REV. FRANCIS C. NAGOT.

379

sorrow in the reflection that we owe such a benefit to the distressed state of Religion in France."

1

On Mr. Nagot's return to Paris, the Superior of St. Sulpice selected those who were to found the Seminary at Baltimore. Others volunteered, including some young students in the Seminary. The colony was composed of the Rev. Francis C. Nagot as Superior; Rev. Mr. Levadoux, who had been Director of the Seminary of Limoges; Rev. John Tessier, former Director of the Seminary of Viviers; Rev. Anthony Garnier, former Director of the Seminary of Lyons, with Mr. Montdesir, Messrs. Tulloh and Floyd, natives of England; Caldwell, an American, and Perinault, a Canadian, as Seminarians. The Rev. Mr. Delavau, canon of St. Martin of Tours, who proposed to reside in America till calm was restored to France, joined their party.

Having chartered an American vessel at St. Malo, whence they sailed April 8, 1791, they took as passenger the famous Chateaubriand, then a young man of twenty. The vessel was nearly wrecked on leaving the port, and was detained more than two weeks in the Channel. During the long voyage high mass was sung on board every Sunday by Canon Delavau, the rest receiving communion at his hands. After long delay the vessel, managed by an unskilful captain, came

Nagol

Emery

FAC-SIMILES OF SIGNATURES OF REV. F. C. NAGOT AND REV. J. A. EMERY.

by the way of the Azores and St. Pierre de Miquelon, and reached Baltimore on the 10th of July, 1791. The Rev.

1 Bishop Carroll to Lord Arundell, London, October 4, 1790.

Charles Sewall, in the absence of the Bishop, conducted them to a house, No. 94 Baltimore Street, since removed by the opening of North, then called Belvidere Street.

Announcing to his flock in America the coming of the Sulpitians, Bishop Carroll wrote: "I propose fixing them very near to my own home, the Cathedral of Baltimore, that they may be, as it were, the clergy of the church and contribute to the dignity of divine worship. This is a great and auspicious event for our diocese, but it is a melancholy reflection, that we owe so great a blessing to the lamentable catastrophe in France."

A building put up for a public house and known as "The One Mile Tavern," with a plot of four acres, was hired, and Rev. Mr. Nagot soon purchased it for £850, Maryland currency, equivalent to $2,266.66. The house of revelry was to become one of prayer and devotion. The Sulpitians took possession on the 18th of July, and here St. Mary's Theological Seminary was opened. The first mass was celebrated on the 20th of July, a room on the second floor having been fitted up as a chapel, and blessed by Rev. Mr. Nagot, who dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin Mary.'

On the 29th of May, 1792, the Rev. Messrs. Chicoineau, David, and Flaget, who had all been Directors of Seminaries in France, arrived with two Seminarians, Messrs. Badin and Barrel.

The advent of such a number of learned, pious, and experienced priests was of immense importance to the Church.

1 Bishop Carroll to Bishop of Quebec, January 20, 1792. Tessier, "Epoques du Seminaire de Baltimore"; Dilhet, Etat de l'Eglise Catholique ou du Diocese des Etats Unis"; Rev. Mr. Tessier, Replies to Queries of Bishop Bruté in 1832; Nagot, in "Memoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'Eglise à la fin du XIXe siècle"; Chateaubriand, "Recollections of Italy, England, and America," Philadelphia, 1816, pp. 123–9.

The building seen at the right in the background is the One Mile Inn, the original seminary. A chapel was soon after built out on the level with the first floor.

The Seminary could not give employment to all, and priests who had filled the chair of Director or Professor in great seminaries took up with cheerfulness the hardships of missionary life in the United States.

The Prefecture-Apostolic under the Very Rev. Dr. Carroll extended to the parts which had been subject to the Vicar-Apostolic of London, and included the territory of the old English colonies; but no act of the Holy See deprived the Bishop of Quebec of the missions in Maine, New York, the country northwest of the Ohio; or the Bishop of Santiago de Cuba of Natchez, Baton Rouge, and other points at the South. The expressions in Dr. Carroll's Bulls left it in doubt whether his diocese comprised the Thirteen States or the whole territory included in the United States. The matter was referred to Rome, and the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide on the 29th day of January, 1791, placed the whole territory of the United States under the jurisdiction of Bishop Carroll, and put an end to all claims of the other prelates.' Detroit, and a considerable part of Michigan and

1 Ex audientia SSmi habita die 13 Januarii 1791.

Proposito per me . . . . dubio super jurisdictione episcopi Baltimorensis in America Septentrionali, an scilicet præter tredecim Provincias, quæ in Brevi erectionis nominantur, alii quoque terrarum tractus contigui ad Baltimorensem sedem pertinere debeant, qui licet fœderationi Americanæ subjecti, non adhuc tamen in formam Provinciæ sunt redacti.

SSmus Dominus Noster Pius Pont. VI. declaravit die 6 Novembris 1789 omnes Christi fideles. . . . non solum in Fœderatæ America Provinciis, sed etiam in aliis finitimis extra provincialibus regionibus, ejusdem tandem Reipublicæ dominio subjectis existentes, quamvis alteri cujuscumque Diocesis Episcopo hucusque subjecti fuerint, in posterum Episcopo Baltimoren. subjectos fore et esse debere, quibuscumque &c.

Datum Romæ . . . 29 Janrii 1791.

L. CARD. ANTONELLUS, Præf

THE CARMELITE NUNS.

383

some of Ohio, was still claimed by England as part of Canada; and Spain claimed Natchez as territory wrested from the British in war. Until the United States acquired possession at these points Dr. Carroll's authority was not exercised there.

America was to be blessed also with a community of clois tered, contemplative nuns. To the worldly, such a body might seem a burthen rather than an aid to a struggling Church. Not such was the judgment of Bishop Carroll. Pious Catholics in Maryland had solicited the Carmelite nuns of Antwerp to found a house of their order at Port Tobacco. Bishop Carroll gladly favored the establishment of a community intended solely for prayer, and for imploring the happy success of the American mission and the propagation of the Catholic faith in this New World.

When the Catholics near Port Tobacco forwarded to the Convent at Antwerp their request for a branch of that venerable community, which dates back almost to St. Teresa herself, having been founded by Mother Anne of the Ascension, only thirty-seven years after the death of the illustrious reviver of the Carmelite order, the Bishop of Antwerp addressed a letter to Bishop Carroll, and the newly appointed Bishop of Baltimore readily gave his consent. Rev. Charles Neale selected four nuns, one from the Mother-house at Antwerp, Mother Clare F. Dickinson, and three from the convent at Hogstraet, Reverend Mother Bernardina Mathews, Superior of that house, and her nieces Aloysia and Eleonora Mathews. They left Europe April 9, 1790, and after a tempestuous voyage landed at Mr. Robert Brent's, near Port Tobacco. Rev. Charles Neale had given the little community a farm belonging to him, but as it had not a building suited to the wants of the nuns, they exchanged it for property belonging to Mr. Baker Brooke, who had just erected a large