A ROYAL PROVINCE.-King James got jealous of the London Company. On the plea of mismanagement its charter was cancelled. Virginia was free from a control which, while it made a colony possible, had ever been an interference. Charles I. (1625-1649), in accordance with his father's intentions, would regard it as a Royal Province, to be governed by himself, but fortunately more with a view to securing a revenue from its tobacco and other staples, than with a design to interfere seriously with the political rights of the colonists. But up came the question of boundary. Virginia had no limits but those in the charter, and it was gone. There was, therefore, no Virginia for the map. Only the settlement called Virginia remained, and the best it could do was to claim the old charter limits, whether the charter existed or not. It therefore crossed swords with the Marylander who had come with his grant right into the midst of the Virginia territory. But the flurry soon passed . over. The fate of Charles I. was sealed. Virginia thought to fight Cromwell, but by capitulating got terms which were almost equivalent to independence. Cromwell never bothered himself about governors nor anything else outside of the mere question of allegiance. So the colonists elected their own governors, and the custom once established, it ever after prevailed. A grand step toward popular independent government in the new world!

MARYLAND CHARTER.-The mind of the Virginian was not clear as to his country. Under the charter of 1606 his domain was practically boundless to the north. Under an amended charter he could claim to 41° (200 miles north of Old Point Comfort), which was vaguely supposed to be the southern limit of New England, or the southern boundary of the New Netherlands. At any rate he would, now that he was prosperous and had ambitions, push his enterprises north of the ing laws and regulations. The force of sentiment outside of themselves, especially that sentiment born of traffic and cupidity, was stronger than the true and just colonial instinct, and hence ordinances discouraging slavery became dead letters. But time would have corrected the errors of cupidity, all along the colonial line, had it not happened that as long as the slave traffic was active, the climate, staples and commercial tastes of the Southern colonies permitted the introduction of the slave element to such an extent that heroic action against the system became impolitic.

Potomac and Susquehannah. But, alack! he was suddenly cut off. Sir George Calvert had tried a Catholic settlement at Avalon on the coasts of Newfoundland, but cold, a barren soil, and French fishermen, had driven him away. He would try again in a more favorable clime. His influence with the king (James I.) was great, and the canceling of the Virginia patents had restored to the monarch his authority over the soil. The French, the Dutch, the Swedes, were preparing to come. Why shouldn't Calvert have a slice of kindly soil for his experiment? He got it, and evidently wrote his own charter.* It gave him a clean slice of what was Virginia. Its bounds were the ocean, the 40th parallel, the meridian through the fountain of the Potomac, that river to its mouth, and a line from Watkin's Point to the ocean-almost the Maryland of to-day. Calvert's (Lord Baltimore's) province was a creation with a definite boundary, the first, it may be said, thus far, † and it was Maryland, after Maria, wife of Charles I. Lord Baltimore was a Proprietary, that is, the country was his estate. He was governor, subject to the provisions of the charter, which were very liberal indeed, securing to the colonists representative government from the start, and therein contrasting strongly with the Virginia charter, granted to mere trading companies. Christianity was by the charter made the law, but no preference was given to any sect, and equality in religious rights not less than in civil freedom, was assured. Sir George Calvert died April 15, 1632, but the charter was confirmed to his son, Cecil, June 20, 1632. As has been noted, Virginia was

* "The nature of the document itself, and concurrent opinion, leave no room to doubt that it was penned by the first Lord Baltimore himself, although it was finally Issued to his son.”—Bancroft, vol. i., 241.

† Ignorance of the geography of the interior left many of the early grants with out western limits. Some had the clause inserted "and extending through to the Pacific," or "extending from ocean to ocean." But in general they were vague, and the source of much future difficulty, as were those north and south boundaries which so overlapped each other. The failure of the successive monarchs to understand what their predecessors had done, the lapsing of so many grants by time or by non-user, the desire of each monarch to gratify his friends or to map a new colonial policy of his own, all these contributed to the confusion of charter bound

furious over this robbery of her domain. She at first warred a little about it, then carried her case to England, but the king's privy council told her to go home and cultivate amicable relations with her neighbor. Her wrath had time to cool while the boundary between her and Maryland was being adjusted. Calvert knew quite well the folly of attempting a Catholic experiment, no matter how liberal its provisions, so near the Virginia settlement, and within its claimed limits, without first securing for it carefully determined boundaries. Virginia's church was the established church, which, liberal at first, was nearly ripe for that uncharitable statute which banished all non-conformists and made their return a felony.

SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND.- March 27, 1634, Calvert founded his village of St. Mary's, and his state. The Ark and Dove bore his colony. He treated with the Indians and bought their soil. Thus his possession was peaceable, except that Clayborne of Virginia wanted to drive him away by force.* The colonists stuck from the start, and, unlike those of Virginia, went to work. In six months St. Mary's was ahead of Jamestown in its sixth year.† In one year the people, not liking Calvert's Code, passed one of their own which, though it did not go into effect, resulted in such modifications of Calvert's as they wished. The "religious freedom" of the charter took as wide shape in the statutes as was then possible. It embraced all Christians, but with the awful proviso that, "Whatever person shall blaspheme God or shall deny or reproach the Holy Trinity, or any of the three persons thereof, shall be punished with death." Nowhere in the United States is religious opinion now regarded as a proper subject for such a penalty or for any penal enactment at all. We have seen how Virginia profited by the neglect of Cromwell, under the English Commonwealth.

* The native tribe had been punished by the Susquehannahs on the north, and was just about to quit its seats on the Potomac, when Calvert came. He therefore was able to drive a good bargain with them, and to quiet his title with a few presents of clothes, axes, hoes, knives, etc.

"Within six months it (the Maryland colony) had advanced more than Virginia had done in as many years."-Bancroft, vol. i., p. 247.

New England did the same. But Maryland went through the fires of angry disputation. With the king gone, where was the Proprietary who held from and under him? "Gone too," said Virginia. "Gone too," said Cromwell, though he was going to trust to Calvert's good sense to manage things. But Virginia, through the ambitious Clayborne, got over into Maryland, and under cover of a commission actually ran away with the government. Maryland had invited Puritans. They were strong in Anne Arundel, and were Cromwellian republicans. Calvert was shrewd enough to save his charter, but when he went to reduce the Puritans he was whipped and his agent, Stone, was imprisoned. Clayborne could reduce neither Catholics nor Puritans. Thus matters stood for years, till the people voted themselves a lawful assembly, without dependence on other power in the province, and enacted compromise laws, which Virginia ultimately assented to, and which both Puritan and Catholic could respect. Thus Maryland like Virginia was, at the restoration of Charles II. (1660), in full possession of liberty based on the sovereignty of the people, and like Virginia it had so nearly completed its political institutions that not much further progress was made toward freedom and independence till the period of final separation from England (1776).

THE PLYMOUTH COUNCIL.-We must now go back a little in time and look northward. The Virginia charter of 1606 incorporated two monstrous companies, the London Company (Southern colony), and Western or Plymouth Company (Northern colony). We have seen how the London Company succeeded at Jamestown, and how it was shorn of its rights in Virginia. What did the Western or Plymouth Company do with its splendid grant of lands (in Virginia remember) between New York and Labrador, 41° to 45°, and its magnificent privileges? Under Popham himself it settled at St. George on the Kennebec (1607). But Popham died and the colony failed.* Inspired

*The Maine historians make much of this settlement, not only as ante-dating all others in Northern Virginia or New England, but as going to show the directness of the Maine title from the Virginia charter of 1606, and therefore the wrongfulness

anew by Smith, the Virginia hero, who had (1614) scoured the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod and named the country New England, another trial was made, but the colony never landed. Still Smith's enthusiasm was all pervading. A new and independent charter was sought for the company. This set the Londoners and Westerlings to fighting. But clashing interests could not stay results. Out of the conflicting claims came a charter to forty of the king's favorites, many of them members of both the old competing companies, and the best men in them. It was one of the most sweeping papers which ever bore royal signature. Its date was Nov. 3d, 1620, and it incorporated "The council established at Plymouth (England) for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England, in America."

NATURE OF THIS CHARTER.-Note first the size of the territory it covered, and how it wiped out the entire field given to both the London and Western Companies in the charter of 1606, also how it silenced forever the legal claim of Virginia (not the popular claim) to her domain north of 40°. It extended in breadth from 40° to 48° north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific; that is, it embraced nearly all the inhabitable British possessions of to-day,* all New England, New York, more than half of New Jersey, nearly all Pennsylvania, and the mighty sweep westward of all these States. So grand an empire had never been given away by a single stroke of the pen. But more, and worse, the charter gave to forty men the soil, the sole power of legislation, the selection of all officers, the formation of a government, and powers over commerce as arbitrary as those con

of the claim which Massachusetts subsequently made good. Had the Kennebec colony stuck, they would have much better ground for their position; or had not the character of titles shifted. Even at this early date the principle was abroad that a title confirmed by actual settlement was better than one with no such substantial backing.

* It paid no attention to the French possession of New France, which was already permanently occupied at Port Royal, Quebec, and many other places along the St. Lawrence. The thought evidently was to rely on the old Cabot title by discovery, claim the continent, and drive off settlers of other nationalities if necessary.