Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

The period, during which a diet might legally continue, having expired, a new one was convened December 16th, 1790. It consisted of all who had been members of the former diet, and of an equal number of additional members. The new infusion increased the strength of the patriotic party. In January, 1791, they voted the punishment of death against any who should receive a pension from a foreign power; in April, they extended the right of citizenship to mechanics, and all free people of the Christian religion;--a _habeas corpus_ act was passed, protecting all residents in the cities.

Finally, on the 3d of May, 1791, the long desired new Polish constitution was promulgated. The king repaired to the cathedral, and, at the high altar, swore to maintain it; the illustrious nobles imitated the example,--all Warsaw celebrated the day as a memorable festival.

The new constitution made the Roman Catholic religion the ruling religion in Poland,--but conceded full liberty to other forms of worship. It confirmed the privileges of the nobility, and the charters of the cities; it gave to the peasantry the right of making compacts with their over lord, and placed the inhabitants of the open country, under the protection of the laws and the government. Poland was called a republic. The supremacy of the will of the people was distinctly recognized; but, for the sake of civil freedom, order, and security, the government was composed of three separate branches. _The legislative_ was divided into two chambers,--that of the deputies and the senators; the former, the popular branch, was esteemed the sacred source of legislation; the latter, under the presidency of the king, could accept a law, or postpone its consideration. The decision was according to a majority of voices. The _liberum veto_ was abolished; confederations were prohibited as inconsistent with the genius of the constitution; and it was provided, that, after every quarter of a century, the constitution should be revised and amended. _The executive_, composed of the king and his cabinet, was bound to carry the laws into effect; but it could neither number nor interpret them, nor impose taxes, nor borrow money, nor declare war, nor make peace, nor conclude treaties definitively. The crown ceased to be elective, and was declared to be hereditary in the family of the elector of Saxony. _The judiciary_ shared in the general improvement.

The majority of the nation loudly applauded the results of the diet, and the western cabinets of Europe were satisfied. The British Parliament was eloquent in the praises of the new order of things, and Austria and Prussia united in negotiating with Russia for the recognition of the constitution, and the indivisibility of Poland.

Catharine II. preserved an ominous silence, till the peace of Jassy was concluded, and her armies were ready for action. She then rejected the interference of the two powers, who had attempted to check her career,--and, listening to the requests of a few factious and misguided members of the ancient Polish oligarchy, she proceeded to denounce the spirit of revolutions. The Polish diet rejoined with dignity and moderation, expressed its intentions of peace with respect to the rest of Europe, and published its determined resolution to maintain the independence of its country, and its new form of government. It then applied to the neighbouring powers for assistance;--but Lucchesini, the Prussian envoy, gave evasive answers to all questions respecting an impending war, and especially avoided all written communications; and the elector of Saxony, after some wavering, declined the intended honour of the Polish crown for his family.

Meanwhile the war of Austria and Prussia against France had begun; and now the way was open to Russia to invade Poland, Lucchesini, the Prussian envoy, declared, May 4th, 1792, that his king had not participated in framing the new constitution, and was not bound to its defence; while, on the 18th of the same month, Catharine censured the new government "as adverse to Polish liberties," and declared that she made war "to rescue Poland from its oppressors." While a confederation of factious refugees was made at Targowitz, according to the ancient usage of the anarchy, the Russians precipitated themselves upon the distracted kingdom in two great masses. The Poles, under Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciusko, fought with undaunted valour, but unsuccessfully. On the 30th of May, King Stanislaus ordered a general levy of the population. On the 4th of July, he expressed his determination to share the fate of the nation, and to die with it if necessary, rather than survive its independent existence: and oh! the misery of a gallant nation, with a pusillanimous chief, on the 23d of July he declared his adhesion to the confederation of Targowitz. A vehement scolding letter from Catharine had effected the change in his heroism. The movements of the Polish army were stopped by his order; while Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciusko resigned their places. The leading patriots poured out their souls in eloquent regrets at the last assembly of the diet, and travelled abroad.

The innocent confederates having, after the king's adhesion, added many names to their former number, were now assembled at Grodno, fully relying on the magnanimous clemency of Catharine, to maintain the integrity of their state. Just then the German army was returning from its excursion in Champagne, where it had won no laurels; and Prussia, having obtained the reluctant assent of Austria, claimed, as a compensation for its ill success against France, the privilege of a new inroad upon its neighbour; and in January, 1793, its army took possession of Great Poland, under pretence of keeping the Jacobins in order.

The confederates rubbed their eyes and began to awake; but it was only to read the Prussian note of March 25th, 1793, declaring the necessity of incorporating about 17,000 square miles of the Polish territory with Prussia, "in order," as it was kindly intimated, "to give to the republic of Poland limits better suited to its internal strength." Two days after the publication of this note, Dantzig was seized, to check the progress of a dangerous political sect. Two days more, and Russia declared its willingness to incorporate into its empire about 73,000 square miles of Poland, and three millions of inhabitants. The diet at Grodno showed some signs of obstinacy; but was obliged to assent to the terms dictated by their ally and their protector. The confederation of Targowitz was now dissolved; it had done its work.

