SETTLEMENT OF BALTIMORE. 257 the price demanded for the land having been amicably adjusted and fairly paid, the generosity of the settlers so won the hearts of their new friends, that the chief expressed his confidence in them in the following striking language: "I love the English," said he, "so well, that if they should go about to kill me, if I had so much breath as to speak, I would command my people not to revenge my death; for I know that they would not do such a thing except it were through my own fault." The town which they first occupied stood on the north point of the Potomac, at its entry into the Chesapeake, about half way up that bay on the left; they called it St. Mary's, and the whole district was called Maryland; and so rapidly did they increase in prosperity in their new abode, that in the short period of two years after their first landing they exported 10,000 bushels of Indian corn to New-England, in exchange for the articles which they required from thence. The intelligence of their safety and success soon spread to England; and many, who were not bold enough to risk the first adventure, soon flocked around them when all danger was past. Lord Baltimore, too, aided the transport of all who desired to go by munificent grants from his own purse, so much so that in two years he had expended £40,000; and, in addition to this, he gave to every settler who came out a present of fifty acres of land, in absolute right of ee, still adhering to the original principle of tolerating all religious opinions, and not assuming supremacy for any mode of faith or worship. In 1639 the first representative assembly was formed in Maryland, and the persons elected by the votes others to sit as members of this assembly were called burgesses. But one of the most striking singularities of the law prescribing this election of representatives was this, that it enacted that if any freemen refrained from giving their votes to any representative at the time of election, they should have liberty to sit in the assembly in person themsives; the principle being probably this: that if a man did not vote for any one of the persons put before him as a candidate, it was because he had no confidence in him as his representative; and therefore, not having delegated his rights to any one to represent them for him, he should go and represent them for himself. It is remarkable, however, that, notwithstanding the extreme liberality which characterized the conduct of Lord Baltimore and the early settlers on religious matters, they were not superior to their neighbours in their respect for VOL. I.-K K civil liberty, as negroes were held in slavery by them from the beginning; and in an act of the Maryland Assembly as early as 1629, the "people" are declared to consist of "all Christian inhabitants, slaves only excepted." This is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the Catholics of those days had shown more abhorrence in general than Protestants to the state of slavery; for, while Sir John Hawkins was tolerated by the Protestant Queen Elizabeth in the slave-trade which he first originated on the coast of Africa, the Roman pontiff Leo X. had declared, when a controversy on this subject had been submitted to him for his decision, that "not only. the Christian religion, but Nature herself, cried out against slavery." Not long after this, in 1641, the great accumulation of settlers led to encroachments on the rights of the aboriginal Indians by persons less scrupulous than their predecessors; and by the agency of ardent spirits, which they first introduced to the knowledge and use of these unhappy people, they so defrauded them as to excite universal indignation among the tribes, and provoke an Indian war. This lasted for two years, with losses on both sides and advantages to neither; and when peace was happily restored, a law was enacted by the Maryland Assembly which made it illegal to obtain grants of lands from Indians without the consent of the Legislature, which constituted it felony to sell or kidnap any friendly Indians, and made it a high misdemeanour to put them in possession of arms and ammunition, or to supply then with spirituous liquors, then, as now, the most prolific soure of crime and misery to all who used them excessively themselves, or administered them to others. In 1649, the principles of religious toleration, which Lord Baltimore had been the first to establish by his individual authority in the Western world, were imbodied in "an act concerning religon," passed by the Maryland Assembly, composed almost holly of Roman Catholic members. In this act, the preambe asserted the dangerous consequences of attempting to enfore the conscience, and the benefits of leaving it free; and the enactments imposed penalties of different degrees on all who should molest individuals on account of their religious worship, or who should apply opprobrious names or epithets to persons on account of their faith. What is the more remarkable, that while the Catholics of Maryland acted with so much berality to their Protestant brethren, these last, who had many of them come to seek refuge from Protestant persecution in the North, returned DEATH OF LORD BALTIMORE. 259 this liberality with the basest ingratitude, and sought by every means to crush those by whom they had been so hospitably received. In 1661, at the period of the Restoration, the colony of Maryland contained about 12,000 inhabitants, and in 1666 these had increased to 16,000. The number of vessels trading from England to this province was estimated at more than 100. Labourers of every kind were so amply employed and so liberally paid that want was unknown; and many persons who had been unfortunate in business at home, repaired here for a few years to retrieve their misfortunes, and were almost uniformly successful. In 1676, the venerable founder of this colony, Cecilius Lord Baltimore, died full of age and honours; and the very maxim which he is represented as constantly expressing and enforcing, and on which his policy was founded, gives him a high claim to distinction as a man of a sound head and generous heart. It was a favourite saying with him, "that by concord a small colony may grow into a great and renowned nation, but that by dissension mighty and glorious kingdoms have declined and fallen into nothing;" and all history testifies to its truth. The colony suffered no reverse, however, from the death of its first patron, as the son, by whom he was succeeded in his titles and estates, Charles, the third Lord Baltimore, inherited all his father's enlarged views and generous principles. A very happy allusion is made by one of our English poets (Burroughs) to the virtues of Calvert and Penn, the two most just and liberal of all the founders of colonies in modern times, when he thus adverts especially to their legal provisions for religious toleration: "Laws formed to hartonize contrarious creeds, And heal the wounds through which a nation bleeds; A bond of union for a people mixed; Such as good Calvert framed for Baltimore, After various vicissitudes, the intolerant spirit of the Protestant at home so gained the ascendancy, that in 1692, under William and Mary, the proprietary government of Lord Baltimore was taken from him, for no other reason than that he was a Roman Catholic, after it had been.exercised with the greatest justice and mildness for a period of fiftysix years. In 1695 the Church of England was declared by law to be the established church of the State of Maryland. Catholics were prohibited, under the severest penalties, from all acts of public worship, and even from exerci sing the profession of teachers in education. In spite of all this reaction, the colony went on advancing in prosperity and population. In 1690 the province contained 30,000 persons, and exported as much of its principal produce, tobacco, as the much older and far more extensive province of Virginia. In 1669 the town of Annapolis, higher up the Chesapeake, was substituted for St. Mary's as the capital, and this still continues to be the seat of legislation for the State, its central position giving it the preference over all other places for this purpose. It was not until 1711 that the town of Baltimore began to be laid out and built upon, the first sale of land for that purpose being made at that period, consisting of 31 acres, and subsequently augmented by other sales of adjoining tracts, amounting to 550 acres. In 1729 an act of Assembly was passed, authorizing the erection of a town on the north side of the River Patapsco. The ground selected for it was sold by the proprietors at the rate of forty shillings an acre for the absolute fee, and the commissioners authorized to conduct the purchase bargained to pay this amount in tobacco, at the rate of a penny per pound; for at this period, and long before, tobacco may be said to have formed the common currency of Maryland: purchases were made by it, and salaries were paid in it; even the revenue was often collected in it, besides being used for remittances to England, as well as for the payment of local dues; for then gold and silver money was very scarce, and paper currency was not yet substituted, though it was soon after abundantly used. The progress of the town under the old colonial system was slow, compared with its more rapid progress since. In 1752 the number of houses was twenty-five, only four of which were of brick, and all the rest of wood. In 1752 a brig and a sloop were the only vessels actually belonging to the port; and, about the same period, the only newspaper published in Maryland was issued at Annapolis, under the title of the "Maryland Gazette," one of the numbers of which for the year 1752 contains an advertisement for a schoolmaster, of "a good and sober character, who understands teaching English, writing, and arithmetic," and who, it is added, "will meet with very good encouragement from the inhabitants of Baltimore town, if well recommended." In 1767 Baltimore had sufficiently increased in importance to be made the county-town, instead of Joppa, which for merly enjoyed that distinction. The removal of the county. court to this spot added at once much to the importance of INCORPORATION OF BALTIMORE. 261 Baltimore; and in 1773 the first newspaper was established in the town by Mr. Goddard, of Rhode Island, who came down from Philadelphia for this purpose; but an attempt to establish a circulating library at the same time by a Mr. Joseph Rathel failed for want of adequate support! The Revolution, which achieved the independence of the United States of America, did for Baltimore what it effected for every other town and city in the country: gave it a greater impetus of advancing and accelerating prosperity than all previous causes put together. Baltimore soon became the seat of an extensive foreign commerce, by the exportation of tobacco to Europe, of flour to the West Indies, and of the produce of the fisheries of the Chesapeake to places nearer at hand. Ship-building began to be practised on an extensive scale; the carrying trade of Europe was shared largely by the Baltimore ship-owners; and in 1790 some of her vesssels went round the Cape of Good Hope to the Isle of France. In 1793 a new impulse was given to the prosperity of Baltimore by an unlooked-for cause. The revolution in St. Domingo, which followed almost immediately that of the mother-country, France, caused a great number of the French colonists to seek an asylum in Baltimore. Many rich families having succeeded in escaping with their wealth, brought it to Baltimore with them; and, in addition to the substantial capital thus added to the means of the city, there was an importation also of talent, ingenuity, gentlemanly manners, and generous hospitality, which harmonized well with the spirit that still prevailed among the descendants of the high rank and gentle breeding of the first founders of the colony. It was in 1796 that Baltimore received the dignity of a city, by a charter of incorporation for a mayor and city council; and about this period its prosperity was higher than at any previous time, as its superiority in the fast-sailing qualities of its ships and schooners, known by the name of the "Baltimore clippers," gave it the advantage of effecting quicker voyages than the vessels of any other port could accomplish; and in cases of war between rival nations, they were enabled, by means of these swift-sailing vessels, to break almost every naval blockade, to carry on with great success the various contraband trades of the West India Islands, and the continental ports of the Spanish dominions in Mexico and South America. The supplies of imported goods from Europe for the newly-settled territories in the |