s plans, successfully planted, an English
settlement on the Atlantic seaboard to the south of Chesapeake Bay
which, in honour of the Queen, was named "Virginia."

In the subsequent history of the English colonies which became American
States we often find a curious and recurrent reflection of their origin.
Virginia was the first of those colonies to come into existence, and we
shall see her both as a colony and as a State long retaining a sort of
primacy amongst them. She also retained, in the incidents of her history
and in the characters of many of her great men, a colour which seems
partly Elizabethan. Her Jefferson, with his omnivorous culture, his love
of music and the arts, his proficiency at the same time in sports and
bodily exercises, suggests something of the graceful versatility of men
like Essex and Raleigh, and we shall see her in her last agony produce a
soldier about whose high chivalry and heroic and adventurous failure
there clings a light of romance that does not seem to belong to the
modern world.

If the external quarrels of England were the immediate cause of the
foundation of Virginia, the two colonies which next make their
appearance owe their origin to her internal divisions. James I. and his
son Charles I., though by conviction much more genuine Protestants than
Elizabeth, were politically more disposed to treat the Catholics with
leniency. The paradox is not, perhaps, difficult to explain. Being more
genuinely Protestant they were more interested in the internecine
quarrels of Protestants, and their enemies in those internecine
quarrels, the Puritans, now become a formidable party, were naturally
the fiercest enemies of the old religion. This fact probably led the two
first Stuarts to look upon that religion with more indulgence. They
dared not openly tolerate the Catholics, but they were not unwilling to
show them such favour as they could afford to give. Therefore when a
Catholic noble, Lord Baltimore, proposed to found a new plantation in
America where his co-religionists could practise their faith in peace
and security, the Stuart kings were willing enough to grant his request.
James approved the project, his son confirmed it, and, under a Royal
Charter from King Charles I., Lord Baltimore established his Catholic
colony, which he called "Maryland." The early history of this colony is
interesting because it affords probably the first example of full
religious liberty. It would doubtless ha