The anger of the Poles was frenzied. They were indignant at every thing; but to them it was the bitterest of all, that Frederic William should have had a share in the plunder.

There now remained to Poland about 76,000 square miles, and between three and four millions of inhabitants. The neighbouring powers generously renounced all further claims, became joint guarantees of the remainder, and promised that now the diet might make any constitution it pleased. How far the good pleasure of the diet was independent, may be inferred from the treaty concluded in October with Russia; of which the conditions were, that Poland should leave to Russia the conduct of all future wars, allow the entrance of Russian troops, and frame its foreign treaties only under the Russian sanction. The diet of Grodno signed this treaty November 24th, 1793, and adjourned. Igelstrom, the general of the Russian army, was constituted the Russian ambassador in Poland. It is evident, that Catharine proposed no further _division_ of Poland; she intended to lay claim to the whole that remained; and as a preparatory step, caused a large part of the Polish army to be disbanded.

The party of the patriots determined upon one final effort; and a new confederation was made at Cracau. Its aims extended to the establishment of the internal and external independence of their country, and the restoration of its ancient limits. Kosciusko was called from his retirement at Leipzig, to be the generalissimo of the Patriot army. A supreme council was established, with plenary authority, till the national independence should be recovered; and then a representative constitution was to be formed by a general convention. The movement was national; the Poles were invited to rise in the defence of their country; and those between eighteen and twenty-seven years of age were to serve in the armies; the elder men to constitute the militia.

Success beamed upon the first efforts in the field; and the victory of Raclawice, April 4th, 1794, breathed inspiration into every heart. The Prussian armies continued their encroachments; the Austrians offered no hope of succour; and the king had declared in favour of the Russians. But the victory of Kosciusko inspired such hopes, that, just as Igelstrom was preparing to exile twenty-six men, whom he could not bend, and to disarm the Polish garrison, the people of Warsaw rose in arms. The Russians were defeated; more than 2000 fell; an equal number were made prisoners; Igelstrom, with the remainder, fled from Warsaw. Thus was Good Friday celebrated in Poland, in 1794.

It was ominous, however, for the eventual success of the patriots, that, though they were joined by Lithuania, the dismembered provinces made no movements towards an insurrection. In the Prussian, a strong military police maintained military quiet; in the Russian, there was still less room for hope, since the peasantry knew nothing about politics, and the nobility having lost nothing in the exchange of allegiance, remained contented. Secret cabals were also active in gaining partisans for the foreign powers; some tendencies to the licentious influence of the passions of the multitude, were observed with apprehension; and the spirit of faction had not yet learnt to yield to the exalted sentiment of general patriotism.

The supreme national council, now established in Warsaw, had neither money nor credit. Cracau surrendered to the Prussians; Lithuania was given up after a hard struggle; and though the Poles could have coped victoriously with the Prussians, yet the advance of Suwarrow seemed to portend a fatal issue. On the 10th of October, the last battle in which Kosciusko commanded, was bravely contested; but in consequence of the faithlessness of one of his generals, Poninski, the Polish cavalry yielded. Kosciusko rallied them, was thrown from his horse, grievously wounded, and made a prisoner by the Cossacks. FINIS POLONIAE, was his exclamation as he fell.

The contest now centered round Praga, which was defended by a hundred cannon, and the flower of the Polish army. Suwarrow, whose name is unrivalled as the ruthless stormer of cities, commanded the assault. It ensued on the 4th of November. The bridge over the Vistula was destroyed; more than eight thousand Poles fell in battle; more than twelve thousand inhabitants of the town were murdered, drowned, or burned to death in their houses. On November 6th, the capitulation of Warsaw was signed upon the smoking ruins of Praga.

The third division of Poland was complete. No permission was asked. The three powers signed the treaty of partition, and promised each other aid, in case of attack; but no formal communication of the procedure was made to any foreign country. A declaration only was presented to the German diet. Napoleon could, therefore, truly say, in 1806, that France had never recognised the partition of Poland.

And King Stanislaus? He was angry, and wept, and took up and threw down the pen, and fainted, and wept again; and January, 1795, signed the document of abdication. They agreed to pay him 200,000 ducats a year. It was more than he merited. He would have made a very charitable almoner, a very liberal patron, to second rate artists and men of letters. But excellence of heart, when coupled with debility of purpose, is but a sorry character for every day concerns; in a ruler it becomes the most deadly pusillanimity. And now for the romance; for Catharine loved romance. The letter of abdication was forwarded to St. Petersburg by a courier, who arrived on the very birthday of the empress, and in the midst of the festival, presented it to her in the form of a bouquet. What a commentary on despotism! A nation struck out of existence to grace a gala! If men may thus be sported with in masses, if the concentrated existence of a people may be made the pastime of a woman's fancy, well did the ancient exclaim, how contemptible a thing is man, if we do not raise our view beyond his deeds!

