Baltimore to his brother for the conduct of the first expedition. In this letter the Governor was directed to treat Claiborne kindly and fairly, to notify him of the arrival of the new settlers, and to invite him to an interview concerning his settlement on Kent Island. If he refused this invitation he was to be let alone for the first year, until further directions should be sent out from Lord Baltimore. The Proprietor also directed the settlers to "avoid any occasion of difference with those of Virginea, and to have as little to do with them as they cann this first year; that they connive and suffer little injuryes from them rather then to engage themselves in a publique quarrel with them."*

Leonard Calvert agreed to let Claiborne keep his settlement and trade as much as he wished if he would get a license from the Maryland government. This he refused to do, and insisted that his settlement was a part of Virginia. The Virginia Council, of which he was a member, upheld him in this.

Claiborne's Claim
Supported by the
Virginia Council.

About this time the St. Mary's settlers began to notice that the neighboring Indians appeared to be growing less friendly. An inquiry into the causes of this through an interpreter, a certain Captain Henry Fleete, disclosed that the Indians had been told that the newcomers were Spaniards, whom they hated, and not Englishmen. This might have led the Indians to go on the warpath and massacre the settlers at St. Mary's. Claiborne was accused of having told the Indians this story, but it is not very probable that he did so. However, Lord Baltimore was alarmed,

Fears of an Indian
Outbreak.

* Letter of instructions given to Leonard Calvert by Lord Baltimore, November 13, 1633. See Browne's "George and Cecilius Calvert," p. 56.

and as Claiborne still refused to submit and continued to trade without the required license, it was ordered that he should be made a prisoner, and that possession should be taken of Kent Island. In 1635 one of Claiborne's ships was seized and sold, with her cargo, for trading without a license. Claiborne at once armed another vessel, the Cockatrice, and sent it out to capture any Maryland ships it might meet.

Claiborne's Ships
Captured with
Bloodshed.

Lord Baltimore met this move by fitting out two vessels which presently captured the Cockatrice after a fight in which several men were killed and wounded. This occurred on April 23, 1635, in the Pocomoke River. On May 10 there was another fight and more bloodshed near the same place.

The next chapter in the story is that disputes arose between Claiborne and the merchants to whom he sent the furs he got in trade. Claiborne had to go to London to settle matters with them, and in his absence Leonard Calvert took possession of Kent Island, and Palmer's Island, at the head of the Chesapeake. He found there two leaders who kept the settlers from submitting, John Boteler, who was Claiborne's brother-in-law, and Thomas Smith. The latter had gone northward to the settlement on Palmer's Island, where, he thought, he had passed the limits of Lord Baltimore's colony. There, it was said, he had persuaded the fierce Susquehannoughs to attack St. Mary's. Governor Calvert took both these men prisoners, and they were both tried for piracy and The Dispute Settled in Lord Baltimore's condemned. Boteler, showing a good disposition, was pardoned, and was afterwards appointed commander of the militia of the island. He remained faithful to the government from that time

Favor, 1638.

on.

It is not known what became of Smith. This happened in February, 1638, and two months later, in April, the whole dispute was finally settled in England in Lord Baltimore's favor by the Board of Commissioners for the Plantations.

Claiborne, however, bided his time. Six years later he invaded Maryland and took Kent Island. At the same time one Richard Ingle, a tobacco trader and agent of Parliament, captured St. Mary's with an armed force.

of Ingle and Claiborne.

For a year or more Ingle and his folThe "Plundering Time" lowers sailed about the Chesapeake, seizing tobacco, corn, cattle and other goods. The Governor took refuge in Virginia until, in the end of the year 1646, with a force of Marylanders and Virginians he succeeded in driving out both Claiborne and Ingle.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY HISTORY CONTINUED.

Leonard Calvert died soon after, in June, 1647, naming Mistress Margaret Brent his executrix. She was a woman of strong character. With her sister Mary she had brought nine colonists to Maryland, had received a manor, and managed affairs as well as any man. She even asked to be allowed to vote in the Assembly, but this the Governor refused.

During the Claiborne and Ingle disturbances the missionary stations which had been established among the Indians were broken up, and the Jesuit priest, Andrew White, who had been one of the first party of settlers and was now grown old, was sent in irons to England, charged with treason. He was tried and found innocent, but never returned to Maryland. He died in 1656.

In the meantime the troubles between the King and Parliament had arisen in England, and these troubles affected all the colonies. In 1648 William Stone, a Protestant and a supporter of Parliament, was appointed Governor of Maryland. At the same time changes were made in the Council which gave the Protestants a majority of its members. It was under this Governor and Council that the famous "Toleration Act" of Maryland was passed, in 1649, the year in which Charles I. was beheaded. This Act decreed, among other things, that it be "ordered and enacted . . that noe person or per

The "Toleration

Act" Passed,

April 21, 1649.

fessing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth