USA > Maryland > Maryland : the history of a palatinate > Part 12
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Any one looking at a physical chart will see that Baltimore is a meeting-place of many
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things. It lies at the head of tide-water, 01 ! junction of the foot-hills with the plain ; at the junction of the granite, gneiss, and slate with the deposits of gravel, clay, and iron ore ; at the junction of the region of oaks, chestnuts, and beeches with that of pines and magnolias. Its mild climate, with a mean annual temperature of 54°, and its exemption from the epidemics that visit the ports to the south, make it in these respects the most favored of all cities on the Atlantic seaboard. Yet it grew but slowly at first, and in twenty years had only about twenty dwellings and perhaps one hundred in- habitants.
While the order of the Privy Council in 1685 had settled the question of Maryland's eastern boundary by dividing Delaware between the Proprietaries, the northern boundary still re- mained undetermined. It is true that there was no conflict between the grants in this re- spect, that of Penn assigning the parallel of 40° as his southern boundary, as it was Balti- more's northern ; but Penn's persistent refusal to join Baltimore in fixing that parallel had . kept the matter still unsettled. After his death, in 1718, his sons, now joint proprietors, renewed their father's tactics, and by some un- explained means obtained from Charles, Lord Baltimore, in 1732, a written agreement by
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which he yielded all that they demanded, and presented them with two and a half millions of acres of territory to which they had not even the shadow of a claim. The boundary line was to be drawn northward through the middle of the Delaware peninsula, and tangent to a circle twelve miles from New Castle, thence north to a point fifteen miles south of Philadelphia, whence it should run due west so far as the provinces were conterminous. Commissioners were to meet on both sides to fix the points.
Baltimore came out to Maryland in person in 1732, appointed his Commissioners, and two attempts were made to have a meeting at New Castle, but the business was frustrated by the non-attendance of the Pennsylvanians. Balti- more now proposed a meeting at Joppa, but this was refused.
Baltimore, however, now had his eyes opened to the immense sacrifice he had made, and lie tried to fortify his position by applying to George II. for a confirmation of his charter, despite the phrase hactenus inculta. Such a confirmation, in the fullest form, had already been given by Charles I., as has before been shown ; but probably the House of Brunswick did not consider itself bound by the promise of a Stuart. This phrase, however, in whatever manner construed, only affected the l'enns' claim
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to Delaware ; and the northern boundary could have been run in conformity with both charters, but for Baltimore's voluntary and inexplicable surrender of his rights without reason or com- pensation.
The unsettled state of the boundary led to disturbances between the Provinces which con- tinued for several years. The Palatines, or Ger- man immigrants originally from the Palatinate, some fifty or sixty families of whom had taken up land in Baltimore County, were persuaded by the lures of exemption from militia duty and the forty per poll, to declare their allegiance to Pennsylvania and refuse to pay taxes to Mary- land. Sheriffs on both sides summoned posses and made inroads into the debatable territory, arresting and carrying off prisoners ; houses were attacked by armed bands, and men on both sides beaten or dragged off to prison. Sheriff Buchanan, of Lancaster County, with a party, enters the house of a Dutchman, one Loughiman or Lachmann, a Marylander, and beats him unmercifully. His wife interposes, and the discourteous sheriff beats her, until Lachmann consents to go with him as his pris- oner. But on the way they meet five Dutch- men, who, seeing the plight of their country- man, set on the sheriff, rout lris posse, and carry Lim off into captivity.
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One of the boldest of the Maryland partisans was Thomas Cresap, a stout borderer and good fighter, against whom the wrath of the Penn- sylvanians burned hot. At one time a party burst into his house, with brandished weapons, threatening to burn the house and hang him. At another time a larger party surrounded his house, set it in flames, and fired on the inmates as they tried to escape. In this affray one man was killed and several wounded, among the lat- ter Cresap himself, who was borne off in tri- umph and lodged in the jail at Philadelphia.