The result of what we have written, established the truth, that the fall of Poland was an event which destiny had been preparing for centuries. In an age of barbarism, a great nation had become resolved into separate principalities, and an aristocracy, not definitely limited, if not absolute, had sprung up. The family of the Jagellons came to the throne by a compromise with that nobility; at the extinction of that family, a tumultuous mob exercised tumultuously, by a sort of general enthusiasm, the privilege of electing a monarch; enthusiasm declining, a faction of the high oligarchy succeeded in the election of Sigismund III.; with Michael, the inferior nobility came into power; with Sobieski was introduced the influence of the high nobility, and of female intrigue; with Augustus II. came the reign of gross and undisguised venality; with Augustus III. the controlling presence of a foreign army and domestic anarchy; with Stanislaus the wild fury of religious bigotry, in collision with the treacherous liberality of foreign influence. Every thing had had its day but the real nation; of them no notice had been taken; and though Poland was called a republic, it was a republic without a people. The royal power, the tumultuous patriotism of a nobility, the oligarchical feuds, the democracy of the nobility, the high aristocracy, downright bribery, the direct presence and interference of foreign troops, each had had its period; and is it strange that the anarchy of Poland had become complete? There was not only no government virtually, but even the forms did not exist, by which a government could be effectually set in motion. Is it strange, then, that the party of the patriots was unable to triumph over the obstacles in their path, since they had to contend with the strongest foreign powers, with a domestic political chaos, and with a destiny, which had for ages doomed their country to destruction? The Russians and their coadjutors could never have accomplished their purpose, if the ancestors of the Poles had not themselves prepared the way.

The world would have heard no more of the Polish state, but for the simultaneous revolution in France. There the issue was as different, as the abuses which required remedy, and the instruments which could be applied for their correction. In Poland there was no middling class; in France the revolution sprung from the middling class; in Poland the contest was against the anarchy of an oligarchy; in France against the impending anarchy of superannuated absolutism. Both nations were fertile in great men; both had patriots disciplined in the school of America; both suffered from internal dissensions; both were attacked by the refugees from their own country, under the banners of foreign monarchs; both suffered from the hesitancy of inefficient kings; both contended with the greatest financial difficulties; but in France there existed a free yeomanry, a free class of mechanics, a free, numerous, and cultivated order of citizens; while in Poland, there was almost no intermediate class between the nobility and the serfs. In that lies the secret of the different issue of their struggles. Poland was the victim of the American revolution; France its monument. Poland was erased from among the nations of the earth; while France put forth a gigantic strength in the triumphant defence of its nationality. Poland, brightly though it had shone for ages in the eastern heavens, was blotted out, while the star of France, rising in a lurid sky, through clouds of blood, was at length able to unveil the peerless light of liberty, and lead the host of modern states in the high career of civil improvement.

After the victories of Napoleon over Prussia, the peace of Tilsit restored a portion of Poland to an independent existence as a Grand Dutchy. The loss of national existence, and the disgust at submitting to foreign forms, had excited discontent; and the race still lived, which had witnessed the two last partitions of their country. Napoleon's answer to the Polish deputies, "that he was willing to see if the Poles still deserved to be a nation," resounded through the provinces; and troops assembled hastily between the Vistula and the Niemen. But in Posen, the French emperor set Austria at rest as to Galicia; and when he became the personal friend of Alexander, nothing could be wrested from Russia. Thus the relations of Napoleon enabled him to dispose only of Polish Prussia; and of that, Bialystock was ceded to the Czar, while Prussia still retained a territory sufficient to connect East-Prussia with Brandenburgh. Thus the new Grand Dutchy of Warsaw, under the hereditary sway of the Saxon king, and constituting a portion of the French empire, contained but less than twenty-nine thousand square miles, and less than two and a half millions of inhabitants. Its constitution was given, July 22, 1807. Slavery was abolished, and equality before the law decreed. Two chambers were created, and a diet was to be convened at least once in two years, for fifteen days. The _initiative_ of laws belonged to the Grand Duke; the chamber of deputies was to be renewed, one-third every three years. The code of Napoleon was made the law of the land.

In the peace of 1809, the Grand Dutchy was increased by further restorations from Austria; though Russia took advantage of that emergency to demand from its Austrian ally, also a territory of great value, with a population of four hundred thousand souls.

The great expedition against Russia, in 1812, was called by Napoleon his second Polish war. It was his professed object to restrain Russia, and to circumscribe her limits. A proclamation to the Poles promised the restoration of their state, with larger boundaries even than under their last king; and the Poles rose with their wonted enthusiasm. It was a point of honour with their young men to serve in the army; the middling class would accept no pay, while the rich lavished their fortunes, and the women their ornaments, for the defence and restoration of their nation.

Yet, when in June, Napoleon entered Wilna, the Lithuanians showed little disposition to unite with their brethren of Warsaw; and the emperor's answers, as to the future condition of Poland, were too vague to inspire confidence. The eventual defeat of Napoleon, brought the Russians into the pursuit, and the Grand Dutchy was occupied by their armies.

In the close of 1814, the fate of Poland was at issue on the deliberations of the congress of Vienna. While Prussia demanded the cession of all Saxony, Russia claimed Poland, including Austrian Galicia. Encountering strong opposition, the emperor Alexander in his turn formed a Polish army, and issued a proclamation to the Poles, inviting them to arm under his auspices for the defence of their country, and the preservation of their political independence, while Austria, Great Britain, and France, formed a treaty for resistance. But for the return of Napoleon from Elba, the congress of Vienna would probably have issued in a war between its members. A compromise ensued, it conformity with which, Russia retained nearly all which in had gained of Prussia in the peace of Tilsit, and of Austria in 1809, and further acquired all the Grand Dutchy of Warsaw, except Posen, which fell to Prussia, and Cracau, which was left in neutral independence. Constitutions were promised to the respective parts, and have been, after a manner, conceded.

