Soon they reached the mouth of the Potomac -- a river much greater than any
of them, save shipmasters and mariners, had ever seen -- and into this turned
the Ark and the Dove. After a few leagues of sailing up the wide stream,
they came upon an islet covered with trees, leafless, for spring had hardly
broken. The ships dropped anchor; the boats were lowered; the people went
ashore. Here the Calverts claimed Maryland "for our Savior and for our
Sovereign Lord the King of England," and here they heard Mass. St.
Clement's they called the island.
But it was too small for a home. The Ark was left at anchor, while Leonard
Calvert went exploring with the Dove. Up the Potomac some distance he went,
but at the last he wisely determined to choose for their first town a site
nearer the sea. The Dove turned and came back to the Ark, and both sailed
on down the stream from St. Clement's Isle. Before long they came to the
mouth of a tributary stream flowing in from the north. The Dove, going
forth again, entered this river, which presently the party named the River
St. George. Soon they came to a high bank with trees tinged with the
foliage of advancing spring. Here upon this bank the English found an
Indian village and a small Algonquin group, in the course of extinction by
their formidable Iroquois neighbors, the giant Susquehannocks. The white
men landed, bearing a store of hatchets, gewgaws, and colored cloth. The
first Lord Baltimore, having had opportunity enough for observing savages,
had probably handed on to his sagacious sons his conclusions as to ways of
dealing with the natives of the forest.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113