Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-08-02
ROYALISTC STCROWNCOLONY
Virginia Was Settled By The
Younger Sons Of Cavaliers
Three Ministers To Con-
vert Goddess Vir-
ginia"
THE OLD LIBERTY POPLAR.
Settlement OF Annapolis Connected
With Religious Liberty In Mary
land And Its Establishment By

Law.
In compliance with many requests
for the publication of the paper read
by Mr.. John Writ Randall before
Johns Hopkins students at the Sum
mer School in baltimore, last Friday
night, The Capital is printing the ad-
dress, of which this is the second of
the serial:
Now Virginia was pre-eminently a
Royalist Crown Colony. 1t was set
tied largely by the younger sons of
Cavaliers, disappointed courtiers and
impoverished gentlemen. The estab-
lished religion of that Colony was that
of the Church of England, and that
church had been very actively engaged
in prosecuting the Puritans in the
Mother Country. When the Virginia
Government, therefore, feeling very
bitterly over the situation in the Moth
er Country, found this little band of
Puritans on the Elizabeth River in
creasing in strength and influence and
bringing down from Massachusetts, as
it was said, three ministers of their
faith for the purpose "of converting
the Goddess Virginians, there was
begun persistent series of attempts
to harass these Virginian Puritans with
laws and regulations repressing the
exercise of their religion and requir-
ing them to take obnoxious oaths of
allegiance to the King and of con-
formity to the established church, un-
til, finally, they determined to leave
Virginia altogether and seek religious
and civil liberty elsewhere.
Just across the Potomac, and ex-
tending up the Chesapeake Bay was
the newly established Province of
Maryland, settled in 1884, and to that
Province the prosecuted Puritans
naturally turned their eyes.
Gov. Leonard Calvert, brother of the
Lord Proprietary. Cecilius, had re-
Gently died and Cecilius Calvert had
very wisely appointed as Governor of
his Province, William Stone, of North
ampton county, Virginian, who lived
within few miles of these dissatis-
fed, prosecuted Puritans. Stone was
a Protestant and his appointment was
no doubt largely due to the anxiety of
Calvert to keep on good terms with
his neighbors, the Virginians, and
with the Parliamentary Party in Eng
land. Both of them knew that it
would strengthen their position in
England to have a Colony of Puritans
in their midst and one of the very con-
ditions of the appointment of Cover
nor Stone, as his commission itself
shows, was that he had undertaken in
some short time to procure 500 peo-
Pile of British or Irish descent to come
from other places and plant and reside
within the Province of Maryland, for
the advancement thereof" 'fThe
Conditions of Plantation" in the Prov
ince held out as an inducement to him,
or any one else, for so doing, 200
acres of land for every 20 people whom
he should cause to be transported in to
the Province.
Early Colonial papers and pamph-
lets prove conclusively that the pas
sage of the Religious federation Act
in 1649 and the coming of these Puri-
tans into Maryland the same year,
were intimately connected, as cause
and effect. They had been promised.
if they would come, as they repeat
edly asserted in their subsequent diff
culties with Governor Stone, that
they should have secured to them
liberty of conscience and exemption
from oaths of allegiance, ETC., which
had been required of them in Virginia.
OF course, we all know that relig-
ious liberation had prevailed in the
Province from the time of its settle
oF 81
Act of 1649 was undoubtedly due
largely to the promises made to these
prosecuted Puritans, which led to their
settlement in Maryland. So that the
settlement of Annapolis was intimate
ly connected with and was the most
signal proof of the truth of Religious
Liberty in Maryland and its establish
ment by law.
The Old Liberty Poplar
The next interesting incident con-
nected with that history, to which /
shall call your attention, was the sign
| ing under our old Liberty Poplar, in
| 1851, of the treaty with the Susaue-
hammock Tribe of Indians. That
/ treaty not only secured to the settlers
| in Annapolis comparative safety, but
| to Lord Baltimore the Indian title to
| the whole Western Shore of Maryland,
| from the Patuxent to the Susquehan-
nah; the treaty, moreover, was itself
just and righteous way of acquiring
/ title to the Indian lands, of which our
State may well be proud, and which
was characteristic of Maryland's deal
| ings with he Indians from the begin
ming. That treaty is preserved in the
Land Office in Annapolis. Now that
old tree, which no doubt you will have
especially called to your attention, is
one of the most remarkable in many
ways in the country. 1t is 35 feet
| in circumference at its base. | have
been told by tree culturists and per
sons connected with the Agricultural
Department in Washington that it is
probably considerably over 500 years
| old; and il still stands. not only as the