Maryland Historical Magazine, 1961, Volume 56, Issue No. 2
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MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE VOL. 56, No. 2 JUNE, 1961 CONTENTS PAGE Sir Edmund Plowden's Advice to Cecilius Calvert Edited by Edward C. Carter, II 117 The James J. Archer Letters. Part I Edited by C. ^. Porter Hopkins 125 A British Officers' Revolutionary War Journal, 1776-1778 Edited by S. Sydney Bradford 150 Religious Influences on the Manumission of Slaves Kenneth L. Carroll 176 Sidelights 198 A Virginian and His Baltimore Diary: Part IV Edited by Douglas H. Gordon Reviews of Recent Books 204 Walsh, Charleston's Sons of Liberty: A Study of the Artisans, 1763- 1789, by Richard B. Morris Manakee, Maryland in the Civil War, by Theodore M. Whitfield Hawkins, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874- 1889, by George H. Callcott Tonkin, My Partner, the River: The White Pine Story on the Susquehanna, by Dorothy M. Brown Hale, Pelts and Palisades: The Story of Fur and the Rivalry for Pelts in Early America, by R. V. Truitt Beitzell, The Jesuit Missions of St. Mary's County, Maryland, by Rev. Thomas A. Whelan Rightmyer, Parishes of the Diocese of Maryland, by George B. Scriven Altick, The Scholar Adventurers, by Ellen Hart Smith Levin, The Szolds of Lombard Street: A Baltimore Family, 1859- 1909, by Wilbur H. Hunter, Jr. Hall, Edward Randolph and the American Colonies, 1676-1703, by Verne E. Chatelain Gipson, The British Isles and the American Colonies: The Southern Plantations, 1748-1754, by Paul R. Locher Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society, by S. Sydney Bradford Doane, Searching for Your Ancestors: The How and Why of Genealogy, by Gust Skordas Notes and Queries 224 Contributors 228 Annual Subscription to the Magazine, $4.00. Each issue $1.00. The Magazine assumes no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed in its pages. Richard Walsh, Editor C. A. Porter Hopkins, Asst. Editor Published quarterly by the Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore 1, Md. Second-class postage paid at Baltimore, Md. THE ARMORIAL AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL of HERALDRY, GENEALOGY AND RELATED SUBJECTS Sixty pages, colour plates and black and white illustrations. Price: $1.25; $4.00 annually, or $11.00 for 3 years. For delivery by Air Mail, add $.75 for each issue. Address The Editor THE ARMORIAL 1 Darnaway Street Edinburgh 3, Scotland PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY Add 25 cents for mailing and Maryland sales tax where applicable Maryland in the Civil War By Harold R. Manakce, Assistant Director, Maryland Historical Society. 1961. 173 p., board covers, maps, illustrations and bibliography. Ninth grade and above $4.50 Early Explorations of the Chesapeake Bay By Gilbert Byron. 22 p. with maps, illustrations, discussion questions and bibliography. High school level $1.00 William Buckland, 1734-177£: Architect of Virginia and Maryland By Rosamond Randall Beirne and John Henry Scarff, F.A.I.A. 1958. (Studies in Maryland History No. 4) $7.50 The Dulanys of Maryland, Study of Daniel Dulany, the Elder and the Younger By Aubrey C. Land. 1955. (Studies in Maryland History No. 3) $6.00 My Maryland By Kaessmann, Manakee and Wheeler. History of Maryland, revised edition, 1955 $3.15 History of Queen Anne's County By Frederic Emory. 1950 $7.50 Semmes and Kindred Families By Harry Wright Newman. 1956 $10.00 The Regimental Colors of the 175th Infantry (Fifth Maryland) By Col. Roger S. Whiteford, 2nd, and Harold R. Manakee. 1959. Illus- trated $2.00 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE A Quarterly Volume 56 JUNE, 1961 Number 2 SIR EDMUND PLOWDEN'S ADVICE TO CECILIUS CALVERT, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE: A LETTER OF 1639 Edited by EDWARD C. CARTER, II BY the late summer of 1639, Charles I's attempt to enforce the Anglican Service in Presbyterian Scotland had ended in humiliation for the English monarch. The ten years of non- parliamentary rule, financed by forced loans and ship-money, were drawing to a close.1 Charles unhappily realized that with- out the support of the English gentry and the taxes voted by Parliament his government was but a wisp of smoke, and that he could not maintain the law much less discipline the stiff- 1 The freemen of Maryland observed the ten year hiatus of Parliament, and passed in 1639 legislation which provided for the calling of the Assembly at least once every three years. Matthew P. Andrews, The History of Maryland (Garden City, 1929), p. 70. 117 118 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE necked Calvinists to the north. Hence Parliament was recalled in 1640, but that body, before it would vote the needed supply, demanded that Charles guarantee that his unconstitutional excesses would not be repeated, and that he would put aside his unfriendly attitude towards such Protestant nations as Scotland and the Netherlands. This attack upon his prerogative the Stuart king would not admit, and in the end, Parliament's attempt to so limit Charles produced the English Civil War. The crisis engulfing the King also threatened his loyal subject Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. The Scottish fiasco was de- nounced by the Puritans as a step in Archbishop Laud's pro- gram for reuniting Canterbury and Rome. There was a demand for the strict enforcement of the recusancy laws 2 which would have thrown the affairs of the Catholic Lord Baltimore once again into confusion. Only during the previous year, had his long-standing conflict with Captain William Claiborne over Kent Island been brought to a happy issue with the confirma- tion of Baltimore's title to the place by the Lords Commis- sioners of Plantations.3 Thus faced with a rising tide of religious prejudice, burdened with the management of his lands in England, Ireland, and Maryland, Cecilius Calvert received, in September of 1639, a letter from Sir Edmund Plowden dis- closing new threats to the Palatinate of Maryland.4 The author of this communication was a member of one of the most prominent Catholic families in England. Plowden had been an acquaintance of Cecilius's father, George Calvert, the First Lord Baltimore, and perhaps the example of that august gentleman led Sir Edmund to petition Charles I early in 1632 for a grant of land to be held as a county palatine " within the bounds of Virginia " near the thirty-ninth parallel.5 The charter was formally issued on June 21, 1634, under the Great Seal of Ireland and enrolled in Dublin; it created Plow- 2 This was legislation that penalized those who failed to conform to the Church of England. 8 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History (4 vols.; New Haven, 1936), II, 306. 4 I am greatly indebted to Mr. Clifford Lewis 3rd of Media, Pa., for drawing this document to my attention, and further for his scholarly transcription of the letter, which appears below, that he made in the course of his research on Plowden's New Albion some twenty years ago. B Calendar State Papers, Colonial {1574-1660), p. 154 (60). SIR EDMUND PLOWDEN'S ADVICE TO CECIHUS CALVERT 119 den Earl Palatine of the Province of New Albion.6 With that honor, Plowden received all the regal powers of government which had passed to Lord Baltimore under his charter. The limits of New Albion were also spelled out in the instrument, and modern studies indicate that the boundaries of Maryland and New Albion were not contiguous but overlapped. This interpretation locates the north east corner of Sir Edmund's holding at Newark Bay; the boundary runs south to Sandy Hook, and then follows the New Jersey shore to Cape May. The southern line travels west through Kent Island to Wash- ington. From that point, the western boundary extends north for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles before executing a ninety degree turn to the east and returns to Newark Bay. The reason for this double grant of territory may have been to encourage rapid settlement on the Delaware as a bulwark against the New Amsterdam Dutch.7 Therefore, Lord Balti- more and Sir Edmund Plowden, both English Catholics, shared a mutual interest in lands west of the Delaware between the thirty-ninth and fortieth parallels. In his letter, Plowden touches on many salient political, social, and economic problems that plagued early Virginia and Maryland. He commenced his recital by informing Lord Balti- more that four men had applied to him for land in New Albion. Two of these, William Claiborne and Samuel Matthews, were ancient foes of the Calvert family. Both aided in driving George Calvert from Virginia in 1629 when he failed to take the Oath of Supremacy because of his faith; 8 both vigorously lobbied against the issuance of the Maryland Charter in 1632.9 Claiborne engaged in open warfare with Maryland in his at- 6 The enrolled copy was destroyed in the Four Courts Fire in 1921, but a certified copy of the charter was made in 1880, and reprinted in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMBH) , VII (1883) , 55-66. 7 For a full discussion of the charter powers and the boundary thesis see Edward C. Carter and Clifford Lewis, " Sir Edmund Plowden and the New Albion Charter, 1632-1785," PMHB, LXXXIII (No. 2, April, 1959) . 8 The Elizabethan Act of Supremacy, 1559, demanded an oath of all office holders and those persons leaving England that recognized the sovereign as " Supreme Governor of this realm ... as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal." Catholics were naturally unable to subscribe to the second part of the oath, so it was tendered Lord Baltimore to discredit him, and prevent his settling in Virginia. Thomas Scharf, The History of Maryland (3 vols.; Baltimore, 1879), I, p.