A FRAGMENT OF HISTORY.

Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, the son of Cecilius, was, according to the testimony of all our annalists, a worthy gentleman and an upright ruler.  He was governor of Maryland, by the appointment of his father, from 1662 to 1675, and after that became the Lord Proprietary by inheritance, and administered the public affairs in person.  His prudence and judgment won him the esteem of the best portion of his people, and the Province prospered in his hands.

All our histories tell of the troubles that beset the closing years of his residence in Maryland.  They arose partly out of his religion, and in part out of the jealousy of the crown concerning the privileges of his charter.

He was a Roman Catholic; but, like his father, liberal and tolerant in opinion, and free from sectarian bias in the administration of his government.  Apart from the influence of his father’s example, the training of his education, his real attachment to the interests of the Province, and his own natural inclination,—­all of which pointed out to him the duty as well as the advantage of affording the utmost security to the freedom of religious opinion,—­the conditions under which he held his proprietary rights rendered a departure from this policy the most improbable accusation that could be made against him.  The public mind of England at that period was fevered to a state of madness by the domestic quarrel that raged within the kingdom against the Catholics.  The people were distracted with constant alarms of Popish plots for the overthrow of the government.  The King, a heartless profligate, absorbed in frivolous pleasures, scarcely entertained any grave question of state affairs that had not some connection with his hatreds and his fears of Catholics and Dissenters.  Then, also, the Province itself was composed, in far the greater part, of a Protestant population,—­computed by some contemporary writers at the proportion of thirty to one,—­a population who were guarantied freedom of conscience by the Charter, and who possessed all necessary power both legal and physical to enforce it.

Under such circumstances as these, how is it possible to impute designs against the old established toleration, which had marked the history of Maryland from its first settlement to that day, to so prudent and careful a ruler as Charles Calvert, without imputing to him, at the same time, a folly so absurd as to belie every opinion that has ever been uttered to his advantage?

Yet, notwithstanding these improbabilities, the accusation was made and affected to be believed by the King and his Council; the result of which was that a royal order was sent to the Proprietary, commanding him to dismiss every Catholic from employment in the Province, and to supply their places by the appointment of Protestants.