s River and the
York. Each person settling there was entitled to fifty acres of land and
exemption from general taxes. All new-comers were ordered to pay
sixty-four pounds of tobacco toward the maintenance of the fort at Point
Comfort.[188:A] Thus far, under Harvey's administration, the Assembly
had met regularly, and several judicious and wholesome acts had been
passed.

The Chesapeake Bay is supposed to have been discovered by the Spaniards
as early as the year 1566 or before, being called by them the Bay of
Santa Maria.[188:B] It was discovered by the English in 1585, when Ralph
Lane was Governor of the first Colony of Virginia. In 1620 John Pory
made a voyage of discovery in the Chesapeake Bay, and found one hundred
English happily settled on its borders, (in what particular place is not
known,) animated with the hope of a very good trade in furs.[188:C]
During the years 1627, 1628, and 1629 the governors of Virginia gave
authority to William Clayborne, "Secretary of State of this Kingdom," as
the Ancient Dominion was then styled, to discover the source of the bay,
or any part of that government from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first
degree of north latitude.[188:D] In May, 1631, Charles the First granted
a license to "our trusty and well-beloved William Clayborne," one of the
council and Secretary of State for the colony, authorizing him to make
discoveries, and to trade. This license was, by the royal instructions,
confirmed by Governor Harvey; and Clayborne shortly afterwards
established a trading post on Kent Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, not
far from the present capital of Maryland, Annapolis; and subsequently
another at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. In the year 1632 a
burgess was returned from the Isle of Kent to the Assembly at
Jamestown.[189:A] In 1633 a warehouse was established in Southampton
River for the inhabitants of Mary's Mount, Elizabeth City, Accomac, and
the Isle of Kent.

In the mean time, George, the elder Lord Baltimore, dying on the
fifteenth of April, 1632, aged fifty, at London, before his patent was
issued, it was confirmed June twentieth of this year, to his son
Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore. The new province was named Maryland in
honor of Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles the First of England,
and daughter of Henry the Fourth of France. For eighteen months from the
signing of the Maryland charter, the expedition to the new colony was
delayed by the strenuous opposition