viii                      Preface.

       which overthrew the Proprietary government, and in virtue of this

       posed to the English government as the champion and spokesman of

       the Protestant party in Maryland. The State Papers show that he

       was in constant correspondence with the Board of Trade and the

       Secretaries of State, plying them with accusations and slanders against

       the governor and all the leading men against whom he had a grudge.

       As his real character was not known in England, and he invested his

       reports and charges with a plausible circumstantiality worthy of Defoe,

       he was capable of doing much mischief. Nicholson tried to lay hold

       of him, but he fled to Virginia, where he was sheltered by Governor

       Andros.

         A number of papers of historical importance were recently discovered,

       by the means of Henry F. Thompson, Esq., in the Public Record Office,

       London, and such of these as are included in the present volume are

       distinguished by the letters P. R. O. in the margin. Several documents

       from the same source which were discovered too late to be printed

       under their proper dates, have been added as an appendix.