The constitution issued for Poland, November 27, 1815, by the emperor Alexander, was an attempt to conciliate the liberal sympathies of the people. Religious equality, freedom of the press, security of personal liberty against arbitrary procedures, the responsibility of all magistrates, and an assurance of all civil and military offices in Poland to Poles, were the leading features of the compact. The power of making treaties, of declaring war, of controlling the armed force, and of pardoning, was assured to the king; but all his commands were to be countersigned by a minister, who should be held responsible in case of any violation of the constitution. The diet, composed of two chambers, was to be assembled once in two years; the king had the _initiative_ and a _veto_.

At the opening of the diet, April 27, 1817, Alexander declared his intention of gradually introducing into his immense empire, the salutary influence of liberal institutions; and promised security of persons, and of property, and freedom of opinions. "Representatives of Poland," said he, "rise to the elevation on which destiny has placed you. You are called upon to give a sublime example to Europe, whose eye is fixed upon you." The Poles have in this latest period of their existence, shown no reluctance to be true to themselves and to the world; but the revolution of Spain, and Naples, and Greece, struck terror into the cabinet of Alexander, and led him to abandon the sympathies which he had professed for ameliorated forms of government. Accordingly, by an arbitrary decree, February 13, 1825, he abolished the publicity of the assemblies of the diet, and taught the Poles the true value of an apparently liberal form of government, of which the fundamental principles might be altered according to the caprices or the fears of an individual.

We have thus endeavoured, by a careful reference to numerous and exact authorities, to which we have had access, to give some historical explanations of the present Polish question. It seems plain, that there is little room to hope for the re-establishment of Polish independence. The provinces belonging to Austria, have most of them been under the Austrian rule for nearly sixty years; and so, too, a large portion of Polish Prussia has belonged to the Prussian monarchy, since 1773. The still larger parts, which have been incorporated into the Russian monarchy, seem to have learnt acquiescence in their condition. A kindred dialect, and a sort of national relationship, have always rendered Russian supremacy more tolerable to the Polish provinces, than that of the dynasty of Hapsburg, or the court of Berlin. It is only in that portion of Poland, where, by the establishment of the Grand Dutchy of Warsaw under Napoleon, and by the erection of a nominally independent kingdom, a spirit of irritation and change has fostered the honourable passion for national existence, that the present revolution has been supported with enthusiasm. The world will do honour to this last effort of determined patriotism; but the liberties of Poland will be reconquered only by the gradual progress of the moral power of free-opinions, which is advancing in the majesty of its strength; over the ruins of centuries and the graves of nations.

[Footnote 9: The emperor in no wise confused, is said to have replied, "much obliged to you," and retained the present.]

ART. IX.--_A Historical View of the Government of Maryland,
from its Colonization to the present day._ By JOHN V. L.
M'MAHON. Baltimore: 1831. Vol. 1. pp. 539.

The history of Maryland under the proprietary government is little known, says our author, even to her own people. Yet, as that government was the mould of her present institutions, the school of discipline for her revolutionary men, it is to its history we must go back for just notions of both. The revolution was not wrought by a few master minds, miraculously born for the occasion, but was the natural development of a train of causes which leave us less surprised at our ancestors' manful and accordant resistance of usurpation, than at the strange ignorance of them which seems to have begot the unwise designs of the mother country.

Montesquieu has observed, with his usual antithesis, "In the infancy of societies, it is the leaders that create the institutions; afterwards, it is the institutions which make the leaders." Perhaps, the former event has in truth happened less often than received history would persuade us. The more dim the dawn of tradition, the oftener we find ascribed to the Lycurguses, the Numas, the Alfreds, either such original establishments or such fundamental changes as would seem to have created the civil or religious polity of their people anew. We know not how much they were indebted to precedent and concurrent circumstances; and thus obscurity may magnify their renown, as distant objects, according to a figure of our author's, are exaggerated to the eye in a misty morning. The vulgar, who do not trouble themselves with cavils, resolve the result they perceive into the effort of some moral hero, just as the Greeks referred to Hercules the feats which transcended the ordinary limits of physical prowess.

