Preface.                      7

    boundary and the 40th parallel, her charter-boundary, and of the territory

    which is now the State of Delaware; nor of extending, by means of a

    forged map on which Cape Henlopen was misplaced, their territory

    twenty-three miles further south than their agreement gave them, were

    trying to cut another cantle out of Maryland by taking advantage of the

    obscure terms in which the eastern boundary was made a tangent to a

    circle twelve miles from New Castle.

      There was also a difficulty about the western boundary of the Prov

    ince. The cliartcr made this a due north and south line between the

    40th parallel and the furthest source of the Potomac, and thence following

    the further, or western, bank of that river to the Chesapeake Bay.

    But for many years it was undetermined whether the north or the south

    branch of the Potomac was the longer, and therefore which was the true

    boundary of the Province.

      In 1651 Charles II granted to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Hopton

    and others, the land in Virginia lying between the Rappahannock and

    Potomac Rivers. This land, by marriage and descent, came into the

    possession of Thomas, 5th Baron Fairfax, who, assuming the northern

    branch to be his boundary, in 1733 empowered commissioners to settle

    his lines with parties representing the crown. Maryland had no voice

    in the matter. His son, Thomas, 6th Baron, came to America in 1745,

    and shortly after his arrival began granting lands to settlers.

      But as settlements came to be pushed further to the west, and the

    topography of the mountain regions better understood, it was discovered

    that the south branch took its rise further from the mouth, and, conse

    quently, that it, and not the north branch, was the boundary of Maryland.

      Sharpe had been especially charged by the Proprietary to determine

    the boundaries of his Province; and almost immediately upon his arrival,

    he sent for Capt. Thomas Cresap, who lived near the lands in dispute,

    to learn his opinion of the matter. Cresap affirming that the south

    branch ran from 60 to 8o miles further west than the north, Sharpe

    wrote to Fairfax (p. 6) asking his concurrence in fixing the true boun

    dary. Fairfax replied that it would be to his advantage if the south

    branch were decided to be the boundary (because it would carry his

    western line so much further to the west), but declined to move personally

    in the matter. Sharpe had the two branches surveyed and mapped by

    Cresap (p. 72); but the outbreak of hostilities with the French and

    Indians prevented any further action at this time.*

      But Sharpe's chief troubles sprang from the attitude of the House of

    Burgesses. There had been a spirit of opposition to the Proprietary

    rule almost from the foundation of the colony; and in Governor Ogle's

    time it seems to have assumed serious proportions and given rise to a

     * The report of the Virginia Boundary Commissioners (Richmond, 1872) is full of historical

    errors. For example, they say (p. 83) that [Cecilius] Lord Baltimore fled into Virginia in 1644

    and (p. 88) that Lord Baltimore and Fairfax “fixed the boundary by the Fairfax Stone.”

    It is notorious that Cecilius was never in Maryland, nor any Lord Baltimore after 1733. But we

    cannot be surprised at these and similar errors from writers who state (p. 89) that the Common

    wealth Commissioners “restored it [Maryland] to the colony of Virginia.”