Correspondence of "First citizen"

Front matter

lit , .

'M

W

Preface

It had been, for a number of years, tlie desire of the author of this book to rescue from the danger of destruction, by a multiplicity of copies, the one perfect series of letters of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and Daniel Dulany, on the question of the right of the Governor of Maryland to establish the fees of public officers without the consent of the Legislature. That one complete record is|found in the files of the Maryland Gazette, in the Maryland State Library, at Annapolis. The "Lower House," of Maryland, January Session, 1902, now known as the House of Delegates, the action of whose predecessors, in defence of their rights and the rights of the people, •developed in 1773 this correspondence, made practical ihe wish of the author to preserve to the citizens of Maryland and their posterity this remarkable discussion — it is cautiously "submitted — the most celebrated of colonial times. Yet, this commendable work of the House of Delegates would not have been accomplished had it not been for the favorable consideration given the subject, and the valuable aid extended to the author, by a legion of endorsers of the movement, who aided him in bringing the matter to the attention of the House.

While the author does not design to name them in numerical progression, in the order of their comparative assistance, yet he would be ungratefnl if he did not state that, of all those friends who encouraged his efforts, Mr. James P. Bannon, of Anne Arundel ; Delegate Robert W. Wells, of Prince George's ; Delegate John G. Rogers, of Howard, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means ; Delegates L. L. Bawsell, Peter J. Campbell and Isaac Lobe Straus, of Baltimore city, were at

VI PREFACE.

the forefront in their invaluable efforts to secure the favorable action of the House of Delegates upon the report to print.

Amongst those who gave their approval of, and their assistance to, the effort to secure the publication of these letters were his Honor Chief Justice James McSherry, of the Court of Apj^eals, and Associate Justices James Alfred Pearce, A. Hunter Bojd and Henry Page, of the same distinguished bench.* The author is also indebted to the friendly offices of Senator Stevenson A. Williams, of Harford, who, in the session of 1900, offered a bill to print this correspondence, and gave the movement his approval. Senator Jacob L. Moses, of Baltimore city, was, also, with Senator Williams, another earnest and intelligent supporter of the effort to print during the session of 1900.

In the House of Delegates itself every one of the delegates who supported the report on its final vote w^ere ardent friends of the proposition, yet there were those among these who were pre-eminently earnest in their endeavors to secure favorable action on the part of the House, and whenever the reader experiences any gratification at the publication of this remarkable discussion, he should feel a corresponding sentiment of approval of those delegates for their valuable aid in making public these hidden records of the ability and courage of our Maryland ancestors. Those who so ably seconded the movement, were : Delegates L. L. Mattingly, of St. Mary's ; James R. Brashears, of Anne Arundel; Joseph Muir, of Somerset; Joshua Clayton, of Cecil ; and Patrick E. Finzel, of Garrett.

The vote upon the report is appended to the order authorizing the publication. It is confidently believed that, could the honest minority against the report have had that light upon the matter that the clouds of haste, which accompany so much of legislation in the expiring hours of a session, obscure, the author feels that the order to print would have had their support as well as that of the sixty-four members who are recorded in favor of the report of the Committee on Ways and Means. The author is under obligations to Mr. William Meade

PBEFACE. Vll

HoUadaj, of Annapolis, for invaluable assistance in preparing for the vote upon the motion to reconsider and print.

In re-printing the letters of First Citizen and Antilon, the originals, as they appeared in the 3Iarijland Gazette, have been followed exactly in orthography, capitalization, punctuation and italicization. The reading of the last proofs of the letters has been done by Mr. Louis H. Dielman, of the Maryland State Library, a gentleman who, besides being admirably equipped by his ability and experience for this work of arduous labor, threw into the friendly assistance that he cheerfully gave the author, an ardor born of an earnest desire to have this correspondence issued to the public without fault or blemish.

The printers of the volume have not only executed their letter press in admirable typography, but they have been, equally, with the others engaged in the publication of this work, earnest in their endeavor to have the book published free from mistakes. It was rare when the author's proofs contained any corrections that had escaped the vigilant eyes of the State Printers.

