MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE. 261 VII. sects; and Maryland itself was the prize contended CHAP for. The Puritans, ever the friends of popular liberty, hostile to monarchy, and equally so to a hereditary pro- 1654 prietary, contended earnestly for every civil liberty; but had neither the gratitude to respect the rights of the government, by which they had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity to continue the toleration, to which alone they were indebted for their residence in the colony. A new assembly, convened at Patux- Oct. ent, acknowledged the authority of Cromwell; but it also exasperated the whole Romish party by their wanton disfranchisement. An act concerning religion confirmed the freedom of conscience, provided the liberty were not extended to "popery, prelacy, or licentiousness" of opinion. Yet Cromwell, a friend to religious toleration, and willing that the different sects, "like the cedar, and the myrtle, and the oil-tree, should be planted in the wilderness together," never approved the ungrateful decree. He commanded the commissioners "not to busy themselves about religion, but to settle the civil government." 3 When the proprietary heard of these proceedings, he was indignant at the want of firmness which his lieutenant had displayed. The pretended assembly was esteemed "illegal, mutinous, and usurped;" and Lord Baltimore and his officers determined, under the powers which the charter conferred, to vindicate his supremacy.5 Towards the end of January, on the ar- 1655 rival of a friendly ship, it was immediately noised abroad, that his patent had been confirmed by the protector; and orders began again to be issued for the entire restoration of his authority. Papists and others 1 Hammond, 22. Sad State 9. 2 Bacon, 1654, c. iv 3 Chalmers, 236. 4 Hazard, i. 629. Strong. 5 Langford, 9, 10. 6 Strong, 5 25. CHAP. Wele commissioned by Stone to raise men in arms; VII. and the leaders of this new revolution were able to 1655 surprise and get possession of the provincial records. Mar. They marched, also, from Patuxent towards Anne Arundel, the chief seat of the republicans, who insisted on naming it Providence. The inhabitants of Providence and their partisans gathered together with the zeal that belongs to the popular party, and with the courage in which Puritans were never deficient. Vain were proclamations, promises, and threats. The party of Stone was attacked and utterly discomfited; he himself, with others, was taken, and would have been put to death but for the respect and affection borne him by some among the insurgents whom he had formerly welcomed to Maryland. He was kept a prisoner during most of the administration of Cromwell; while four of the principal men of the province, sentenced to death by a council of war, were presently executed.2 A friend to Lord Baltimore, then in the province, begged of the protector no other boon than that he would "condescend to settle the country by declaring his determinate will." And yet the same causes which led Cromwell to neglect the internal concerns of Virginia, compelled him to pay but little attention to the disturbances in Maryland. On the one hand, he respected the rights of property of Lord Baltimore; on the other, he protected his own political partisans, corresponded with his commissioners, and expressed no displeasure at their exercise of power.1 On this occasion were published Strong's Babylon's Fall in Maryland, and Langford's Just and Clear Refutation of a Scandalous Pamphlet, entitled Babylon's Fall in Maryland, 1655. Both are minute, and, in the main, agree. Compare Chalmers; McMahon, 207; Hazard, i. 621-628, and 629, 630 ; 2 Hammond, 22, 23. 3 Barber, in Langford, 15. 4 Thurloe, i. 724, and iv. 55. Hazard, i. 594, quotes but one of the rescripts. Hammond, 24. MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE. 263 VII. 1656 10. The right to the jurisdiction of Maryland remained, CHAP. therefore, a disputed question. Fuller, Preston, and the others, appointed by Clayborne, actually possessed authority; while Lord Baltimore, with the apparent sanction of the protector, commissioned1 Josias Fendall to July appear as his lieutenant. Fendall had, the preceding year, been engaged in exciting an insurrection, under pretence of instructions from Stone; he now appear- 1657 ed as an open but unsuccessful insurgent. Little Sept. is known of his "disturbance," except that it occasioned a heavy public expenditure.2 Nov. Yet the confidence of Lord Baltimore was continued to Fendall, who received anew an appointment to the 18. government of the province. For a season, there was a divided rule; Fendall was acknowledged by the 1658 Catholic party in the city of St. Mary's; and the commissioners were sustained by the Puritans of St. Leonard's. At length, the conditions of a compromise were settled; and the government of the whole prov- Mar. ince was surrendered to the agent of the proprietary. Permission to retain arms; an indemnity for arrears; relief from the oath of fealty; and a confirmation of the acts and orders of the recent Puritan assemblies;— these were the terms of the surrender, and prove the influence of the Puritans.3 Fendall was a weak and impetuous man; but I cannot find any evidence that his administration was stained by injustice. Most of the statutes enacted during his government were thought worthy of being perpetuated. The death of Cromwell left the condition of England uncertain, and might well diffuse a gloom through the counties of Maryland. For ten 1 McMahon, 211. 2 Bacon, 1657, c. viii. 3 Bacon's Preface, and 1658, c. i. McMahon, 211, and Council Pro 24. VII. CHAP. years the unhappy province had been distracted by dissensions, of which the root had consisted in the claims that Baltimore had always asserted, and had never been able to establish. What should now be done? England was in a less settled condition than Would the son of Cromwell permanently hold the place of his father? Would Charles II. be restored? Did new revolutions await the colony? strifes with Virginia, the protector, the proprietary, the king? Wearied with long convulsions, a general 1660. assembly saw no security but in asserting the power ever. new of the people, and constituting the government on the Mar. expression of their will. Accordingly, just one day 12. before that memorable session of Virginia, when the people of the Ancient Dominion adopted a similar system of independent legislation, the representatives of Maryland, convened in the house of Robert Slye, voted themselves a lawful assembly, without dependence on any other power in the province. The burgesses of Virginia had assumed to themselves the election of the council; the burgesses of Maryland refused to acknowledge the rights of the body claiming to be an upper house. In Virginia, Berkeley yielded to the public will; in Maryland, Fendall permitted the power of the people to be proclaimed. The representatives of Maryland, having thus successfully settled the government, and hoping for tranquillity after years of storms, passed an act, making it felony to disturb the order which they had established. No authority would henceforward be recognized, except the assembly, and the king of England.' The light of peace promised to dawn upon the province. 1 Bacon, 1659–60. McMahon, 212. Chalmers, 224, 225. Griffith, 18. Ebeling, v. 709. The German historian is remarkably temperate. All others have been unjust to the legislature of Maryland. MARYLAND DURING THE PROTECTORATE. 265 VII. Thus was Maryland, like Virginia, at the epoch of CHAP. the restoration, in full possession of liberty, based upon the practical assertion of the sovereignty of the people. 1660. Like Virginia, it had so nearly completed its institutions, that, till the epoch of its final separation from England, it hardly made any further advances towards freedom and independence. Men love liberty, even if it be turbulent; and the colony had increased, and flourished, and grown rich, in spite of domestic dissensions. Its population, in 1660, is variously estimated at eight thousand,' and at twelve thousand. The country was dear to its inhabitants. There they desired to spend the remnant of their lives; there they coveted to make their graves.3 1 Fuller's Worthies, Ed. 1662. 2 Chalmers, 226. 3 Hammond, 25 |