provide a refuge for English Catholics, who were sub-
ject to fines and other penalties wherever the English
laws against practicing the Catholic religion were en-
forced.⁶ Certainly this was to be a future motivation in
founding Maryland.

   Calvert visited Avalon in the summer of 1627 and
moved his family there in 1628. One winter convinced
him that he had been deceived in the possibilities that
Newfoundland offered for a prosperous permanent set-
tlement. As he wrote to Charles I,

   I have found by to deare bought experience which
other men for their private interests always conceled
from me, that from the middst of October to the
middst of May there is a sadd face of wynter upon all
this land, both sea and land so frozen for the greatest
part of the tyme as they are not penetrable, no plant
or vegetable thing appearing out of the earth until it
be about the beginning of May, nor fish in the sea
besides the ayre so intolerable cold as it is hardly to
be endured. By means whereof...my house hath
beene an hospital all this wynter, of 100 persons, 50
sick at a time, myself being one and nyne or ten of
them dyed. Hereupon I have had strong temptations
to leave all proceedings in plantations, and being
much decayed in my strength, to retire myselfe to my
former quiett; but my inclination carrying me natur-
ally to these kynd of workes, and not knowing how
better to employ the poore remaynder of my dayes,
that with other good subjects to further the best I
may the enlarging yo'r ma'ty's empire in this part of
the world, I am determined to committ this place to
fishermen that are able to encounter stormes and
hard weather, and to remove myselfe with some 40
persons to yo'r ma'ty's dominion in Virginia....'

   He asked for a grant of land in Virginia with all the
privileges of his Avalon patent, and leaving Newfound-
land to the fishermen, sailed for the Chesapeake.

                         [xi]