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.

The most plausible theory upon which I can account for this harsh
proceeding is suggested by the fact that parties in the Province took
the same complexion with those in the mother country and ran parallel
with them,--that the same excitements which agitated the minds of the
people in England were industriously fomented here, where no similar
reason f