Governor Ogle, after in vain trying to have Cresap released, ordered the arrest of a dozen of the ringleaders in this business, which was done by a party of Marylanders. Proclama- tion answered proclamation, sheriffs' posses al- ternatoly harried the country, adventurous men led forays, and a state of border warfare pre- vailod which unfortunately has found no poet, or at least nono in the English tongue.
By 1786 the state of affairs on the border had grown so alarming that the Governor and Assembly laid the matter before the Proprie- tary and the King, ontreating the intervention of the crown, which was given by an order in Council commanding both sides to keep the peace, and enjoining the Proprietaries to grant no lands in the disputed territory until the
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boundary had been adjusted. To put an end to all the confusion and deray, the governors of the two Provinces agreed to run a provisional lino which should be held as a valid boundary between the settlers actually in possession, un- til the lino should be finally determined by a decision of the English Court of Chancery.
" King George's war," as was appropriately styled the war with France which sprang out of the Austrian succession, and into which England was dragged rather than entered, had little ef- fect upon Maryland. The colony suffered some disturbance, and more alarmı, from the doings of the French and' Indians, and sent three com- panies to Albany to cooperate in a conquest of Canada, which was not to be till later. As usual, there was a crown requisition for money in a rather more plausible form than usual, for it was to pay the Maryland forces tempora- rily, until Parliament could foot the whole bill. The Assembly, politely but firmly, told Gov- ernor Ogle that they had raised the troops, pro- visioned the troops, and transported the troops, and that that was all that they proposed to do; and this he had to take for his answer.
At this time, we are informed that the pop- ulation of Maryland was about 94,000, and 36,000 negroes; that iron mines and furnaces were operated, and pig-iron shipped to Eng-
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land, in addition to the usual staples of tobacco, corn, furs, and lumber ; that the annual export of tobacco was about 28,000 hogsheads, and that the export of wheat was about 150,000 bushels.
In April, 1751, Charles, the fifth Lord Balti- more, died, and was succeeded by his son Fred- crick, the sixth and last Baron, a degenerate scion of a noble stock, n selfish and grasping voluptuary, who cared only for his Province, which he never visited, as a source of revenue for his pleasures. He added his name to the list of noble nuthors by an indifferent book of travels, and came near adding it also to the list of noble criminals, by figuring as the traverser in a discreditable trial for felony, of which, however, he was acquitted. The previous Pro- prietaries, either by personal presence in the Province, or by thoughtful care for its welfare, had established claims on the affection of the people; but Frederick had done neither, and thus the severance of the tie of personal loyalty to tho Proprietary loosened another of the fila- monts that bound the people to England.
CHAPTER XIIL
THE FRENCH WAR. -
AND now we approach the second driving of tho wedge that was to detach Maryland from the mother-country. The colonists owed their prosperity, under Providence, to nothing but their own resolution and industry, and Eng- land had only meddled with them to despoil them of their territory, to hamper their com- merce for her advantage, or to demand their money for her treasury, leaving them, in other matters, to sink or swim as best they could. The ostrich, who leaves her young to shift for themselves, is not usually regarded as a model of maternal tenderness ; yet the ostrich does not straitly limit the foraging-grounds of her off- spring, or make requisitions on them for a share of their hardly-won sustenance. Yet, despite all irritations, the attachment to England was still deep and strong. This was partly due to filial piety toward the ancient home of the race, the venerable mother- land whose speech, institu- tions, and traditions of freedom they had trans- planted to the western world, and partly to re- liance on England's protection. The parent
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might be harsh, cold, negligent, and exacting ; but in case of danger it was believed that her mighty arm would interpose to shield her chil- dren. They had yet to learn how far the meas- ure of her help would be meted by her own advantage, and how far, in this case also, they inust rely on themselves.
The peace of Aix-la-chapelle, in 1748, was in reality nothing but a truce, and none know this better than the high contracting powers themselves. It was simply a breathing-while before the struggle for the possession of the Continent bogan in carnest. Had other old and recent grudges been leking, an inevitable casus belli lay in the conflicting claims to the lands west of the Alleghanies. England cluimed the breadth of the continent from the Atlantic to the l'acific ; France, in virtue of the discov- ories of Cartier and La Salle, claimed the lands drained by the St. Lawrence and Mississippi and their affluents. It was evident that the line of demarcation would have to be drawn by the sword some day.
