Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/654

Jamestown in the ship "George," with Sir Francis Wyatt and other members of the new council, in October, 1621, and, escaping the massacre of 22 March, settled at " James City." He acquired con- siderable landed estates, amounting, according to the " Land Register of Virginia," to 45,000 acres. On 24 March, 1625, he was commissioned by Charles I. as member of the council, and " to be our Secre- tary of State for the said Collony and Plantation of Virginia." On 17 May, 1626, he and Capt. Sam- uel Matthews proposed to the privy council in England "to win the forrests of Virginia upon certain conditions," and on 13 March, 1628, he re- ceived from Gov. John Port his first commission to make discoveries to the southward, and to open trade with the Indians. A similar commission was issued to him by Gov. Sir John Harvey, 8 March, 1681, and this was followed by a pat- ent from King Charles I., dated 16 May, 1681, and issued by Sir William Alexan- der, under the Scotch signet, au- thorizing him to make discoveries, and granting trad- ingprivilegeswith the Indians " in our colonies of New England and New Scotland." Having discov- ered and partially planted and set- tled the isle of

Kent a year before the first patent of Maryland was ever heard of, he, with the

aid of William Cloberry, John de la Barre, and other "adventurers," established a trading-post there, and acted as the chief agent of his London partners, Cloberry & Co., until displaced by George Evelyn in December, 1636. He purchased the in- terest of the natives in all the lands that he held in the island of Kent, and collected settlers in such numbers there that, in 1632, they were represented by a burgess in the general assembly of Virginia. George Calvert, first baron of Baltimore, having failed in his colony of Avalon on Newfoundland from the severity of the climate, sailed southward, with his wife and family and a party of followers, to search for a more propitious climate and a more favorable soil. He arrived at Jamestown in Oc- tober, 1629, where he was met by the authorities, among whom was Claiborne, with the demand that he should take the oath of supremacy and abjura- tion before taking up his residence in the colony. Refusing to submit to these tests, he sailed north- ward, examining the Chesapeake and its shores. He thence returned to England and procured a charter for the country north of the Potomac and on both sides of the great bay, which was " hactenus inculta " (hitherto uncultivated). The territory granted to Baltimore had been within the original grant to the Virginia company ; but, the charter of that corporation having been revoked, the whole subject of the grant was returned to the control of the crown, and in the subsequent charter to Baltimore it was only considered necessary to protect the rights of actual settlers under the Virginia charter by granting such portion of the territory designated as was "hactenus inculta." Therefore, when Baltimore's first colony arrived at St. Marie's in March, 1634, Claiborne had been seat- ed on the isle of Kent for more than three years, and his settlement had been recognized by the ad- mission of the burgess into the Virginia assembly. The Virginians, sustaining Claiborne, naturally claimed the right to the isle of Kent. The Calverts insisted that Claiborne's right was only a license to trade under the Scotch signet, and that from it no right of property in the soil could arise. Claiborne claimed both property right and political inde- pendence of Calvert. Calvert asserted sovereignty and title paramount over the isle of Kent, and all settlers thereon. This issue influenced the history of the two colonies for a generation. It was at first the issue between the Roman Catholics of Maryland- and the churchmen of Virginia ; then between cavaliers and Puritans, and was never finally settled until Virginia, in her bill of rights in 1776, finally released all claim to the territory of Maryland beyond the Potomac, and executed a conveyance of all the territory northwest of Ohio river in 1781 to the United States. In fact, the mutterings of the old Claiborne quarrel had hard- ly died out in the Virginia-Maryland boundary arbitration of 1775-8, which finally settled the dis- puted Potomac boundary of the two states.

As soon as the new colony was founded on St. Mary's river, the encroachments on the isle of Kent settlement began to be felt. Claiborne's boats and traders plied in and out of the estuaries of the Chesa- peake, and the Indian allies of the Calverts at St. Mary's began to show signs of restiveness. The settlers first provided themselves with a block- house for defence, and then investigated the cause of trouble. Claiborne, so the Indians said, de- clared that the new settlers at St. Mary's were Spaniards, who of necessity were papists and people of despicable traits, and were to be watched and guarded against. Whereupon Leonard Cal- vert, governor of Maryland, despatched an expedi- tion under Capt. Thomas Cornwaleys to settle the question of prior settlement and sovereignty with the Kent isle rebel. Cornwaleys, with his pin- naces, the " St. Helen " and the " St. Margaret," at- tacked the " Cockatryce," Claiborne's boat, under Lieut. Ratcliflle Warren, on 23 April, 1635, in Great Wicomico river, and captured both boat and men, after killing Warren and two others, Cornwaleys losing one man killed and several wounded. On 10 May following, Cornwaleys captured another boat belonging to Claiborne, the commander of which, Thomas Smith, escaped. Claiborne's enter- prise on the isle of Kent had proved an utter fail- ure. A fire there destroyed his warehouse of sup- plies, and his people were reduced to the greatest extremities, being obliged, says the chronicler, " to subsist on oysters." His London partners became satisfied that his affairs required examination. Cloberry & Co. sent out George Evelyn as their representative, with full power to act for them and take possession of their property. Claiborne, fail- ing to get a surety of £3,000 from Evelyn and suspecting his intrigue with Calvert, surrendered everything to him, and sailed in 1637 for England, where he was sued by his partners for an account of his proceedings, and was held to answer before the lords commissioners of plantation on a charge of mutiny, preferred by Gov. Harvey, of Virginia. Evelyn seized Kecoughtan and the rest of Clai- borne's property in Virginia, and instituted suits, in the name of Cloberry & Co., in Baltimore's courts in jMaryland against parties on the isle of Kent. At St. Mary's, Evelyn was shown copies of Cal- vert's charter, and of Claiborne's licenses to trade,