And Thomas meant to teach it to his son. That, he said, was the natural order of things.

And the Staffords had followed the natural order of things since they arrived in 1634, with thirteen other Catholic families and a charter from a Protestant king. They had settled between the rivers that the Indians called Patawomek and Patuxent. There they had built a capital called Saint Mary’s City and the first Catholic church in English America. Then they had set about the business of cultivating the weed that the Indians had taught the first Europeans to smoke, a weed with the power to invigorate or relax, depending only upon the way a man smoked it.

Life, to be sure, had not been easy. Planters had faced the vagaries of weather and London markets and their own vexing inexperience, but by the grace of God, English ships had soon begun following rivers and creeks to every plantation on the tidewater, where docks sagged under the wondrous weight of tobacco hogsheads.

English ships had also brought Puritans, who wished to settle on the Severn River, some sixty miles up the Chesapeake. So the Catholics of Saint Mary’s had proclaimed the Toleration Act, protecting Puritans, Anglicans, and anyone else who sought the grace of God on the great bay.

But by the time that little Jedediah was born, it was the Catholics who begged for toleration in a colony grown more Protestant with each generation; it was the Catholics who had attacked the Severn settlement when the Puritans took power and tried to stop them from practicing their faith; it was the Catholics who had seen Saint Mary’s City wither while the Severn settlement became the new capital.

Through it all, the Staffords had worked their Patuxent plantation, practiced their faith quietly, and called themselves good Englishmen. And while they grew tobacco, the house they called Stafford Hall grew from four rooms to six and then to eight, their holdings grew, and the province grew as well, not only with free Englishmen, but with indentured servants contracted to labor seven years in return for passage, and black Africans chained to labor forever for nothing.

Thomas Stafford’s sloop, the Patuxent, was crewed by four indentured servants and could make seven knots with a good breeze. In light summer airs, however, the trip to Annapolis took twelve hours, and it was dusk when they dropped anchor under the shore battery at the mouth of the Severn.

That evening father and son made a fine picture strolling the streets of Annapolis. Thomas Stafford was blessed with good height, a rugged lean body, and a forthright gaze that made men believe him, whether he was sealing an agreement or making a threat. And people said he would never need a will to guarantee his son’s inheritance; all it would take was one look at the boy’s face.

“This, lad, is a city. Granted, ’tisn’t much of a one. But it’ll grow. Be sure of that. And England’ll see that a colony born of toleration can be a prosperous place—even when the toleration fades—prosperous enough to support a fine city.”

Jedediah thought that if “city” meant crowded dwellings, piles of steaming horse dung in the streets, and the stink of the local leather tanneries choking everything, then a city was not worthy of his father’s enthusiasm.

But when other memories of his father had faded, the boy needed only to think of Annapolis and he would feel his father’s strong hand holding his once more, hear again the enthusiasm in his father’s voice. “See how fine it’s laid out, lad—straight streets, public circles for the public buildings, slanted streets joining the circles. Just like London after the Great Fire, except it sits on this fine prospect above the Severn.”

They were climbing the hill at the back of the town, but Jedediah was not interested in the fine prospect, because the mosquitoes were biting his neck.

The father led his son around the circle atop the hill and admired the government house from every angle. “What finer place could there be for the royal proprietor to dispense the law of this new land?” he exulted.

Then he led the boy a short distance to a second, smaller circle on a second, smaller hill, to admire the golden finial on the spire of Saint Anne’s Church. “And what better place for a bishop to dispense the law of God, even an Anglican bishop?”

“Ma’s an Anglican.”

And Thomas Stafford’s enthusiasm waned. In a land where women were scarce, he had married one who was not a Catholic. She had reluctantly agreed to raise their son in her husband’s faith, and her husband had suffered greatly for the pain this caused her. But in front of their son, they had showed only their love.

And next morning Thomas Stafford showed only a brave face when a rumor ran around the waterfront that a French schooner was loose in the lower Chesapeake.

“Pirate or privateer?” asked someone in the crowd gathering for the landing of the slaves.

“What does it matter?” demanded Thomas Stafford. “A privateer’s no better than a pirate with a license. I’m Admiralty agent for the Patuxent, and I guarantee the Royal Navy don’t let pirates or privateers into the Chesapeake. So us Staffords, we’ll sail where we will.”

Such confidence calmed both the crowd and the boy.

When the slaves came off the ship, the pirates were forgotten altogether.

But Jedediah would never forget the sight of those black bodies. His father had ordered five males on consignment, five fine young breeders, and he paid a top price of twenty-five pounds apiece. The slaves had been fed and exercised on their ship, then washed down and well-oiled, so that their skin would shine and their muscles ripple, and their buyer would not reject them. But no amount of cleaning could cover up the fear in their wide, white eyes or quiet the furious clanging of their manacles after they had been chained to the mast of the Patuxent.

They seemed much wilder than the slaves at Stafford Hall, and all the way down the bay, Jedediah watched them with a combination of fascination and fear.

“They smell funny, Pa.”

“They’re afraid. Once they see how we treat ’em, they’ll be as docile as old mares.”

Then one of them growled and pulled at his chains.

The little boy jumped back. “He’s like an animal, Pa.”

“Well, son, there’s some would say that in some ways he is a poor dumb creature that the Lord gives us to care for.