concerning Religion," drawn upon the lines of the Ordinance of
Toleration adopted by the Puritan House of Commons at the height of its
authority, in 1647.[59:2] How potent was the influence of this
transplanted Nansemond church is largely shown in the eventful civil
history of the colony. When, in 1655, the lord proprietor's governor was
so imprudent as to set an armed force in the field, under the colors of
Lord Baltimore, in opposition to the parliamentary commissioners, it
was the planters of the Severn who marched under the flag of the
commonwealth of England, and put them to rout, and executed some of
their leaders for treason. When at last articles of agreement were
signed between the commissioners and Lord Baltimore, one of the
conditions exacted from his lordship was a pledge that he would never
consent to the repeal of the Act of Toleration adopted in 1649 under the
influence of the Puritan colony and its pastor, Thomas Harrison.

In the turbulence of the colony during and after the civil wars of
England, there becomes more and more manifest a growing spirit of
fanaticism, especially in the form of antipopery crusading. While
Jacobite intrigues or wars with France were in progress it was easy for
demagogues to cast upon the Catholics the suspicion of disloyalty and of
complicity with the public enemy. The numerical unimportance of the
Catholics of Maryland was insufficient to guard them from such
suspicions; for it had soon become obvious that the colony of the
Catholic lord was to be anything but a Catholic colony. The Jesuit
mission had languished; the progress of settlement, and what there had
been of religious life and teaching, had brought no strength to the
Catholic cause. In 1676 a Church of England minister, John Yeo, writes
to the Archbishop of Canterbury of the craving lack of ministers,
excepting among the Catholics and the Quakers, "not doubting but his
Grace may so prevail with Lord Baltimore that a maintenance for a
Protestant ministry may be established." The Bishop of London, echoing
this complaint, speaks of the "total want of ministers and divine
worship, except among those of the Romish belief, who, 'tis conjectured,
does not amount to one of a hundred of the people." To which his
lordship replies that all sects are tolerated and protected, but that
it would be impossible to induce the Assembly to consent to a law that
shall oblige any sect to maintain other ministers than its own. The
bishop