George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[139] fugitives from justice, men stained by intemperance

chap. VI.} 1754.

and lust,¹ (I write with caution, the distinct allegations being before me,) nestled themselves, through his corrupt and easy nature, in the parishes of Maryland.

The king had reserved no right of revising the laws of Maryland, nor could he invalidate them, except as they should be found repugnant to those of England. Though the Acts of Trade were in force, the royal power was specially restrained ‘from imposing or causing to be imposed any customs or other taxations, quotas, or contributions whatsoever, within the province, or upon any merchandise, whilst being laden or unladen in its ports.’² The people, of whom about one-twelfth were Roman Catholics,³ shared power through the Assembly; and as their soil had never been ravaged, their wealth never exhausted by taxation, the scattered planters enjoyed, in their delightful climate, as undisturbed and as happy a life as was compatible with the prevalence of negro slavery and the limitations on popular power.

In Pennsylvania with the counties on Delaware, the people, whose numbers appeared to double in sixteen years,⁴ were already the masters, and to dispute their authority was but to introduce an apparent anarchy. Of the noble territory the joint proprietors were Thomas and Richard Penn; the former holding three quarters of the whole. Inheritance might subdivide