viii Letter of Transmittal.

Ogle, who had entered upon his third term as governor in 1746 and who
possessed in a high degree the confidence of the people, died, May 3, 1752,
just a month before the meeting of the single Assembly held in this year, and
was succeeded as acting governor by Benjamin Tasker, the President of the
Council, who presided over the affairs of the Province until the arrival of the
new governor, Horatio Sharpe, August 10, 1753. Tasker, who was a native
of Maryland, seems to have had the confidence of the people. He died in
1768 in his seventy-eighth year, having been a member of the Council for
forty-seven years and its president for thirty years.

The appointment of Sharpe, who remained governor until 1769, was a
fortunate one, as he continued for sixteen years to have the respect and con-
fidence of the people of Maryland on the one hand and of the Proprietary
and home government on the other, and this at the period when the political
ties which bound the people to the Proprietary and the King were fast reach-
ing the breaking point.

Frederick, the sixth Lord Baltimore, who had become Lord Proprietary
upon the death of his father, April 24, 1751, did not reach his majority until
February 6, 1753. The supervision of the affairs of the Province until he
became of age were vested in his two guardians, Arthur Onslow, for many
years speaker of the House of Commons, and John Sharpe, brother of Gover-
nor Horatio Sharpe. The solicitude of the guardians for the interests of their
ward and his Province is brought out strikingly by a study of the papers that
appear in the Appendix. Little need be said of Frederick, the new Proprietary.
A worldling and dilettante, he never took the trouble to visit his American
possessions and showed little interest in their affairs except as a source of
revenue for his extravagances, and entrusted the direction of all matters there
to his uncle Cecilius Calvert, from whom as his secretary for Maryland, resi-
dent in England, orders and directions to Governor Sharpe emanated. Al-
though a man possessed of not a little common sense, shrewdness, and vision,
his orders and letters to Sharpe show that he was utterly unable to express
his thoughts clearly or coherently.

The session which began June 3, 1752, the second session of the Assembly
elected in 1751, was opened by an address of welcome to both houses by
Benjamin Tasker, President of the Council, and as such, acting governor,
which was promptly met by a rather curt request from the Lower House that
he show by what authority or commission he now acted as President of the
Council. Tasker satisfied this inquiry by a statement that although all com-
missions to membership in the Council had expired upon the death of Charles,
the late Proprietary, Frederick, the new Proprietary, through his guardians
had directed Ogle, the late governor, to reinstate all members of the late Council