Maryland has an honorable and illustrious history. The records of the deeds of valor and offices of distinguished statemanship that her sons have performed, are sometimes found enrolled on the pages of their country's written histories, but are more often hidden in the musty rolls of Maryland's well preserved archives. To bring these records to liglit for public inspection, the people of Maryland have not been swift. The times are ripe for the sons of Maryland to exalt her fame by rehearsing the proud deeds of their ancestors in every line of public and patriotic duty — on the forum, in the field, and upon the seas — where, for the distinguished ability, heroic courage, and invincible valor of her citizens, Maryland will not yield superiority to any State in this great Republic of States.

Elihu S. Riley.

Annapolis, Maryland, December 23, 1902.

REPORT TO PRINT.

Mr. Wells, of Prince George's county, by request, offered the following preamble and order :

To the Members of the House of Delegates of Maryland, respectfully : —

Whereas, The history of the administration of Governor Eden was honorable for the greatest and most prolonged struggle the Freemen of Maryland ever made for their rights in colonial times — a struggle which lasted three years in denial of the claim of the Governor to revive by proclamation Acts of Assembly that had expired by limitation — and a struggle which was second only in importance to the Revolutionary contest, and which controversy brought forth the celebrated debate between Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, and Daniel Dulany, Jr., under the respective titles "First Citizen" and "Antilon ; "

Whereas, These letters, remarkable for their learning, profound researches in the law, classic diction and patriotic sentiments of the sage of Carrollton ; and

Whereas, The letters of Antilon now rest as they have for one hundred and twenty-nine years, existing only in the files of one newspaper, two copies remaining, Therefore,

Okdered, That the State Printer, Edwin W. King, trading as King Bros., is hereby authorized and directed to furnish for the use of the House of Delegates four hundred copies of the Letters of "Antilon" and "First Citizen," the names respectively of Daniel Dulany, Jr., and Charles Can-oil, of Carrollton, including the Letters, and a history of Governor Eden's administration — 1769-1774 — probably the most remarkable of colonial times in Maryland, which above-named work is in preparation

X REPOliT TO PRINT.

by Elihu S. Riley, said 400 copies to be delivered to the Chairman of the Committee on Printing of the House of Delegates, and sent to the State Librarian to be distributed as follows : 50 copies to the State Library ; 242 copies to the members of the House and Senate, respectively, for distribution by them, that is, two copies each ; two copies to the Maryland Historical Society Library ; one copy to Johns Hopkins University ; one copy each to the following colleges: Maryland Agriculture, Western Maryland, Washington, St. John's, St. Mary's, Baltimore City College and Charlotte Hall ; and the remainder to the School Boards of Baltimore city and the several counties of the State, for the use of their libraries and scholars. And on the certificate of the Chairman of the House Committee on Printing to the State Comptroller, that the said four hundred copies have been delivered to the said Chairman of the House Committee on Printing, he, the Comptroller, shall issue his warrant to the State Treasurer to pay to the said Edwin W. King, trading as King Bros., State Printer, a sum not exceeding twelve hundred dollars for the publication and fifty dollars to the State Librarian to pay for postage and distribution of said books ; the said money to pay for said work and distribution shall be paid by the Treasurer out of the money appropriated by the Act of 1900 to pay for the printing of the January Session of 1902.

The order was referred to the Printing Committee, which amended the order and referred the same to the Committee on Ways and Means On March 25tli the Committee on Ways and Means made a favorable report on the preamble and order, which report was rejected by a vote of 31 to 44. On March 27th, Mr. Bawsell, of Baltimore city, moved a reconsideration of the vote by which the report was rejected, which motion was adopted. Whereupon, Mr. Bawsell moved that the report be adopted. Which motion was adopted by yeas and nays as follows :

REPORT TO PRINT. XI

Negative — Messrs. Speaker, Simmons, Griffith, Smith, Mathias, Broening — 6.*

*House Journal, page 1505.

