 From the time of his conversion in 1625 onwards , Baltimore took care to cater for the religious needs of his colonists , both Catholic and Protestant . He had asked Simon Stock to provide priests for the 1625 expedition , but Stock 's recruits arrived in England after Aston had sailed . Stock 's own ambitions for the colony appear to have exceeded Baltimore 's : in letters to De Propaganda <unk> in Rome , Stock claimed the Newfoundland settlement could act as a <unk> for the conversion of natives not only in the New World but also in China , the latter via a passage he believed existed from the east coast to the Pacific Ocean . 
