that is imported and sold as a servant for seven years, and if you please to recur to the account of importation you will see that from that duty will arise a great part of the money that is to sink the £6000 that was granted by that Act."1

December 23, 1755, Secretary Calvert wrote to Governor Sharpe : "To the affair of Mr. Steuart's upon convicts, Mr. Attorney General here expressed himself to me with much warmth against the Assembly in assuming to themselves to change Acts of Parliament, that the duty of his office obliged him to protect, and if my Lord did not dissent to that Maryland Act he would severely proceed against it. His hint I understood was, he would move the House of Commons of a violation upon an Act of theirs by an Act of the Maryland Assembly and contrary to their charter. The consequence is easily conceived, that of a censure falling both upon the Proprietor and Houses of Assembly; both which I have no other way to protect from harm, but denying a duty charged by any Act of Assembly ipso facto nam'd as Convicts, and of which I would convince him by sending him the Act upon duties personally: He desired I would, which I did inclosed in a letter with my observations thereon to your brother John who laid the same before him; which letter with the Act satisfied him ipso facto as to Convicts; no such name being mentioned therein; therefore he said he would'nt as yet credit the duty levell'd. It gives me concern to understand by you, the Naval Officers have follow'd the opinion of the Provincial Lawyers in levelling the duty without a letter of the Act for it, and of which most certainly will upon tryal here fall heavy upon them, as within no intention of the Act, as also will the same upon such case, for judgment given by our Provincial Judges with regard to such intention: Such judgement here will be judged extra judicial, and of this Mr. Attorney has given me a hint, therefore it much Behooves all concernd to have a Care: 'tis truly hard upon the Province that the Scum and Dregs of the People here sent, should be the Cause of Ruin to Honest men there, I will do what I can to keep quiet Mr.

'The Ways and Means Committee estimated that the tax of 20 shillings on each convict would produce £5000 annually.-Votes and Proceedings, 1755.

Stewart, but fear it. This Manifests the danger there is in touching upon Acts of Parliament, and upon which I have observed in my former Letters."

Governor Sharpe wrote to Secretary Calvert, May 27, 1756: "I am sorry to find that Mr. Steuart still persists in his clamors against the Act made in July, 1754, that imposes a duty on servants. I have writ to the Naval officers and cautioned them against collecting or receiving any duties that are not imposed by Acts of Parliament or Assembly, but I doubt they will scarcely decline collecting the duty of 20 shillings per poll on every convict imported that shall be sold for seven years as they seem to think themselves obliged by oath to collect such duty. Had I forbid them in positive terms, to forbear collecting it, 't would have shown that I knew they had already done so and I could not have recommended it to the Assembly to repeal that part of the Act without discovering a consciousness of the duty's being imposed contrary to Act of Parliament, besides I am thoroughly convinced that if I had desired it or seemed vastly anxious to have the clause repealed 't would have given the Lower House some degree of satisfaction as they would have concluded that the Government was distressed about it. However I have taken care to have it excepted in the bill that is now passed and hope that will be enough to satisfy Mr. Stewart. ... but Mr. Stewart may be assured that the inhabitants will resent such conduct in him and I am persuaded he will in a few years have little reason to applaud himself for the warmth he has shewn on this occasion."

Mr. Steuart it appears was not satisfied, for April 7, 1757, Calvert writes: "Mr. Stewart has been again this year with Complaint on the Duty he charges by the Naval officers that is collected by them on convicts," etc.

In 1766 the Maryland Assembly passed "an Act to oblige infected ships, and other vessels coming into this Province to perform quarantine." The reason given for passing this Act was that vessels coming into the Province with servants and German passengers communicated and spread dangerous and infectious

Bacon, Laws of Maryland.

distempers, "begun at first by numbers of people being closely confined together for long times in a small space." The Act provided that the masters of vessels bringing over thirty passengers or servants, together with two other credible persons, should make oath "That neither the small-pox, jail-fever, flux, or any such dangerous infectious distemper is, or hath been on board such ship or vessel, on her passage, to the knowledge or belief of such captain or other person taking such oath respectively." In case the oath was not taken within forty-eight hours, the officer of the Port was required to report the matter to the Governor, upon which he might oblige the vessel to make quarantine, at such place and during such time as he might direct.