CONTENTa

PAGE

Chapter 1. Arrival Of Governor Eden In Maryland

1769. Its illustrious annals of virtue, courage and patriotism is the most precious legacy of a State. The people of Maryland recount, with honorable pride, that it was that commonwealth, first in the history of the world, in which religious liberty was established by law, and where every citizen was given the right to worship God "according to the dictates of his own conscience, none daring to molest, or make him afraid ; " they tell their children, with patriotic enthusiasm, that the Province of Maryland furnished the first volunteers that reported, to General Washington on the field of battle at Boston, under the first call of Congress for United States troops, and it was the first Province to maintain, in the perfectness of complete actuality, in its own right and by its own individual hand, the principle that there could be no taxation of the Freemen of any of the American Colonies without the consent of those Freemen. The Legislature of Maryland, January Session, 1902, authorized and directed this later story of the courage and patriotism of our ancestors to be perpetuated.

Kobert Eden, Governor of Maryland, was the chief factor in ■ the events that made it possible for Maryland to take this leading part in the assertion of the political rights of an American Colony. He was appointed Governor of the Province in 1769, succeeding the celebrated Horatio Sharpe. Eden was the last of the Proprietary Governors of Maryland. With his departure faded the twilight shadows of that social and colonial life that had made Annapolis unique in the annals of the British-American Provinces. Eden's administration was romantic in stirring historic adventure. It was under his hospitable roof that Washington was guest when at Annapolis, iind where the first American displayed that native dignity in conversation and broad liberality in opinion which so eminently distinguished his lofty character. Eden was still, in name, Governor Avhen Maryland formulated her faith in the new nation, and he saw, helpless to prevent, its people prepare for and enter the arena of Revolution.

The strong and genial attributes of Eden were well suited to play their part in the approaching drama of political events in a city that had been the first in all the American Colonies to rise in arms and drive away by force, the King's Stamp Ofiicer, his vessel and stamps when the ship and oflicer had attempted to land at the City Dock in Annapolis City.*

It was the lovely month of June when Governor Eden landed. At this season the picturesque scenery of Annapolis is particularly beautiful. On the fifth of the month the ship bearing Governor Eden, wife and family, arrived in the harbor. On coming to anchor the ship fired seven guns, which number was returned by the citizens. In the afternoon, when the Governor landed, he was met by all the members of the Governor's Council then in town, and a great number of citizens, the guns of the battery making the Severn resound with its salvos of welcome. On Tuesday morning, about ten o'clock, he went up to the council house, attended by his lordship's honorable council, where his commission was opened and published.

The royal Governor was a gentleman, "easy of access, courteous to all, and fascinating by his accomplishments," and so, too, ' Mr. "William Eddis found him, for when he arrived in Annapolis, September 3, 1769, to take the position of English Collector of Customs, and made his appearance before the Governor, he says : " My reception was ecpial to my warmest washes. The deportment of Governor Eden was open and friendly. He invited me to meet a part}^ at dinner, and I took

* On or about September 20, ITOo, Zuchariah Hood, the Stamp Officer for Maryland, arrived with his stamps in Annapolis. His vessel -was met at the City Dock by an indignant multitude of citizens of Annapolis, and Hood prevented from landing and his vessel was driven away. Thomas McNier, a citizen of Annapolis, had his thigh broken in the contest.

aOVERNOR EDEN S ADMINISTEATION. d

leave till the appointed hour, with a heart replete with joy and gratitude. On my return to the Governor, he introduced me, in the most obliging terms, to several persons of the highest respectability in the province. He treated me with the utmost kindness and cordiality ; assured me of the strongest disposition to advance my future prosperity and gave an unlimited invitation to his hospitable table."

Not only to the select circle of a private company of his intimate friends did the Governor dispense his generous hospitality, but when the little city appeared in all its splendor on the anniversary of the proprietary's birth, he " gave a grand entertainment on the occasion to a numerous party ; the company brought with them every disposition to render each other happy; and the festivities concluded with cards, and dancing which engaged the attention of their respective votaries till an early hour."

