Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/104

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80
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF MARYLAND.
[Bk. I.

having established a post on the Isle of Kent, and another at the mouth of the Susquehanna, he and his associates were little disposed to look with favor upon any grant or charter likely to interfere with their license. Clayborne's appeal to the Privy Council was set aside, and orders were sent to Virginia, insisting upon a good understanding being maintained, and forbidding that either should entertain fugitives from the other.

Leonard Calvert, a natural son of the first Lord Baltimore, was appointed by his brother Cecil, to the command of the company destined to found the colony of Maryland. They embarked in the Ark and Dove, in November, 1633. proceeded byway of the West Indies, and early the next year arrived in the Chesapeake. The number of the new settlers was about two hundred, mostly of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and many of them ranking amongst gentry. They were courteously received by Governor Harvey, and had no difficulty in fixing upon a site for a settlement. Calvert entered the Potomac, and upon a spot partly occupied, which was about to be abandoned by the Indians, and was ceded by them the next year in full to the emigrants, he built the little village of St. Mary's. The liberal provisions of the charter, and the unusual readiness with which the Indians were willing to give them a peaceful footing upon the soil, were all in favor of the establishment and rapid progress of the colony; and had it not been for the unfriendly acts and vindictive spirit of Clayborne, hardly a difficulty or trial worth mention would have disturbed the steady growth and prosperity of Maryland. In August of the present year (1634) Calvert sent the Dove to Massachusetts with a cargo of corn, to exchange for fish. But notwithstanding the friendly advances of Calvert, backed by Harvey of Virginia, the suspiciousness of the Puritans was too strong to admit of any thing like cordiality; some sharp words passed between the ship's people and the inhabitants; and when the Dove was allowed to depart, the master was charged "to bring no more such disordered persons."

Clayborne's hostility did not sleep. Beside endeavoring to injure the colonists with the Indians, he even ventured to fit out a small vessel, under color of his exclusive right to trade, and gave orders to capture all the water craft of the colonists. Two armed boats from St. Mary's pursued the vessel ; an engagement took place; several lives were lost, and the officers made prisoners. Clayborne escaped to Virginia, and was demanded by Calvert as a fugitive from justice; but Harvey declined giving him up, and he was sent to England.

Colonization proceeded steadily, though not rapidly. The proprietary offered very liberal terms to settlers, in the expectation that his own heavy outlays might to some extent at least, be reimbursed : during the first two years he expended nearly $200,000 on the colony. But in no respect, probably, was the wisdom of Lord Baltimore more evident than in his yielding to the wishes of the colo- .