John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"I trust that chastened the knave!"

"For a time," Charles replied. "He got him an island in the Bahamas in 1638, and we saw none of him for four or five years. As for his kin, we had 'em jailed, but since the Assembly had never yet convened, we had no jury to indict 'em and no court to try 'em in!"

"How did you manage it?" asked Ebenezer. "Pray don't tell me you turned them free!"

"Why, we convened the Assembly as a grand inquest to bring the indictment, then magicked 'em into a court to try the case and find the prisoners guilty. Uncle Leonard then sentences the prisoners to hang, the court becomes an Assembly again and passes his sentence as a bill (since we'd had no law to try the case under), and Uncle Leonard commutes the sentence to insure that no injustice hath been done."

" 'Twas a brilliant maneuver!" Ebenezer declared.

" 'Twas the commencement of our woes," said Charles. "No sooner was the Assembly convened than they demanded the right to enact laws, albeit the charter plainly reserved that right for the Proprietary, requiring only the assent of the freemen. Father resisted for a time but had shortly to concede, at least for the nonce, in order to avoid a mutiny. From that day forward the Assembly was at odds with us, and played us false, and lost no chance to diminish our power and aggrandize their own."

He sighed.

"And as if this weren't sufficient harassment, 'twas about this time we learned that the Jesuit missionaries, who had been converting Piscataways by the score, had all the while been taking in return large tracts of land in the name of the Church; and one fine day they declare to us their intent to hold this enormous territory independent of the Proprietary! They knew Father was Catholic and so announced that canon law held full sway in the province, and that by the Papal Bull In Coena Domini they and their fraudulent landholdings were exempt from the common law!"

"Ah God!" said Ebenezer.

"What they were ignorant of," Charles continued, "was that Grandfather, ere he turned Catholic, had seen his fill of Jesuitry in Ireland, when James sent him to investigate the discontent there. To nip't in the bud ere the Jesuits snatch the whole Province on the one hand, or the Protestants use the incident as excuse for an anti-Papist insurrection on the other, Father applied to Rome to recall the Jesuits and send him secular priests instead; and after some years of dispute the Propaganda ordered it done.

"Next came Indian trouble. The Susquehannoughs to the north and the Nanticokes on the Eastern Shore had always raided the other tribes now and again, being hunters and not farmers. But after 1640 they took to attacking plantations here and there in the Province, and there was talk of their stirring up our friends the Piscataways to join 'em in a wholesale massacre. Some said 'twas the French behind it all; some alleged 'twas the work of the Jesuits; but I believe 'twas the scheming hand of Bill Claiborne at work."

"Claiborne!" said Ebenezer. "How is that? Did I not mishear you, Claiborne was hid in the Bahamas!"

"So he was. But in 1643, what with the Jesuit trouble, and the Indian trouble, and some dissension in the colony over the civil war 'twixt Charles and the Parliament, Uncle Leonard returned to London to discuss the affairs of the Province with Father, and no sooner did he sail than Claiborne commenced slipping up the Bay in secret, trying to stir up sedition amongst the Kent Islanders. 'Twas about this time one Richard Ingle — a sea-captain, atheist, and traitor — puts into St. Mary's with a merchantman called the Reformation, drinks himself drunk, and declares to all and sundry that the King is no king, and that he'd take off the head of any royalist who durst gainsay him!"

"Treason!" Ebenezer exclaimed.

"So said our man Giles Brent, who was Governor against Uncle Leonard's return; he jailed Ingle and confiscated his ship. But as quick as we clap the blackguard in irons he's set loose by order of our own Councilman, Captain Cornwaleys, restored to his ship, and let go free as a fish."

"I am astonished."

"Now, this Cornwaleys was a soldier and had lately led expeditions to make peace with the Nanticokes and drive back the Susquehannoughs. When we impeached him for freeing Ingle, 'twas said in his defense he'd exacted promise from the scoundrel to supply us a barrel of powder and four hundredweight of shot for the defense of the Province — and sure enough the rascal returns soon after, cursing and assaulting all he meets, and pledges the ammunition as bail against a future trial. But ere we see a ball of't, off he sails again, flaunting clearance and port-dues, and takes his friend Cornwaleys as passenger.

