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affairs to a popular convention; the governor and the CHAP. assembly understood their relative position perfectly; he joined with them in such acts as could be jus- 1775. tified before the king; they, by their own separate vote, adopted the measures which could not receive his official sanction. In this manner the house, in June, appointed a committee of safety, but with Dickinson at its head; and placed at its disposition thirtyfive thousand pounds in bills of credit. At the adjourned session in September, the various memorials were presented from primary meetings, in the hope of quickening the energy of their representatives; but they were laid on the table. The coalition was too powerful to be overthrown in the house, but murmurs and well-founded suspicions began to prevail out of doors; Franklin saw the folly of temporizing, dispassionately expressed his opinions, and bided his

time.

The provinces of Delaware and Pennsylvania were under one executive head; and were so nearly united that their inhabitants interchangeably took service in one or both. MacKean, an efficient member of the committee of Philadelphia, was the leading delegate from Delaware for the continent. The conduct of that little colony was unequivocal; its assembly unreservedly assented to the measure of keeping up an armed force, and unanimously assumed their share of the expense. Its first convention, its assembly, and its council of safety, moved together in harmony.

The people of Maryland, happier than that of Pennsylvania, escaped intestine dissensions and insured unanimity, by passing overy the proprietary government, and intrusting the conduct of resistance

CHAP. to a series of conventions. The prudent, the slow, XLV. the hesitating were allowed an influence; but from 1775. the first, all parties acquiesced in the principle of deriving all power from the people; and the province, however its movement was sometimes retarded, proceeded courageously in an unbroken line. In November, 1774, it adhered to the association, adopted in the general congress, and its patriotism was confirmed by the austerity of religious zeal. At an adjourned session in December, the Maryland convention, fifty five members being present from sixteen counties, resolved unanimously to resist to the utmost of their power taxation by parliament, or the enforcement of the penal acts against Massachusetts. To this end they voted with equal unanimity a well regulated militia, to be composed of all the freemen of the col ony, between fifteen and sixty. They resolved also, that all former difficulties about religion or politics from henceforth should cease, and be forever buried in oblivion; and the benign aurora of the coming republic lighted the Catholic to the recovery of his rightful political equality in the land which a Catholic proprietary had set apart for religious freedom. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who, under the British government, had not had so much as a vote at the polls, was placed unanimously on the committee of correspondence.

It was throughout the continent a subject of regret that the zeal of Dulany had grown cool. As he kept silent, the foremost man in Maryland was Samuel Chase, like Dulany a lawyer; less circumspect and less careful of appearances; but strong, downright, brave and persevering; capable of error from rash

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ness or self-will, but not capable of faltering in the CHAP. cause which he approved. Vehement even to a fault, he did not always speak softly or shun coarse invec- 1775. tive; but his undaunted spirit, his fierce independence of mind, his unbending energy, his scorn of semblance without substance, of servility, of plausible hypocrisy that glossed servility over, his eloquence, which sprung from his heart and expressed the vigor of his nature, his uncompromising energy, justly won for him the confidence of Maryland.

That province, like other colonies, had hoped for the recovery of American rights through the interruption of trade; but in April, 1775, a day or two before the arrival of news from Lexington, on occasion of a rumor that New York city was to be fortified and garrisoned, they gave their delegates discretion to proceed "even to the last extremity, if indispensably necessary for the safety and preservation of their liberties and privileges."

The proprietary at this time had no hold on public affection from historic recollections; for he was an illegitimate infant child of the late libertine Lord Baltimore, the last of that name; and it might seem a shame to a commonwealth that its executive power should be transferable by testamentary disposition even to a bastard. Yet the party of the proprietary was strong and wary; had struck deep root into the soil of Maryland itself, and counted Dulany among its friends. The lieutenant governor, Robert Eden, had made himself acceptable and even beloved; had no power to do mischief, and made no attempt to raise the king's standard, maintaining a prudent reserve and acquiescing in what he could not prevent or alter;

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CHAP. So that he and the proprietary party were regarded in the strife as neutrals, not hostile to the American 1775. claims of right.

The convention which met at Annapolis on the twenty sixth of July resolved fully to sustain Massachusetts, and meet force by force. They saw "no alternative but base submission or manly resistance." They therefore "approved of the opposition by arms to British troops." The temporary government which was instituted, was, in its form, a universal association of the people of Maryland, one by one. Recognising the continental congress as invested with a general supervision, it managed internal affairs through a provincial council of safety, and subordinate executive committees, which were appointed in every county, parish, or hundred. It directed the enrolment of forty companies of minutemen; established a military code; authorized the emission of more than a quarter of a million of dollars, in bills varying in amount from sixteen dollars to two thirds of a dollar; and it extended the franchise to all freemen having a visible estate of forty pounds sterling, so that Protestant and Catholic might henceforward go to the polls together. The government thus instituted, was administered with regularity and lenity.

By the prudent inactivity of the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, those four colonies awaited the decision of Great Britain in tranquillity; south of the Potomac, Dunmore precipitated a conflict, which the people of Virginia, educated in the love of constitutional monarchy, and disinclined to change for the sake of change, would gladly have avoided. In spite of their

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wishes, the retreat of the governor from Williamsburg CHAP. foreshadowed the end of the colonial system. The house endeavored not to take things out of their old 1775. channel. They revived the memory of Lord Botetourt, and asked only for an administration like his; they reposed full trust in the royal council, a thoroughly loyal body of the king's own selection; and asked only that the governor would conform to its advice. In vain; Dunmore, by a message, on Saturday the twenty fourth of July, summoned the house before him at what he called "his present residence;" that is, on board of a British man-of-war; unless they would come, he would not give his assent even to such of their acts as he approved. Had they appeared, the whole legislature might have found themselves kept as hostages and prisoners. There were parties in Virginia as everywhere else, more or less disinclined to a final rupture. As yet the great majority earnestly desired a continuance of their ancient constitution; but this message could not but be voted unanimously a high breach of the rights and privileges of the house; and in this manner the colonial legislature ceased to exist. In concurrence with the council, the house appropriated money for the expense of ratifying the treaty with the Indians on the Ohio, and then adjourned till the twelfth of October; but no quorum ever again assembled. In the one hundred and fifty sixth year from the institution of legislative government in Virginia, in the person of his governor, king abdicated his legislative power in the oldest and most loyal of his colonies; henceforward Virginia, reluctantly separating herself from the tried and cherished system of constitutional monarchy, must take care of herself.