Letter of Transmission. v

enemies, he might stand condemned with Claiborne, but his memory is clear
from that reproach. All that he asked from King, Parliament, or Protector
was that his charter should be protected, until he could be shown to have
violated it."

The second editor of the Archives, Clayton C. Hall, Esq., gave a similar
judgment in his "Lords Baltimore," at p. 61, thus: "Throughout, Cecilius
seems never to have lost courage and, under all circumstances, he bore himself
with wisdom, patience, forbearance, and tact and, by these qualities, he tri-
umphed in the end. His own interests and his own authority, he carefully
guarded, but at the same time, he as carefully sought the welfare of the
Province and of the people, who were in a sense his subjects, and when con-
cessions seemed reasonably demanded, he knew how and when to yield and so
exercised a much less autocratic power than was conferred by the terms of the
charter from which his authority was derived."

These estimates coincide with the opinion of the present editor. With the
period now begun in this volume, the student of Maryland History loses the
wise guidance of John Leeds Bozman, the first historian of Maryland, whose
remarkable work closes at this date. A new period had been reached, new
questions arose, new conditions of living were experienced, the separation of
Maryland from Virginia was certain, and thirty years followed before Balti-
more's power in the Province should again be overthrown. The Province no
longer had only two centres of life; but shores of the Chesapeake were becom-
ing dotted with plantations and the tobacco ships penetrated nearly every river
and estuary which was tributary to the Bay.

Lord Baltimore was to reap the fruit of his labors and his descendants
should gain a rich return from the Province which he had founded and over
which he had resumed his rule.

John Bruce in his Introduction, page vii, to the " Letters and Papers of the
Verney Family " (Camden Soc. Pubs., vol. 56, 1853).wrote: " It would be a
great excellence in our literature, and would make publications of this descrip-
tion far more valuable than they generally are, if attention were more frequently
given to the precise circumstances and social position of the persons from
whom original papers emanated, or to whom they relate. It is an erroneous,
although among antiquaries by no means an uncommon notion, that unofficial
papers are only of importance when they can be connected with the most
interesting events or the most noble families. I should contend, on the con-
trary, that the value of such papers is to be estimated by the degree in which
they give an insight into the feelings and opinions, the real inner life, and not
the mere outside appearance, of the men and women, whatever their station,
to whom they relate." While our official records for the Provincial Period are