Lord Baltimore's Claims

This, so my Lord Baltimore claimed, entitled him not only to the country on both sides of the bay, but, as a matter of course, to the islands therein; therefore, this plantation of Kent, which William Claiborne had bought from the Indians, was clearly within the limits of our Province of Maryland.

Because there was much money to be made by buying furs of the Indians, paying for them in trinkets bought at small prices in England, our Governor Calvert was not inclined to sit idly by while this William Claiborne, and the merchant who was his partner, made large profits that clearly belonged to the Calvert family.

It was this London merchant, partner of William Claiborne, who was making so much trouble in England for our own Lord Baltimore, that he could not sail on the Ark  with us, but was forced to remain at home that he might care for his just rights.

Therefore it was, that no sooner had our visitors departed than Governor Calvert sent in the Dove  my father and two other gentlemen to the island of Kent, to give notice to William Claiborne that his plantation belonged to the Province of Maryland, and that he must cease trading with the savages until after having made some kind of bargain with those who really owned the land.

This man Claiborne, instead of agreeing that his purchase of land from the Indians did not give him any lawful right to it, pretended, and with some shadow of claim, so it is said, that he was acting under orders of the Governor of Virginia, and should therefore continue as he had been doing.

But we of St. Mary's were too busy at that time to teach Master Claiborne the lesson he needed, it being necessary that we should get our seed in the ground, set about building houses which would afford better shelter than the huts given us by the Indians, and also fit out a small pinnace as a trading vessel, for during these first years the only money we could earn was by following the example set by the Englishmen on Kent Island.