The same thing takes place in a less degree, at periods whose history is more authentically written. The leaders of revolutions may transmute, so to speak, into personal merit, some of the results which, more narrowly considered, are referrible to the pervading spirit and general movement of the occasion. To weigh justly these elements of their renown, is not invidiously to derogate from it, but only to vindicate the truth of history. It still leaves them the highest merit to which, perhaps, the leaders in any kind of reform can truly lay claim, that of seizing the spirit of their age, and employing and directing it with a just energy and discernment. As it has been said that Luther might have ineffectually preached the Reformation in the twelfth century, and Napoleon, if he had not been, in fact, but "the little corporal," might have been no more than a leader of _Condottieri_ in the fourteenth; so our revolutionary sages could hardly, in the circumstances of the crisis, and amidst the men of the age, have been other than what they were. Though they fought in the van of the war, they had, however, their _Triarii_ to sustain them, a nation, namely, accustomed to the discipline of liberty. The wave of opinion rolled high, and they had the praise of launching their barks on it, with strength and skill indeed, but yet with a propitious gale and a favouring current. The notices in the volume before us, of the character and history of the colonists of Maryland, show how the principles of liberty which they brought with them to "this rough, uncultivated world," (such is their own description of it,) they maintained with a uniform constancy and understanding. Though colonial dependence has seldom been less burdensome in point of fact than in their case, the abstract doctrines of political right were not on that account guarded with the less vigilance. Thus, in our author's language, "they were fitted for self-government before it came, and when it came, it sat lightly and familiarly upon them;" the first moments of its adoption being marked with little or none of that anarchy and licentiousness which mostly deform political emancipations. Their institutions had moulded them; a conclusion not more apparent from our colonial and revolutionary history, than apposite for estimating at least the immediate results of revolutions effected under moral circumstances less propitious. The political structure has often, as in our own case, been pulled down by an excusable impatience of the people; but seldom has it been repaired with such solidity, and just adaption to their wants.

We have said that the obscurity of history may have magnified the pretensions of some of its heroes; it is certain that it quite quenches the light of others. The state whose early transactions our author records, furnished its full share of the intelligent minds that contributed their impulse to the general movement of their time; and as the execution of his task has led him to a closer contemplation of their influence on its issue, he laments the comparative obscuration of merited fame, even in this brief lapse of time, in individuals who were the theme and boast of contemporaries. This is the law of our fate. As the series of events is prolonged, the greater part of the actors in them sink out of their place in the perspective, though their lesser elevation might be scarcely observable to their own age. In the twilight which falls on all past transactions, the rays of national recollections fade from summit to summit, and linger at length only on a few of the more "proudly eminent." Our author sketches some of these forgotten worthies in the melancholy spirit of a traveller who finds a stately column in the desert. With the reverence of "Old Mortality," he re-touches the inscription to the illustrious dead, that they may not wholly perish.

The first volume of the present work, the only one yet published, brings down the history of Maryland to the establishment of the state government. Besides a historical view of the transactions preceding this era, it contains, in an introduction, a view of the territorial limits of the colony as defined in the first grant to the proprietary, and of the disputes with neighbouring grantees by which they were successively retrenched. Two other chapters of the introduction are occupied with a sketch of the civil divisions of the state, and an essay on the sources of its laws. Appended to the historical sketch is a view of the distribution of the legislative power, of the organization of the two houses of assembly, their respective and collective powers, and the privileges of their members. This plan involves a critical inquiry into the political laws of the state, and a laborious examination of its records. The diligence with which the writer seems to have executed his task, is a voucher of his accuracy; and the body of information thus collected with painful research, will probably establish his work as one of authentic reference. This original collation of the materials from which history is _distilled_, includes a labour, and deserves a praise, which readers can hardly estimate competently. The writer's style is vigorous, but wants compression; he is occasionally inaccurate, but is often lively and striking; his scriptural phraseology is superabundant. As he understands the period and the men he describes, his views and reflections are just. The narrative would have been enlivened by a little more individuality in the portraits of the actors; but though some of the materials for this were probably at his command, at least as to the more recent ones, we are aware of the reasons which impose on this head, a partial silence on the historian of an age not remote. It is respecting its personages that Christina's saying of history is more emphatically true;--"_Chi lo sa, non scrive; chi lo scrive, no sa._"--"The one who knows it, does not write; the one who writes it, knows it not." It was this Mr. Jefferson meant, when he said the history of the revolution had never been written, and never would be written. On the whole, Mr. M'Mahon's is a valuable contribution to an interesting theme, and we must increase the obligations we are under to him, by borrowing the copious materials he supplies, for a hasty sketch, or rather some selections of the colonial history of Maryland, in which we shall take the liberty to make, without scruple, free use both of his language and thoughts.

The present state of Maryland is embraced within considerably narrower limits than those described in the original grant. By the charter which bears date the 20th of June, 1632, the province assigned to Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, had the following boundaries. On the south, a line drawn from the promontory on the Chesapeake, called Watkins's Point, to the ocean; on the east, the ocean, and the western margin of Delaware Bay and river, as far as the fortieth degree of latitude; on the north, a line drawn in that degree of latitude west, to the meridian of the true fountain of the Potomac; and thence, the western bank of that river to Smith's Point, and so by the shortest line to Watkins's Point. These limits, it is apparent, embrace the whole of the present state of Delaware; they comprehend also that part of Pennsylvania in which Chester lies, as far north as the Schuylkill, and a very considerable portion of Virginia. It may not be uninteresting to trace the controversies which resulted in this abridgment of territory, especially as it appears from Mr. M'Mahon's deduction of that with Virginia, that Maryland has a subsisting claim to a large and fertile portion of the latter state, lying between the south and north branches of the Potomac.

