power was given to the proprietary, to establish the ports of entry and discharge for the commerce of the province, and to invest them with such rights and privileges as he deemed expedient. The proprietary, by the assent of the colony, was permitted to impose customs upon the exports and imports of the province, and was entitled to the avails of those customs to the exclusion of the crown: and the kings of England, by the express cove nant of the 20th article, were prohibited "from imposing or causing to be imposed, any impositions, customs, or other taxations, quotas or contributions whatsoever, upon the persons or property of the inhabitants being within the province; or upon any merchandise whatsoever within the province, or whilst being laden or unladen in its ports." (8)

Peculiar nature and efficacy of

emption of its commerce from

the English gov.

ernment.

Similar exemptions of the commerce of a colony were granted for short periods, by some of the other charters: but under this charter, the privilege was perpetual. It was manifestly intended to operate to the entire exclusion of the taxation of England from the province, and was afterwards found to be the charter ex- one of the most insuperable objections, in argument, to the exercise over Maryland of the power of interthe taxation of nal taxation claimed by the British Parliament. It gave the inhabitants of this colony a peculiar claim to exemption beyond that of the other colonies, which they relied upon with great confidence in their opposition to the stamp and tea taxes. Mr. Chalmers, whose work was written for the express purpose of demonstrating that the parliament possessed this power, frankly admits that this exemption gave peculiar strength to the Maryland claim. At the same time he considers it as an exemption, which neither was intended to operate, nor could operate against the powers of parliament. His objection to this application of it rests upon the assumption, that the government of England, at the period when this charter was granted, was a limited monarchy, under which the king could neither strip parliament of its powers, nor rightfully exercise the power of taxation except by its consent: and that this exemption of the charter, was in fact nothing more than the principle asserted and maintained by the House of Commons against the royal preroga

(8) Charter, articles 17 and 20.

tives in their petition of right in 1628. The revolution has answered his argument, and the reply to it would now be idle discussion. It would not be difficult to show that the limited monarchy, of which he speaks as existing for centuries, and as then only rescued from the grasp of prerogative, was before that period a mere legal fiction, scarcely known, and never respected in the operation of the government; and that as to the colonies, the power of the crown was supreme and uncontrolled. It granted charters with what privileges it pleased in derogation of the sovereignty of England; and its power to do this was not then questioned even by parliament. As to the colonies, it was then considered as the depositary of the sovereignty of England; and the parliament sat by in silence and saw it exercise that sovereignty or grant away portions of it at pleasure. The grantees under the charters regarded it as such, relied upon their privileges as the grants of the English government, and cok nised their provinces under that reliance. Under such circumstances, the claim of parliament to jurisdiction, in direct opposition to the grants of the charter, had neither reason nor justice to sustain it and if valid at all, it placed the whole charter at its mercy. Those, who vindicate the conduct of the English government, may make their choice of the alternatives. Either she did not possess the power, or her assumption of it, after the colonies had been planted and reared to maturity solely by individual means and enterprise and in reliance upon the privileges which the charter purported to convey, was an act of rank deception and injustice.

The colony of Maryland, with all her peculiar claims, soon shared the fate of the other colonies. Her commerce was left entirely to her own regulation, until it became sufficiently valuable to attract the grasp of England; and then it was taken into The system of guardianship. A system of monopoly was soon esrestrictions upon tablished, which endured until the American revo

the commerce of

the colonies in

tablished during

Charles I.

troduced and es. lution. The full and final establishment of this systhe reign of tem was reserved for the reign of Charles II. It began with the statute of 12th, Charles II. chap. 18, which limited the carriage of the imports or exports of the colonies to vessels belonging to and navigated by English subjects, and prohibited the exportation of tobacco and certain other enumerated commodities, to any place without the dominions of

England, under the penalty of forfeiture. The next step was to provide, that the impòrts of European commodities should reach the colonies only through the mother country: and this was ef fected by the statute 15th Charles 2d, chap. 7th; which required, that every commodity of the growth or manufacture of Europe, about to be imported into the colonies, should be shipped in England, and carried thence to the colonies, only in vessels owned and navigated by English subjects. From these restrictions upon direct importation, were excepted a few articles of necessity, which it is not necessary to specify. Still the commerce in the enumerated commodities, although it could not be carried on without the English dominions, was yet open to every part of them; and it now became a grievance in the eyes of the English parliament, that the trade in these articles was carried on between her own colonies without any immediate revenue to England. Taxation of colonial commerce was the next remedy, and a new statute was now passed, 25th, Charles II, chap. 7th, which provided, that if bond were not given to secure the exportation of the enumerated commodities directly to England in the first instance, then certain duties should be paid to the crown upon their export to other parts of the English dominions. Places were to be designated, and officers to be appointed for the collection of these duties in the colonies, and thus was fully introduced the restrictive system of England, which made her ever afterwards the carrier, the manufacturer, the vendor, and the purchaser for the colonies. This restrictive system subsequently underwent many occasional changes and enlargements; but from this period we may date the full establishment of that supremacy over colonial commerce, which England exercised without scruple, and often to the oppression of the colonies, until the approach of the American revolution.

