ribes within its
limits. The unhappy contest with Colonel William Clayborne had been
virtually terminated; the rebellions of Captain Richard Ingle and other
Protestant enemies effectively suppressed; the reins of government
recovered, and the principles of order once more established.

Governor Calvert, the chief of the Maryland Pilgrims, after a trying but
heroic and honorable administration, had died, amid the prayers and
blessings of his friends, without a stain upon his memory. Thomas Green
had also for a short period been the governor; and the principal key of
authority was then held by Captain William Stone.

The assembly was composed of the Governor, the privy counsellors and the
burgesses. In many particulars its model was not unlike that of the
primitive parliaments of England. The governor and the privy counsellors
were appointed by Cecilius, the feudal prince or proprietary of the
province; the burgesses, who were chosen by the freemen, represented the
democratic element in the original constitution of Maryland. The
delegates were sent by Kent and by St. Mary's, the only two counties at
that time within the limits of the principality; the former upon the
east, the latter upon the west, side of "the Great Bay." And while there
is no reason for asserting the want of harmony upon the business of this
assembly, it is a remarkable fact that for more than two centuries the
most strongly marked differences have existed between the shores of the
Chesapeake, not only of a geographical, but also of a political,
character.

Kent, in the midst of many sad reverses, had grown out of a settlement
founded as early as 1630, by Colonel Clayborne, in the spirit of a truly
heroic adventure, under the jurisdiction established at Jamestown, and
during the administration--it is supposed--of Governor Harvey, upon an
island of the Chesapeake called Kent, but then the "Isle of Kent"; a
purchase--to quote the Colonel's own words--from "the kings of that
country"; and the original centre of the country represented at St.
Mary's, though now included within the limits of Queen Anne's--an island
still noted for the beauty of its scenery and the wealth of its waters
in fish and fowl; and the only dwelling-place of the colonists upon the
eastern shore at the time of this assembly; the seat, also, of opulence
and elegance at a period anterior to the American Revolution, and
presented in the Virginia House of Burgesses before the settlement