in America. But,
however that may have been, there was small chance for any successful
opposition to the charter, since Parliament had been dissolved by the
King, not to be summoned again for eleven years. The Privy Council was
subservient, and, as the Sovereign was his friend, Baltimore saw the
signing of the charter assured and began to gather together his first
colonists. Then, somewhat suddenly, in April, 1632, he sickened, and
died at the age of fifty-three.

His son, Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, took up his father's
work. This young man, likewise able and sagacious, and at every step in
his father's confidence, could and did proceed even in detail according
to what had been planned. All his father's rights had descended to
him; in Maryland he was Proprietary with as ample power as ever a Count
Palatine had enjoyed. He took up the advantage and the burden.

The father's idea had been to go with his colonists to Maryland, and
this it seems that the son also meant to do. But now, in London, there
deepened a clamor against such Catholic enterprise. Once he were away,
lips would be at the King's ear. And with England so restless, in a
turmoil of new thought, it might even arise that King and Privy Council
would find trouble in acting after their will, good though that might
be. The second Baltimore therefore remained in England to safeguard his
charter and his interests.

The family of Baltimore was an able one. Cecil Calvert had two brothers,
Leonard and George, and these would go to Maryland in his place. Leonard
he made Governor and Lieutenant-general, and appointed him councilor.
Ships were made ready--the Ark of three hundred tons and the Dove of
fifty. The colonists went aboard at Gravesend, where these ships rode at
anchor. Of the company a great number were Protestants, willing to take
land, if their condition were bettered so, with Catholics. Difficulties
of many kinds kept them all long at the mouth of the Thames, but at
last, late in November, 1633, the Ark and the Dove set sail. Touching at
the Isle of Wight, they took aboard two Jesuit priests, Father White and
Father Altham, and a number of other colonists. Baltimore reported that
the expedition consisted of "two of my brothers with very near twenty
other gentlemen of very good fashion, and three hundred labouring men
well provided in all things."

These ships, with the first Marylanders, went by the old West Indies sea
route. We find them re