" 'Twas soon clear that Ingle and Claiborne, our two worst enemies, had leagued together to do us in, using the English Civil War as alibi. Claiborne landed at Kent Island, displayed a false parchment, and swore 'twas his commission from the King to command the Island. At the same time, the roundhead Ingle storms St. Mary's with an armed ship and his own false parchment; he reduces the city, drives Uncle Leonard to flee to Virginia, and so with Claiborne's aid claims the whole of Maryland, which for the space of two years suffers total anarchy. He pillages here, plunders there, seizes property, steals the very locks and hinges of every housedoor, and snatches e'en the Great Seal of Maryland itself, it being forty poundsworth of good silver. He does not stick e'en at the house and goods of his savior Cornwaleys but plunders 'em with the rest, and then has Cornwaleys jailed in London as his debtor and traitor to boot! As a final cut he swears to the House of Lords he did it all for conscience's sake, forasmuch as Cornwaleys and the rest of his victims were Papists and malignants!"

"I cannot comprehend it," Ebenezer confessed.

"In 1646 Uncle Leonard mustered a force with the help of Governor Berkeley and recaptured St. Mary's and soon all of Maryland — Kent Island being the last to submit. The Province was ours again, though Uncle Leonard's pains were ill rewarded, for he died a year after."

"Hi!" cried Ebenezer. "What a struggle! I hope with all my heart you were plagued no more by the likes of Claiborne but enjoyed your Province in peace and harmony!"

" 'Twas our due, by Heav'n. But not three years passed ere the pot of faction and sedition boiled again."

"I groan to hear it."

" 'Twas mainly Claiborne, this time in league with Oliver Cromwell and the Protestants, though he'd lately been a swaggering royalist. Some years before, when the Anglicans ran the Puritans out of Virginia, Uncle Leonard had given 'em leave to make a town called Providence on the Severn River, inasmuch as none suffered in Maryland by reason of his faith. But these Protestants despised us Romanists, and would swear no allegiance to Father. When Charles I was beheaded and Charles II driven to exile, Father made no protest but acknowledged Parliament's authority; he e'en saw to't that the Catholic Thomas Greene, Governor after Uncle Leonard died, was replaced by a Protestant and friend of Parliament, William Stone, so's to give the malcontents in Providence no occasion to rebel. His thanks for this wisdom was to have Charles II exiled on the Isle of Jersey, declare him a Roundhead and grant the Maryland government to Sir William Davenant, the poet."

"Davenant!" exclaimed Ebenezer. "Ah, now, 'tis a right noble vision, the poet-king! Yet do I blush for my craft, that the fellow took a prize so unfairly giv'n."

"He got not far with't, for no sooner did he sail for Maryland than a Parliament cruiser waylaid him in the Channel off Lands End, and that scotched him. Now Virginia, don't you know, was royalist to the end, and when she proclaimed Charles II directly his father was axed, Parliament made ready a fleet to reduce her to submission. Just then, in 1650, our Governor Stone hied him to Virginia on business and deputized his predecessor Thomas Greene to govern till his return. 'Twas a fool's decision, inasmuch as this Greene still smarted at having been replaced. Directly he's deputized he declares with Virginia for Charles II, and for all Governor Stone hastens back and turns the fellow out, the damage is done! The dastard Dick Ingle was still a free man in London, and directly word reached him he flew to the committee in charge of reducing Virginia and caused 'em to add Maryland to the commission. But Father caught wind of't, and ere the fleet sailed he petitioned that Greene's proclamation had been made without his authority or knowledge, and caused the name of Maryland to be stricken from the commission. Thinking that guaranty enough, he retired: straightway sly Bill Claiborne appears and, trusting as always that the committee knew naught of American geography, sees to't the commission is rewrit to include all the plantations within the Bay of Chesapeake — which is to say, all of Maryland! What's more, he gets himself appointed as an alternate commissioner of Parliament to sail with the fleet. There were three commissioners — all reasonable gentlemen, if misled — and two alternates: Claiborne and another scoundrel, Richard Bennett, that had taken refuge in our Providence town what time Virginia turned out her Puritans."