The proprietary's first contest, was with a personage who makes some figure in the early history of his colony, and who, though painted with little flattery by its chroniclers, seems to have possessed some talents, enterprise, and courage. This was the notorious William Clayborne, who, before the grant to Baltimore was carved out of the limits of Virginia, had made some settlements on Kent Island, in the Chesapeake, under the authority of that province. Clayborne defended his claims with pertinacity for several years, and was not brought to submission to the new grantee, till he had harassed the infant colony with commotions, and even prepared to make depredations. He subsequently gratified his resentment by exciting a rebellion, and driving the proprietary's governor to Virginia. That province also for some time persisted to assert its dominion over Maryland, in defiance of the royal grant; and, when that question was at length decided in the proprietary's favour, it was next necessary to fix the actual boundary between the two provinces, a matter not adjusted till June, 1668, when the existing southern line of Maryland was finally determined.

The proprietary's next territorial controversy had a greater duration, and a less fortunate issue, being prolonged nearly a century, and resulting in the dismemberment of a portion of his fairest and most fertile territory. It must be mentioned, that the charter of Maryland extended its northern boundary to the southern limit of what was then called New England. In the intermediate territory between the actual settlements of the two, the Dutch and the Swedes had planted some colonies and trading-houses on the banks of the Delaware Bay and river, in what is now the state of Delaware. The Swedish establishments were reduced by the Dutch in 1655, and appended, together with their own, in the same quarter, to the government of New Netherlands; on the English conquest of which, and the grant of them by Charles II. to his brother, the Duke of York, the settlements on the Delaware became dependencies on the government of New-York, and, though clearly within the limits of Maryland, being south of the latitude of 40 deg., remained so until the grant to Penn, and the foundation of Pennsylvania in 1681. The southern boundary of Penn's grant, was somewhat loosely established to be "a circle of twelve miles drawn round New Castle, to the beginning of the fortieth degree of latitude." Penn was eager to adjust his boundary with Maryland; but when it was found, on an interview between his agent and Baltimore, at Chester, then called Upland, that Chester itself was south of the required latitude, and that the boundaries of Maryland would extend to the Schuylkill, he very earnestly applied himself, to obtain from the Duke of York, a grant of the Delaware settlements mentioned above. In contravention of the claims of Baltimore, a conveyance was made to him in 1682, of the town of New Castle, with the district twelve miles round it, and also of the territory extending thence southward to Cape Henlopen.

Thus fortified, Penn was again eager to adjust the disputed boundary. The negotiations for this purpose, proving fruitless, were referred to the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, to whom Penn submits a case of hardship, more _naif_ than convincing. "I told him, (Baltimore,) that it was not the love of the land, but of the water;--that he abounded in what I wanted,--and that there was no proportion in the concern, because the thing insisted on was ninety-nine times more valuable to me, than to him." It must be recollected, that this reasonable claim involved nothing less than Baltimore's entire exclusion from Delaware Bay, and greatly abridged his territory on the coast of the ocean. Another objection was urged by Penn, which finally governed the award of the commissioners, who, in 1685, decided that Baltimore's grant "included only lands uncultivated, and inhabited by savages;" whereas the territory along the Delaware had been settled by Christians antecedently to his grant,--a decision, by the way, inconsistent with the previous ejectment of Clayborne, and with the determination in Baltimore's favour, of the jurisdiction claimed over his grant by Virginia. They directed also, for the avoidance of future contests, that the peninsula between the two bays, should be divided into two equal parts, by a line drawn from the latitude of Cape Henlopen, to the fortieth degree of latitude,--the western portion to belong to Baltimore, and the eastern to His Majesty, and, by consequence, to Penn. This is the origin of the eastern boundary of Maryland, which was thus cut off from the ocean, on the greater portion of her eastern side.

Her northern boundary still remained to be adjusted; but the embarrassments of both proprietaries with the crown, caused the controversy in this quarter to sleep nearly half a century. The mutual border outrages which meanwhile disturbed the debatable ground, led to the compact of the 10th of May, 1732, between Baltimore and the younger Penns, which provided, in the first place, for the extension of a line northerly, through the middle of the peninsula, so as to form a tangent to a circle drawn round Newcastle, with a radius of twelve miles. The northern boundary of Maryland was also to begin, not at the fortieth degree of latitude, but at a point fifteen miles south thereof; and in case the tangent before described should not extend to that point, it was to be prolonged by a line drawn due north from the point where the tangent met the circle; thus was ascertained the eastern extremity of the northern boundary line, which was thence to be extended due west. New obstacles intervened, however, to the execution of this agreement, which was subsequently carried into chancery, but on which no decision was had until 1750; and in the interval, some frightful excesses were committed by the borderers on both sides. The house of one Cresap, in Maryland, was fired by a body of armed men from Pennsylvania, who attempted to murder him, his family, and several of his neighbours, as they escaped from the flames. In retaliation, a little army of three hundred Marylanders invaded the county of Lancaster, and took summary measures to coerce submission to the government of Maryland. These mutual outrages occasioned, in 1739, an order from the king in council for the establishment of a provisional line; and in 1750, Chancellor Hardwicke pronounced a decree, which ordered the specific execution of the agreement of 1732. But Frederic, Lord Baltimore, the heir of Charles, with whom the agreement had been made, contending that he was protected from its operation by certain anterior conveyances in strict settlement, objected to the execution of the decree, until finally, and pending the chancery proceedings, a new agreement was entered into on the 4th of July, 1760, between himself and the Penns, which adopted that of 1732, and also the decree of 1750. Commissioners were appointed to run the lines accordingly, who in November, 1768, reported their proceedings to the proprietaries, and definitively adjusted the eastern and northern boundaries of Maryland, in the terms of the agreement before described. The northern line, from the names of the surveyors, is commonly known as "Mason and Dixon's line," so often referred to as the demarcation of the slave states from the others.

