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Lord Baltemore's Declaration
dated 13. May 1682.
Maryland ss.
To all Christian people to whom these Presents shall come
Greeting in our Lord God Everlasting, Whereas through the
envy, malice and hatred of some particular turbulent factious
spirits, not only disaffected to this, but also dissatisfied with
uneasie under & averse to all manner of rule & Government,
severall ill reports and foul aspersions have of late been cast
upon the Government of this Province under the right honour-
able Charles Lord Baltemore, Lord & Proprietor thereof,
representing his Lordshipp as violent against the Protestants
here inhabiting; conceiving and entertaining groundless
Jealousies against them, and upon all occasions showing
partiality and favour to those of the Popish persuasion to the
great discouragement and oppression of others His Majestie's
Protestant subjects, who are said meerly upon the account of
their religion, to be kept under and at a distance from all
possibility of advancement to any place of honour or profitt
within the Province, and to render the same more odious and
contemptible to the world, such reports have not only been
scattered abroad amongst several persons from one to another,
but (as we have seen & heard) through the instigation means
and procurement (as we conceive) of the authors themselves,
have for the more general contagion been exposed to public
view in print, thereby to take the deeper impression on the
minds of the vulgar, not only to the derogation of his Lord-
shipps honor, but also of very ill consequence to the whole
Province in general, by terrifying & preventing thereby others
His Majestie's loving subjects from resorting hither to cohabitt
with us as formerly for our greater strength & fortification
against the Indians, and also for the better cultivating and
improveing of this Country, to the great damage, detriment &
prejudice of such His Majestie's Subjects- as are here already
resident both as to their lives & estates by that means. We
therefore the Subscribers professing the Gospell of Jesus
Christ according to the Litturgy of the Church of England and
Protestants against the doctrine & practice of the Church of
rome, Subjects also to His Majestie the King of Great Britain
&c. and residents as aforesaid esteeming ourselves (as indeed
we are) everyone therein particularly & nearly concerned, hold
ourselves in conscience and duty obliged by this our impartial,
true & sincere remonstrance or Declaration to unfold the naked
truth and to undeceive the minds of those before whose eyes
the mist may have been cast, and to purge his Lordship & this
Government, whereof we are, from all those false, scandalous
and malicious aspertions, which the venemous blasts of such
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P. R. O.
Colonial
Papers.
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