George Fox in the Province

When intelligence of these unrighteous proceedings reached London, Lord Baltimore obtained an audience with Cromwell, then Lord High Protector and real monarch of England. These eminent men met in the Council Chamber at Whitehall, in friendly conference. Cromwell in power was not like Cromwell fighting for power. He was tolerant. His Latin Secretary, the eminent John Milton (who was present at the interview), had assisted in making him so. When Baltimore courteously protested against the injustice of Puritan legislation in Maryland, the Protector said: "I would that all the sects, like the cedar and the myrtle and the oil-tree, should be planted in the wilderness together," and assured Lord Baltimore that he disapproved of the ungrateful decree. That assurance was followed by an order which Cromwell sent to the commissioners "not to busy themselves about religion, but to settle the civil government."

So encouraged, Lord Baltimore determined to vindicate the rights of his people. He upbraided Stone for his want of firmness, and ordered him to raise an army for the restoration of the authority of the proprietor. Stone, smarting under rebuke, acted vigorously. He raised a force, chiefly of Roman Catholics, seized the colonial records, resumed the office of governor, and inagurated civil war. Skirmishes followed. Finally, a sharp battle was fought, early in April, 1655, near the site of Annapolis, in which Stone was defeated and made prisoner, and about fifty of his party were killed or wounded. The governor and others were tried for treason. His life was spared, but four of his colleagues were hanged.

For several months, anarchy reigned supreme in Maryland, when Lord Baltimore appointed Josias Fendall, a former insurgent, to be governor of the province. Suspected of favoring the Roman Catholics, the Protestant Assembly ordered his arrest as a disturber of the peace, and for two years longer there was bitter strife between the people and the agents of the proprietor. The latter finally made important popular concessions, and Fendall was permitted to act as the governor. By prudent conduct he secured the confidence of the people, and Lord Baltimore anticipated a lasting relief from trouble on account of his American possessions, when Cromwell died and there were disquieting presages of a change in the government of England. The people of Maryland did not wait upon movements at home, but boldly asserting their supreme authority, dissolved the proprietary portion of the General Assembly in the spring of 1660, and assumed the whole legislative power of the State. The popular representatives then gave Fendall a commission as governor.

Three months after this political revolution in Maryland, monarchy was restored in England, and the son of the beheaded sovereign ascended the throne as Charles the Second. This event was soon followed by the restoration of his proprietary authority to Lord Baltimore. Fendall was tried for and found guilty of treason, because he had accepted office from the "rebellious assembly." But Baltimore wisely proclaimed a general pardon for all political offenders, and for about thirty years afterward Maryland enjoyed comparative repose, while her neighbor, Virginia, was torn by civil war. Under the mild proprietary rule, the province prospered and the people were happy. Commerce flourished. The soil yielded rich rewards for labor. Industry was fostered by well-paid labor, and feminine hands found ample and profitable employment, as in peaceful Pennsylvania at the same time. A quaint writer of the period, discoursing on Pennsylvania, says in relation to the "price of women's labor:" "One reason why women's wages are so exorbitant is that they are not very numerous, which makes them stand upon high terms for their several services, and moreover, they are usually married before they are twenty years of age, and when once in that noose, are for the most part a little uneasie, and make their husbands so too, till they procure them a maid-servant to bear the burden of the work, as also, in some measure, to wait on them, too."

Emigrants came to Maryland from almost every part of Europe to enjoy the tolerant rule there; and the pleasant spectacle was seen of George Fox, the founder of the sect called "Friends," or "Quakers," preaching in the evening twilight on the shores of the Chesapeake to a multitude of people, comprising members of the Legislature and other distinguished men of the province, and a large group of Indian kings and chieftains, with their wives and children, led by their emperor. But the refusal of the Friends to perform military duty or take an oath, subjected them to fines and harsh imprisoments. This was a civil matter, and had nothing to do with their religious tenets.

When monarchy was restored, the people of Maryland were in full possession of the liberty founded upon popular sovereignty, and never parted with the precious treasure. The population of the province consisted of about ten thousand white people living together in comparative harmony, the fierceness of religious bigotry having been subdued by mutual concessions.