This controversy was not terminated in the north, when the proprietary found new pretensions to combat in the west. These grew out of the words of his charter, which described "the true fountain of the Potomac" as the common _terminus_ of his western and southern boundaries. A subsequent grant from the crown had conveyed to certain persons all the tract between the heads and courses of the Rappahannock and Potomac, and the Chesapeake Bay. This grant, which comprehended what was commonly known as "The Northern Neck" of Virginia, and which carried only the ownership of the soil, the jurisdiction remaining in Virginia, was finally vested solely in Lord Culpepper, and from him descended to his daughter, who marrying Lord Fairfax, the property in it passed to the Fairfax family. As it called only for lands on the south side of the Potomac, there was nothing on the face of it inconsistent with the call of the charter of Maryland; but the under-grants from Fairfax were soon pushed so far west as to raise the question of the true fountain of the Potomac. Commissioners appointed by Virginia to ascertain, as between that state and Fairfax, the limits of their respective ownership, determined the North Branch to be the fountain of that river; whereas, from information given to the council of Maryland, in 1753, by Colonel Cresap, one of the settlers in the eastern extremity of the state, it appeared, from its having the longest course, and from other circumstances, that the South Branch was to be considered the principal stream, and its source the true source of the Potomac. The British council for plantation affairs had, as early as 1745, on the petition of Fairfax, made a report, adopting the North Branch as such; but the proprietary of Maryland, who viewed his rights as disregarded in this decision, continued to assert his claim up to the first fountain of the Potomac, "be that where it might." Various circumstances prevented his bringing the matter before the king in council; and so the question hung, till the Revolution substituted the _state_ of Virginia for the British crown, as one party in the controversy, and that of Maryland as the other.

In the constitution of the former, adopted in 1776, there is an express recognition of the right of Maryland "to all the territory contained within its charter;" but the actual boundary was not brought into negotiation till 1795. New delays then interposed, and though Virginia named commissioners in the matter in 1801, she restricted their powers to the adjustment merely of the western line, unwilling to allow even a discussion of her claim to the territory between the two branches. The negociation consequently dropped for the time, and Maryland, wearied, it would seem, with various efforts to reclaim the territory south of the North Branch, agreed, at length, by an act passed in 1818, to adopt as the terminus, the most western source of that stream. But a new obstacle, interposed by Virginia, defeated the adjustment under this concession. Her commissioners were instructed to commence the boundary "at a stone, planted by Lord Fairfax on the head waters of the Potomac," being thus restricted to the old adjustment between Fairfax and the crown; those of Maryland were directed to begin at the true or most western source of the North Branch, be that where it might. Fairfax's stone, our author says, is not planted in fact at the extreme western source. The proffer of Maryland, by the act of 1818, to confine herself to the North Branch, being thus rejected by Virginia, she is remitted apparently to her original rights, which comprehend the sovereignty of all the territory between these two streams of the Potomac, and call for the South Branch as her south-western boundary in that quarter. In a letter of Mr. Cooke, then a distinguished lawyer of Maryland, and one of the commissioners named in 1795, to adjust the point, the territory in contest is stated to contain 462,480 acres; and he remarks, that prior occupancy gives, in such a case, no title to one party, and no length of time can bar the claim of the other.

We have thus abridged the author's copious and distinct account of the territorial wars, which resulted in the defeat of the proprietaries of Maryland on two parts of their frontier, and have left a legacy of debate on a third. We must now return to the era of the first grantee and proprietary, and take up the line of the general events of the colonial history.

Cecilius Calvert had no sooner obtained his grant, for which he is said to have been indebted to the influence of his father, George Calvert, who but for his death would have been himself the grantee, than he prepared for the establishment of a colony. The expedition, which he entrusted to his brother, Leonard Calvert, sailed from the Isle of Wight on the 22d of November, 1633, the emigrants consisting of about two hundred persons, principally Catholics, and many of them gentlemen of family and fortune. They reached Point Comfort, in Virginia, on the 24th of February following, and thence proceeded up the Potomac, in search of an eligible site. Having taken formal possession of the province, at an island which they called St. Clements, they sailed upwards of forty leagues up the river, to an Indian town called Piscataway; but deeming it prudent to establish themselves nearer its mouth, they returned to what is now known as St. Mary's river, (an estuary of the Potomac,) on the eastern side of which, six or seven miles from its mouth, they disembarked, on the 27th of March, 1634. Here, near another Indian town, bearing the uncouth name of Yaocomoco, they laid the foundation of the old city of St. Mary's, and of the state of Maryland. The proprietary had made ample provision for his infant colony, of food and clothing, the implements of husbandry, and the means of erecting habitations; expending in the first two or three years upwards of L40,000, and governing, by all concurring accounts, with much policy and liberality.