France was prompter in action, and Galis- sonidre's plan of a chain of military posts link- ing Canada with Louisiana began to be realised with a rapidity that naturally alarmed the Eng- lish, who compared it to a net which, when complete, would gather them all into its bight
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and sweep them into the sea. In 1753 the cor- con reached from Montreal to the Rivière aux Bœufs, in Pennsylvania, and it was plain that if anything was to be done, there was no time to be lost. An English trading association, called the Ohio Company, had already begun to build a trading-post at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela, and Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia now sent out a force under the command of Major George Wash- ington to strengthen it with fortifications that should hold the French in check. But before he could reach the fort it had already been taken by the French, who fortified it, gurri- soned it strongly, and named it Fort Du Quesne. Washington, learning that a French force was advancing to attack him, threw up hasty defences, but was compelled to surrender and leave the French strongly planted on the Ohio.
Before this, Dinwiddie, thoroughly awake to the danger, had represented to England the necessity for vigorous action, and had addressed letters to the other provinces, especially Penn- sylvania and Maryland, which were most en- dangered, asking their aid and cooperation.
As all this series of events is of extraordinary interest, and had momentons and far-reaching results, it is allowable to treat it somewhat in
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detail, for which the records of the time and the MS. letter-books of Governor Sharpe afford abundant material.
Sharpe laid the situation before the Assem- bly, asking substantial help, but was met by a dogged reluctance to vote money. He accounts for their general perverseness on the ground that the shortness and frequency of sessions made gentlemen of means and standing shun the inconveniences of membership, "by which means there are too many instances of the low- est persons, at least those of small fortunes, no soul, and very mean capacities, appearing as representatives." To the Lower House he was still bland and courteous, but a quarrel was evidently brewing. The Delegates declared their willingness to grant £6,000, provided part might be raised by a tax on ordinary licenses ; but this, as invading the Proprieta- ry's revenues, Sharpe would by no means con- sent to.
Things were in this state when the news of Washington's surrender came like a thunder- bolt. The consequences were easy to foresee, and the settlers near the Ohio began to think of abandoning their homes. News came from New York that the Canada Indians, the fiercest and most cruel of all, were taking the war-path. Again Sharpe urged the danger, and again the
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men of no soul planted themselves on the license-tax. Sharpe yielded, and the Lower House scored one. He now began to raise a force, the command of which was given to Cap- tain Dagworthy, a very efficient officer. A fort had been built, shortly after Washington's sur- render, by Colonel Innes and the independent companies at Wills Creek, near the site of the present city of Cumberland, and named Fort Cumberland in honor of the " Butcher of Cullo- den," and this served as an outpost of defence. Washington having resigned his commission in consequence of an order from England, making officers with crown cominissions outrank all provincial officers, a commission was sent out to Sharpe, who was a man of military training, appointing him commander of the provincial forces at Fort Cumberland.
Ile at once hastened to Annapolis and con- vened a new Assembly, before whom he laid the situation. As Virginia had voted £20,000 for a defence-fund, and New York £5,000, it was to be hoped that Maryland would not be sinck, but would provide for an active cam- paign in the spring. His hopes, however, were by no means sanguine, for he knew his men ; and brooding with gloomy anticipations over the question of ways and means, he dropped a seed in his letters to England, which was to
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beur memorable fruit. The main difficulty was to devise some plan for raising money inde- pendent of the Assembly, yet which would not infringe the Proprietary's rights nor diminish his revenue. Such a plan he thought he had found in a stamp-tax. England was to send out stamps of various denominations, to be affixed to all documents of legal value, the proceeds of the sales to be applied to the defence of the colonics.
