The capital was removed from St. Mary's, the centre of the Catholic interest, to Annapolis,--first settled by Puritans, and now controlled by the adherents of the establishment. Maryland's prosperity, heretofore unrivalled in the colonies, now suffered a check, and for a term of years the royal administration was signalized by religious persecution and a low political and social tone, till in 1715 the proprietorship was re-established. In 1729 the city of Baltimore was founded as a convenient port for the planters. The settlement and growth of Maryland had enforced two lessons which were never wholly forgotten,--the possibility, under official toleration, of bringing members of different religious sects together in one civil community and government; and the comfort and prosperity attainable in a well-governed colony. 36. Early Settlers in the Carolinas (1542-1665). Sidenote: Early colonial attempts. Between Virginia and Spanish Florida a broad belt of territory lay long unoccupied. A Huguenot colony in 1562 had had a brief existence there, and in consequence France claimed the country as her share of Florida. But the Spaniards drove out the French, and thus unwittingly left the field to the north clear for the English. In 1584 Amadas and Barlowe led a prospecting party to Roanoke Island (p. 38), and here also (1585, 1587) two of Raleigh's ill-fated colonies spent their strength. The swamp-girted coast had few harbors, the colonizing material did not possess staying qualities, the ill-treated Indians turned on the invaders of their soil, the sites of settlements were ill-chosen. For a long period of years after the failure of these enterprises a prejudice existed against the middle region as a colonizing ground. Sidenotes: Adventurous Virginians explore North Carolina. Roger Green plants Albemarle. But before Jamestown was two years old restless Virginians had explored the upper waters of some of the southern rivers, and by 1625 the region was fairly familiar to hunters and adventurous land-seekers as far south as the Chowan. In 1629 Charles I. gave "the province of Carolana" to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general; but nothing came of the grant. The Virginia Assembly took it upon itself to issue exploring and trading permits in the southern portion of the Virginia claims, often called Carolana, to certain commercial companies, with the result that the character of the country became generally known. In 1653 a small colony of Virginia dissenters, harassed by the Church of England party at home, were led by Roger Green to the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke; and there they planted Albemarle, the first permanent settlement in what is now North Carolina. Sidenotes: Miscellaneous colonizing parties. New Englanders at Cape Fear River. Colonists from Barbadoes at Clarendon.