Part 9 (1/2)
In 1629 he sailed for Virginia, with his wife and children, and arrived at Jamestown the first day of October. His reception by Governor Pott and the Council was by no means cordial. The Virginians were loath either to receive a band of Catholics into their midst, or to concede to them a portion of the land that they held under the royal charters.
Desiring to be rid of Baltimore as speedily as possible, they tendered him the oath of supremacy. This, of course, as a good Catholic he could not take, for it recognized the English sovereign as the supreme authority in all ecclesiastical matters. Baltimore proposed an alternative oath of allegiance, but the Governor and Council refused to accept it, and requested him to leave at once. Knowing that it was his intention to apply for a tract of land within their borders, the Virginians sent William Claiborne after him to London, to watch him and to thwart his designs.
Despite Claiborne's efforts a patent was granted Baltimore, making him lord proprietor of a province north of the Potomac river, which received the name of Maryland. Baltimore, with his own hand, drew up the charter, but in April, 1632, before it had pa.s.sed under the Great Seal, he died.
A few weeks later the patent was issued to his eldest son, Cecilius Calvert. The Virginians protested against this grant ”within the Limits of the Colony”, claiming that it would interfere with their Indian trade in the Chesapeake, and that the establishment of the Catholics so near their settlements would ”give a generall disheartening of the Planters”.[269] But their complaints availed nothing. Not only did Charles refuse to revoke the charter, but he wrote the Governor and Council commanding them to give Lord Baltimore every possible a.s.sistance in making his settlement. You must, he said, ”suffer his servants and Planters to buy and transport such cattle and comodities to their Colonie, as you may conveniently spare ... and give them ... such lawful a.s.sistance as may conduce to both your safetyes”.[270]
The second Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland, and sent him with two vessels and over three hundred men to plant the new colony. In February, 1634, the expedition reached Point Comfort, where it stopped to secure from the Virginians the a.s.sistance that the King had promised should be given them.
They met with scant courtesy. The planters thought it a hard matter that they should be ordered to aid in the establishment of this new colony.
They resented the encroachment upon their territories, they hated the newcomers because most of them were Catholics, they feared the loss of a part of their Indian trade, and they foresaw the growth of a dangerous rival in the culture of tobacco. Despite the King's letter they refused to help Calvert and his men. ”Many are so averse,” wrote Harvey, ”that they crye and make it their familiar talke that they would rather knock their Cattell on the heades than sell them to Maryland.”[271] The Governor, however, not daring to disobey his sovereign's commands, gave the visitors all the a.s.sistance in his power. ”For their present accomodation,” he said, ”I sent unto them some Cowes of myne owne, and will do my best to procure more, or any thinge else they stand in need of.”[272] This action secured for Harvey the praise of the Privy Council, but it made him more unpopular with his Council and the people of Virginia.
After a stay of several weeks at Point Comfort, Calvert sailed up the Chesapeake into the Potomac, and founded the town of Saint Mary's. This, however, was not the first settlement in Maryland. In 1631, William Claiborne, returning from England after his unsuccessful attempt to block the issuing of Baltimore's charter, had established a settlement upon Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Here he had built dwellings and mills and store houses, and had laid out orchards and gardens. In thus founding a colony within Baltimore's territory he was sustained by the Council. When Calvert arrived in 1634 he sent word to Claiborne that he would not molest his settlement, but since Kent Island was a part of Maryland, he must hold it as a tenant of Lord Baltimore. Upon receipt of this message Claiborne laid the matter before his colleagues of the Virginia Council, and asked their commands. The answer of the Councillors shows that they considered the new patent an infringement upon their prior rights and therefore of no effect. They could see no reason, they told Claiborne, why they should render up the Isle of Kent any more than the other lands held under their patents. As it was their duty to maintain the rights and privileges of the colony, his settlement must continue under the government and laws of Virginia.
Despite the defiant att.i.tude of the Virginians, it is probable that Calvert would have permitted the Kent Islanders to remain unmolested, had not a report spread abroad that Claiborne was endeavoring to persuade the Indians to attack Saint Mary's. A joint commission of Virginians and Marylanders declared the charge false, but suspicion and ill will had been aroused, and a conflict could not be avoided. In April, 1635, Governor Calvert, alleging that Claiborne was indulging in illicit trade, fell upon and captured one of his merchantmen. In great indignation the islanders fitted out a vessel, the _c.o.c.katrice_, to scour the Chesapeake and make reprisals. She was attacked, however, by two pinnaces from Saint Mary's and, after a severe conflict in which several men were killed, was forced to surrender. A few weeks later Claiborne gained revenge by defeating the Marylanders in a fight at the mouth of the Potomac.
