LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

BALTIMORE, January 1, 1929.
To the Maryland Historical Society.
GENTLEMEN :

Your Committee on Publication has the honor to submit the Forty-Sixth
Volume of the Archives of Maryland. This contains the Proceeding and Acts
of the General Assembly of Maryland of the Sessions held from 1748 to 1751
inclusive, and forms the twenty-second volume of the Assembly series.

The European background upon which American affairs were projected
when the Assembly met in session in 1748, found Great Britain still engaged
with France in what in the colonies was called King George's War, but when
the Assembly met in 1749, Governor Ogle was able to congratulate the province
upon the restoration of peace, which had been effected by the recently signed
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Samuel Ogle, who had entered upon his third term as Governor in 1746,
continued to serve in that capacity during the period covered by this volume,
and died in office, May 3rd, 1752. He was an excellent governor, and the
controversies which took place between him and the members of the Lower
House, who were of the Country, or anti-Proprietary party, at the time usually
in a slight majority in this body, were due rather to the rising spirit of indepen-
dence then developing in the colonies, than to any feeling of ill will towards the
Governor himself, who was tactful and personally popular. As the General
Assembly did not meet in 1752 until after Ogle's death, this volume completes
the story of the activities of the Assembly during his last administration. The
Country party was continually at loggerheads with the Proprietary party as
represented by the Governor, the Upper House, and the followers of the
Proprietary in the Lower House, usually in the minority here. Charles, the
fifth Lord Baltimore, died, April 24th, 1751, and his son Frederick, the sixth
and last Lord, then a minor, became Proprietary. With Frederick's delin-
quencies later volumes will deal.

The Session which met May loth, 1748, concerned itself largely with military
defense and the question of levying export duties on tobacco for the purchase
of munitions. The Governor also urged upon the Assembly the necessity of
strengthening the ties of friendship with the Iroquois, to offset the alliance
between the French and the Algonquin or " Canada Indians." Little important
legislation was enacted at this Session, however.