Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

mander and Council, for good reasons, should order otherwise . . . ; the command of each bay, river or island, of the first settled Colonie, remaining, moreover, under the supreme jurisdiction of their High Mightinesses the States-General and the Company: . . .

VI. They shall forever possess and enjoy all the lands lying within the aforesaid limits, together with the fruits, rights, minerals, rivers and fountains thereof; as also the chief command and lower jurisdictions, fishing, fowling and grinding, to the exclusion of all others, to be holden from the Company as a perpetual inheritance, without it ever devolving again to the Company, and in case it should devolve, to be redeemed and repossessed with twenty guilders per Colonie, to be paid to this Company, at the Chamber here or to their Commander there, within a year and six weeks after the same occurs, each at the Chamber where he originally sailed from; and further, no person or persons whatsoever shall be privileged to fish and hunt but the Patroons and such as they shall permit. And in case any one should in time prosper so much as to found one or more cities, he shall have power and authority to establish officers and magistrates there, and to make use of the title of his Colonie, according to his pleasure and to the quality of the persons.

[blocks in formation]

X. The Patroons and colonists shall be privileged to send their people and effects thither, in ships belonging to the Company, provided they take the oath, and pay to the Company for bringing over the people, as mentioned in the first article and for freight of the goods, five per cent, ready money, to be reckoned on the prime cost of the goods here, in which is, however, not to be included such cattle and implements as are necessary for the cultivation and improvement of the lands, which the Company are to carry over without any reward, if there is room in their ships.

[blocks in formation]

XII. Inasmuch as it is intended to people the Island of the Manhattes first, all fruits and wares that are produced on the lands situate on the North river, and lying thereabout, shall, for the present, be brought there before being sent elsewhere, excepting such as are, from their nature, unnecessary there, or such as cannot, without great loss to the owner thereof, be brought there, in

which case the owners thereof shall be obliged to give timely notice in writing of the difficulty attending the same to the Company here, or the Commander and Council there, that the same may be remedied as the necessity thereof shall be found to require.

XIII. All the Patroons of Colonies in New Netherland, and of Colonies, on the Island of Manhattes, shall be at liberty to sail and traffic all along the coast, from Florida to Terra Neuf, provided that they do again return with all such goods as they shall get in trade to the Island of Manhattes, and pay five per cent duty to the Company, in order, if possible, that, after the necessary inventory of the goods shipped be taken, the same may be sent hither. And if it should so happen that they could not return, by contrary streams or otherwise, they shall, in such case, not be permitted to bring such goods to any other place but to these dominions, in order that, under the inspection of the Directors of the place where they may arrive, they may be unladen, an inventory thereof made, and the aforesaid duty of five per cent paid to the Company here, on pain, if they do the contrary, of the forfeiture of their goods so trafficked for, or the real value thereof.

*

XV. It shall be also free for the aforesaid Patroons to traffic and trade all along the coast of New Netherland and places circumjacent, with such goods as are consumed there, and receive in return for them all sorts of merchandise that may be had there, except beavers, otters, minks, and all sorts of peltry, which trade. the Company reserve to themselves. But the same shall be permitted at such places where the Company have no factories, conditioned that such traders shall be obliged to bring all the peltry they can procure to the Island of Manhattes, in case it may be, at any rate, practicable, and there deliver to the Director, to be by him shipped hither with the ships and goods; or, if they should come here without going there, then to give notice thereof to the Company, that a proper account thereof may be taken, in order that they may pay to the Company one guilder for each merchantable beaver and otter skin; the property, risk and all other charges remaining on account of the Patroons or owners.

XVI. All coarse wares that the Colonists of the Patroons there

shall consume, such as pitch, tar, weed-ashes, wood, grain, fish, salt, hearthstone and such like things shall be conveyed in the Company's ships, at the rate of eighteen guilders per last. . . .

XVII. For all wares which are not mentioned in the foregoing article, and which are not carried by the last, there shall be paid one dollar for each hundred pounds weight; and for wines, brandies, verjuice and vinegar, there shall be paid eighteen guilders per cask.

XVIII. The Company promises the colonists of the Patroons that they shall be free from customs, taxes, excise, imposts or any other contributions for the space of ten years; and after the expiration of the said ten years, at the highest, such customs as the goods pay here for the present.

[blocks in formation]

XXIII. Whosoever, whether colonists of Patroons for their Patroons, or free persons for themselves, or others for their masters, shall discover any shores, bays or other fit places for erecting fisheries, or the making of salt ponds, they may take possession thereof, and begin to work on them as their own absolute property, to the exclusion of all others. And it is consented to that the Patroons of colonists may send ships along the coast of New Netherland, on the cod fishery, and with the fish they catch, trade to Italy or other neutral countries, paying in such cases to the Company a duty of six guilders per last; and if they should come with their lading hither, they shall be at liberty to proceed to Italy, though they shall not, under pretext of this consent, or leave from the Company, carry any goods there, on pain of arbitrary punishment.