The Lower House, as he had expected they would, raised difficulties on the supply question. They were willing to increase their £6,000 to £7,000; but not satisfied with concession on the subject of licenses, they had now another condition. In 1783 there lind been an omission of £90,000 in paper currency, with a provision for its gradunl conversion and redemption, and of this in 1754 some £4,000 remained unre- doomed ; so the Delegates took the ground that the unredeemed bills had all been lost or de- stroyed, and therefore a new issue to that amount would not increase the sum originally intended for redemption. They accordingly coupled their vote with a proviso that of the £7,000, four thousand should be an issue of paper money. Sharpe refused to sign such a bill, so agnin there was a deadlock, and he prorogued the Assembly in despair. There
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was no difficulty, however, in raising men; but as for supporting and paying them, Sharpe thought that nothing could be done unless Par- linment would pass a law compelling the col- onies to support their own troops, - a device on which he brooded until it became a fixed idea with him.
General Braddock arrived in February, with n thousand regulars and a train of artillery, and took the command in chief. Sir John St. Clair had arrived before, and with Sharpe had sur- veyed the country of future operations, and descended the Potomac by water to see how far it was navigable. . All were now full of confi- dence that with n brave and experienced com- mander, with a force of invincible British regu- lars ns the nucleus of an army of volunteers, their troubles would soon be at an end ; while the Governor indulged some hope that the As- sembly would be less impracticable, and the Assembly, that the expenses of the campaign would be borne by England.
But new troubles were in store : Braddock's men in their march carried off servants, wagons, and horses, and the complaints of the farmers highly exasperated the Assembly. Braddock, too, was disposed to find fanlt that no joint fund had been raised by the colonies for their defence, and was by no means content with the
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explanation which the assembled governors gave, that they could raise no money but by the consent of their Assemblies. He could not sco why more drastic measures should not be used.
Braddock's march was slow, as he advanced in Roman fashion, making a road as he went. The movements of the Assembly were also slow, though their chief business was to frame a supply-bill that the Governor was certain to reject. But the Indians, who needed neither roads nor supplies, were prompt in action, swooping down on the unhappy settlers in Frederick County, burning their houses and killing or carrying off the inhabitants, while the army was accomplishing its two miles a day. The Assembly, on the distress and dan- gør being forcibly represented to them by Sharpe, provided £2,000 for a body of rangers to hover on the frontier, but was most inter- csted in reviving the penal laws against the Catholics (to which Sharpe, to his honor, would not consent) and in a petty quarrel about a custom-house appointment. And this was on the 8th of July, when Braddock was almost in sight of Fort Du Quesne, which he was fated never to see.
The news of Braddock's disaster did not reach Annapolis until the 15th of July. Tho
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Assembly had been prorogued, and Sharpe hur- ried off for Fort Cumberland, where he found all in consternation. The settlers were flying in all directions, and many had sought shelter in the fort. Dunbar, with the remains of the army, had taken refuge there, but instead of making a stand, he announced his intention of retiring to Philadelphia, thus leaving the whole frontier defenceless ; and nothing that Sharpo could say could change his purpose.
Sharpe tried to put some heart into the frightened people, and ordered a line of small stockades built, while he placed Fort Cumber- land in charge of Major Dagworthy and a party of provincial troops, who were supported by private subscriptions.
But the French and Indians ranged pretty much at their pleasure. Happily for the col- onies, the garrison of Fort Du Quesne, on the conviction that all danger in that quarter was now over, had nearly all been summoned north to meet the expected attacks at Niagara and Crown Point ; while the Indians, according to their custom after a successful expedition, had disbanded and gone home. But there were enough left to commit outrages which spread terror through the western settlements. Man- gled bodies of tortured men were found in the woods ; farm-houses were burned and familica
THE HISTORY OF A PALATINATE. 227 murdered, and parties of rangers cut off. The country was a desert west of Conecocheague, and Sharpe believed that all the land beyond Fredericktown would soon be abandoned. The Shenandoah was now the western frontier of Virginia.