In these encounters the Kent Islanders had the sympathy of the Virginia planters. Excitement ran high in the colony, and there was danger that an expedition might be sent to Saint Mary's to overpower the intruders and banish them from the country. Resentment against Harvey, who still gave aid and encouragement to Maryland, became more bitter than ever.
His espousal of the cause of the enemies of Virginia made the planters regard him as a traitor. In 1635 Samuel Matthews wrote to Sir John Wolstenholme, ”The Inhabitants also understood with indignation that the Marylanders had taken Capt. Claibournes Pinnaces and men ... which action of theirs Sir John Harvey upheld contrary to his Majesties express commands.”[273] The Councillors held many ”meetings and consultations” to devise plans for the overthrow of the new colony, and an active correspondence was carried on with Baltimore's enemies in England in the vain hope that the charter might yet be revoked.[274]
Matters were now moving rapidly to a crisis. Harvey's administration became more and more unpopular. Sir John Wolstenholme, who kept in close touch with the colony, declared that the Governor's misconduct in his government was notorious at Court and in the city of London.[275] When, in the spring of 1635, he was rudely thrust out of his office, the complaints against him were so numerous that it became necessary to convene the a.s.sembly to consider them.[276]
To what extent Harvey usurped the powers of the General a.s.sembly is not clear, but it seems very probable that he frequently made use of proclamations to enforce his will upon the people.[277] It was quite proper and necessary for the Governor, when the houses were not in session, to issue ordinances of a temporary character, but this was a power susceptible of great abuse. And for the Governor to repeal statutes by proclamation would be fatal to the liberties of the people.
That Harvey was guilty of this usurpation seems probable from the fact that a law was enacted declaring it the duty of the people to disregard all proclamations that conflicted with any act of a.s.sembly.[278]
Also there is reason to believe that Harvey found ways of imposing illegal taxes upon the people. John Burk, in his _History of Virginia_, declares unreservedly that it was Harvey's purpose ”to feed his avarice and rapacity, by a.s.sessing, levying, and holding the public revenue, without check or responsibility”.[279]
In 1634 an event occurred which aroused the anger of the people, widened the breach between the Governor and the Council, and made it evident to all that Harvey would not hesitate upon occasion to disregard property rights and to break the laws of the colony. A certain Captain Young came to Virginia upon a commission for the King. Wis.h.i.+ng to build two shallops while in the colony and having need of a s.h.i.+p's carpenter, Young, with the consent of Harvey, seized a skilled servant of one of the planters. This arbitrary procedure was in direct defiance of a statute of a.s.sembly of March, 1624, that declared that ”the Governor shall not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labors to any service of his own upon any colour whatsoever”.[280]
Upon hearing of the incident Captain Samuel Matthews and other members of the Council came to Harvey to demand an explanation. The Governor replied that the man had been taken because Young had need of him ”to prosecute with speed the King's service”, and ”that his Majesty had given him authority to make use of any persons he found there”.[281]
This answer did not satisfy the Councillors. Matthews declared ”that if things were done on this fas.h.i.+on it would breed ill bloude in Virginia”, and in anger ”turning his back, with his truncheon lashed off the heads of certain high weeds that were growing there”.[282] Harvey, wis.h.i.+ng to appease the Councillors, said, ”Come gentlemen, let us goe to supper & for the night leave this discourse”, but their resentment was too great to be smoothed over, and with one accord rejecting his invitation, ”they departed from the Governour in a very irreverent manner”.[283]
Harvey, in his letters to the English government tried to convey the impression that he was uniformly patient with the Council, and courteous in all the disputes that were constantly arising. That he was not always so self restrained is shown by the fact that on one occasion, he became embroiled with one of the Councillors, Captain Stevens, and knocked out some of his teeth with a cudgel.[284] Samuel Matthews wrote that he had heard the Governor ”in open court revile all the Councell and tell them they were to give their attendance as a.s.sistants only to advise with him”. The Governor attempted, he declared, to usurp the whole power of the courts, without regard to the rights of the Councillors, ”whereby justice was now done but soe farr as suited with his will, to the great losse of many mens estates and a generall feare in all”.[285]
In 1634 the King once more made a proposal to the colonists for the purchase of their tobacco, and demanded their a.s.sent through the General a.s.sembly. The Burgesses, who dreaded all contracts, drew up an answer which was ”in effect a deniall of his Majesties proposition”, and, in order to give the paper the character of a pet.i.tion, they all signed it.
