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Maryland Manual, 1899
Volume 111, Page 7   View pdf image (33K)
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HISTORICAL SKETCH. 7

mac to its most distant source, and thence due north to the
fortieth parallel.

The privileges conveyed by the charter were the most
complete ever granted by an English sovereign to a subject;
the Proprietary was invested with palatinate authority,
under which were included all royal powers, both of peace
and war. The province was entirely self-governed, all laws
being made by the Proprietary and the freeman, and these
laws required no confirmation from the King or Parliament.
By an express clause the King renounced for himself and
his successors forever, all right of taxation in Maryland.
All that was required of the colonists was that they should
be British subjects, and that the Proprietary should
acknowledge the King of England as his sovereign, paying
him, in lieu of all services or taxes, two Indian arrows
yearly, and the fifth of all gold or silver that might be
found.

Cecilius fitted out two small vessels, the Ark and Dove,
in which the first baud of colonists set sail on November
20, 1633. These consisted of about twenty gentlemen of
good families, all or most of whom were Catholics, and
about two hundred laborers, craftsmen and servants, most
of them Protestants. Baltimore's younger brother, Leonard
Calvert, was governor and head of the expedition, assisted
by two councillors, Jerome Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys.
Careful instructions for their guidance were drawn up by
Baltimore, in which he charged them to observe strict
impartiality, and to give the Protestants no cause of offence.

The Ark and Dove, after a tedious and stormy passage,
reached at last their destination, and the colonists landed
upon an island at the mouth of the Potomac, where they
celebrated divine service and planted a cross on March 25,
1634.

The natives received them in the most friendly manner,
and were quite willing that they should settle among them.
So they bought from the King of Yaocomicos a tract of
land a few miles up the Potomac, where there was a good
harbor, and there laid out the plan of a city, which they
called St. Mary's.

A powerful party in Virginia was bitterly hostile to the
settlement of Maryland. One of the leaders was William
Claiborne, who had established a trading post on Kent


 

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Maryland Manual, 1899
Volume 111, Page 7   View pdf image (33K)
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