MDDM Ch. 25: This Case

[Dave Monroe]

Given that 10k limit, this'll be a two-parter ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> 246.2 "This case ... languish'd in court for eighty
> years." The border dispute between Pennsylvania and
> Maryland?

>From Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line: How Mason and
Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), Ch. 2, "The Fortieth
Degree, pp. 10-17 ...

"In the seventeenth century, granting large tracts of
American wilderness to adventuresome English
gentlement was a royal prerogative.  The Tudor and
Stewart monarchies had failed to map accurately their
new lands, and what few maps existed were unreliable. 
Consequently, royal land grants were mostly inaccurate
and ill-informed affairs.  The new colonial
landowners, or proprietors, seldom, if ever, checked
what they were granted before handing over large sums
of gold to the grasping royals; disputes followed,
inevitably leading to acrimony and bloodshed.
   "In 1603, a Stuart king, James IV of Scotland, had
succeeded to the English throne as James I of England;
although the son of a Catholic monarch, Mary, Queen of
Scots, James was a Protestant.  Shortly after his
coronation, James reintroduced the harsh recusancy
laws, which demanded penalties for those who did not
attend Church of England services; this led to the
Catholic plot to blow up Parliament on November 5,
1605.  Although the Gunpowder Plot failed, it incensed
James and reawakened anti-Catholic fervor throughout
England.  It was in this dangerous period of religious
intolerance that the able and ambitious secretary of
state, Sir George Calvert (1578-1632), a devout
Catholic, had the perverse task of presenting the
king's anti-Catholic policies to the House of Commons.
 With the king's death in 1625, anti-Catholic feelings
diminished a little ....  For his service to the state
and Crwon, [Calvert] was created First Baron Baltimore
in the Irish peerage ...." (p. 10)

"... in 1624 Calvert secured a place in the
prestigious membership of te Virginia Company of
Planters.... in 1628 ... returned to London to
petition the new king, Charles I, for a grant of
Virginian land ... his petition had been denied
because of his Roman Catholic sympathies ..." (p. 11)

   "Calvert, undaunted, tried for the area north of
the Potomac River; this time he was more successful. 
The grant provided for a slice of the American
wilderness from the southern bank of the Potomac River
to a 'point which lieth under the Fortieth degree of
north latitude.'
   "Sadly, George Calvert died on April 15, 1632, two
monthe before the grant of the royal charter on June
20.  The new territory was named Maryland in honor of
Henrietta Maria, queen consort of Charles I.  The new
Baltimore title and the new province passed to
George's son Cecilius (1605-1675), also a devout
Cathholic.... made the province a haven of religious
tolerance.... three-quarters of the settlers flocking
to Maryland were non-Catholic." (p. 11)

   "During the period following Elizabeth I's death in
1603 and the start of the Long Parliament in 1640, a
revolution in political thought and religious
Puritanism fermented beneath the surface of English
society.  The full fury of the long expected war
between Parliament and king broke out in 1642.... 
England's focus became entirely introspective.... the
war and its aftermath effectively halted colonial
activity in North America.  England's colonial
competitors attempted to take advantage of its
disarray....  The first of the Dutch Wars lasted from
1652 to 1654 and resulted in an English victory." (p.
12)

   "The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought a
return to English colonial expansion, which, in turn,
renewed commercial rivalry with the Dutch.  In 1664,
teh English fleet sailed into New Amsterdam ....  The
conquerors renamed the town New York.  The next year
... the Dutch made the first serious challenge to
Englan's sea power since the Armada.... the Great
Plague ....  The Great Fire ... (pp. 12-3)

   "In postwar England, times had become politically
very dangerous as Catholic interests vied with
Protestant aims ....  Charles II was a profligate
sovereign, and by way of cultivating favor, Admiral
Sir William Penn lent the king the vast sum of 16,000
[pounds].  On Sir William's death in 1670, his son,
also called William, inherited the debt.  The younger
William Penn (1644-1718) had embraced the Quaker faith
as a young amn and his avowed intent was, like
Calvert's before, to found a colony of religious
tolerance." (p. 14)

   "Knowing well the pecuniary difficulties of the
king, and wishing to further his American objectives.
Penn petitioned King Charles with an offer he could
not refuse.  In exchange for discharging his father's
loan in full, Penn requested an American province.... 
On March 4, 1681, the grant for Pennsylvania ...
received the royal assent.  The grant stipulated that
the land would extend south from the forty-third
parallel, as far west as five degrees longitude from
the Delaware River, and 'a Circle drawne at twelve
miles distance ... to the beginning of the fortieth
degree'; that is, Maryland's northern border.
   "The boundary dispute between the two colonies
started almost immediately ..." (p. 14)

   "Some survey work around New Castle had shown that
the proposed the proposed twelve-mile circle was
substantially short of the critical fortieth parallel
that separated the two provinces." (p. 15)

   "It was about this time that Baltimore's title
claim to the three lower counties, the modern state of
Delaware, was challenged." (p. 15)

"Penn ... arranged to meet with his neighbor, Lord
Baltimore, near Annapolis on December 13, 1682.
   "The two men and their advisers discussed some
unlikely and impractical solutions for establishing
their border." (p. 16)

   "The Catholic faith was under attack from fanatics
... the so-called Popish Plot.  Catholic plots were
seen everywhere and Lord Baltimore, as a Catholic and
an influential man, was a target for Anglican
intrigue.  The next meeting between POenn and Lord
Baltimore took place at New Castle in April 1683;
again, the previous ideas were discussed without
resolution.... the meeting broke up in yet more
acrimony." (p. 16)

   "The whole issue was getting seriously out of hand;
the only recourse open to the protagonists was a
referral to the Crown....  King Charles conferred with
his Privy Council, who referred the matter to the
Board of Trade and Plantations.  The board's
commissioners ... finally issued its decree in 1685. 
The judgment of the Board of Trade was that the
Delaware peninsula north of Cape Henlopen should be
divided equally ....  That was not the end of the
matter ....  The onus returned to the proprietors to
set out the border marks in accordance with the
decree, but this grand opportunity to end the conflict
quickly slipped away." (p. 17)

To be continued ...

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