His own and his father's intimate acquaintance with failure in the planting of Virginia and of Newfoundland had taught him what not to do in such enterprises.

If the proprietor meant to succeed (and he _did_ mean to) he was shut up without alternative to the policy of impartial non-interference with religious differences among his colonists, and the promotion of mutual forbearance among sects.

Lord Baltimore may not have been a profound political philosopher nor a prophet of the coming era of religious liberty, but he was an adroit courtier, like his father before him, and he was a man of practical good sense engaged in an enormous land speculation in which his whole fortune was embarked, and he was not in the least disposed to allow his religious predilections to interfere with business.

Nothing would have brought speedier ruin to his enterprise than to have it suspected, as his enemies were always ready to allege, that it was governed in the interest of the Roman Catholic Church.

Such a suspicion he took the most effective means of averting.
He kept his promises to his colonists in this matter in good faith, and had his reward in the notable prosperity of his colony.[57:1] The two priests of the first Maryland company began their work with characteristic earnestness and diligence.