XXIV. In case any of the colonists should, by his industry and diligence, discover any minerals, precious stones, crystals, marbles or such like, or any pearl fishery, the same shall be and remain the property of the Patroon or Patroons of such Colonie, giving and ordering the discoverer such premium as the Patroon shall beforehand have stipulated with such colonist by contract. And the Patroons shall be exempt from the payment of duty to the Company for the term of eight years, and pay only for freight, to bring them over, two per cent, and after the expiration of the aforesaid eight years, for duty and freight, the one-eighth part of what the same may be worth.

[blocks in formation]

XXVII. The Patroons and colonists shall in particular, and in the speediest manner, endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a Minister and Schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them, and they shall, for the first, procure a Comforter of the sick there.

*

*

*

*

*

XXIX. The Colonists shall not be permitted to make any woolen, linen or cotton cloth, nor weave any other stuffs there, on pain of being banished, and as perjurers, to be arbitrarily punished.

XXX. The Company will use their endeavors to supply the colonists with as many Blacks as they conveniently can, on the conditions hereafter to be made, in such manner, however, that they shall not be bound to do it for a longer time than they shall think proper.

XXXI. The Company promise to finish the fort on the Island of the Manhattes, and to put it in a posture of defence without delay.

[blocks in formation]

GEORGE CALVERT, first Lord Baltimore, had been a member of the Virginia Company, and, as one of the two principal secretaries of state, was a member of the Committee of the Council for Plantation Affairs. In 1620 he purchased a tract of land in Newfoundland, for which, under the name of Avalon, he obtained from James I., in 1623, a patent as proprietor. He visited his province in 1627, with the intention of remaining; but the advantages of the region had been exaggerated, and the climate was such as to discourage colonization. In 1629 he went to Virginia, but was obliged to leave on his refusal, as a Catholic, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Returning to England, he obtained from Charles I. a grant of land north of the Potomac. Baltimore died shortly before the patent passed the seals, and the charter was issued to his son, Cecil, second Lord Baltimore, June 20/30, 1632. The region granted to Baltimore had been included in the Virginia grant of 1609; but the revocation of the third charter in 1624 had left Virginia a royal province, with its unsettled portions subject to allotment at the pleasure of the king. Former members of the Virginia Company protested against the grant;

but the protest was ineffectual, and Virginia was directed to befriend the new colony.

REFERENCES. Text, Latin and English, in Bacon's Laws of Maryland. The early legislation of the colony may be followed in Bacon, and in Maryland Archives, I. See also Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, I.

[blocks in formation]

II. WHEREAS our well beloved and right trusty Subject CÆCILIUS CALVERT, Baron of BALTIMORE, in our Kingdom of Ireland, Son and Heir of George Calvert, Knight, late Baron of BALTIMORE, in our said Kingdom of Ireland, treading in the Steps of his Father, being animated with a laudable, and pious Zeal for extending the Christian Religion, and also the Territories of our Empire, hath humbly besought Leave of Us, that he may transport, by his own Industry, and Expence, a numerous Colony of the English Nation, to a certain Region, herein after described, in a Country hitherto uncultivated, in the Parts of America, and partly occupied by Savages, having no Knowledge of the Divine Being, and that all that Region, with some certain Privileges, and Jurisdictions, appertaining unto the wholesome Government, and State of his Colony and Region aforesaid, may by our Royal Highness be given, granted, and confirmed unto him, and his Heirs.

III. KNOW YE therefore, that WE . . . by this our present CHARTER . . . do GIVE, GRANT, and CONFIRM, unto the aforesaid CÆCILIUS, now Baron of BALTIMORE, his Heirs, and Assigns, all that Part of the Peninsula, or Chersonese, lying in the Parts of America, between the Ocean on the East, and the Bay of Cheso peake on the West, divided from the Residue thereof by a Right Line drawn from the Promontory, or Head-Land, called Watkin's Point, situate upon the Bay aforesaid, near the River of Wighco, on the West, unto the Main Ocean on the East; and between that Boundary on the South, unto that Part of the Bay of Delaware on the North, which lyeth under the Fortieth Degree of North Latitude from the Equinoctial, where New-England is terminated: And all the Tract of that Land within the Metes underwritten (that is to say) passing from the said Bay, called Delaware Bay, in a right Line, by the Degree aforesaid, unto the true Meridian of the first Fountain of the River of Pattowmack, thence verging towards the South, unto the further Bank

« AnteriorContinuar »