a good Catholic he could
not take, for it recognized the English sovereign as the supreme
authority in all ecclesiastical matters. Baltimore proposed an
alternative oath of allegiance, but the Governor and Council refused to
accept it, and requested him to leave at once. Knowing that it was his
intention to apply for a tract of land within their borders, the
Virginians sent William Claiborne after him to London, to watch him and
to thwart his designs.

Despite Claiborne's efforts a patent was granted Baltimore, making him
lord proprietor of a province north of the Potomac river, which received
the name of Maryland. Baltimore, with his own hand, drew up the charter,
but in April, 1632, before it had passed under the Great Seal, he died.
A few weeks later the patent was issued to his eldest son, Cecilius
Calvert. The Virginians protested against this grant "within the Limits
of the Colony", claiming that it would interfere with their Indian trade
in the Chesapeake, and that the establishment of the Catholics so near
their settlements would "give a generall disheartening of the
Planters".[269] But their complaints availed nothing. Not only did
Charles refuse to revoke the charter, but he wrote the Governor and
Council commanding them to give Lord Baltimore every possible assistance
in making his settlement. You must, he said, "suffer his servants and
Planters to buy and transport such cattle and comodities to their
Colonie, as you may conveniently spare ... and give them ... such lawful
assistance as may conduce to both your safetyes".[270]

The second Lord Baltimore appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert,
Governor of Maryland, and sent him with two vessels and over three
hundred men to plant the new colony. In February, 1634, the expedition
reached Point Comfort, where it stopped to secure from the Virginians
the assistance that the King had promised should be given them.

They met with scant courtesy. The planters thought it a hard matter that
they should be ordered to aid in the establishment of this new colony.
They resented the encroachment upon their territories, they hated the
newcomers because most of them were Catholics, they feared the loss of a
part of their Indian trade, and they foresaw the growth of a dangerous
rival in the culture of tobacco. Despite the King's letter they refused
to help Calvert and his men. "Many are so averse," wrote Harvey, "that
they crye and make it their familiar talke that they wou