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years the unhappy province had been distracted by
dissensions, of which the root had consisted in the claims that
Baltimore had always asserted, and had never been able to establish.
What should now be done?
England was in a less settled condition than ever.
Would the son of
Cromwell permanently hold the place of his father?
Would Charles II.
be restored?
Did new revolutions await the colony?
new strifes with
Virginia, the protector, the proprietary, the king?
Wearied with long convulsions, a general assembly saw no security but in asserting the power
of the people, and constituting the government on the expression of their will.
Accordingly, just one day
before that memorable session of
Virginia, when the people of the
Ancient Dominion adopted a similar system of independent legislation, the representatives of
Maryland, convened in the house of
Robert Slye, voted themselves a lawful assembly, without dependence on any other power in the province.
The burgesses of
Virginia had assumed to themselves the election of the council; the burgesses of
Maryland refused to acknowledge the rights of the body claiming to be an upper house.
In
Virginia,
Berkeley yielded to the public will; in
Maryland,
Fendall permitted the power of the people to be proclaimed.
The representatives of
Maryland, having thus successfully settled the government, and hoping for tranquillity after years of storms, passed an act, making it felony to disturb the order which they had established.
No authority would henceforward be recognized, except the assembly, and the king of
England.
1 The light of peace .promised to dawn upon the province.