It became now with England the established doctrine, that First reception she was the heart through which the whole comlishment of this merce of her colonies must pulsate. It was not es

and final estab

restrictive sys

colony of Mary

land.

tem within the tablished without opposition. The colonies evaded, entreated, and resisted, to a degree which kept Charles in a state of continual irritation throughout his whole reign. The proprietary came in for a full share of his rebukes. The navigation act had for a time operated very oppressively

upon Maryland. Its inhabitants, devoted almost exclusively to planting, had no shipping of their own, and relied entirely upon others for the exportation of their produce. It appears from their revenue acts and their other Assembly transactions, that the Dutch, at the passage of this act, were the principal carriers of the trade of the province. These being excluded, it required the operation of the act for some time, so to enlarge the shipping of England, as to give the colonists the same facilities of transportation, which they had previously enjoyed, when the shipping of the whole world was open to them. Being speedily followed by the acts relative to the export of the enumerated commodities, it soon involved the proprietary in difficulties with the crown. One of these enumerated articles was Tobacco, which was the principal, if not the sole export of the colony; and these acts in effect reached their whole commerce. The proprietary's situation. would not permit him to take the broad ground of entire exemption under his charter; but he maintained, that his subjects were not bound to export their tobacco to England or Ireland, or to give bond for that purpose, if they paid the duty. The collectors were soon drawn into very angry contests with him, in which they were sustained by the crown; and the proprietary was warned to look to it, lest he might be stripped of his charter. These dissensions continued in some degree, until the Protestant revolution in 1689, when the proprietary was stripped of his government by his own subjects; and his very defence of the commerce of his colony against the oppressions of the crown collectors, was made a substantive charge against him by his own people. Thus, by the excitement of the moment, the colonists themselves were ranged on the side of the restrictive system. From that period it was rivetted upon the colony, and its general validity does not seem to have been questioned. Acknowledged and sustained by the colony, as predicated upon a mere power to regulate commerce, it was considered as the limit of the supremacy of England, and was distinguished from the power of internal taxation for the purpose of revenue.

Under the fifth article of the charter, the proprietary was entitled to the patronages and advowsons of all churches within. Ecclesiastical pow. the province. He was also licensed to found ers of the proprie churches, chapels, and places of worship within

tary.

it, and to cause the same to be dedicated and consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England. These powers require no comment.

Personal rights

Passing from this general view of the proprietary government, and of the character, extent, and exercise of its conand revenues of stituent powers, we propose to consider briefly the the proprietary. personal rights and revenues of the proprietary flowing

from it.

Nature and ten

prietary's inter

the province.

Of these, the first in order and importance were those, which arose from the ownership of the soil of the province. Under the charter, the proprietary was both the ruler of the ure of the pro- province and the owner of its soil; and the pecuest in the soil of liar powers possessed by him, therefore fall properly under two general classes, having reference to these distinct rights of soil and jurisdiction. Although blended in the grant, they were yet distinct and independent; and hence during the long interval from 1689 to 1716, when the proprietary government was suspended, and the province under the immediate administration of the crown, the proprietary, although stripped of his rights of jurisdiction, was left in possession of his rights as the owner of the soil. The grant and tenure of the province, as held by the proprietary of the crown, were determined by the third, fourth and fifth articles of the charter. The limits of the grant have already been described. The limitation of the grant was to Cecilius, baron of Baltimore, his heirs and assigns; and the ownership of the province was therefore assignable. The proprietary and his heirs were constituted "the true and absolute lords and proprietaries of the province," reserving only the alle-. giance due to the crown, and its sovereign dominion. The province was held of the kings of England, as of their castle of Windsor in the county of Berks, in free and common socage, by fealty only for all services, and not in capite nor by knights service; and the render by the proprietary to the crown, in acknowledgment of the tenure, was "two Indian arrows of the province, to be delivered annually at the castle of Windsor, and the fifth part of all gold and silver ore discovered within it."

The whole province being thus held of the crown, the proprietary, his heirs and assigns, were empowered to make grants of