Nearly a year after the landing of the colo nists, Governor Calvert called an assembly of the people, which met in February 1635, but its proceedings are lost, and the proprietary vetoed its acts. The second assembly, held in January 1638, failed to place any acts upon the statute books, except one for Claiborne's attainder. Act ing also as a court of law, the assembly tried and condemned to death for piracy, Thomas Smith, one of Claiborne's followers. During the year 1638 Lord Baltimore yielded his claim to the initiation of bills and a representative assembly of one house, meeting in February 1639, adopted a comprehensive temporary act to °endure to the end of the next General Assembly, or for three years, if there be no assembly within that time.° From that date to the present prac tically all of the statutes of Maryland are pre served, and have been printed, in the series of the Archives of Maryland. The policy of pass ing temporary statutes was followed through out the provincial period, and, although it in volved much expenditure of time and produced a bulky statute book, it ensured fairly frequent sessions of the legislature, and also a readjust Fent, from time to time, in the rates of fees, in which shape the remuneration of many of the officers was received.
From Saint Mary's the settlers spread out along the rivers, some of the larger tracts of land being erected into manors. Indentured white servants cultivated most of the land, granted by the conditions of plantation to the settlers, on payment of an annual quitrent. Negro slaves were being introduced, and the colonists gradually ceased to be dependent upon the Indians for maize, which was beginning to be raised in considerable quantity by the Eng lish. The fur trade slowly lost its importance, and the cultivation of tobacco flourished until it became the staple product of the province and the medium of exchange in all transactions among theplanters. The predominance of to bacco lasted throughout the provincial history; but, during the 18th century, the cereals — wheat and corn— were gradually displacing its prom inence in agriculture on the Eastern Shore. The upland country of western Maryland never grew tobacco. A few iron furnaces were established late in the provincial times, but the main industry was agriculture. Transportation was at first by water or along the Indian foot trails. Gradually roads were laid out, along which hogsheads of tobacco, drawn by oxen or horses, were rolled to the water side.
The Jesuits vainly claimed from the proprie tary the same liberty of being governed by canon law only, which they possessed in other lands having Roman Catholic lords, and of be ing freed from taxes. These claims led Balti more to send out secular priests for a time and to insist upon the supremacy of common law and of the civil power in the state. Leon
ard Calvert returned to England in 1642, leaving Giles Brent as his deputy, and came back two years later with the king's commission empow ering him to seize ships owned by London mer chants who adhered to the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War. He seems not to have used the commission, but it gave an excuse for action to those opposed to proprietary rule. Claiborne came hack in the attempt to recover Kent Island. Richard Ingle, a pronounced Parliamentarian, who had previously made sev eral voyages to the province, came to Virginia, with his ship, in February 1645, seized a Dutch merchantman in the Chesapeake, and with the two vessels terrorized the province. Calvert fled to Virginia, and Ingle ranged the province, during this ((plundering year," seized the Jesuits' property and carried them to England. Cal vert recovered control of Saint Mary's in the autumn of 1646 and of Kent Island in April 1647. Shortly afterward Leonard Calvert died, naming Thomas Greene as governor. A year later, the proprietary substituted William Stone, a Protestant, who brought into Maryland as immigrants a considerable number of Puritans from Virginia, where they had failed to find religious freedom. The Puritans made their settlements about the banks of the Severn, near the site of Annapolis, and a third county was erected for them, bearing the name of Anne Arundel, the wife of Cecil Calvert. With Stone's commission Baltimore sent a draft of a brief code of 16 laws, which he desired the general assembly to enact. The most famous of these, the "Act concerning religion," was amended and passed in April 1649. This notable act was well summarized, in its purpose and content, by Charles, third Lord Baltimore, as passed that the province might "have a gen eral toleration settled there by a law, by which, all of all sorts, who professed Christian ity in general, might be at liberty to worship God in such manner as was most agreeable to their respective judgments and consciences, with out being subject to any penalties whatsoever for their doing so, provided the civil peace were preserved. And, that for the securing the civil peace and preventing all heats and feuds which were, generally, observed to happen amongst such as differ in opinions upon occasion of re proachful nicknames and reflecting upon each other's opinions, it might, by the same law, be made penal to give any offense in that kind." The credit for this act belongs in the first in stance to Cecil, Lord Baltimore, and, secondly, to the assembly which adopted it. The coming of the Brooke family into Maryland led to the formation, in 1654, of a fourth county, bearing the name of Calvert, and situated on the north side of the Patuxent River.