Maryland consisted at this time of four counties: St. Mary's, erected in 1634, Kent, 1642, and Charles and Anne Arundelin 1650, and contained a population perhaps of eight thousand. The settlements reached on both sides of the bay, from the Potomac to the Susquehanna. Society was distinctly democratic, for while there were favored families there was no privileged class, and the existence of African slavery and the temporary servitude of convicts and redemptioners tended to place all freemen on an equality. As there was no state church, educational opportunities in the province were small, but it was a land of plenty and hospitality, and charity in religion made the execution of the criminal law singularly mild. In spite of turmoils and dissensions, Maryland prospered and flourished. A home feeling existed, and there were many even among the recent exiles from Virginia who looked with hope to its future and spoke of it as "a country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my days, in which I covet to make my grave."[37] [Footnote 1: _Md. Archives_, III., 32.] [Footnote 2: _Md. Archives_, V., 158.] [Footnote 3: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 154. ] [Footnote 4: _Md. Archives_, III., 33. ] [Footnote 5: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 49.] [Footnote 6: _Md. Archives_, V., 164-168.] [Footnote 7: Ibid., III., 29.] [Footnote 8: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 51.] [Footnote 9: _Md. Archives_ III., 37.] [Footnote 10: Browne, _George and Cecilius Calvert_, 69.] [Footnote 11: _Md. Archives_, V., 187.] [Footnote 12: _Md. Archives_, III., 42-93.] [Footnote 13: White, _Relation_ (Force, _Tracts_, IV., No. xii.).] [Footnote 14: _Md. Archives_, I., 119, IV., 38.] [Footnote 15: _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund Publications_, No. 35), 166, 216, 217; _Md. Archives_, III., 227.] [Footnote 16: Winthrop, _New England_, II., 179.] [Footnote 17: _Md. Archives_, IV., 246-249.] [Footnote 18: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 75; _Md. Archives_, III., 165, 177.] [Footnote 19: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 293.] [Footnote 20: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 321.] [Footnote 21: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 296.] [Footnote 22: _Md. Archives_, IV., 281, 435, 458, 459.] [Footnote 23: Hazard, _State Papers_, I., 493.] [Footnote 24: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 340.] [Footnote 25: _Md. Archives_, III., 164, 180, 187.] [Footnote 26: _Md. Archives_, III., 211, 214.] [Footnote 27: Ibid., I., 244-247.] [Footnote 28: Ibid., III., 201.] [Footnote 29: _Md. Archives_, I., 261, 287.] [Footnote 30: Ibid., III., 196.] [Footnote 31: Ibid., I., 305.] [Footnote 32: Neill, _Terra Mariae_, 88.] [Footnote 33: Bozman, _Maryland_, II., 672.] [Footnote 34: _Md. Archives_, III., 259.] [Footnote 35: _Md. Archives_, III., 265.] [Footnote 36: Ibid., 271-277.] [Footnote 37: Hammond, _Leah and Rachel_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. xiv.).] CHAPTER IX FOUNDING OF PLYMOUTH (1608-1630)