Although the Governor led in the festivities of the province, he was not unmindful of the weightier cares of State. Mr. Eddis, who spoke with the unction of a grateful heart and sanguine temperament, said of him : " He appears comjietent to the discharge of his important duty. Not only in the summer, but during the extreme rigour of an American winter, it is his custom to rise early ; till the hour of dinner he devotes the whole of his time to provincial concerns ; the meanest individual obtains an easy and immediate access to his 23erson ; he investigates, with accuracy, the comjDlicated duties of his station ; and discovers, upon every occasion, alacrity in the dispatch of business ; and a perfect knowledge of the relative connections of the country."

Not only was Governor Eden moved by motives of jDrinciple and personal welfare to promote the well-being of the province, but, being a brother-in-law of Lord Baltimore, his family interests urged him to make the commonwealth prosperous. He was not wanting in any public enterprise to further the happiness of the province. A patron of the drama, it was by his liberal examjjle, sufficient funds were raised to erect a theatre in Annapolis on a commodious plan. He was, beside, the friend of education, and through his exertions a seminary was established " which, as it will be conducted under excellent regulations, will shortly preclude the necessity of crossing the Atlantic for the completion of a classical and polite education." So wrote Eddis.

Governor Eden presented, in his official capacity, the dual relationship of representative of the Proprietary of Maryland and the King of England and his Parliament; for, while the Governor was Lord Baltimore's regent in Maryland, the Proprietary himself was the tributary of the King of England and annually rendered his dues of two Indian arrow heads as the sign of his tutelary obligations and the Acts of Parliament, as far as they were applicable, had full force in the province of Maryland. This commonwealth was a welcome arena for any man who had political ambition. Made the capital of Maryland in 1694, Annapolis had witnessed many a battle royal between the " Freemen of Maryland," the representative body of the people, as the Lower House was called, and the Governor and Upper House, appointed by the Proprietary, Lord Baltimore, and which reflected his policy and defended his interests. There was thus an endless cause of controversy between the Governor and his Council on the one hand, and the House of Delegates on the other. Proprietary interest had only to assert its privileges beyond the pale of its perogative when the gauntlet was accepted by the Freemen of Maryland, and never did they flinch from maintaining their rights, nor were they ever unsuccessful in preventing encroachments upon the liberties of the people of Maryland. The history of the colonial House of Delegates of Maryland known, resjDectively, as "the Freemen of Maryland," "the Lower House," "the House of Delegates," and "the House of Burgesses," from its initial session in 1637 to its last, in 1774, is the recital of succession of patriotic and successful contests for the maintenance of the inalienable rights of the people of the province of Maryland.

Guarding with the jealousy of freemen their natural rights and constitutional privileges, the people of Maryland still supported Lord Baltimore's government in all its just demands and rendered to the proprietary of the Province and the King of England, a loyal obeisance, probably more intense in its fealty to the British Sovereign than that felt by native born subjects themselves. Distance had increased their respect for King and Parliament.

In Annapolis, the seat of Provincial government, centered all the interests, social and political, of the commonwealth of Maryland. "Ye antient capital," of the Province, at this period, 1769, v^^as the most famous, cultivated and dissipated city of the colonies. Settled in 1649, by a sturdy stock of Puritan refugees from Virginia, driven out by the churchmen of that colony for their religious beliefs, on this splendid material had been grafted, by successive emigrations, scions of the best blood of England; and when, in 1694, the capital of the Province was removed from St. Mary's to Annapolis, there came with it a coterie of settlers who soon formed a Court party with all the arts and refinements of European life and intrigues of political science, traditional usages and official position. It led its local festivities, and gave tone and zest to reciprocal hospitalities. The elegant homes of these gay and wealthy people, a dozen of which still remain in all their capacious proportions, show the comfort and luxury in which they lived.

Here the Legislature met; here were held the sessions of the Provincial Court, the High Court of Chancery, and the Court of Appeals ; here were the residences of the Governor and his highest offices ; and here his Council convened. These brought together the best legal minds of the colony, and all those wlio sought place or pursued pleasure, and with King William's School, which for nearly a century had been shedding the benfit of liberal education upon the capital, created a commiinity of pre-eminent culture and superior refinement. Thus Annapolis became known, throughout the colonies, as "the Athens of America." In the decade preceding the Revolution, its life of fashion and frivolity, of culture and elegance had reached its height and development. Wealth gave leisure and promoted education; education and leisure created a longing for refined and dissipated pleasures.

