the commissioners, Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, with an armed
fleet, were instructed "to use their best endeavors to reduce _all the
plantations within the Bay of Chesopiack_ to their due obedience to
the Parliament of England."[35]

After the commissioners had reduced Virginia, they found even less
resistance in Maryland. The commissioners landed at St. Mary's, and,
professing their intention to respect the "just rights" of Lord
Baltimore, demanded that Stone should change the form of the writs
from the name of Lord Baltimore to that of Parliament. Stone at first
declined to comply, and the commissioners, March 29, 1652, put the
government into the hands of a council of leading Protestants. Stone
then reconsidered his action, and Claiborne and Bennett, returning to
St. Mary's, restored him to the government, June 28, 1652, in
conjunction with the councillors already appointed. The ascendency of
Claiborne seemed complete, but beyond renewing his property claim to
Kent and Palmer islands, he did not then further interfere.[36]

Maryland consisted at this time of four counties: St. Mary's, erected
in 1634, Kent, 1642, and Charles and Anne Arundelin 1650, and
contained a population perhaps of eight thousand. The settlements
reached on both sides of the bay, from the Potomac to the Susquehanna.
Society was distinctly democratic, for while there were favored
families there was no privileged class, and the existence of African
slavery and the temporary servitude of convicts and redemptioners
tended to place all freemen on an equality. As there was no state
church, educational opportunities in the province were small, but it
was a land of plenty and hospitality, and charity in religion made the
execution of the criminal law singularly mild. In spite of turmoils
and dissensions, Maryland prospered and flourished. A home feeling
existed, and there were many even among the recent exiles from
Virginia who looked with hope to its future and spoke of it as "a
country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my days, in which I
covet to make my grave."[37]

[Footnote 1: _Md. Archives_, III., 32.]

[Footnote 2: _Md. Archives_, V., 158.]

[Footnote 3: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 154. ]

[Footnote 4: _Md. Archives_, III., 33. ]

[Footnote 5: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 49.]

[Footnote 6: _Md. Archives_, V., 164-168.]

[Footnote 7: Ibid., III., 29.]

[Footnote 8: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 51.]

[Footnote 9: