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are no longer extant; but we know, that the neces-
sity of vindicating the jurisdiction of the province against the claims of
Clayborne was deemed a subject worthy of the general deliberation and of a decisive act.
1 For he had been roused, by confidence in his power, to resolve on maintaining his possessions by force of arms.
The earliest annals of
Maryland are defaced by the accounts of a bloody skirmish on one of the rivers near the
Isle of Kent.
Several lives were lost in the affray; but
Clayborne's men were defeated.
Lord Baltimore afterwards accused them of ‘piracy and murder,’ and, in 1638,
Leonard Calvert, taking forcible possession of
Kent Island, executed one or two persons on the charge, though at the time
Clayborne was in
England, prosecuting his claims before the king.
2
When a colonial assembly was next convened, it
passed an act of attainder against
Clayborne; as if he had not only derided the powers of the proprietary, but had scattered jealousies among the Indians, and infused a spirit of disobedience into the inhabitants of
Kent Island.
Now that he was away, his estates were seized, and were declared forfeited to the laws, which he had contemned as invalid.
3 In
England,
Clayborne attempted to gain a hearing for his wrongs; and, partly by strong representations, still more by the influence of
Sir William Alexander, succeeded, for a season, in procuring the favorable disposition of Charles.
But when the whole affair came to be referred to the commissioners for the plantations, it was found, that, on
received principles, the right of the king to confer the soil and the jurisdiction of
Maryland could not be