The presence of a large number of ofiicials, some of whom had come from " Merry England," and had imported with its pleasures, its refined follies, and with the native invention of the province, devised a lengthened repertoire of social amusements, while the emoluments of office and the dividends of successful trade and the proceeds of productive plantations provided the means to gratify the taste of these gay and cultured devotees of fashionable festivities. The theater flourished in its highest art ; the race-track blended excitement for the upper and lower strata of pleasure-seekers; the ball-room and its elegant and costly entertainments drew together a refined and beautiful company of women and learned and handsome men whose society was sought by the great Washington, who often came to Annapolis to enjoy the delights of an unending programme of rich and rare amusements.

The only place in the province, nor was its peer to be found in any of the colonies, that ofiered worshipers at the shrine of Fashion the ojjportunity to gratify a refined and cultured desire for the highest social function, Annapolis had now become a rendezvous of a gay, learned and dissipated society. The very lack of better mental effort, the want of useful and energizing employment, begat a longing for these trivial pleasures, which they named "enjoyment," because it relieved "from the ennui of the moment by occupation." Thus the gayety, culture, cleverness and very intellect of the province, from numerous potential causes, were gathered here. Its lawyers came to the courts, the judges to the bench, the delegates to the house of burgesses, at Annapolis, and even the planters whose tobacco had brought them fine revenues journeyed to the capital to spend the winter. They built costly and elegant houses as their homes, and furnished them in a style corresponding to their elegance.

The staple export — tobacco — brought back to the colony, in exchange, the luxuries of the foreign markets. Troops of

GOVERNOK EDEN's ADMINISTKATION. 7

slaves, as obedient as the captives of the Orient, supplied the house with perfect service. Lumbering equipages, or old and rickety stage-coaches, generally drawn by splendid horses, bore the colonists about the country, while in the city, the sedan chair, carried by lacquers in rich liveries, was the luxurious car of the queens of the house. These favored people sat on carved chairs, at curious tables, "amid piles of ancestral silverware, and drank punch out of vast, costly boAvls from Japan, or sipped Madeira a half century old."

Three-fourths of the dwellings in the city gave evidence of the wealth and refinement of the people, wdiile the employment of a French hair dresser, by one lady, at a thousand crowns a year, was l)nt an outcropping of that luxury which made it the home of a gay and haughty circle of giddy voluptuaries and social autocrats. Commerce flourished ; its merchants imported goods in ships from every sea, and its enterprising citizens made special eftbrt and offered great inducements for men of eveiy craft to settle in their midst.

Nor was the element of evil wanting in this dwarfed model of a European capital. Youth, beauty, wealth and learning soon chastened the rigors of the primitive virtues of the settlers of the province into the refinements of continental manners. Yet these fascinating and dangerous attracti(ms, while they created a soft and luxurious coterie of mendicants at the feet of social autocracy, did not dominate its true and better character; for, thougli the fame of its festivities and the grace and beauty of her women who rivaled the charms and manners of the most polished and elegant women of the mother country, was bruited throughout the provinces, it was for its culture that the little city on the Severn was best known ' in the thirteen colonies.

Though it was true "her pleasures, like those of luxurious and pampered life in all ages, ministered neither to her happiness nor her purity," yet that manliness of character that the English chronicler of its life at this period had noticed, marked the bearing of the humblest of her people, and its citizens, at the first call of revolution, responded with the highest attributes of enlightened mankind and the loftiest aspirations of unalloyed patriotism.

This picture of Annapolis would want its best and brightest coloring, and the riglit to its title would be clouded,- if it was unwritten that, in this city of pleasure, of legislatures, of courts, of proud men, were the best lawyers of America — the Jenningses, Carrolls, Chalmers, Rogers, Hall, the Dulanys, the Chases and the Johnsons, for almost all of them went in pairs, with father and son at the bar together. Dulany, with his opinions courted by the bench to aid them in elucidating the law, and requested even from the great metropolis of Loudon, dominated them all. From the lawyers sprang the real fame of Annapolis. It was gay, but it halted in its gayety the moment the call for earnest work was made. It was learned — it rose in sacrifice from steep to steep, as the keynote of patriotism sounded for greater and more dangerous enterprises. At every advance the lawyers were in tlie forefront; they were on the outposts to give warning of danger ; their clarion tones were heard calling to battle ; they led the conflict.

