The second charter granted to the London company embraced an extent of country 200 miles north of old Point Comfort, thus including the whole of the present state of Maryland. The country round the head of the Chesapeake was early explored, and a commercial relationship established with the natives whom Smith had been the first to visit. The hope of a good trade in furs continued to animate adventurers into these remote parts, and in 1631, William Clayborne, a man of a resolute and enterprising spirit, who was destined to exercise a long-continued and disturbing influence on the colony, obtained a royal license to trade with the Indians, and to form a settlement on Kent Island. Clayborne had been in the first instance sent out by the London company as a surveyor to make a map of the country, and afterwards was appointed by King James a member of the council, which appointment was confirmed by Charles I. From 1627 to 1629 he was employed by the governor of Virginia to explore the source of the Bay of Chesapeake with the adjacent country, from the 34th to the 41st degree of latitude. By this means he became familiar with the resources of the country and the opportunities which it afforded for traffic; and in consequence of these representations a company was formed in England for trading with the natives, the royal license being granted in Clayborne’s name. By virtue of this royal license, which was confirmed by the colonial commission, Clayborne established a trading settlement on the island of Kent, in the very heart of Maryland, and another near the mouth of Susquehannah. Virginia anticipated that, as commander of the Bay of Chesapeake and possessor of the soil on both banks of the Potomac, she should secure immense commercial prosperity without the interference of a rival. But while she was thus anticipating a brilliant future, the territory on which her hopes were founded was snatched from her, and a new government erected on her very threshold. It has been the happy fortune of North America, that her states, severally founded by men of various religious opinions, origin, and purposes, have ever been the asylums of the persecuted. Men of truth and high principle, suffering at home from the narrowness of state policy and the bigotry of creeds, fled hither, and here, according as their views approximated more nearly or more remotely with the broad spirit of Christianity, succeeded in establishing that freedom of action and opinion after which they had vainly sighed in the old countries.