George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore

"[T]hus your Lordship hoe know is life and is my baby." sees that we Papists want not Charity towards you Protestants, whatsoever the less understanding Part of the World think of us."

"I intend shortly, God willing, a journey for Newfoundland to visit a plantation which I began there some few years since."

"[B]eing bound for a long Journey to a Place which I have had a long Desire to visit, and have now the Opportunity and Leave to do: It is Newfoundland I mean, which imports me more than in Curiosity only to see; for I must either go and settle it in a better Order than it is, or else give it over, and lose all the Charges I have been at hitherto for other Men to build their Fortunes upon. And I had rather be esteemed a Fool for some by the Hazard of one Month's journey, than to prove myself one certainly for six Years by past, if the Business be now lost for some want of a little Pains and Care."

"Lord Baltimore's dream of founding a colony in America did not fade with his return to England. Two years after leaving Newfoundland he obtained for himself and his heirs the concession of a vast stretch of land to the north of the Potomac River, the future state of Maryland. He died, however, on 15/25 April 1632, before his rights to concession could be officially proclaimed. It was his son Cecil who inherited the lands along with his father's title. His brother Leonard was sent as governor in 1634."

"The first settlement in Maryland was made in 1634 by two small ships, the Ark and the Dove, carrying about 220 people and landing at St. Marys, near the mouth of the Potomac. From the first, Roman Catholicism was a uniquely important issue in this colony. For Calvert's father, George, the first Lord Baltimore and a leader of the monarchial party in England, had turned Catholic after receiving a promise of the grant. From the first, Cecilius wanted to make Maryland a haven from persecution for Catholics in England. But, eager to encourage settlement (for without settlers there would be no profit from his feudal domain), Calvert made no religious test for settling in the colony. As a result, Protestants outnumbered Catholics among the settlers by nearly ten to one from the beginning—with the Protestant faith predominating among the poorer classes and Catholicism among the gentlemen. Both Protestants and Catholics enjoyed full religious liberty and there was no established church in the colony."