Voyage of Emigrants to Maryland

The Maryland charter, it is said, was drawn up by the hand of the first Lord Baltimore. It was evidently copied, substantially, from the one granted by Charles to his Attorney-General, Sir Robert Heath, for "Carolina," a territory south of the Roanoke River. It gave greater democratic privileges to the settlers under it than any yet issued by monopolist or monarch. It declared that the territory was "out of the plenitude of royal power;" the people were exempted from taxation by the crown except by their own consent; and other important political privileges were secured to them. It silently allowed religious toleration. While it directed the dedication and consecration of "churches, chapels, and places of worship" in accordance with the prescriptions of the ecclesiastical laws of England, the matter of a state theology was left entirely untouched, and within the legislative power of the colonists themselves. This toleration was a wise provision. It promoted the growth of the colony when it was established, for those who were persecuted by the Puritans of New England and the Churchmen of Virginia, went thither and found a refuge and peace. The charter also provided that the proprietary should have "free, full, and absolute power to enact all laws necessary for the common good, not, however, with-out the 'advice, consent, and approbation of the freemen of the province' or their representatives convoked in general assembly." This was the first instance of any provision having been made in an American patent for securing to the citizen a share in legislation.

Armed with this charter, young Lord Baltimore set about the business of colonizing his domain, not for an asylum for his persecuted co-religionists, but chiefly for pecuniary gain. He appointed his half-brother, Leonard Calvert, governor; and on the 22d of November, 1633, that kinsman and his brother, "with very near twenty other gentlemen of very good fashion, and three hundred laboring men" (so Lord Baltimore wrote to Wentworth, after-ward Earl of Stafford), sailed from Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, in two ships, the Ark and Dove. The Calverts and the other "gentlemen" and some of the laborers were Roman Catholics, but a greater portion of the latter were Protestants, who took the oath of supremacy before leaving England. The emigrants were accompanied by two Jesuit priests, Fathers Andrew White and John Altham. They performed religious ceremonies at the point of departure, while a gentle east wind was blowing, "committing the principal parts of the ship to the protection of God especially, and of His most Holy Mother, and St. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland."

The colonists took the tedious southern route by way of the Canaries and the West Indies. They had just escaped the perils of The Needles on the coast of the Isle of Wight, when the fear of the Turkish cruisers, then the terror of all Christian seamen, took possession of them. This fear was soon allayed by the appearance of a large English merchantman called The Dragon, well armed and bound for Angola, which would convoy them beyond the line of danger. When only two days out, they were overtaken by a furious gale. The Dragon turned back; the emigrant vessels went forward. The tempest increased when the night came on. The people of the Dove, the smaller vessel, notified the officers of the staunch Ark that in case of danger they would hang out a lighted lantern at the masthead. That signal of distress appeared at midnight for a few minutes, and then suddenly vanished. "All are lost!" thought the tenants of the Ark, and they grieved sorely. They had no doubt the Dove, with her precious freight of Christians, had gone to the bottom of the sea.

For three days the tempest swept the ocean, when suddenly the clouds gathered in fearful tumult, rain fell in torrents, and for a few minutes a dreadful hurricane threatened instant destruction to all in its path. It seemed as if "all the malicious spirits of the storm, and all the evil genii of Maryland had come forth to battle" against the good ship. Her mainsail was split from top to bottom; her rudder was unshipped, and she was left at the mercy of the winds and waves. In mortal terror the emigrants fell on their knees and prayed; and the Roman Catholics uttered vows in honor of "the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception; of St. Ignatius, the patron saint of Maryland; St. Michael, and all the guardian angels of the same country." "I had betaken myself to prayer," says Father White, from whose narrative I have quoted, "when the sea was raging its worst, and (may this be to the glory of God) I had scarcely finished, when they observed that the storm was abating." After that the voyagers had delightful weather for three months, on the sea and on the land.