As a specimen of the kind of tidings which came in from day to day, take an extract from the " Maryland Gazette," of October 9th : -
" By a person who arrived in town last Monday, from Col. Cresap's, we are told that last Wednesday morning the Indians had taken a man prisoner who was going to Fort Cumberland from Frazier's, and had also carried off a woman from Frazior's planta- tion, which is four miles on this side Fort Cumber- land. The samo morning they fell in with a man and his wife who had loft their plantations and were retiring into the more populous parts of the country ; they shot the horse on which the mau rid, but as it did not fall immediately, he made his escape ; the woman, it is supposed, fell into their hands, as neither sho nor the horse on which she was riding have been since scon or heard of. The same party of Indians have also killed or carried off Benjamin Rogers, his wife and seven children, and Edmund Marle of Frederick County. On Patterson's Creek many families have within this month been murdered, car- ried away, or burnt in their houses, by a party of these barbarians, who have entirely broke up that settlement."
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What was Frederick Lord Baltimore doing all this time ? The burden of his letters, to judge from Sharpe's answers, consisted of four notes : to find good places for favorites whom be sent out ; to see that his rents and revenues were collected and remitted promptly ; to keep a sharp eye on the Roman Catholics, and to send him Maryland partridges and dried rattle- snakes.
When the spring opened, the Indian ravages were more ferocious than ever. Washington, who had superseded Dagworthy in command at Fort Cumberland, sent to Dinwiddie moving pictures of the general terror and distress, and declared that in a few days, unless something was done, there would not be fifteen families left in Frederick County.
In May the Assembly met and the supply question again arose. The House was willing to consent to a bill, provided the Proprietary's manors were taxed and a double tax laid on the Catholics ; and provided also that all the other colonies contributed. As there was then no hope of the Pennsylvanians doing anything, Sharpe was in despair; but at last they re- ceded from their third condition and prepared a bill which the Governor signed, excusing him- self to his lordship on the ground that unless something was done without delay, the whole
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Province west of the bay might be depopulated, and that it was better to pay a tax on his man- ors than lose half his revenues and his manors to boot. So the delegates scored another point. Possibly they might not have made their single concession, had not the enraged settlers of Frederick County throntened to march upon Annapolis, with Cresap at their head, and com- pel them to come to terms.
As for the treatment of the Catholics, it was the old story. Every Catholic was supposed to be inclined to befriend the French, and to ro- joice in secret at the calamities of the Protest- ants. Sharpe was a thorough Protestant, and probably shared to some extent the provalent suspicions ; but he was an honorable man, and neither for the Proprietary nor the Delegates would he calumniato the innocent. He tells Lord Baltimore that the papists are only one twelfth of the whole population ; that they are nearly all of the better class, and that their con- duct is above reproach ; nor does he see any ground for suspecting them. As for the double tax, he sees no objection to that.
Less fortunate were the hapless Acadians, who had the double misfortune of being French as well as papists. In their cruel deportation from Nova Scotia in 1755, five shiploads were sent to Annapolis, where they certainly were
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not wanted, and thence distributed among thie different counties. Their lot was hard : though subjects of Great Britain, they were treated as prisoners of war; yet without the prisoner's hope of exchange or release. People would not employ them, and yet were irritated at their wretchedness and destitution. However, here and there they found humanity ; and among those who befriended them, Henry Cal- lister, a merchant of Oxford, Talbot County, deserves honorable mention. He forwarded an address on their behalf to the King ; he peti- tioned Governor Sharpe for them, and he gave large sums from his own pocket to relieve their sufferings, to the serious impairment of his own very moderate fortune.
The bill which the Assembly passed pro- vided for a sum of £40,000, to be employed in building forts, raising troops, securing the alliance of the southern Indians, and paying bounties on Indian scalps. Bills of credit were issued, and a sinking fund for their redemption provided by additional taxes and duties. Among these was a tax on bachelors, as men who were derelict in a citizen's first duty at a time when it was most imperative ; though, with some in- consistency, there was no provision for exempt- ing Catholic bachelors.
With that irrationality which always at-
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tended colonial affairs, while all these things were going on, and war, in various forms, was raging from the Niagara to the Potomac, Eng- land and France were nominally at peace. The formal declaration of war was received in Mary- Jand on July 18, 1756, and welcomed with great rejoicings, probably in expectation that England would now put forth her full strength in behalf of the colonies, and open her purse liberally.
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