1172 MISCELLANEOUS. 



that the imposition of taxes, without authority of Parliament, to for- 

 cibly exclude a foreign people from those in the other, was among the 

 last of the offences that sealed the fate of the unhappy Charles. 



We return to the English fishery at Newfoundland. The first inci- 

 dent that invites our attention is the attempt of Sir George Calvert to 

 found a colony. Whitbourne says that he undertook "to plant a 

 large circuit/ 7 and that in 1621 he had already sent "a great number 

 of men and women, with all necessary provisions for them," who 

 were building houses, clearing land, and preparing "to make salt for 

 the preserving of fish another yeare." His grant was for a consider- 

 able tract, embracing the coast from Cape St. Mary to the Bay of 

 Bulls. He called his plantation "Avalon." His expenditures were 

 very large for the time, amounting to nearly one hundred and twenty- 

 five thousand dollars. Sir George resided in person at "Avalon" for 

 some time, it is said, and endeavored to succeed where others had 

 failed. But the difficulties he encountered were numerous. His 

 rights became impaired by the determined course of the Commons in 

 asserting the freedom of the fisheries; and the soil and climate did 

 not meet his expectations. 



More than all, the French menaced the destruction of his propertv, 

 and required the manning of ships, at his own expense, to protect his 

 private interests, and the defenceless English fishermen on the coast. 

 Relinquishing, finally, his plantation at Newfoundland, he turned his 

 thoughts to more hospitable regions, and, as Lord Baltimore, became 

 the father of Maryland. 



Of all who sought our shores to acquire power and princely estates, 

 to escape persecution, or to give a home and shelter to the weary and 

 stricken, not one whether Puritan, Episcopalian, or Quaker was 

 actuated by a spirit more liberal, or has left a better name, than 

 George Calvert, the Catholic.* 



Remarking that Winthrop records in his journal (1647) the occur- 

 rence of a hurricane at Newfoundland, which wrecked many ships 

 and boats, and destroyed quantities of fish, we come to the time of 

 Charles the Second. That monarch, after the restoration, in 1660, 

 issued a longproclamation for the strict observance of Lent, assign- 

 ing, as one reason therefor, "the good it produces in the employment 

 of fishermen." Still further to encourage this branch of industry, 

 Parliament passed an act the same year remitting the duty on salt 

 used in curing fish, and exempting the materials required in the fish- 

 eries from customs and excise. Three years later, the Newfoundland 

 fishery was specially protected by an entire exemption from levies 

 and duties; and the home and colonial fisheries w^ere at the same time 

 assisted by duties imposed on products of the sea, imported by for- 

 eigners or aliens. 



Yet, the number of ships employed at Newfoundland declined annu- 

 ally. In 1670, the merchants sent out barely eighty. The decline 



* George Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, and founder of Maryland, was born in England 

 in 1582. He was appointed one of the principal secretaries of state in 1619; and while 

 holding office he acquired the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, which he 

 erected into a province called Avalon. In 1624 he became a Catholic. After his 

 abandonment of Newfoundland he made a visit to Virginia, but the colonists disliked 

 his religion, and he relinquished his intention to settle among them. On his return to 

 England, Charles the First gave him a patent of the country now Maryland. Lord 

 Baltimore died in T/ondon in 1632, before his patent had passed the necessary forme; 

 and a new one was issued to his son Cecil, who succeeded to his honors. 



