Note Note 4, page 225 — BOOK III. CENTRIFUGAL FORCES IN COLONY-PLANTING.

The charter of Avalon. Sir George Calvert probably drafted with his own hand—the hand of an expert and accomplished man of the court—the charter of April 7, 1623, that conferred on him an authority little short of sovereignty over his new territory. This masterpiece of dexterous charter-making afforded a model for other proprietary charters, and Calvert himself bettered it but little in the Maryland charter of a later date. The ambiguous passages in the Maryland charter, which have been accounted evidence of a design to make way for the toleration or even the possible dominance of Roman Catholicism, appear already in the charter of Avalon. Note 4. Was the colony of 1621 or its charter of 1623 intended to supply a refuge, if one should be needed, for Englishmen of the Catholic faith? The question is not easily answered. The primary design of the Avalon colony was, no doubt, to better the fortunes of Sir George Calvert and to lift him and his successors into the authority and dignity of counts-palatine in the New World. But there can hardly be a doubt that, before the charter of 1623 was granted, Secretary Calvert was already a Catholic, secretly or latently, if not overtly. His charter of Avalon naturally left open a door for the toleration of the faith to which he was already attached, or toward which he was tending. Note 5.