" T h e Roman Catholic," says Bancroft, "was inflexible 

1 Bancroft, c. xiv. 525, 526. 



12ó The First Experiment 

in his regard for freedom of worship."1 But the 
influences brought to bear on the English Ministry 
were, in the end, too strong to be overcome, and, in 
1681, an order was issued that none but Protestants 
should hold office under Government. With the 
advent of the Catholic King James, it might have 
been thought that the religious liberties of the colony 
would have been restored, and no doubt the new 
King was far from entertaining the desire that these 
should be withheld, but unhappily James was no 
friend to civil liberties, and he judged it expedient 
that Maryland should be reduced to the same state 
of subjection to the Crown, to which he had destined 
the other colonies. It was in vain that Lord 
Baltimore remonstrated, and pleaded for exemption 
from the fate to which his province was doomed. 
A writ for reduction of his patent had already been 
ordered, when the Great Revolution of 1688 broke 
out, and James was driven from the throne. 

Though the experiment of civil and religious 
liberty may be said to have terminated with the 
exclusion of Catholics from office under Government, 
some years before the outbreak of the Revolution, 
that great event completed and perpetuated its 
overthrow. One crushing blow after another fell 
upon the Catholic adherents of Lord Baltimore, and 
statute after statute was passed, conferring privileges 
upon the English Church and enacting disabilities 
against the "Papists." A State religion was established 
in Maryland, but the religion was that of the Church 
of England. The English Acts of Toleration were 
put in force, but toleration was only for Protestant 

1 Bancroft, c. xiv. 528. 



in Civil and Religious Liberty. 121 

Dissent, and the seventeenth century closed in gloom 
for the Catholics of Maryland, whose fathers, a 
generation before, had established an asylum for 
freedom on its fruitful shores. Their churches were 
closed, their schools dispersed, their priests hunted like 
outlaws from hiding-place to hiding-place throughout 
the settlement. Nothing can exhibit the mournful 
condition into which the colony fell, better than the 
words of Bancroft, whose statements have been so 
frequently referred to in these pages; these also 
show, in the reference made to the relapse of the 
Calvert family into Protestantism, that penal laws are 
sometimes even more disastrous to the wealthy and 
high born than they are to the poor and lowly. 

The Roman Catholics were left alone without an ally, 
exposed to English bigotry and colonial injustice. They 
alone were disfranchised on the soil, which, long before 
Locke pleaded for toleration or Penn for religious freedom, 
they had chosen, not as their own asylum only, but, with 
Catholic liberality, as the asylum of every persecuted sect. 
In the land which Catholics had opened to Protestants, the 
Catholic inhabitant was the sole victim to Anglican 
intolerance. Mass might not be said publicly. No Catholic 
Bishop or priest might utter his faith in a voice of per-
suasion. No Catholic might teach the young. If the 
wayward child of a Papist would but become an apostate, 
the law wrested for him from his parents a share of theii 
property. The disfranchisement of the proprietary related 
to his creed, not to his family. Such were the methods 
adopted to "prevent the growth of Popery." Who shall 
say that the faith of the cultivated individual is firmer than 
the faith of the common people ? Who shall say that the 
many are fickle, that the chief is firm? To recover the 
inheritance of authority, Benedict, the son of the proprietary, 
renounced the Catholic Church for that of England; the 
persecution never crushed the faith of the humble colonists.1 

1 Bancroft, c. xix. 719. 



150 ^ Civil and Religious Liberty. 

In commending to Catholic readers the subject of 
civil and religious liberty, as introduced and practised 
in Maryland by devoted adherents of the Catholic 
Church, before anything but barren theory had been 
broached on the side of its opponents, we must not 
be understood as entering into the subject of religious 
toleration itself, or condemning any legitimate and 
temperate effort made by Catholic rulers to maintain 
the unity of faith, which had been the unbroken 
tradition of their States for centuries before the 
Reformation. That is a subject which must be treated 
by itself, as the conditions which existed in Europe 
in the sixteenth century are entirely different from 
those which prevailed in Maryland in the seventeenth 
century, and in most European States at the present 
day. It is sufficient for our present purpose to have 
shown the incorrectness of the idea so prevalent in 
this country, and so assiduously propagated, that 
Protestants led the way in establishing civil and 
religious liberty, and in conferring upon the citizens 
of a free community the right to the free exercise of 
their religion. 



SHILLING V O L U M E S . 

H I S T O R I C A L P A P E R S . Edited by Revv.J.Morris&S.F.Smith,S.J. 
Vol. I* Containing r 

1. The Spanish Inquisition. By the Rev. S. F. Smith, S.J. 
2. The False Decretals. By the Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J. 
j . Cranmer and Anne Boleyn. By the Rev. J. Stevenson, S.J. 
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7. How "the Church of England Washed her Face." By the 
Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S.J. 

8. St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572. By the Rev. W. Loughnan, S.J. 
9. The Rood of Boxley, or How a Lie Grows. By the Rev. 

T. E. Bridgelt, C.SS.R. 
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C. Laing. 
16. Religious Instruction in England during the Fourteenth and 

Fifteenth Centuries. By Dom F. A. Gasquet, O.S.B, 
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Meaning. By the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R. 

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18. Dr. Littledale's Theory of the Disappearance of the Papacy. 
By the Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S.J. 

19. Dean Farrar on the Observance of Good Friday. By ihe 
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20. Savonarola and the Reformation. By Very Rev. J. Procter, O.P. 
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22. The English Coronation Oath. By the Rev. T. E. Bridgeit, 
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the Rev. G. E. Phillips. 

24. The Landing of St. Augustine. By the Rev. S. F. Smith, S.J. 
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