An uninterrupted tranquillity of many years followed the commotions just narrated. In 1675, died Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, the first proprietary, leaving his estate in the province to his son and heir, Charles Calvert. On a visit to England, the new proprietary found himself and his government the subject of complaint to the Crown, from the resident clergy of the Church of England, in the province. They represented that the province was no better than a Sodom,--religion despised,--the Lord's day profaned, and all notorious vices committed;--in short, it was in a deplorable condition for want of an established ministry, the Quakers providing for their speakers, and the Catholics for their priests, but no care taken to build up churches in the Protestant religion. Baltimore represented very honestly, that all religions were tolerated by his laws, and none established,--and was dismissed for the time, with the general injunction to restrain immorality, and provide for a competent number of clergy of the Church of England. But the jealousy of popery, now abroad in England, began to flame up in the colonies, and especially in Maryland, which, peopled chiefly by Protestants, was yet under the dominion of a Catholic. Complaints were poured into Charles's ear, of Catholic partialities in the proprietary administration; and, in reply to a communication from Baltimore, by which it was shown beyond doubt, that his offices were distributed without distinction of religion, and the military power almost exclusively in Protestant hands--"that exemplary monarch," says our author, "gave his commentary on religious liberty, by ordering all offices to be put into the hands of the Protestants." With a singular ill fortune, which must be put to the account of his tolerance, the proprietary, thus controlled by a Protestant king, and menaced, besides, with that then formidable weapon of royalty, a _quo warranto_, did not the less encounter an enemy in his Catholic successor, by whom, in 1687, a _quo warranto_ was actually issued. Before judgment was pronounced, indeed, the monarch himself was an exile, by the judgment of his people; but the proprietary was now attacked, on the opposite quarter, by the "Protestant Association of Maryland," which succeeded in overthrowing his government. This revolution marks one era in our author's historical narrative, before we proceed in which, we must pause a moment with him, to mention the condition of the colony, at the time this event occurred.