possesses distinction among American colonial writings,
the sort of distinction that, in the case of an individual,
we should characterize as "quality."² It was followed
in 1635 by A Relation of Maryland in which Father
White's narrative, very much altered and still further
abridged, forms the basis of the first chapter of an elab-
orate and finely constructed work on the new colony.
This tract contains a map of the country; a description,
sane and moderate, of its products and potentialities;
the outline of a kindly policy toward the Indians; the
newly revised conditions of the plantation; full instruc-
tions for the intending settler, and a complete copy of
the Charter in English. The second Lord Baltimore had
profited by the errors of his predecessors in colonizing
activities, and the Relation of 1635 is a monument to
his sagacity and to his intelligent, enterprising spirit.⁸

   Between the granting of the Charter in 1631 and the
publication in 1634 of a Relation of the actual first set-
tlement on the Potomac there was plenty of time for
the writing and issuing of one or more of those promo-
tion tracts or prospectuses that commonly appear in the
early stages of a colonization project. Certainly in the
case of Maryland, with religious complications hinder-
ing the enterprise, there was need for a clear statement
of purpose by the Proprietary of the proposed colony.
Such a statement has now been recognized in the tract
entitled A Declaration of the Lord Baltemore's Plantation
in Mary-land. This printed piece, apparently only once
referred to in historical writings⁴, known now in a
single copy in the Archives of the Roman Catholic Arch-
diocese of Westminster, seems to have been the only
Maryland promotion tract issued before the establish-
ment of the colony. Its narrative portion is dated at the

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