Messrs. Steuart and Sedgely, contractors for convicts, immediately applied to the Proprietary for a dissent to this Act, and upon his refusal, petitioned the Commissioners of the Treasury in England, and they referred it to the King in Council. The complaint of the Contractor for the Transportation of Convicts "of the obstructions he has met with in the execution of his contract by the operation of a Law lately passed in the Province of Maryland for obliging infected ships and other vessels to perform quarantine," was duly heard by the King in Council, with the result that Governor Sharpe was ordered in 1768 to transmit an authenticated transcript of the Law complained of, which he did accordingly. This seems to have ended the matter since the law stood and was repeatedly revived, until some time after the Revolution it was replaced by another Quarantine Act. The controversy between several writers to the Maryland Gazette, and the comments of Governor Sharpe in his letters home, are worthy of being read in full, but I confine myself to some extracts more especially concerning convicts.

A communication to the Maryland Gazette of July 9, 1767, says: "The deplorable Havock lately made in the family of a widow lady on the Eastern Shore, by that horrid contagious distemper, commonly called the Jail-Fever, ought to give fresh warning to the Inhabitants of this Province, how they admit this baneful malady into their families." The writer describes this case, and the case of Mr. Howard near Annapolis, who lost his

own life, and many of his family, and concludes: "It is to be wish'd that the People may cherish an Act, so manifestly tending to the preservation of their lives, their health, and their property, and that they will take every measure in their power to forward the execution of it, and to obviate every evasion which the Arts of interested men can devise to frustrate its operation, and prevent the beneficial purpose of our Legislature." To this one who signs himself A. B. responds at length on July 30. Omitting much of his argument I here give that which bears most directly upon our subject: "I suppose," says he, "for these last thirty years, communibus annis, there has been at least 600 convicts per year imported into this Province, and these probably have gone into 400 different families. The instances have been very rare that there has been any suspicion of these people's communicating any fatal disorder to the families into which they have been received; perhaps not one a year, take the year's round, and very often the reports that have been spread about it, when examined, are found to be entirely groundless. This makes it at least 400 to one, that they do no injury to the country in the way so much complained of; and the people's continuing to buy and receive them so constantly shews plainly the general sense of the country about the matter, notwithstanding a few gentlemen seem very angry that convicts are imported here at all, and would, if they could, by spreading this kind of terror, prevent the People's buying them, and then of course they would not be brought in. I confess I am one of those who think a young country cannot be settled, cultivated, and improved, without people of some sort, and that it is much better for the country to receive convicts than slaves; and that we, who allow them to be brought in, and have provided proper laws to have their names recorded, so that they cannot be admitted into courts, and restored to their credit, until their crimes are purged away, by a completion of their term of servitude, are much better off than those Provinces who don't permit them directly to come in; yet they are put on them, as honest people, under colour of indentures.

"The wicked and bad of them that come into this Province, mostly run away to the northward, mix with other people, and

pass for honest men; whilst those, more innocent, and who come for very light offenses, serve their time out here, behave well, and become useful People."

The Gazette of August 20 contains two replies to A. B., the one signed Philanthropos and the other C. D.

"His view, whatever his pretences may be," says Philanthropos, "is clearly selfish: what mine is, I cheerfully submit to the public; nor do I think myself much affected by the censure, when he ranks me among the 'few Gentlemen who are very angry that convicts are imported here at all.' He pays me a compliment where he intended a reflection; but in confining it to a few, and representing that the general sense of the people is in favour of this vile importation, he is guilty of the most shameful misrepresentation and the grossest calumny upon the whole Province. What opinion must our mother country, and our sister colonies, entertain of our Virtue, when they see it confidently asserted in the Maryland Gazette, that we are fond of peopling our country with the most abandoned profligates in the universe? Is this the way to purge ourselves from that false and bitter reproach, so commonly thrown in our Dish, that we are the descendants of Convicts? As far as it has lain in my way to be acquainted with the general sentiments of the people upon this subject, I solemnly declare that the most deserving and judicious amongst them, esteem it the greatest grievance imposed on us by our mother country. This is not only the general opinion here, but of the greatest writers in England, and the best Judges of the proper means of settling a young country."1

C. D. writes: "On this consideration, I say, the Doctor ought to excuse Mr. H. B. this Piccadillo," the accusation of using the wrong remedy, viz., bleeding instead of James' Powder, "and propose to this Gentleman for their mutual advantage, that all merchants, factors, Physicians, &c., &c., should join in extolling

'He next quotes Lord Bacon: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and the wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the Plantation, for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary."