lign spirit from which they fled in Europe. If they
were, essentially, Republicans, their democracy was limited to a
political and religious equality of Puritan sectarianism;--it had not
ripened into the democracy of an all embracing Christianity.[5]

These occurrences took place during the reign of the prince who united
the Scottish and English thrones. At the Court of James, and in his
intimate service, during nearly the whole period of his sovereignty, was
a distinguished personage, who, though his name does not figure grandly
on the page of history, was deeply interested in the destiny of our
continent.

SIR GEORGE CALVERT, was descended from a noble Flemish family, which
emigrated and settled in the North of England, where, in 1582, the
Founder of Maryland was born. After taking his Bachelor's degree at
Oxford and travelling on the Continent, he became, at the age of
twenty-five, private Secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, the Lord
Treasurer--afterwards the celebrated Earl of Salisbury. In 1609, he
appears as one of the patentees named in the new Charter then granted to
the Virginia Company. After the death of his ministerial patron, he was
honored with knighthood and made clerk of the crown to the Privy
Council. This brought him closely to the side of his sovereign. In 1619,
he was appointed one of the Secretaries of State, and was then, also,
elected to Parliament; first for his native Yorkshire, and subsequently
for Oxford. He continued in office, under James, as Secretary of State,
until near that monarch's death, and resigned in 1624.

Born in the Church of England, Sir George, had, in the course of his
public career, become a Roman Catholic. With the period or the means of
his conversion from the court-faith to an unpopular creed, we have now
no concern. Fuller, in his "Worthies of England," asserts that Calvert
resigned in consequence of his change of religion;--other writers,
relying, perhaps, more on the _obiter dicta_ of memoirs and history,
believe that his convictions as to faith had changed some years before.
Be that, however, as it may, the resignation, and its alleged cause
which was well known to his loving master, James, produced no ill
feeling in that sovereign. He retired in unpersecuted peace. He was even
honored by the retention of his seat at the Privy Council;--the King
bestowed a pension for his faithful services;--regranted him, in fee
simple, lands which he previously held by another tenure;