Preface. xi

In 1747 Gov. Shirley, of Massachusetts, took a step which was to
have far-reaching consequences. He appointed commissioners to meet
commissioners for the other colonies in a general colonial congress, to
be held at New York, to concert measures for the conduct of the war
and for confirming the alliance with the Iroquois.

These apprehensions of the French, and the news of the Jacobite
rebellion of 1745, had re-awakened the old suspicions of the Roman
Catholics, whom the ignorant and credulous populace had been taught
to regard as potential traitors and conspirators, however inoffensive
their lives might be. One priest, who had perhaps been a little un-
guarded in speech, was arrested and brought before the Governor for
censure. But the fair-minded Bladen was a different man from the
coarse and bigoted Seymour, and the mild admonition to avoid in the
discharge of their religious duties anything that might give cause for
suspicion seems like a return to the early days of the Province.

In 1747 the Jacobite prisoners whose sentences had been commuted
to penal servitude in the colonies began to arrive. They seem to have
been generally treated with humanity and not regarded as ordinary
criminals. In many cases those who bought their services gave them
permission to go anywhere within the Province, or assisted them in
taking up some craft or calling.

In April, 1748, preliminaries for peace were signed at Aix-la-Chapelle,
and hostilities ceased for a time, and a peace soon followed, while the
powers made ready for the final struggle to determine whether North
America was to be British or French.

On April 24, 1751, Charles, Lord Baltimore, died, and the title and
Proprietaryship descended to his son, Frederick, sixth and last Lord,
who was then a minor.

On May 3, 1752, the excellent Governor, Samuel Ogle, died, and his
place was temporarily filled by Benjamin Tasker, President of the
Council.

The Gregorian was substituted for the Julian calendar in 1752, and
we note the first date under the New Style on p. 531.