It was to such a community and in such a city, quick to hear, nervous in thought, cultivated in the highest culture of the colonies, jealous of its rights, used to struggles with the wilderness and their autocratic rulers, tliat the lawyers of Maryland, of Annapolis — for there, they were gathered — spoke. It is not surprising that these profound polemics in which the lawyers of Maryland engaged produced results that tingled in the very veins of their hearers, and, as they were talked in the ballroom, at the theater, on the race track, at the club house, in the legislature, in their homes, and reverberated in the courts, sent contagious sentiments throughout the American provinces.

There were giants in those days. Towering above his fellows, in intellectual ability, profound legal learning and professional success stood Daniel Dulany, of Daniel.*

*Bench aud Bar of Maryland, page 163.

GOVEKNOK EDEN S ADMINISTRATION. \)

Maryland itself was the reflex of England. Indeed, so closely have the first settlers of this illustrious commonwealth clung to the spirit and principles of their English forefathers that it has been confidently asserted that the people of St. Mary's county, the seat of the settlement of Lord Baltimore's first colony in Maryland, to-day, after the lapse of nearly three centuries, are more like the people of England at the date of the settlement of St. Mary's than are the English people themselves. No branch of the history of Maryland, more than the records of the courts, reflects so distinctly the life and character of the people who settled the "Land of the Sanctuary." Here are the motives that animated the fathers who planted the cross on the shores of Maryland and reclaimed the wilderness to civilization. Their cares, their pleasures, their aims, their possessions, their provisions for their families, their deeds of valor, their petty disputes, their great endeavors — all stand out in the records of the courts, as true and faithful indices of character and conditions ; for here the report and the tradition were silted b}' tlie rules of critical proof and legal evidence, and the record was made by unprejudiced scribes, before a scrutinizing court, in the presence of adverse interests, zealous and watchful, to have the docket state the truth only.

The helpful, busy, worthy life of the Maryland settlers, as seen through the telescope of judicial records, displays the colony as the bustling young model of the mother county from which it sprang. Here was the court pypowdry of the great cities of Liverpool and London ; here, the court peers and barons that reflected the picturesque tribunals of the lordly barons of the Isle of Liberty ; here was the county court mirroring the busy courts uisi of York and Devonshire ; the provincial court ; the shadow of the high court of chancery of England ; and then the appeal to the legislature, as the English suitor came, as the court of last resort, to the House of Lords. Here was my lord, "Sir Thomas Gerrard," "mj lady of the manor;" the steward of the manor ; the seizin by the rod ; the stock ; the ducking stool ; the whipping post ; the governor of the provice as the high chancellor of the state ; the sovereign lord proprietary; "his highness lord protector;" our sovereign lord the king ; the trial by jury ; the writs of right and arrest ; the Bible of the Englishman — found returned in almost every inventory ; the right to have and possess arms ; the voice of the freemen in assembly ; his right to levy his own taxes and make his own laws ; his duty to quiet his own estate before he died ; his jealously of his reputation ; his fearlessness in battle ; his superiority over trials and enviromnents ; his ability to adapt himself to every condition ; his respect for women ; his love of the chase ; his desire to acquire property ; his worship of God ; his veneration for law and love of order ; his penchant for trade and adventure ; his merry-making ; his love of strong drink, and hatred of drunkenness ; the effort of Lord Baltimore to establish in his lords manors a hereditary aristocracy ; the military spirit of the freemen; their oaths, pardons, acts of oblivion, seditions and insurrections ; the names of the people, towns, rivers, counties and province ; all reflect the land from which these sturdy pilgrims came, and who lit up the horizon of national hope w4th a fresh beam from the torch of liberty — the iTnfcttered right to worship God in that way which to them seemed right.'"'