Baltimore, or by the governors whom he appointed. This the people did not like very well; although Lord Baltimore was a good and enlightened man, and was particularly wise in regard to religious toleration. He was a Roman Catholic, and so were most of the first colonists; but, from the very foundation of the settlement, it was understood that all Christian denominations were to be on an equality in Maryland. In 1649 the Assembly passed an act, providing that "no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ" should "be molested in their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief or practice of any other religion, against their consent." This did not, like the Rhode Island law, afford toleration to Jews, and all others who were not Christians; but hardly any other government in that age was so liberal as Maryland in this respect. The Quakers were sometimes punished for refusing to do military duty, but never for preaching their religious doctrines. The colony was sometimes called "the land of the sanctuary."

Many Puritans, driven from Virginia by persecution, took refuge in Maryland, and, after a time, made a good deal of trouble, because they and their leader, Clayborne, could not get along harmoniously with the Roman Catholics. The Puritans were at last strong enough to pass an act, declaring that the Roman Catholics were not entitled to protection in the colony which they had founded. Then the king settled the matter by establishing the Church of England in Maryland, in 1691; and, some twenty years after, he gave the colony into the hands of one of Lord Baltimore's descendants,

who had become a Protestant. Apart from this trouble about religion, Maryland was prosperous, and was much like Virginia in the occupations and habits of the people. It was a slaveholding community: there were few large towns; and the people generally lived on plantations, and raised tobacco. Like the Virginians, they paid their bills with this plant, and their State House cost forty thousand dollars' worth of tobacco. The Indians molested them but little; and, even in the French and Indian wars, it was only the far western settlements in Maryland that were disturbed. There was, to be sure, a good deal of trouble between Maryland and Pennsylvania about their boundary line; but that was settled at last by appointing two surveyors, Mason and Dixon, to determine it; and the line they drew in 1750 has always been called "Mason and Dixon's line." For many years this line was of special importance, because it divided the slaveholding States of the Union from the free States.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SOUTHERN COLONIES.

THE

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA.

HE name of Carolina was first given to the region that now bears it, by a little colony of French Protestants, under Jean Ribault, who arrived as early as 1562, fleeing from persecution at home. They landed at Port Royal; built there a fort of concrete, a part of the walls of which may still be seen; and raised a stone monument engraved with the lilies which were the symbol of France. They named the new country Carolina, after Charles (or Carolus) IX., then king of France. But the colony failed, like almost every one planted on the American continent during that century. The surviving Frenchmen all went back to France; and the attempt was abandoned. It was almost a hundred years before settlements began to be made from Virginia, from the New England Colonies, and from Barbadoes. Then, after a while, a great plan was formed in England for colonizing Carolina. I speak of North and South Carolina as one; for they were not separated till long after.

In the year 1663 King Charles II. of England granted the whole region called Carolina to eight pro

prietors, most of whom were noblemen at his court. They were men of wealth and influence; and they resolved to have a much more aristocratic form of government than any yet existing in America. At the request of the king, the plan for this was drawn up by a philosopher named John Locke. It was skilfully arranged in order to keep all the power in the hands of a very few persons. There was to be a regu

lar order of nobility, as in European countries. These nobles were to be called earls and barons; and the lands were all to belong to them, while the condition of the common people was to be little better than that of slaves. But it turned out that the men who planned all this knew very little about colonies, and about the strong desire the people would show for self-government. King Charles and John Locke thought that the way to have the colony prosper was to give the mass of the people hardly any power; but it had been found in all the other colonies that the way to secure prosperity was to let the settlers own their lands, and govern themselves as far as possible. So it turned out, at last, that the proprietors and earls and barons, who claimed to own Carolina, staid at home; and the plan of government from which so much was expected hardly went into operation at all.

Meanwhile settlers came from all directions into Carolina. There were English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, and French. These last were Huguenots, or Protestants, fleeing from persecution, like those other Frenchmen who had given Carolina its name, and set up the lilies of France there, a hundred years before. These Huguenots had quitted France forever, and

sought religious freedom under the English flag. Per sonal freedom was not valued so highly in the colony; and negro slaves were introduced from Barbadoes in 1665. Except in this respect, the colony prospered for a long time. The rice-plant is said to have been accidentally obtained out of the cargo of a vessel from Madagascar, that put into the port of Charleston, and it was soon very extensively cultivated; but it was long before cotton was introduced, though it has since become the chief product of the southern part of Carolina. It soon became the habit of the people of that southern region to live on large isolated plantations, as in Virginia; while, in the northern part of Carolina, the settlers lived yet farther from one another, in the woods, where there were no roads; and they could only travel by paths "blazed" through the woods by notches made here and there upon the trees. There they supported themselves by cutting timber, making tar and turpentine, hunting the bear, and trapping the beaver; all this being done with the aid of slaves; whom they had brought with them from Virginia. So the northern and southern parts of Carolina came to have different habits and interests, even before they were separated into two distinct colonies.

At one time, when Spain and England were at war, the province of Carolina was drawn into hostilities with the Spanish settlements in Florida. The colonists sent an armed expedition against St. Augustine; and, in return, the Spaniards excited the Indians against the colonists. Both portions of Carolina had much trouble from these Indians, especially from the tribe of Tuscaroras, who were at last conquered, and had to