This answer the Governor detained, fearing, he said, that the King ”would not take well the matter thereof, and that they should make it a popular business, by subscribing a mult.i.tude of hands thereto, as thinking thereby to give it countenance”.[286] The Governor's arbitrary action aroused great anger throughout the colony. Matthews wrote Sir John Wolstenholme, ”The Consideration of the wrong done by the Governor to the whole Colony in detayning the foresaid letters to his Majesty did exceedingly perplex them whereby they were made sensible of the condition of the present Government.”[287]
The crisis had now come. During the winter of 1634-35 the Councillors and other leading citizens were holding secret meetings to discuss the conduct of the Governor. Soon Dr. John Pott, whose private wrongs made him a leader in the popular discontent, was going from plantation to plantation, denouncing the Governor's conduct and inciting the people to resistance. Everywhere the angry planters gathered around him, and willingly subscribed to a pet.i.tion for a redress of grievances. In April, 1635, Pott was holding one of these meetings in York, at the house of one William Warrens, when several friends of the Governor presented themselves for admission. ”A servant meeting them told them they must not goe in ... whereupon they desisted and bended themselves to hearken to the discourse among them.” In the confusion of sounds that came out of the house they could distinguish many angry speeches against Harvey and cries against his unjust and arbitrary government. When Pott read his pet.i.tion, and told the a.s.semblage that it had the support of some of the Councillors, they all rushed forward to sign their names.
When Harvey heard of these proceedings he was greatly enraged. Summoning the Council to meet without delay, he issued warrants for Dr. Pott and several others that had aided in circulating the pet.i.tion. ”After a few days Potts was brought up prisoner, having before his apprehending bin in the lower parts of the Country there also mustering his names at a meeting called for that purpose.”[288] He does not seem to have feared the angry threats of the Governor, for when put in irons and brought before the Council, he readily consented to surrender the offending pet.i.tion. At the same time he a.s.serted ”that if he had offended he did appeal to the King, for he was sure of noe justice from Sir John Harvey”. When some of the other prisoners, in their hearing before the Council, asked the cause of their arrest, the Governor told them they should be informed at the gallows.
Shortly after this the Council was summoned to deliberate on the fate of the accused. The Governor, fearing that he might not secure conviction from a jury, ”declared it necessary that Marshall law should be executed upon” them. When the Councillors refused to consent to any other than a legal trial, Harvey flew into a furious pa.s.sion. For a while he paced back and forth in the room hardly able to contain himself. At length he sat down in his chair, and with a dark countenance commanded his colleagues to be seated. A long pause ensued, and then he announced that he had a question that they must answer each in his turn, without deliberation or consultation. ”What,” he enquired, ”doe you think they deserve that have gone about to persuade the people from their obedience to his Majesties subst.i.tute?” ”And I begin with you,” he said, turning to Mr. Minifie. ”I am but a young lawyer,” Minifie replied, ”and dare not uppon the suddain deliver my opinion.” At this point Mr. Farrar began to complain of these strange proceedings, but Harvey commanded him to be silent. Captain Matthews also protested, and the other Councillors soon joined him in refusing to answer the Governor's question. ”Then followed many bitter Languages from him till the sitting ended.”
At the next meeting Harvey asked what the Council thought were the reasons that the pet.i.tion had been circulated against him, and demanded to know whether they had any knowledge of the matter. Mr. Minifie replied that the chief grievance of the people was the detaining of the letter of the a.s.sembly to the King. This answer seems to have aroused the Governor's fury, for, arising from his seat, and striking Mr.
Minifie a resounding blow upon the shoulder, he cried, ”Doe you say soe?
I arrest you upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty.” But Harvey found that he could not deal thus arbitrarily with the Councillors. Utie and Matthews rushed up and seizing him cried, ”And we you upon suspicion of treason to his Majestie”. Dr. Pott, who was present and had probably been waiting for this crisis, held up his hand as a signal to confederates without, ”when straight about 40 musketiers ... which before that time lay hid, came ... running with their peeces presented”
towards the house. ”Stay here,” commanded Pott, ”until there be use of you.”
In the meanwhile the Councillors crowded around Harvey. ”Sir,” said Matthews, ”there is no harm intended you save only to acquaint you with the grievances of the Inhabitants and to that end I desire you to sit downe in your Chayre.”
And there, with the enraged Governor seated before him, he poured out the recital of the people's wrongs. When he had finished there came an ominous pause. Finally Matthews spoke again. ”Sir,” he said, ”the peoples fury is up against you and to appease it, is beyond our power, unlesse you please to goe for England, there to answer their complaints.” But this Harvey refused to do. He had been made Governor of Virginia by the King, he said, and without his command he would not leave his charge.