The new colony seems to have been looked on a little coldly by Virginia, her next neighbour in the great continental wilderness, and to have had indeed more positive ground of complaint in the connivance given there to Clayborne, who has already been mentioned as the colonizer of Kent Island, and whose fancied or real injuries from the proprietary, made him the persevering foe of the colony during twenty-five years. His first essay was to kindle the jealousies of the natives against the colonists, which, in the beginning of 1642, broke out into an open war, that endured for some time, and was the cause of much expense and distress to the province. The distractions of the great rebellion of 1642, which began at this time to involve the colonies, furnished him the next pretences of disturbance, and with fit associates. Richard Ingle, the most prominent of these, was a known adherent of the parliamentary cause; he had before this time been proclaimed a traitor to the king, and had fled the province. The insurrection promoted, therefore, by these confederates and others, (commonly known as "Clayborne and Ingle's rebellion,") was probably carried on in the name of the Parliament; though the loss of the greater part of the provincial records, anterior and relating to this period, the circumstance from which it acquired its chief notoriety, leaves us little other knowledge of the insurrection itself, than that it was attended with great misrule and rapacity, that it commenced in 1644, and that the proprietary government was suspended till August, 1646; Leonard Calvert, the governor, being compelled meanwhile to seek refuge in Virginia. Quiet was then restored by a general amnesty, from which only Clayborne, Ingle, and one Durnford, were excepted. During two or three years the province maintained this tranquillity, by pursuing a neutral course towards the contending parties in England, varied by the single unadvised act of proclaiming, on the 15th of November, 1649, the accession of Charles II., Governor Stone being absent at the moment. This procedure was followed by very ill consequences to the proprietary. The Parliament, now triumphant, issued a commission for the subjugation of the disaffected colonies, of which, ominously, for Maryland, _Captain_ Clayborne was named one, and which, after reducing Virginia, demanded of Stone, the Governor of Maryland, an express recognition of the parliamentary authority. Delaying compliance with this demand, he was threatened with the deprivation of his government; but it was arranged at length that he should continue to exercise it, till the pleasure of the commonwealth government could be known. This trust he seems to have discharged with due fidelity to the Parliament. He required, indeed, the inhabitants of the province to take the oath of allegiance to the proprietary government; an act which does not seem inconsistent with his engagements. It was alleged, however, to be an evidence of disaffection; and as intentions, says our author, are always easy to charge, and difficult to disprove, he was in the end compelled to resign his office to a commission named by Clayborne and his associates. Stone now attempted resistance; but an engagement taking place near the Patuxent, his small force of two hundred men was entirely defeated, and himself taken prisoner. He was condemned to die; but he had, like another Marius, inspired, it seems, such respect and affection in the soldiery, that the party intrusted with his execution refused to proceed in it. A general intercession of the people procured a commutation of his sentence to imprisonment, which was continued, with circumstances of severity, during the greater part of the protectorate. With him the proprietary government fell for the time.

The occasion was seized by Virginia, to urge with the Protector, her old claim of jurisdiction over Maryland. The proprietary's charter was assailed, and the story of Clayborne's wrongs, pathetically told at length. The fanaticism of the Protector was approached, by objecting the religious toleration, which, much to the honour of the proprietary, had consistently characterized his government. The union of the two provinces was urged, among other reasons, on the score of its preventing "the cutting of throats," and restraining the excessive planting of tobacco, thereby making way _for the more staple commodities_, such as _silk_. Cromwell, however, who could lay aside his fanaticism on occasion, but who, on the other hand, probably sought to keep the proprietary in his interests, by holding his rights in suspense, made no decision in the case; and the latter, who at first expected a speedy result in his favour, seems to have resolved at length to regain his province by force. His government had fallen without a crime, and, besides, the pretensions of Virginia had roused the pride and indignation of all parties. He had thus many adherents, among the most conspicuous of whom was Josias Fendall, who having, with a consistency that merits remark, signalized by treachery every measure he was concerned in, played for some years a part in the transactions of the colony, worthy of versatile politicians on a more extensive theatre. He is brought to our notice in 1655, when he was in custody before the provincial court, on a charge of disturbing the government, under a pretended power from the late governor, Stone, and was imprisoned. Being discharged, probably on taking an oath not to disquiet the government, he nevertheless appeared soon after as an open insurgent, acting under the proprietary's commission as his governor. We are uninformed of the particulars of his operations against the commissioners. During a part of 1657 and 1658, there seems to have been a divided empire in the province, the commissioners administering theirs at St. Leonard's, and Fendall and his council sitting at St. Mary's. An arrangement between the proprietary and the Virginian commissioners, then in England, at length put an end to these divisions. The latter ceased to push the claims of Virginia, and it was agreed that his province should be restored to the proprietary. On the 20th of March, 1658, it was formally surrendered to Fendall as his governor, under a stipulation for the security of the acts passed during the defection;--a stipulation which the latter fulfilled, not only by declaring them void, but by causing them to be torn from the records.