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for which death was the punishment. Father White
pleaded, however, that his return was not voluntary,
and escaped.
The avowed object of both these piratical raids was the destruction of the Catholic colony of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, seeing the disturbed condition of things, wrote to his brother the governor to save what he could out of the wreck of his fortunes and retire from the province. Leonard Calvert had, however, already taten st^ps to recover possession, and, return- ing with a small force of friencis and adherents, drove out the marauders and re-established his authority. While Cecilius Calvert was thus confronting his ene- mies, who with untiring industry were seeking to involve his charter, his proN'ince, ms colonists and the Jesuit fathers in a common ruin, he became engaged in an unfortunate controversy with the Jesuits over a tract of land they had received as a gift from some of their Indian converts without the knowledge or con- sent of the Proprietary, and the surrender of which the governor demanded. The priests refused to give it up until, after several years of somewhat acrimoni- ous controversy, the father general of the order decided in Lord Baltimore's favour. Lord Baltimore did not object so much to the acquisition of lands by the fathers, but to the method and manner of that acqui- sition by grants or gifts from the Indians, in deroga- tion of what he regarded his right and his title to these lands, under the express provisions of his charter. In 1651 Cecilius Calvert set apart 10,000 acres of land near Calverton Manor for the benefit of the Indian con- verts, under the care and direction of the fathers, the first fund established within the English possessions in America for the support of Indian missions.
Peace and order oeing restored by the return of Governor Leonard Calvert to the province, and the re-establishment of Lord Baltimore's authority, Mary- land entered on a brief period of prosperity and began to grow in population and wealth. There are no statistics on wnich to base an opinion as to the number of the inhabitants of the province at this period (1645), but the best opinion puts it at between tour and five thousand. Three-fourths of this num- ber were Catholics. They held most of the offices under the appointment of the proprietary, and con- stituted a majority of the legislative body, and con- tinued to do so until the Puritan Rebellion. The number of Jesuits serving the Maryland Missions aver- aged four annually from 1634 to 1650. Among them were Fathers Andrew White, Thomas Copley {alias Philip Fisher), and Ferdinand Poulton (alias John BrocK and Morgan). These missionaries converted nearly if not quite all of the Protestant colonists who came out in the Ark and the Dove, and many of those who had come into the province afterwards from Eng- land and Virginia. To these were added, pending the difficulty between the fathers and Lord Baltimore, four Franciscans, who soon retired, however, and left the field to the Jesuits.
In 1649 the General Assembly of the province passed the celebrated Toleration Act. From the foundation of the colony, therefore, religious freedom had been the inviolable rule and practice of the pro- vincial government. Under a provision in the charter giving to the Lonls Baltimore the initiation of legisla- tion in the province, Cecilius Calvert had drawn up a body of laws, sixteen in number, to be adopted by the Assembly, and among them was this famous Act. It was passed by that body, the majority of whom were Catholics, without a dissenting voice. " And whereas ", it reads, "the enforcing of the conscience in mat- ters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practised, and for the more auiet and peaceable government of the province and the better to preserve mutual love and amity amongst the in- habitants thereof: Be it therefore enacted that noe
person or persons whatsoever within this province
.... professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall hence-
forth DC in any waies troubled, molested or discoun-
tenanced for or in respect of his or her religion or in
the free exercise thereof within this province nor in
anything compelled to the belief or exercise of any
other religion against his or her consent." The act
then pro\'iide8 penalties for violation of its provisions.
In the controversies about this celebrated Act of
Toleration, efforts have been made by many Protestant
writers to deprive Cecilius Calvert of the merit of its
authorship, but the judgment of all fair historians
gives to Cecilius Calvert, and to him alone, following
the example of his father, the honour of " being the
first in the annals of mankind ", as Bancroft says in his
"History of the United States", "to make religious
freedom the basis of the State ".
Cecilius Calvert was a conscientious Catholic. In- deed, " it was to that fact that he owed the continuous hostility he had to meet with", says Prof. William Hand Browne of Johns Hopkins University in his " History of a Paktinate " : " He had only to declare himself a Protestant and all this hostility would have ceased. This he did not do. " In 1643, the House of Burgesses of Virginia passed a stringent law requiring of all persons a strict conformity with the worship and discipline of the Church of England, the established Church of that colony. This act was put into vigorous execution by the governor, and a considerable body of Puritans were driven out of Virginia into Maryland . At their solicitation Governor Stone gave them a large tract of land on the Severn, where they made a settle- ment, calling it Providence (now Annapolis). Soon they began to complain that their consciences would not allow them to acknowledge the authority of a Catholic proprietary, and in 1650 they started a rebellion, and seized the government of the colony. They convened a General Assembly to which Catholics were declared to be ineligible either as members or electors. The first thing this illegal and revolutionary body did was to repeal the Act of Toleration of 1649, and to enact another " Concerning Religion " which contained this proNision: "That none who profess and exercise the Papistic, commonly known as the Roman Catholic re- ligion, can be protected in this province." By this act Catholics and Church of England adherents were expressly proscribed, and the profession of any other religion could be included as the caprice or intolerance of its authors should at any time require.
During the Puritan usurpation the Catholic Churoh suffered greatly. Swashbucklers paraded the province, breaking into the chapels and mission houses and de- stroying property. Three of the Jesuit priests fled to Virginia, where they kept themselves in hiding for two or three years, enduring great privations. One only remained in Maryland. In 1658 the govern- ment of the province was restored to Lord Baltimore. A General Assembly was convoked which re-enacted the Toleration Act of 1649. This Act remained on the statute book under the Catholic proprietaries until the Protestant Revolution of 1689. Maryland now en-
J'oyed another era of quiet and prosperity, and the esuits returning to the province resumed their mLsh sionary labours. In 1660 the population of the prov- ince numbered 12,000; in 1665, 16,000; and in 1671, 20,000. This rapid increase is a proof of the wisdom and liberality of the proprietary's rule. The Catholic inhabitants auring tnis period, the majority of whom were in St. Mary s and Charles Counties, were esti- mated to be between 4000 and 5000, served by two, sometimes three, Jesuits and two Franciscans who arrived in 1673.
Philip Calvert, brothtr of Cecilius, was governor from 1660 to 1662, when he was succeeded by Charles Calvert, the son and heir of Cecilius, who, on the death of his father in 1675, became the third Lord Baltimore and second proprietary of the province. Chariee
